School Committee Meeting 2-27-25

001does anyone have anything under public comment all right sir just state your name and address and we have a three-minute time limit hi my name is Allan melor I'm from 83 South Main Street in Middleboro and I'm a member of the board of sustainable Middleboro local Environmental Group um I know there's an announcement on the agenda uh later about the cooler Middleboro Fair taking place in this building tomorrow from 11: to 2 and I don't want to duplicate that um but I do want to take a minute to thank the Middleboro public schools for partnering with us and with the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance for this event the superintendent the high school principal teachers building staff and especially the student L yes Club have all come together to make this terrific event happen and

002their efforts Are Much appreciated the fair is a great opportunity to learn about sustainability from energy saving giving home improvements to our natural landscape and Coastal Wildlife there Hands-On activities for kids and representatives from local weatherization heat pump solar companies for adults to talk with so lots of information lots of fun thanks again to the Middleboro public schools and we hope that people will come and have some fun and learn something along the way I do have a few Flyers with me if people are interested and I'm sure you're going to hear more later too thank you thank you well anyone else have anything under public comment hi treasure Gonzalez uh for Fernway I just wanted to say that I heard everything that you said last week about our event uh with Mech PTA with

003our the Pi Day with the police we want to thank the police for coming and thank the district and honestly I just I want to highlight the collaboration that this district is able to have with all the ptas in the buildings because you don't get that everywhere there's a lot of places where that doesn't happen and they operate as to entirely separate entities um and that's something that I think Middleboro really gets right um we hear a lot in these meetings where maybe they don't get it so right but PTA wise I think middlebar really does get it right so just wanted to say thank you for that and let you know that next week Mech PTA is having our danceon for the kindergarteners um it's really fun and we invite you all to put

004on your dancing shoes and come Boogie with us cuz it's a great time so thank you thank you does anyone else have anything on the public comment all right discussion items reports from school committee members Sue I have nothing to report Jess um so I have a couple things first of all the kindergarten Dan Theon is super fun I think I only learned the cotton I Joe because I had to learn it to dance with my daughter at the danceon so um I wanted to just quickly welcome back our uh World Travelers from the high school uh all of them returned that's always uh priority number one um I did see some pictures of some food that I was so jealous of on uh social media while they were there and uh I do look

005forward to hearing more about the trip in the near future um I want to wish uh break a leg but not really to the speech and theater group that's performing at the metg um Massachusetts educational theater Guild Festival this weekend uh they are part of the pr minaries that'll be at Bourne High School um performing Crossroads which has an extra special uh significance because Crossroads is not only the show they're performing but it was written by their theater teacher Sam moer so they're getting to perform a piece that has multiple connections and and real meaning for the the group um their performance is at 10:00 a.m. if you wish to travel to Bourne tomorrow and you can still get back CU it's only uh you know the performance can only be 50 minutes with 5

006minutes to set up and set down so you could still be back for the cooler Middleboro Fair later on tomorrow if you wish to go to Bourne um I don't know if I have official permission but I'm doing it anyway there's also a final dress rehearsal tonight at 5:30 not tonight tomorrow at 5:30 here um and I know sometimes it helps them to have a bit of an audience for that um the other item I wanted to mention is just for the school committee just a reminder we're going into to uh March and March is evaluation superintendent evaluation month um so at our next meeting on March 13th as planned at the beginning of the year when uh the superintendent sent us out the the calendar of planned events um she will do a update

007on the goals um and then have her written self eval Gathering of evidence to us all um by March 14th I will will send out the form for everyone to fill out uh with the goal that they are all back to me by Thursday April 3rd so that we have them all back before the election on Saturday April 5th and then I'll begin the process of tabulating and uh creating the uh comprehensive evaluation so just a reminder to be prepared for that it should give you three weeks to fill them out which hopefully will be enough time thank you Jess Chris uh coming into March um I just wanted to tell everyone how excited and also promote uh one of my favorite events in Middleboro which is Middleboro Mania over at Nichols Middle School um

008it's a extremely fun event for a great cause and it really builds engagement and gives the students a chance to see their the staff the teachers different In a Different Light um March 21st I believe the first uh doors open at 6 okay yeah so uh check it out it's a lot of fun Marcy I'm off set Zeke uh I am all set as well all right um I have two quick things uh registration for spring Athletics closes on March 3rd so if you haven't registered yet please register soon and uh the middlebar Youth Soccer Association and middlebar high is going to put on some free soccer clinics on on Sundays on March 9th 16th 23rd and 30th times are 9 to 10 for the boys and 10 to 11 for the girls it's a

009free event students will participate in individual skill work group drills and small-sided games um equipment is cleats sneakers water shin guards and appropriate clothing for possible outdoor activity and uh that's all on the s'mores and the u athletics website with that we will go [Music] into report from student representa of Ed how are we doing tonight good welcome ch um to start off with the um Mech the mech is hosting red across read Across America week hosting guest readers from the district and community in all classrooms throughout the the week Mech literacy night is scheduled for Tuesday March 4th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. um Family conferences are scheduled for the week of March 17th providing an opportunity for parents and teachers to discuss student progress and and the mech PTA meeting is set for

010Thursday March 6 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. um Mary Kate good has a bingo book Bingo night scheduled for Wednesday February 29th from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. offering a fun literacy event for families um I have no updates from HPB Nichols Middle School a collaboration with the Mech nms students will visit the mech on March 6th to to younger students and donate books to each classroom for Middleboro High School MHS students and staff participated in the Polar Plunge raising funds and awareness for a charitable cause course selection for 2025 to 2026 the course selection process for the upcoming Academic Year began on February 25th guiding students in into planning their courses for the upcoming school year the course selection portal will close next Tuesday March 4th boy State and girl State leadership programs applications

011are due by February 28th for juniors interested in participating in these prestigious leadership programs the student Trooper program Open to Juniors interested in law enforcement careers offering a unique opportunity to experience training and education in the field please contact brandan by Friday February 28th via email if you are interested and For an upcoming event I have the American Red Cross blood drive is being held at midoro high school on March 8th from 8 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. any questions did you register for your classes I actually didn't but I have by Tuesday all right let's go all right thank you very much Ed uh next up superintendent report all right thank you Mr chair members of the school committee um tonight I have a couple of items that we going to covering the first is

012a budget update which will include um well it was initially intended to just be FY 26 but I want to we have we have something to discuss about fy2 as well um I want to talk about the Reed's quarterly update and some information for the committee to consider this evening um and then finally we're going to hear a student uh service update um as well so without further Ado we will start with our budget update and um you know welcome director Peron and if you wouldn't mind opening up the budget booklet I'm going to begin with this first link to build on last meeting and at last meeting we presented the FY 26 budget something that we started last year and will be continuing going forward is the creation of this budget booklet that you'll

013find it'll be posted at uh maybe not this evening but after following this meeting we'll post it on the website and what this booklet is designed to do is assist families and and other community members in just better understanding what goes into our budget who we are what our strategic plan is what our um you know receipt of federal and state funding is and a little bit about you know an in-depth look at the budget process so as director Peron is scrolling through you're getting a a little preview of some of the information like the district at a snapshot including just who we are how many of us there are um and then going from there you know more substant ly into additional information um I do have physical copies with me this evening um

014this is designed to be an electronic booklet it really isn't designed for paper copies but we made them tonight because I thought it was important um and if anyone wants a paper copy we're happy to produce them so beginning in the first part of this booklet what you'll see is you know our strategy ultimately our district-wide strategy um and as you scroll forward I you know I won't go in in depth into this information this evening um actually that's really small for even me to see let me pull up you're testing my vision at this point um going from there thank you you see the Strategic initiatives embedded within the strategy you can keep going uh forward as well and then you see a listing of who we are in terms of a committee and

015the administrative team um there's a cover letter from me so that people understand what went into this budget there's our recommended budget numbers on the following page which talks a little bit about where we were last year what the proposed budget is for FY 26 what the increase is in the percentage there's then following that an entire page on student enrollment I think it's important for people to understand what's happening with student enrollment over a period of time which is why you see multiple years of data from there we go into per pupil spending which director Peron spent some time talking about at last meeting but this is a additional information um for people to review and see where our spending compares to other Dart districts which are districts that Dee designates as comparable to

016us they have a formula it doesn't always jump off the page why we relate to these districts but the state uses multiple criteria to get there um from there we move into the special education department and this includes a you know a a blurb about what goes into special education in our district it involves some information about our out of District case load and our out of District expenditure on the next page there's a discussion about circuit breaker funding and if you've come to these meetings you hear this phrase tossed around and I think it's natural for most people to not understand what that means this is designed to help assist in that understanding um what that reimbursement means in real dollars on our budget from there there's a breakdown of special education grant receipts

017um so that everybody understands there isn't n just one place where money flows into a school system um from special education we move into the curriculum department and it's helpful to hear about the initiatives that are happening ongoing um and what we're spending money on um just like special education on that next page you see a breakdown of all of the grants that we receive to fund um curriculum now for both special education curriculum and eventually student service grants come with a lot of designations about what you can and cannot do with funds so we can't take a curriculum Grant curriculum base Grant and apply it to just anything so there's some discussion about that as well and then finally we move into the student service department to talk a little bit about services that

018we're providing this is our newest department so a little bit more about what that actually means and then again the same discussion about um grant funding from there you'll see on page 18 this is a breakdown of all of the offsets you'll always hear about this magical phrase offsets which means how are we balancing our budget we presented a balanced budget to the committee last week and um this is a rundown of the places and the amounts that we'll use to offset the variance between what we need and the money that's been given to us through Chapter 70 funds and local contribution moving from there there's a capital funding um request road map so that people understand that Capital requests aren't something that are decided in a vacuum we follow a road map each year

019um and chip away at some common goals from a facilities and Technology uh standpoint beyond that you'll see the budget process to just have a discussion about our um what we followed we have extended our budget process to now include really um October and November which previously I think we didn't start until closer to December or January I do like that we start earlier it can be difficult to project so far out but I think it's beneficial to have everybody thinking about this really for the whole year because budget's a big deal and we all benefit from talking about it I think at at in depth and at length and then finally there's a key terms we recognize that we constantly talk in educational jargon we try very hard not to do that from inside

020the industry that can be difficult so these key terms help you might read something and think I don't know what that word is sometimes it's just helpful to be able to have a reference point to look that up so this budget booklet will be posted on our website um made available along with all of the other information that was made available for fy2 the plan is to release all of the same same information for FY 26 I'm happy to say we're ahead of the curve last year this information didn't come out until shortly before the town meeting um now that we had this vehicle already going I wanted to make sure you all had it because I think part of tonight's process will be to make sure we're soliciting input from the public our public

021hearing will be the next meeting at March 13th um and I think it'll just be important to arm people with the ability to learn as much as they can it'll it'll help them it'll prompt questions and also hopefully prompt and stimulate conversation um so with that now we can turn into the budget update um and I will turn it over to director Peron until I think he's going to come right back to me about fy2 but go ahead so uh a little bit on the budget update 25 the current year and then we're going to talk Capital again um and then uh last just uh as superintendent said the budget hearing is the next school committee meeting so the 25 update the first three bullets I've presented uh I believe it was in early February

022or late January when we did the 25 update you've seen those so we had we talked about the freeze um we're projecting a surplus uh and that the Surplus will be used to help offset uh next year's expenses and and help us balance the budget excuse me Mike could you just hit the slideshow button my eyes are having trouble seeing it from here top right thank you even help me thank you um and then the last two bullets we uh bold and this is what's changed we wanted to update um the committee on uh so we received notification that our FC 311 uh sell uh Grant has uh was approved but then um it was not funded um so they notified uh us of that and that is a loss of 73,74 so the reason

023we put that up is because we now will probably have to pay for those items out of the budget and therefore when we were talking about the Surplus this will uh hinder the amount that we are able to roll forward and help so we wanted to talk about that a little bit and I'll turn it over to the superintendent thank you director perun so we are deeply disappointed to announce that our district has lost the supporting students um seal behavioral and mental health and wellness Grant which we were previously granted um due to the town of middle boro's failure to comply with the unfunded State mandate related to the MBTA Commuter Rail the District of applied for this Grant on September 24th of 24 and we were notified on November 21st 24 that we had

024been awarded this grant um on December 11th the department of Elementary and secondary education that's deese contacted the district to again reiterate congratulations on our grant award and it included an invitation for a network a networking event among other things because it really is a kick off for many events that that proceed from there um DC deese indicated that we had been awarded 7 $3,755 for the submitted purpose and directed The District to Begin work and designate funding for this purpose which we absolutely did um work has been ongoing and completed from November 21st of 2024 all the way through February 21st um of so just the end of the break in furtherance of this Grant and Associated funding on February 6 deese communicated that this grant was awarded pending further approval without really defining

025what that term meant um though all communication indicated that the Grant had been awarded with the start date of November 21 we were notified that the governor has final approval on this Grant and that we should not publicly announce our award of this grant at this time until we receive a Governor's award letter so on February 20th so that would have been the Thursday of the of the break week um deese sent a very cryptic message to the district to indicate that Grant programs require grantees to certify compliance with state law and that the hey Driscoll Administration believes in the MBTA communities act and has directed agencies to take that goal into consideration when granting discretionary funds that's almost verbatim the email I received I thought it was important to use their wording not mine

026importantly nowhere in this message did it indicate that the district would have our grant rescinded would have what I'm Sor that nowhere did it say you will not be receiving this grant or this grant has been re sended or any verbage what I what I just read to you was ultimately their verbage to the point where actually I reached out to director Peron and director avable to say what what do you think this message means that seems that seems unusual um multiple requests for communication from deese following this message were made actually by all three of us to gain further clarification in all of our messages electronic and phone were not returned so now on Monday this past Monday February 24th through an email from deese the district notified us for the first time that

027the district is now not eligible for this grant because of a failure to comply with state law and because grant funding was coming from the state budget the state mandated requirement was something the town has actively pushed to not comply with and is currently in the process of legal action unfortunately this lack of action has resulted in significant consequences for our district and we now find our students paying a price for the situation we understand the impact that this decision have on our students and the services we're able to provide theal Grant was a vital source of funding that would have supported critical initiatives for our students emotional and mental well-being we remain committed to finding alternative solutions to continue as well as fund this work we will continue to advocate for the best interests

028of our students and families I thank everybody for your understanding and continued support um I think it is absolutely critical that these activities not only proceed but be fully funded um I have spoken with the town manager about this and he has assured me that the town will assist um in in our in our budget in our budget situation because this is a significant event that we did not plan for um so I don't know if you want to ask questions about that before we keep going yeah I think yeah I think it' be good uh Alan okay um I I find this outrageous uh I uh particularly giving outrageous anyway but given that uh it's about monies that have been spent makes it doubly so uh and I also um believe that it should

029not go without response from the school committee uh I think that that's part of our responsibility uh and um also in light of the fact that uh we've just gotten the determination that as an unfunded mandate it it they can't hold us responsible for that uh and so Mr chair I'd like to make a motion that um that representatives of the school committee work with representatives of the select board um and um with consultation with the superintendent and the town manager to form a response uh to to this uh I think it's something that we need to take a really strong position on is there a second second a motion to Second any comments or questions I have a couple um I don't know who's been paying attention to what I've been doing over the

030last 10 or 15 years but I've been opposed to the train station since before since before they even told us um and this is in my mind this is all fruit from the poisonous tree the housing mandate and that's what it is at this point doesn't even resolve it doesn't serve the intent of the Mandate here in middlebar it's a one-sized fits-all solution that was passed by A legislature that doesn't understand what's going on here in middleb um I'm absolutely opposed to the Mandate that being said I've been in contact with the chair of the select board and the town manager regarding this um and they've done they've been great we're going to cooperate we're going to work together and they've assured me that they're going to do everything they can to make sure that

031we're made hold through this um what I would ask the people of Middleboro to do is to write your state delegation your representative and your state senator and let them know that Middleboro deserves our tax dollars back the state doesn't generate funds they take our money and then they took it back after they gave it to us in my role as chair of the planning board I had we got we got a list years ago we got a list of the grants that were subject to um approval or disapproval regarding the the zoning I don't understand how they can hold a town meeting vote against the entire town we supposed to be in in a uh a democratic democracy where we vote on things and the state has decided to punish the towns that don't

032adopt their housing mandate by town meeting they don't seem to to be beholden to a vote by the state at 72% to be audited but they're okay with holding us accountable for a vote that that we've taken um I'm furious about it but it nobody listens to me but maybe a couple hundred letters from the town of middlebar saying that this is outrageous would be helpful I think that's probably the best recourse right now because the state and the town have been fighting this for years now and the state doesn't want to listen they don't even want to come to the table and talk um if you want to come to the planning board I'll tell you all about it and how I think we're in uh we're in compliance and we've worked our butts

033off over there to make sure that we're doing the best we can for affordable housing and Pathways for ownership in town none of which would be solved by any of this mandate but as a member of the school committee we lost $73,000 of our money because it's tax dollars and we need to let our state representatives and state senators understand that we're not happy with this and that this is unacceptable so go on the website not out you can go look up your address it'll tell you exactly who you can write to I would also say send a couple emails and make a couple phone calls the best way to get any chatter going up at the State House is to get the AIDS talking about what what your issue is and we do that

034by calling and then when they're out at lunch they talk to each other and say yeah I got 20 phone calls today from middlebar about this unfunded mandate thing what what are you guys doing and hopefully they say the same type of thing so that's how you create a buzz up there and then then we can get some attention but that's really our only recourse at this point as citizens of the town and like I said I do think you should be out outraged that we rewarded the grant we were told we we had the Grant and then at this last minute they told us that they're taking it back and then not once in all the years that we've been going through this stuff have they ever mentioned that they were going to withhold

035School Grants as a result of the uh the housing so it's um it's absolutely a bait and switch um I hate the idea that the state government is using our kids as almost like human Shields they're going to put pain on our children to force us to do what they want I mean that's pretty outrageous in my mind anyone else have any other comments questions just quick question are there any other grants that were at risk of losing thank you for that question um that's actually my biggest I mean I have many concerns but my concern in in particular is this is not not the only discretionary Grant we receive so you're going to hear a presentation from director avitab tonight most of the grant of the funding for that department comes from Grants it

036is our most Cutting Edge and Innovative work that we're doing so what what my concern is where does it end I I will also offer since I know a thing or two about this that i' absolutely sign a certification statement and I looked at the legal language that I signed as I do before I sign anything and it does indicate that I will uphold all applicable laws right so I am not sure nor am I the only legal opinion but I I am not con convinced that compliance with a regardless how the MBTA communities act actually impacts um Educational Funding and assurances to carry out state and federal laws that are relative to education so I have my own calls that I'm making and research that I'm doing um because I feel the need to

037protect all of our grants right now um a statement of that nature is a very slippery slope and has me concern deeply concerned in addition to declining State contribution for Chapter 70 funding so I I do agree with everything that's been said here and I um I'm I stand ready willing and able to do whatever is needed on behalf of Middleboro um I just I do have concerns many yeah not withstanding your comments alen which I agree with I think that we should all be in touch with our representatives and and I understand that um people have been trying around the community act that in a little bit this is separate though and this is a diff in my mind it's a different issue um and it needs to be dealt with different differently that

038as not part of uh around the community act but around not taking these kinds of actions um uh against the town and against the school after that they have uh awarded the award so my um motion stands we have a motion in a second are there any other comments or questions I just want to note that I I agree it's incredibly disappointing and just still sort of inconceivable to me that uh a state government would take money away from the students for programs that we've all discussed over the past you know four or five years about how important these programs are for our students with the the changes of learning environments and and the changes of the the culture and and how vital these are um and I really um I I agree with the

039idea of um just pushing back or or or stating our our uh concerns that this is how they chose to you know try to bully us into complying um and it's just the wrong approach so um I appreciate that the uh chair of the select board and the town manager have um stated that they uh want to help uh make sure that we can fill the Gap in the budget and you know look forward to to continuing those discussions to figure out how that can be done um but I do agree that it's not something that we can leave unaddressed just to be clear as far as the school committee goes I think we have to stay just focused on what this action has done to the school and what and understand why um my

040talk points hopefully to add some clarification sure um as a member of the school committee I'll stay focused as far as the school committee I have other avenues I can pursue this on as far as planning board and all that stuff and I I'll keep those things separate because I don't I don't think the school needs to get into the argument of whether this is a good idea or not but we just need to understand that we're getting screwed for lack of a better term um um because it's something that has nothing to do with the school committee or the school district you know and I don't I don't think it's fair so anyone else have any other comments or questions does anyone from the public have any comments or questions all in favor of

041uh Su U motion i i i opposed passes unanimously um I'll work a draft up work with carollyn send it to you guys see how you think about what you think about it so it was the motion was that we would work together with a selectman regarding a response so I actually would like to uh in my mind when I was thinking about that was a multi-prong response um that gets our reps involved and so I I I think that maybe we should get together and talk about what that response is is going to be what it would look like not just in writing but what it is as officials of middle Bor um particularly given Carolyn's comments about the legalities uh and we might want to uh get one of our our uh lawyer

042involved um and but I also would like to consult with the select board because I'm sure that they're having feelings about it also so I think we should have a little power all right I just so we're all on the same page will we all understand things get taken off a long time when we start doing things like that I think we should be rather quick so I'm going to try to move things along as as quickly as possible uh I would be available for a meeting tonight or tomorrow or whenever day that you want to get together and talk about it all right I have one last question um I I would just love if Kevin also had input as well on this since it's affecting his his grants and his oh to make

043I'm sorry yes to make sure director exactly so well he so if you just incl ABS I actually do have another question I know um you mentioned very specifically that after the cryptic email that there was a lot of reach out and questioning it um I believe that there was also a reach out after the resending of the grant notification did anybody get responses to those yes thank you questions thank you for that question let me clarify so yes there was reach out and the only reason we were notified on the 24th was because it was it came through an email in response to director avat who said oh yes we already explained this to you in the February 20th message the one that I read to you that didn't make any sense nor did

044it actually say that so at that point we've requested audience with the ESC and anybody else that they're willing to bring into a meeting and they've indicated they'll get back to us on that okay which is what's prompted my I've made phone calls to Mas on behalf of my Association among other among other avenues and I've also started to do my own research about other communities and whether or not they've received similar penalties so far I have not seen that I have seen communities be denied a seaw wall Grant which is town-based I have yet to find any research to show that another school district has been penalized so I I'll continue on my work I'm happy to do so but I think these are pieces of information we need to collect absolutely yeah and

045if if any of you do hear back about setting up the the abolutely the meeting or the discussion please just forward the information along because if it's something that members of the school committee can join I would appreciate the notification I'd be happy too I would also include the select board if you felt that was appropriate too the um the select board did meet an executive session last night to discuss this among some other legal options they have so they are aware of it they are working on it so all right okay so with that with that we'll turn into the um FY 26 up that was everything on FY 25 for this current budget um with that we'll go back to FY 26 and talk a little bit we had some information after last

046meeting about our Capital requests that we felt would be helpful to share with the community so go ahead director per so quick update the uh Paving we talked about at hbb and mkg uh has been funded by cipc the new uh information is that uh sorry I'm going to raise my hand there what's C IPC oh sorry Capital Improvement commit Capital planning thank you it's just got more letters than more initials than when you say it all the way out so thank you the uh new information is the request for us to bring the switches at nms that was uh originally not uh funded in the um uh when we brought this to the capital planning uh but they're ask asking that we bring it back in the October in the fall um uh town

047meeting the um we also talked about the roof at Nicholls which um we brought the request this year but we know it's for 27 because there's a lot of planning that has to go in that and we need um support from both the select board and the school committee in the town uh superintendent brought that to you at the last meeting um um so we just updated that and uh it appears that we will have support there um I didn't know superintendent if you had any other no that was it that was it I just wanted to make sure we brought this information back and shared it out I thought that was important since the information had changed so an update on the budget um just one question about the anticipated October 25 H and

048is that with the support of the selectman select board that that's the piece I think there was there was a communication I was away for a week but there was a let me weigh in on that's where I was if you would excuse so the thinking behind that is that the schools which you can bring any you anyone can bring anything ultimately through the Departments for a a town warrant for the special town meeting in October um historically the schools have not brought additional items occasionally we have I believe the mech I mean the um hbb roof was last funded through special town meeting um but what the town manager indicated is that we will tentatively schedule that for October so we can begin work on that warrant now and have it ready where we're

049ask that through the town process at that meeting and we don't have to have the support of the Committees no well it would be voted on it gets voted on at that meeting so at that point I mean it would require Town support so it's it's possible it doesn't pass but yeah typic but I typically the related boards tell whether they're in support of it or not yes yeah oh yeah you're right what I'm asking is are they have they said I believe so I mean I based on this information and the town managers you know support for it I would say yes that would mean that we would have support but it's worth getting that clarification prior to October thank you so a quick update on where we are with the 26 budget we

050presented to you at the last meeting we have a two-e period um uh for the committee to gain uh ask questions or gain input from the community and then we will hold the public hearing on 3:13 and then we will have a presentation to the select board on uh March 17th um and that will round out the uh until we go to town meeting in April uh and that is the update on the 26 uh the 25 and 26 budget if anybody has any questions on those actually just one um so if I understood what you said at the beginning um we we froze the funds so that we could make sure we had everything for this upcoming budget the $73,000 got yanked out of what we had allocated for this year's fund so are

051we sort of in a little bit of a limbo state as waiting for the response from the the select board in terms of ideas for how to offset that money or are we having to take some of the funds we had allocated for next year and apply them to what we've already spent I like the word limbo right now I think we have to wait until we get that uh from the select board but if if it doesn't happen then uh we want to pay for it out of the current year budget okay general fund we'll have another discussion yes so director Peron if you would just not mind staying up there to advance a couple of slides for me my next item is about the reads collaborative I just need someone to toggle forward

052if you don't mind um I sent two pieces of information through the flash one included the reads quarterly update and then there was a standalone letter um one I think these items sometimes do need to be discussed in more depth by the committee so I'm providing information tonight in case you have any questions and it's less about the quarterly update and more about that additional letter um so if you want where are the if you go back to I think you're there in the slide deck that you were in oh and then just go to the next slide that says reads quarterly update I'll briefly recapture again the quarterly update is something you can read it's I don't want to spend time going over it too much in depth but I think it's helpful for

053you to know what the collaborative is um up to in this update what we talked about was a new strategic the new strategic plan priorities which I'll just recapture briefly for you nope not that one yeah um which are really four different areas just like all strategic plans carry a similar formula um and in this case there are four different priorities that the reads collaborative is prioritizing the first one is belongingness health and safety of their of their school schools and programs um recruiting and retaining staff to make sure that they can appropriately plan for students they have a kind of renewed curriculum Focus they are looking to strengthen their instructional practices and then finally to you know in pursuit of costeffective programs and services a public collaborative is exactly that that's why I sit

054on the board so their goal through their um executive director Dina MOS who's lovely um and very knowledgeable is aware that they have to be competitive the the these programs have to serve the public school district needs they're they are our first kind of stop for shopping and um so they're aware of that and aligning their strategic initiatives to to serve a whole host of um communities so if you want to go to oh you got it nope I'm sorry you can go back the next item in the update is a fiscal update and I come with some happy news that there is an anticipated Surplus though they did not give us a dollar amount at the end of the fiscal year which makes sense in terms of not knowing the exact dollar amount they

055still have you know a couple more months to really um work on that but that's a sign of a very strong collaborative in financial backing that's a good sign for reads the Bedford Street project was very costly so it's exciting to see them moving forward and meeting the needs and anticipating a surplus that's that's a good thing um um the budget was presented and approved to the board of directors earlier this month I'm the vice president of that board and um they approved a 10% increase and I believe they had a 10% increase last year so I offer that just because we have just finished our budget and I think that can be instructional in terms of the cost I collaboratives are not known for wild significant strav extravagant spending um I do think they're

056facing very similar costs to all public schools um dhh is our deaf and heart of hearing program in reads and I'll talk a little bit more at length in a moment but finally I just wanted to wrap up that report that there was a compliance piece to that report they did an fy2 annual report and an fy2 Financial audit that they actually file and it gets sent to De to deese so that has now been completed um our one our partnership is very strong with reads but also it's a very strong healthy uh collaborative which is great for us as a community so now if you want to go to the next one this is this Standalone letter about the dhh program um it is important to understand that Deen heart of hearing programs are

057by definition low incidents every disability has a different level of frequency and dhh is notoriously low incidence what that means is that there aren't a million programs to pick from when you have a child with these specific needs um which can drive up costs to be honest with you if you only have one option versus six then you don't have a have a lot of say in what you spend on on these Services Reeds has long been the only program in Southeastern Massachusetts that offers not just ehh programming but inclusion Based Services so what that means is these students yes of course receive instruction through the collaborative but they are also brought into grade level classrooms alongside their typical peers and that's incredibly important in the DEA community and unusual um if you don't go

058with the reads collaborative the other programs do not offer the same degree and seamlessness of that inclusion there are two programs currently um through the reads program they are housed at the Norton public schools and then there is a high school program at Bristol Plymouth um Tech High School and they're long-standing they've been around a very very long time they've been in different districts the concept of space with with collab AES is welln because they are not their own School District they often don't have the capital of buildings so this is not a unique problem but it is a concerning problem because one the program has expansion needs the executive director has pointed out that this we need to start building transition programming and what I'm talking about is for students ages 18 through 22

059and currently they're exists nothing and on top of that Norton Public Schools is unable to continue to rent space they actually extended an entire year so this has been known for now two years um this concern about outgrowing the space and Norton's increasing enrollment that's going they obviously need their own space um without Alternatives dhh really needs to find its own space they took um I think extenda steps to go through all of the board all the communities that make up the reads collaborative to say Ken you has a program I spoke with Dina at length about whether or not Middleboro could be a host but simply put we don't have the space either and it is several classrooms so if I had thought that there was a away I I certainly would have but

060it it just it's not where we're at and and we're not unique um this has actually come to the four because no member has been able to offer that hosting capability so if you want to go to the next slide there is a possible purchase of a property in Norton Massachusetts that the that the reeds collabor has looked into both Dina MOS as the executive director and Lindsay alurn as the Director of Finance for reads what they have done is with our with the board's consent um they have submitted a non-binding letter of intent to purchase this property what that means is that they're basically going to take time to explore some options and cure any contingencies prior to making a purchase it's also non-binding and I think that part's really important um if the

061purchase happens Norton and this is one of the reasons they're shopping in Norton Norton would still offer to partner as they have for years and years for those inclusive opportunities which I think is really important for not just consistency but philosophy of programming so that's that's excellent for reads um but the but the projected cost of this purchase would increase dhh tuition only so I wanted to bring that to your attention because I think your natural next question be well what does that mean for us here in Middleboro we have one student in this program so this isn't we're not we're not um some districts have 10 children some districts have two children some districts have in our case it is one student um and I did the research with director Hy today it's about

062a $7,000 increase which sounds like a lot until you're looking at special education funding which we've now talked about at length um the even with the increase I and this is the most important part assume your argument was well then what if we moved that student which I wouldn't advocate for anyway um it would still be the the most affordable option significantly to say nothing of the consistency You' destroy by moving so you know I just want to kind of rest your minds that yes this is an increase but it's a very modest increase considering all that it has to offer and it doesn't touch any other tuitions so we have many read students but only one DH um the executive director has also graciously offered to come to a meeting talk with you more

063at length it's difficult to have these conversations but except in a meeting just because there's no way to have audience with all of you outside of the schedule well not no way but it would mean another meeting so if you are interested in that or desirous of more information I sure she would be willing to come um and if there's any information I can answer for you about that um let me know if I don't know something today I I I can certainly get more information yes um do you H I know that the the specific address for the property hasn't been disclosed and and I understand the reasons behind that do you have a sense of um an approximate distance from the ex Current public school to this property just in terms of um

064I mean here's it is not walkable okay um so there would have to be Transportation but Reeds is not I don't think concerned about that in terms of it being like a long ride or a far distance for children to travel just in terms of of making sure that the the inclusion process was was really viable to to uh continue because I do know how important it is so as long as that's already being kind of factored into how schedules would be dealt with or how Transportation would be made available in the middle of a middle of a school day kind of thing to to get the students to where they could be um no I um just also want to state that I I fully support this I think um the the for the

065students themselves that continuity of the being able to stay with um teachers that they are already familiar with in the Norton Public School System friends that hopefully they've made in the Norton Public School Systems and to to be able to maintain that community that they've built um I think would be very important and hopefully you know any student who's already acclimated to the being transported to Norton this wouldn't change anything it would be a very um hopefully a very uh low impact transition for these students um so I I fully support the idea I hope that it allows the program to to continue to build and expand and offer these Services uh because they are so important how many classrooms do they need I believe it was 10 classrooms in Norton but then an additional

066number of classrooms at BP BP Tech is a high school very different model than than the lower levels and and so they don't need to have the typical students classrooms in the same in the same building nope in fact most of well I mean there's a in terms of you see it all with collaboratives um but no there's no requirement um that would be flushed out in the IEP and that's where the minutes to Jess's Point that's where the minutes come into play because if it's 30 minutes a day of inclusion you have to make sure like you can't count the time it takes to get there but I will tell you the collaborative or at least the director has not expressed concern about the logistics the biggest concern has absolutely been money because this

067does warrant support from the member districts and I know everyone's in typ budget this is a concern understandably for every community and so I think that was the bigger concern and the the program at BP wouldn't be removed that would remain where it is there well you know what it's been a while since I've been to that program now uh they do have at least one classroom for some pullout services but it is a largely included program the students in the reads program go to all the shops do all the work um along with assistance from dhh certified staff but they did have their last I last I was there which was it's been a bit but there was an entire classroom in Site Area devoted where they were able to receive their own instruction

068as well so just there is no necessity in having read the letter I don't think there's any necessity to change how the the students who are part of the programs at BP would be functioning this would just be a space that could build on additional options for those students after graduating from BP if they need additional Services through age 22 or something like that yes I think the goal is to bring all at some point is to bring everybody under the same roof and expand to include 18 to 22 but the um the urgency is the is the Norton space okay it's unfortunate we don't have space for a variety of reasons the rental as well as having the that program here we have to kick massao out and I don't think that would help

069us any thank you okay so with that thank you director Peron for advancing slides and with that I'll turn into my final item of the evening which is the student services update and I'll invite director avable to um come on up and uh your slides are embedded in mine tonight director aable is going to give you an update which includes a Rec some more in-depth information about those grants that you asked about earlier so you'll hear about that um tonight and uh additional pieces as well involving Community evening school and our updating our updated our process for bullying prevention and intervention welcome Dr avab I mean Mr Dr avat went to school uh good evening uh commune member superintendent lines um sorry sorry won't go forward ra it help him it's only going backwards slides

070are noted is a different yeah maybe just go the top there you go there you go sorry about that all right so I'm just going to try and do a brief overview um we have some more detailed topics uh coming up including the buing plan as long as C CC um so I tried to highlight a few things that student services has done um sorry that's all right if we could get it I'm gonna be like this onto this screen that's yeah it's there there it is thank you um so as we continue this is my uh fourth year in the district uh this has been a growing Department um where we've tried to continue to um try new initiatives uh think outside the box uh a lot of the initiatives that we bring into

071the district are probably atypical for for academic um and we're really trying to think about education differently um so a lot of what we've done um that we can talk about that you'll see uh is really with that in mind um so you know we started uh clinical uh professional development I've spent a lot of time with partnering outside uh resources such as Riverside or John Crocker um we've we've established Partnerships that have allowed us to grow in the this area um they work specifically with me uh the elementary clinical team the secondary clinical team and we spend a lot of time on looking at what that means for us as a as a district how do we Implement uh new interventions protocols and procedures that make us most effective uh we are a department

072that is probably the smallest in the district in terms of the size you know there's nine at the high school there's you know six at the at the middle school um but there's a lot of need in the community that those staff members MERS are relied on heavily uh and so how do we maximize their skill sets um with proper resources and trainings um so we've done trainings on CBT interventions um you know progress monitoring you know looking at at how we're intervening um and building it so that that's something we've spent a lot of time on um we enrolled in the PBIS Academy through the state three years ago so we're in their last year of that so a lot of the PBIS initiatives that you see particularly at the elementary level at Nicholls

073has been spearheaded through this Academy so we have a lot of teachers and counselors Administration on those teams in each one of the building spending a lot of time really trying to increase our PBIS model um we've established a comprehensive mental health folder and and really a mental health system where we have a procedure for crisises that happen on a daily basis when I first came into the to this District it was evident that we were kind of all on different pages in terms of how to intervene when these things occurred uh and so now we have a very detailed step by step process uh on threat assessments safety assessments how we're documenting those um you know and it's really helped with a lot of our data management in terms of what we need moving

074forward being able to go back and have easy access to that information uh in in real time has been helpful for not only our clinical staff but Administration uh and transitioning students uh from building to building uh making sure that when kids go from 5 to six that information's following them that making sure from 8 to 9 that information's following them we've talked a lot about trying not to recreate the wheel we have a lot of teachers and clinical staff and administration who do a lot of work with these kids and then they go to another building and you know at times it felt like that they they had to recreate this entire system of support and so having a system now that we're able to to track and monitor these kids and then communicate

075effectively with the buildings ahead of us is really the goal uh and what we're working for on a daily basis we still have a lot of work to do in that area but uh it's something that we we're really trying to focus on particularly um in upcoming years um you know we I've I've taken that same kind of model of organization um and and data management through our Title 9 and title six processes making sure that we're following the the federal guidelines and state guidelines ensuring that we're um following the proper procedures when they need to occur uh in the district so we now have trained all of our uh Administration or vice principles in each one of our buildings to be co- Title 9 coordinators so that they can make sure that they're taking

076those initial intake procedures properly and then coordinating and collaborating with me when necessary um we've uh done a lot with Korea Readiness and I'll talk about that in the grant a little bit more but a lot what we've done at the elementary level uh at the middle school level and at the high school uh We've continued to really take a large look or significant look into ker Readiness especially in a community like middlebar where a number of our students anywhere from 30 to 40% of our students are not going to fouryear college po postgraduation I think it's imperative that we have alternative Pathways and and and and communicate that there's a number of different ways for these kids to be successful and and it's our job to trying to find those and put them in

077front of the students uh We've continued to offer Mental Health First Aid um with our staff members so we have been able to and again I'll talk about it in a second with some of the grant money um you know we were supposed to have one yesterday um but we're going to reschedule for for the next month um to have one but but we had one in SE September uh Kaye Goodell has been instrumental in that as well uh but being able to offer first aid right but it's mental health first aid and it's allowing the teachers to feel comfortable in situations that maybe they're not clinically experts in but they have enough knowledge now to try to um navigate that situation appropriately and find the the contacts that they need to uh in order

078to make sure that they're safe and other students are safe and the student in crisis is safe um and then we talked about streamline of dis discipline process and crisis response and intervention a couple specific things that I just wanted to quickly highlight um you have could we ask questions along the way yes sorry interrupt as you want um uh one question I think that you may have skipped or I may not have heard you which is very possible uh uh what is the work that you're doing around homelessness and Foster Care sure so I'm the point of contact through the state so anybody uh in the um that comes into our community Through uh who is homeless or foster care um I'm the point of contact so we'll set up Transportation we'll make sure

079resources are in Connect we have which in the next slide we have Outreach coordinator or Outreach counselor kayy Goodell who we'll coordinate with and make sure that we touch on base with these families we've been able to secure uh a few um donations this year to help to go into our Family Resource Center so we've been able to help out with bills um Transportation uh we've been able to help get them stays at hotels when necessary uh so so really trying to find that population with which is which is never the same right like one week it could be one thing the next week we might get 10 like it it evolves pretty quickly so we it's our job to try to make sure that they feel that they're able to come into school feel

080safe supported we're coordinating with the staff members the administration um and working collaboratively so that uh so that those students feel like they're they're coming into a community that they're okay or our own students who may may fall into certain things and they need to go to another Community we're trying to get them back here through um the can even do act so you know giving them that the transportation as needed and my other question is around Title 9 did did the public schools get a dear colleague letter that changed the processes for Title 9 yes so title 99's kind of gone through a few different facelifts since I've taken over so originally the change with the 2020 um change in regulations and and then it switched over in August of uh 24 and then

081it it went back to the 2020 regulations was that last week no it's a different that was prior to last week that wasn't part of the dear colleagues um reference um this was something that happened prior to that it's been I think luckily for us we've we've have had a number of trainings on this in in recent months including last year and so just to Pivot back to the 2020 hasn't been a huge lift for us it's just been more conversations and more meetings and making sure that we're following the same procedures but I think for us like we're in a good space in terms of the fact that we had things PR pre-existing and so it's it's just kind of switching a few different things they knew before yeah thank you so a couple

082things just wanted to highlight um through some some of the the the grants and budget we had Dr Hela deasi come in the fall 24 to talk about substance use um and addiction in the brain with our middle school students also did a community event um that we had the public attend we have a future event with Dr Julie Martin Burch who's going to do a two-part series on school avoidance and interventions it's been a big topic good conversation and a lot of parents have reached out for supports in that area uh so we partnered with her and we're going to do two webinars where parents will be able to send questions in prior to uh to both of those um series and ask questions about how they can help um and then have uh

083coordinate with staff and um so we're excited to be able to do that we still are offering care Solace um you know to try to help with mental health services for our staff and employees and community members um The Family Resource Center and Outreach Council is really crucial I can't overstate how important that role is right there um having an Outreach counselor in this District uh can't be understated how how or overstated how important that that person is Kaylee Goodell is our Outreach counselor she is on the ground level with some of our most atrisk families uh in this community and really doing a lot of work and trying to make sure that they're safe and supported um that they're making academic progress um you know coordinating with teachers and counselors so you know we're

084really lucky to be able to have that um so it's really not you know in our and we have a Family Resource Center that's really me and Kaye um and then we have an account where we're able to help families and support um which we do a lot of um and then we have a partnership um with CCBC now at all levels or at least through um the complex M and MSS and then the high school so we're able to offer um counseling um for students who um who are you know who need some extra support real clinical level counseling that's not putting the burn in on our on our own individual counselors so that partnership used to just be at the high school last year was the first year we got it down to

085Nichols and then this year is the first year we got it down at the elementary school level um so it's really CCBC stand for it's community of Bristol County what is it okay got Community Counseling Bristol County yeah so thank so they come into our district they send a therapist um we work through the the fam's insurance uh and they're able to get Clinical Services um in the buildings um which is which is huge it's a huge support for our counseling staff it's a huge support for the families who may have struggle with Transportation uh it's something that it's a partnership that we're glad to grow uh a couple district-wide programming I just wanted to highlight is I decide which isn't a restorative Pro practice that we've been able to offer as opposed to suspension

086for students who struggle with who get caught with vaping or substance abuse they go through a four-part series with trained counselors on our own staff um as part of a restorative practice so instead of getting suspended if they they agree to do this process that they stay after um they work through the program and then it it doesn't go in as discipline and you hope that it learns something they talk a lot about addiction in the brain um Addiction in teenage the teenage brain specifically um and and then alternative behaviors that they can they can put in so I decide is is through Mass General and that's a partnership that we established last year through a pilot and something this year that we've continued the dam project the same is the same thing uh it's

087something that is just a mental health resource that helps uh our middle school students know where to go to if they need they need help um or or if their friend is is struggling with something it's you know somebody coming in and just kind of acknowledging what mental health is um where to go to how to find support uh and identifying the appropriate people in the building that they can go to which sometimes kids don't always know so U that's another one Erica's Lighthouse is a suicide prevention program that we do with our older um 8th grade students uh and then our um our high school students and this is a state requirement that all schools have a suicide prevention program and what I like about this program that is different than some of the

088others is that we were able to train our own staff in it and then we're able to accommodate the curriculum or their expectations based off of our needs in the community so you know they have kind of a set idea of what what this curriculum is our clinical team was able to go through it and kind of modify it to best suit um our school system and our counselors are the ones delivering that so it is part of what we do on a daily basis as counselors and clinical staff is trying to intervene in this but this is something that uh is different than I think some of the other ones where outside resources come in or they they're able to kind of do that but we really and you can kind of see this

089through all of the things that we we we pilot is we want our staff to be the ones performing those tasks they're the ones with the relationship with the kids it's most effective when they do that and I feel like that's that's really the what we're gravitating towards uh and then Harmony we're piling at tier one classroom base intervention program K to 5 this year uh grades one two uh and then we have a couple fifth grade classes doing it as well tier one can't cannot be cannot I guess another it just can't be understated how important tier one intervention is when we're talking about behavior um and modification and interventions you know classroom teachers have a lot on their plate as is um and and it's not something that we we take likely by

090piloting anything in a classroom when there's so many things going on but simple things like what regulation and emotion regulation and and being able to communicate effectively and have have relationships that is the Crux of what happens in an Elementary classroom like all day long we're trying to navigate those situations and so trying to Pilot something that is comprehensive and collaborative and making sure that it it's Equitable all across the line and all teachers are doing it really allows our clinical team which we've already established is there's not a lot of us um to really focus on more of those those tier two and tier three level students who need some of that the more intervention and the more attention and the weekly or daily check-ins um so being able to kind of spread this

091is a necessary um you know step and and it's not a popular one sometimes because again like I said sometimes there's a lot of initiatives that happen and it's not always fair but I think it is needed and doing it effectively and communicating effectively and working with parents and talking about it with with classroom teachers and clinical staff and trying to be as transparent as possible you know I think it it would be beneficial for the community moving forward for uh just wanted to highlight a few of the grants that we've been working on so all of the grants that I apply for are competitive grants so meaning that I go against other districts who are applying for the same Grant and have to kind of propose an idea or circumstance or a situation that

092we're trying to focus on um so I'm going to try and highlight those pretty quickly here youth work is is a big Grant through us again we talk about career um exploration collaboration uh Community Partnerships youth work has been huge with that so we were awarded 119,000 a little over that um last year uh we have now three different tiers we have a tier one program at at the middle school we have a tier 2 program at the high school and then we do a post-graduate tier four program so students who have graduated the high school who may not have found a track yet we have been able to establish uh five five students to be able to really get job specific training uh in a career path of their choice uh they get more

093hours they're a little bit more pay um and it's something that hasn't hasn't been as easy as we hoped I think that tier four and there's talks about potentially moving that tier four into our Asim program next year where we still have some collaboration those students that stay with us from 18 to 22 who graduate who are postgrads um who who our job our responsibility is to try to help them find a pathway we may transition into that but you know I can't speak highly enough about how much the community has helped get this program off the ground and how many Partnerships that we have with local business businesses um to be able to place students in real life experiences where we're paying those students to go to work essentially and then they come back

094we have a a relationship with the bosses and if one student is struggling in certain skills like advocacy showing up on time they're be to come back and work with our staff about those specific skills um and then the same with our our tier one program at Nicholls they've done a fantastic job this year about just trying to lay the Baseline and Foundation of what it looks like like why is it important of what the teachers saying at Nicholls why is that important out in the community so we do a lot of Project based learning there it's not job specific it's Project based we partnered with the town we partnered with some different agencies about you know setting up Flags or building shops or building some stages for the plays at the high school working

095with Tony qy and the my lab really trying to get them exposure into alternative Pathways of why education is important every kid has their own path every kid has their own Journey it's our job to try to figure out that and and and find a base for them to feel like they can be successful no matter what I think education is one of those funny things where they tell us we have to be good at five things we have to be good at these five subjects to be successful and I always fight back on that I think we have to be good at one thing that we feel really passionate about and anything can be opened up at that point and so you know I really think that's what we're trying to do for kids

096to just see themselves in what they're doing and then find that connection moving forward so youth Works has been an awesome partner um they are funded through the state and you know I know the next Grant will talk a little bit about that you know I'm hoping that this isn't something that's affected by that because we've really put a lot of work into establishing this program question y based on the K on the students needs how many if you didn't have to worry about where you were going to put them and the money you were going to have how many students do you think uh at tier two and three I think high school and middle school yeah do you think that this would be spot on for I mean in middleb I think we

097could fill up 40% of whatever our school population is so if we have 700 kids I'm not a math guy so whatever 40% is of 700 kids um I think that's that that's our Target population um you know I think that there's like there's a there's a need for this type of programming um considerable need and we we try to do our best to to implement and the same thing goes with why we do the Elementary career fair you know I think that earlier we can get kids to think about their future they're able to tie in why this is important and I think education kind of lost that way somewhere along the times in terms of all of this is very important but the the goal is and I I talked to school committee

098May ear the goal is not to be the most successful 15year old the goal is to be the most successful 25y old and 35y old and have an established understanding of who we are and that comes from kids believing that they have a purpose and they have they have an Avenue to succeed that and if you tell a kid that they there's only one way to be successful they're going to eventually believe that they aren't going to be uh and that's why we see you know kids drop out or or you know struggle with mental health or go alternative Pathways so I really feel strongly that this is you know maybe some people don't I I believe this is what where our job is to a lot a large extent is there a point at

099which uh and then I'll be quiet um uh counseling student specifically towards a v vote towards Bristol Plymouth is also appropriate I think occasionally I think I'll get into I mean if we I'll jump into this grant right now because I think that goes directly into the work that we're trying to do um a lot of the work I've done with Paul braning again this year is through the Innovation Pathways middlebar has an opportunity to grow a lot of these platforms you know I think Bush the plmouth certainly has an expansive uh array of opportunities but middlebar also has a significant amount of opportunities that we need to develop further we have manufacturing we have engineering we have opportunities with the mlab we have youth works now you know our Innovation pathway yeah our Innovation

100Pathways Grant is another competitive grant that we applied for and received uh and specifically this year we we partnered with specialized career guidance um in this late Judy vgna out of Plymouth uh who really has worked on strengthen our career Pathways it started originally I was partnering with the counseling team asked them last year what they wanted as some more professional development and they said career Pathways like we having a lot of kids looking for a lot I don't we don't know what's out there and so I started this partnership originally working with the council to really just expand the counselor's knowledge on what is out there where where can they go what what what are the Industries near us like what are Partnerships we could look at and then that kind of trans transitioned

101into our Innovation Pathways and looking into the work that we've done in that and project lead the way and I think you know and Paul will probably tell you um you know I think this is an area that we haven't spent enough time and attention on growing and I think we we jumped into the to the to the lake and we we were swimming but we didn't have anywhere to go and I think this is this year has really helped with us in terms of itemizing goals um prioritizing the classes that we're offering these kids and looking at how we can build this moving forward uh and that's been a huge I think uh beneficial partnership that has done um a lot so you know maybe Bristol Plymouth is appropriate but maybe middlebar is if

102we can identify these Project Lead the Way Pathways and and do that effectively and have Innovative Pathways that we can enroll our kids in there's no reason why we can't do that with the Community Partnerships that we already have and that we're continuing to grow so uh I think we're at the beginning stages of being able to establish something that the community can be really proud of in terms of you know our being able to offer multiple different ways to be successful so Innovation Pathways is another one another one that we'll continue to grow another one that we'll continue to apply for and hopefully continue to get um before we get too far ahead can I just ask a couple questions about Works yep um so it's an incredible program I can't speak highly enough

103about it um and every time I talk to people in the regional or state level they sing middle boro's Praises uh the tier four is the kind of the toughest as you spoke but it can have the greatest impact when you can actually get them into a career going forward um my questions though um with the the nms and the uh the high school is there kind of an idea to almost track the kids through all five years so the goal really is for the nms to jump in and try to get those kids into one of our Innovation Pathways or Project Lead the Way programs so getting them into their ninth grade year with some because they're partnering already with Tony in that program and so being able to get into an innovation pathway

104the the manufacturing um pathway that we already have makes a lot of sense so we're trying to start their academic career off strong with a purpose uh and then if it doesn't work like you know then we can look at some alternative things but but I think yeah that's the ultimate goal is to try to start it younger and and track those kids and involve those kids moving forward when I originally started youth Works in Plymouth probably you know 15 years ago I was I used to fight with them daily because I would have kids that needed skill set building but they would only let them enroll for you probably know this they would only let him enroll for one year and I would say what's the point of doing it for one year if

105I can't track them for next year and I can't build off of what we established and so you know the partners there eventually ended up switching that kind of model and they opened up these this tiered process and I think that's the large reason for it uh the other thing that I like that we do that's different than a lot of other communities is that most communities do this program over the summer uh and then the summer it's it's it's intense it's short it's kind of like a quick hit we do this over the entire school year so this goes from October to June uh where we're tracking kids we're pacing out their scale a little bit they're not getting you know 15 hours a week they're getting two to six hours a week so

106we can pay them all year uh and work on those but I think that's that's another thing that we do that is different than a lot of other communities because I think it's more impactful to have a continuation of a conversation instead of it being like just like a like a speed trap running running straight into a wall definitely yeah and every year the more years they do the program I find they the better success even tier four is new I mean that's a new thing that we were actually the only um we're actually the only uh person who received the grant to do tier four this year uh Metar was the only one that got it uh it's it is super challenging Josh Porter is helping us do it right now uh he's working

107for the town he has a little bit more freedom to get out there and work with kids uh but at this point a lot of these they're 23 24 some of these kids 22 uh and it's hard to track them down and like cohort them like it is when you're in a school system so that has definitely been a challenge but it's something that you know Josh and I talk about regularly like it might I think we're having convers is it is it beneficial like is it more beneficial to do it with some of our aim students who still need the same opportunity and we can have a little bit more control over them uh and that'll will kind of make that determined I've already talked with the state about it and it can kind

108of explain kind of my thoughts and they're supportive like they pretty much said you're the only one trying it so we appreciate you even trying uh and then they're learning based off of the things that we're kind of struggling with sounds great thank you um so this is the grant that was spoken about a little bit earlier I just want to briefly talk about what what the work had this looked like for us um so you know we started transitioning and I'm not going to get into it yet I'll get into it a little bit later but a competency based curriculum in our futures academy part of that was a partnership with the kitty hop platform which is a academic tracking platform that is used for Competency Based um tracking it's very similar to like

109a Google Classroom it's a tech-based program where you're able to track the students work they can work synchronous synchronously or asynchronously um and you're able to kind of track it through that platform um we did a um we we hired a con consultant uh support for our teachers as well as professional development uh we've been able to expand PBIS uh and then a partnership with tap Roots uh which is a healthy decision group that was co- facilitated by our school counselor Meg Mor arti at the middle school um which was we identified students uh who could benefit from you know healthy decisions what that looks like moving forward so we we're full into this work this has been all year basically and then you know to get that email on on Friday was I just

110put my head on the table and I can't imagine and had a moment so uh we're here we'll figure it out um you know good news is we're supported by people and and we'll continue this work so uh and then the last Grant we got this year was a hit crime prevention Grant um totaling $50,000 where this work has really just been about cultivating belonging this in all of our schools right now you know in education across the communities we are trying to work on having productive convers ation with each other regardless of opinions regardless of of backgrounds you know schools the one place is a Melting Pot of the community there's a lot of different opinions that happen there there's a lot of different things that come from various backgrounds you know our job

111and our goal is to try to encourage those conversations in the most supportive way possible um to make sure that we're supporting all students um and that we're doing it in a respectful way so a lot of the work that we've done um through common ground is is really that is trying to encourage people to do this this work to make sure belonging this is is in every building and that everybody and every every background feels like they can come to middlebar public schools and and be a part of it and feel confident and and do it in a respectful way so um that's a lot of the work that's been accomplished through that um so this is quickly this is the my dry part of this we talk about the bullying prevention plan which

112is something that we have to do that is that is super important um but can be pretty laborous uh at times with some of the state RS so every two years we have to present this um in some of the updates so I wanted to talk about from the two years ago when this was first presented some of the things that we've done to improve the process and some of the things that we're looking at of continuing to improve uh and then the timeline uh for the community input um and then getting the plan back out there prior to the start of next year so when we first looked at the plan two years ago we really tried to strengthen policies and procedures so looking at how we were following the plans making sure that

113they were tracked effectively have a u drive through the district that all of the report plans are are uploaded to so that for me I can navigate that from um from where wherever I am to make sure that these things are done effectively and efficiently um you know we tried to increase accountability and follow through on reported incidents you know I think in education you know there's always that conversation of social conflict versus bullying how we manage this and sometimes that can be very individualized as an administrator of like how I'm interpretating interpret in that type of um that guidelines and so we really looked for trying to just increase the accountability increase what that definition was um which I'll show you actually in the next slide of our response to that need that I

114think we needed um and then we've done continuous professional development with all of our our counsel our Administration um counselors to make sure they know exactly what the expectation is we've had ongoing sessions with our um legal team as well as ongoing Administration plc's for our our leaders ship to to really try and Define what the expectation is for this so areas to improve is consistency across all buildings and incidence clear definitions and then distinguishing what social conflict and bullying is uh and I this is really what the Crux so a lot of the plan that the the wording will be very similar but this is going to be the biggest difference um oh no that's not going to be good unless that person is oh but you'd have to get you'd have to get

115in your computer if hold on if you st do you want me to just bring my laptop down I I have my I have my laptop here okay what did he time up no uh the the form is owned by by Kevin L on is Nick and he's not Nick so can't open it hook up up there does he have a Mac hookup Jess well if he can sign on and give Nick permission temporarily then he can put it on on the other one but otherwise I've good a PC no I think he's good should be he's got it see now it's and I don't know anything everybody close your eyes all right I'm not going to be able to make it I'll try to zoom in here there we go all right so this

116is the new bullying intake form so every time every time we get an incident in the district um there was a an old form that we would use that would kind of talk about the target the behavior the incidents it was pretty generic it's on the website right now you can look at it in comparison if you want um there's some notable changes that we did this year um to try to really Target the things that were weaknesses I think that we've learned over the first two years and that starts with this portion right here um the investigation checkl and guidance there's an expectation of exactly what we need to do to go through these investigations to make sure that they're done effectively and efficiently and all of those right there in that checklist so

117every time an Administration now moving forward does an investigation the expectation is is that they will be going through this and checking off that they've they've accomplished each one of these necessary steps in order to get to their final determination um so I I think that this will be a big game Cher between consistency across all buildings to ensure that we're all following the same policy and procedure um this is something that you know we worked on a lot to just try to make sure that it made a lot of sense that it followed really what the expectation is and what the heart of the plan is supposed to mean um but that's one thing we can follow the plan and we can kind of have this idea of yeah I checked all the boxes

118but like when I get to the end how we ensure consistency across all buildings well there's there's a a flow chart um that we also determined um after the summary of here conclusions of outcomes so now getting to the end they'll be able to go through a flowchart to determine bullying so asking qu questions answering those questions themselves looking at how they went through the process and then coming up with a determination based off of kind of how they answered that so when in doubt I'm not always available and sometimes you know our our administrators are very talented and they're committed to doing it but you know when in doubt now they have they can make real live decisions in the Moment by by checking this process and ensuring it um is done in a

119way that um is in the best interest of the situation you know bullying is a complicated thing when you're talking about 12 13 14 15 year old kids because there's so many variables that happen in that moment um that makes it determining whether it's bullying or social conflict or something different um it it can be ambiguous at times and so really trying to hone it down a little bit more and make it more specific so that we can be confident when we make a determination and that parents can feel comfortable that like it might not be bullying but it could be social conflict and that doesn't mean that there isn't discipline at that point it just means it doesn't mean the Le the legal threshold of this bullying process and that's important to consider um

120it's not always what the parents want to hear but I think if they're trusting the process of this is what's being followed that could open up conversations at least in in in a manner that you know they feel at least like this was done um with intent um so that is the biggest thing do you have uh mandatory reporter uh people that are reported to when they think that that bullying has happened so in terms of like if a vice principal gets a bullying report or yeah so anybody that believes that that that there's been an incidence of bullying is there are there specific people that they're supposed to go to we have been pretty clear and I think the the building Administration does a good job at this like never make decisions on your

121own try to make sure that we touch there was no mandate like I I ultimately oversee it I think I talked to the buildings on a daily basis about different circumstances that occur to make sure that we're on the same page it's not that they have to check in with me it's that they want to make sure that they're doing things in the correct way um that doesn't mean it always happens that way but that's that's the goal and I think if if it's not me then Vice principales are collaborating with each other or definitely collaborating with the principal um and so there's there's a a hope uh of of collaboration when we're making decisions that involve students particularly when it involves student safety for your checklist um is there a process for tracking who

122did each step when it occurred kind of thing rather than just checking the box so once you start a bully investigation the person who starts it is the one who's going to finish it so there isn't there's not going to tag team in so they're they're the ones who are are eminently in the long run responsible for having completed those items yeah so there's there's a t here like there's a interview Target interview aggressors but there's also a portion of the are of investigators and position um so they'll list that up there so you know who's responsible ultimately for the that plan thank you you're welcome Mr zor did you have a question uh Sarah zor 35 Granite Road um is this tracked also through the computer like the is it now not just paper

123is it Act is it is there a way to like form some type of log not necessarily on their discipline record but to show if this like when they're going between buildings so the urive that I referenced you side that urive is a district-wide drive that they're they upload so every building has their own urive folder now and they upload these reports into that and um each time they transition so that's categorized by graduation year so if your student is you know class of 2032 or whatever and the transition year is moving up that'll now transfer with them from building to building so you you know from 8th grade to nth grade now Paul will now have access to all of the reports that were now done this year uh and so it will follow

124with them and that was a big shift that we've done recently just to ensure that trying to increase communication amongst buildings which I referenced a little bit earlier transitioning um but trying our best to to make sure things don't fall between the cracks because you know I think that's where a lot of issues come from parents is like I dealt with this in fifth grade nobody has documentation of it you're starting back from the beginning ex and that leads to a lot of frustration so this is the goal of trying to just uh communicate more amongst the staff members so that we have more information so that if it does happen again we don't have to say well it was a first time offense or this you can kind of up the anti from the

125beginning and then in reference to kind the outcomes of what happens um I know in the past it's been privacy where you can't tell like if your child is the one that's being whether it's up whether it's determined to be bullying or just social conflict um knowing that there's consequences and and I it helps to know like that this person wasn't just like okay don't do it again and go back to class and I know there was some privacy things but in the end of this you said that there was kind of follow-through of what happened what does that refer to to so that's the parents will never know what happens to the other student I mean that's a law so we can't violate somebody else's privacy rights for that for that purpose so you

126know that's an internal you know when when we document a discipline like that'll always be internal um we do try to communicate the best we can like something is going to happen but as far as giving discipline specific um that's something that we we we could never do so what's at the end can you scroll down to the end of this I just didn't see it because my eyes are not working anymore tonight summ I know you said there was like a follow like the um there was like a flowchart at the bottom just to say kind of what outcomes were I think it's further down so support notice of outcomes that's what it is so the so that's basically when we communicate to families that there you know a determination has been made whether

127it's a substantiated or not substantiated um the verbal notification so again this is to try to track just to ensure that we don't want parents to to have an an elongated process where they never hear back like this should be done in a reasonable amount of time where we're doing an investigation and then falling back up good b or and different so that is notifying me that the parents were notified that way if I a parent calls with a complaint to me that I'm able to go back and reference exactly what that is we're also again this is we have different support planning um so like that section there so that wouldn't be something that would be internal only the the corrective actions will be internal yeah okay those sorry those are sort of the

128samples of what the corrective action could be it could be yeah it could yeah is this not the final yet this is not the final no so this is going to be I'm going to go to the next slide and it'll give you a timeline of when this will be posted Community will have an opportunity for feedback and then um we'll post the final plan prior to the I forget the exact date but I think sometime end of April and then do parents get notified do they get any type of paperwork to say that an investigation was done without breaking the privacy of the other people do they do they get something to say we investigated in this okay thank you you're welcome question so this is the timeline um the plan will be posted

129tomorrow on the website uh and then there'll be an open feedback period for the community with a feedback link available uh then we'll review and analyze any feedback and then share the update plan with the community um VIA website by May 1st and how does the community provide feedback so there'll be um a link that's provided um like a survey yeah like a like a feedback form to the community that'll be sent out uh one last question uh do you do summary reports for the year so X number of reports were made X number were found not responsible last year I did add leadership over the summer to our Administration team uh regarding like all 51a all title 9ines all PRS complaints all bullying reports I did an overarching which was super helpful in terms

130of like painting a picture of what was happening in our district it's not something that I've ever made public Carolyn's never asked me to make public it's something that was internal done with our leadership team for a training um and something I would anticipate probably doing again um I I know it one that that was helpful in the community I worked at and also that um it showed the consequences you know 10 this happened to 15 this happened to so it it gave a sense of people it didn't take away anyone's privacy but it gave a sense to the community of the kind of responses that happened um uh for these events I think that can be helpful I think that sometimes also Slippery When like anytime we're talking about even with student discipline like

131why aren't you suspending more you're not suspending enough or like it it is challenging right now for discipline in school and and how we we're balancing that so not opposed to it be certainly willing to talk about anything but um it's just in a cumulative way um you can't tell who did what yeah sure just a thought yep any other questions are you currently using like the flow sheet so we started to kind of pilot it like this year a little bit in the last couple months just to see like work out any kinks and have conversations like as an administrative team um and we will continue to do that but until it's like final um we're not it's not fully implemented it's not something like that uh that's why I saw on the website

132it's not part of the current plan that we have but I think it's something certainly a direction that I think would be beneficial moving forward anything else oh sorry go ahead I was just thinking it it if you have the the capacity to do so it might be interesting to just trial your flow sheet against already completed investigations to kind of go through the flow sheet to say you know based on this incident if I follow the flow sheet what conclusion do I come to and compare it to what conclusion you did just to kind of prove the validity of the the flow sheet and how help out yeah just just in the the short term that we've been doing it and having the conf this year I mean we're we're although sometimes people are

133still unhappy with the results we are significantly further ahead than we were two years ago in terms of documenting in terms of following the right procedure um in terms of like you know again it's not always going to be the everyone's not always going to love the answer but being able to follow the right process is huge I think and something that we've undoubtedly improved on significantly in the last couple years definitely within the last year and something that we still need to improve in and we still continue will but you know this has been helpful I think um the next big topic of conversation so that's kind of wrapping up that um we I'll be following up with the community on that bullying the next big one is the community B Community evening school

134I talked a lot about alternative Pathways I've talked a lot about you know what we need to do to make kids successful um and Community evening school has been a staple of this community forever uh since I've been a student here before I was a student here it's it's been I I couldn't start like figure out the exact start date but somewhere in the 90s maybe early 90s maybe before that I don't know uh it's certainly been around for a long period of time and has helped out a lot of students in our community and something that when this conversation originally started when Carolyn and I talked about it was there's a lot of grant money out there I want to write grants I have available grant money adult education always has grant money uh

135and so I wanted to help kind of support uh Cesc kind of evolve uh and grow with the times a little bit and you know from that conversation I talked to director Al Brittain Heather Al Brittain over the summer and I I was able to give her a handful of first aid certificates um CPR some hoisting licenses that they were able to offer for their summer school class and that was kind of the goal the goal was to try to look for all additional ways to fund the program um and grow it moving forward that conversation kind of opened up a lot of doors and a lot of conversations with the state that I'm going to get into right now that um has kind of backed us into into a corner in terms of the

136next decision that we need to make so the purpose of the program is an alternative pathway kids that that that struggle and mainstream Traditional High School that need more flexibility um they're able to go to that program two days a week uh and obtain a high school diploma it's a self-sustaining model um you know student fees are anywhere from 200 to $350 um it should say like $200 per course and that's 350 like is a Max I think for three classes it covers staff salary supplies materials so it's not something that is really ever been in the operating budget and it's open enrollment so it's available to middlebar and non middlebar residents at the start of this school year csse was serving 74 students 15 with being active middlebar residents and 59 non- middlebar resident

137students so the shift was definitely and I talked to director Albert and and some of the staff members in the program that somewhere along the line the shift became a largely non- middlebar program uh and only servicing a quarter of the usually of of being middlebar residents so that was another thing that kind of came up through this process so the immediate concerns I had a couple conversations late summer uh with the director of uh all accounts alternative program for dsse um to kind of ask um some questions about how we could improve this program and what quickly came uh into conversation was a number of issues within the program as it currently stood um which one of the most important ones was we were we were not following the the fape free and appropriate

138public education we were we were charging students middle bar residents to attend school and still offering them a middle bar education um that violates their fape um we were no we were not reporting the data correctly um from that program to the state uh and so they you know were not getting the information like they would for one of our seniors at the high school um it was also coded which which none of us could kind of figure out it was coded as an adult education program but not state recognized as an adult education program meaning that we weren't eligible for a lot of the grants that I was looking into adult education programs are not overseen by the K to 12 District they are overseen by another agency within the community um so under

139these circumstances although it was coded and we were getting mcast scores through an adult education program uh it was it it it was not recognized as a state as an adult education program and so we weren't eligible for a lot of those things that I that I was originally looking into um I'm pretty sure just so you know that approximately 40 years ago it was an adult education like night school it could have been yeah and somewhere along the lines things shifted and we somebody didn't get the email and it it stayed the way it is yep uh and it they didn't switch uh and I think that's how we end up where we are right now is that they they were sending us and coding us like on our mcast as adult education we

140were coding them transferring students middlebar high school students or students from Silver Lake or Plymouth coding them is transferred in state to adult education uh which was fascinating for middlebar students because they weren't transferring they were actually just remaining within our district so because of that we were also losing in some capacity their per pupil expenditure so once they withdraw or transfer to another program middle loses their per pupil fun expenditure and so every time we were unenrolling a middle student to reenroll them into our night school program we were losing effectively their per pupil expenditure um and that became and the other big thing uh and you know this started years ago when there wasn't as much oversight from DC um but the instruction hours there's a there's a requirement of 990 hours to

141to obtain a high school diploma uh and the night school was only attending two days a week for three hours a night so six hours a week from September um or October to December and then from February to June so they were significantly under that that requirement so the guidelines and the Really the the expectation from the state was that we immediately look into resolving these concerns um and so pretty effectively we eliminated the two at the start of this year we eliminated the tuition for middlebar residents to attend uh to be in compliance with the fape so this year no midar student paid to attend the school and we functioned the program based off of Reserve uh funding that that Dr director Albert and kind of obtained over the course of several years um

142we we no longer unenroll middlebar high school students to attend the program they are middlebar students they remain middleb students they can attend any program within middleb and remain uh on our roles we also discontinued uh the enrollment of outof District students because this is not an adult education program it falls under the supervision and expectation of school committee and we are not a school choice District so by taking students from out of District we are violating that and allowing students to come in without getting their per pupil expenditure right in a normal circumstance if there was program and a district wanted to send another student to a district you send their per pupil expenditure to that District to help cover costs for their academics uh we were not doing that we were relying solely

143on $200 to $350 to educate those students at no cost of the other districts U so at the beginning of the year superintendent lines and I uh spoke with area superintendent and told them that this practice was effectively closed uh and it would no longer be um you know with the idea that the goal of this year at this point was to try to reimagine and rethink what this program could be um in which case you know I I continued to work with some of the staff at csse director Albert and I've been on contact with several times but we needed to increase instructional time uh in this program uh we can no longer run it two days a week and still be in compliance with State regs uh we need to enroll Aspens to

144ensure all of our students into Aspen to ensure accurate data and state reporting uh and then expand vocation and Korea Services when you have even adult education programs there's certain requirements that they that are needed in order to fall into those lines uh by offering additional services and a lot of graduation requirements such as career and Vocational Readiness and that's not something that was currently being offered so those are things that are still needed uh to continue the program um so as I said I've I've I've talked to director Hall Britain since beginning of Last Summer and it's continued up until this point uh and I met with cic staff to talk about it uh and then kind of LED through an evaluation process uh led by uh director Al Brittain in terms of the

145feasibility of implementing required changes um and without really increasing the budget that was kind of a task um how do we run this program without adding essentially $500,000 to the budget with Staffing uh and you know director Al Brittain was pretty um was understood that that can't happen this program cannot continue without a significant increase uh to an operating budget that would allow for us to hire teachers uh to make sure that we have a director on staff to make sure that we have a counselor on staff to make sure that we have an administrative assistant on staff you know we would have to pick up this cost because it is no longer a program that we can charge our own students as well as out of District students which we can't really do because

146um we're not a school choice District so so it led to you know we're going to run a program for essentially 15 kids uh and have to increase the budget by a few hundred, in order to make that occur um with that said there is a continued need for alternative Pathways this cannot go away um we cannot just simply say that this program um needs to disband and it had no Effectiveness there's a lot of Staff members that put a lot of years into that program and it has done a service for many students um and and we need to continue to figure out and evolve with the times to try to make sure that we're running a program uh that Services students who need alternative Pathways so I don't know what that looks like

147yet I don't think director Al Brittain knows if if it's feasible to with continue with csse um you know but we do have a pathway currently and our already alternative program in Futures Academy that has continued to grow um that was substantially smaller um that has continued to increase size and I'll I'll talk a little bit about what that could look like So currently we have uh Futures Academy that runs um an an alternative schedule uh in the high school model but is essentially its own School within a school um and is led by Lacy Foley there's currently approximately 30 students in the program it varies depending on the time um but there it's the same concept trying to develop a program for students who need something different we've embedded a lot of our youth

148Works into this program so like 2third of the program is involved um or at least a little under two-thirds of the program is involved in youth Works uh and we really we push that school to work model for these kids getting them out to the community working with Community Partners so over the course of the summer prior to kind of all this happened um we had talked about moving um Futures Academy into a competency based curriculum uh Competency Based curriculum focuses on Mastery uh in school education systems we run out of time a lot I might be you know right on the cusp of understanding where I am it is now January uh and you know grades Clos next Friday and I'm short one paper and I get a 57 I fail now I have

149an F on my report card even though I was making progress I was understanding that concept I just needed a little bit more time school systems as we talked about like are not a one-sized fits-all kids need different things um Competency Based curriculum takes away the timelines essentially it allows a student who might be struggling with a concept who might end in January uh pick up in semester 3 where they left off and continue that work until they are competent in that and then when they are essentially done they can now move forward into the next phase of whatever that academic um class is so it's personalized learning tailored to the individual need of the student uh that allows for flexible pacing uh and ongoing assessment so whereas in schools it's very traditional like you

150have this work we follow this rigor Competency Based curriculum allows for um students to be The Driver of that of that model with the with teachers being kind of the the back areas and the the support that they need to kind of get to that end game it allows for um an increase uh I'll get to that in the next slide but it allows for the flexible Bas and personalized Workforce we'd be able to collaborate vocational Pathways and work aligned instruction um and we would be able to increase the student enrollment uh at from futures from 30 to 40 to start uh and this is because we would extend the day um essentially so this is not not for everybody and this is not for every teacher um we would kind of stagger start times

151for certain teachers to have a studio model that kids could be able to come in particularly the evening school students who need uh maybe an afternoon schedule or something um you know that that more aligns with their scheduling they could come in and have a studio model or start a little bit later in the day uh and still make progress kind of wherever they are um this program or this concept you're able to learn or find effective progress syn or asynchronous mean I can do some work on my own and I can come in for this studio and work with the teachers and collaborate uh and find progress uh moving forward so we would like I said stagger some teachers and some of this still needs to be defined none of this is set in

152stone yet um we still need to work with the teachers and mo MOA and contracts are coming up but this is kind of an idea of something the way that it could look in order to still have an alternative pathway for our students um we would still be able to maintain uh and maximize per pupil funiture um we could maintain program compliance to make sure that all of our students are obtaining a diploma that is State under the state governance um and and and meet the needs of the students no matter what path that they want so you know we would now effectively have a a school to work Competency Based model with increased flexibility um maintaining rigor and allowing students to learn at their own pace there there should be a timeline on learning

153there shouldn't be a timeline on you know if you don't meet a certain Thing by a certain day that that's effectively over I think as adults we constantly have the opportunity to move forward um and and kids should be no different particularly students in this circumstance who tend to struggle with mental behavioral health issues they have trauma there's homelessness involved sometimes they may have something that happened in their home that they can't come to work and come to school and be productive for a week maybe they just need to work on support or maybe they can only work on one class we need to be able to provide them that opportunity to do so without it being a detriment to their own learning ability so this is something that I feel passionate about I think

154it's something that for a lot of our kids who struggle um falling into a certain mold could be supremely beneficial in keeping kids tracked uh moving forward so that was a lot so sorry I I swore I was going to be short today too yeah I told good Lu that I was going to be I'm not short ever sorry all right um so I would encourage you to you know for any of the students that are currently the middlebar residents obviously that are currently in the program I'd be really interested in finding out if the the hours shift would be a significant hurdle for them you know are any of them kind of forced into a child care situation where evening is the only time that they really could attend and recognizing that that may

155not be the the be all end all but what are the pathways for for those students to get a GED or something like that with still having the the support that they might need I think out D le will run into some issues like that even talking to the Cs staff um like you know that's one of their biggest concerns a lot of these kids do um work a lot of these kids do have child care issues um it might not be as much and there might not be a perfect solution to that I think trying to be as flexible as possible is kind of the best that we can offer um well and if there's that possibility of could you come in for a few hours for the studio time but be able to

156do the work remotely in the evening on their time and have it still count as time towards learning and that kind of thing you know it might open possibilities but I would just want to make sure that if we pursue this then things don't align that those students who it wouldn't apply for we don't just kind of go sorry you're on your own I mean I think we learned I mean we know that all of these students are our responsibility and we need to figure out Pathways I think we are lucky that we do have even some Community Resources locally um that we can have alternative Pathways for even if they don't fit into our model great um there's some Charter Schools locally that that take some of these students um it's ultimately our responsibility

157to find something that works for them and I don't think that would change with this um another question that maybe wouldn't help any but um when we have discussions about school choice each year if we went this model is their ability to approve school choice specifically for the Futures program or is that not permitted because we're always approving by like grade level and if a student is moving at this kind of self-placement we approve school choice for X number of students for the Futures program but not necessarily um for a different process I don't I don't I don't know well so one I want to take the time to research this before I give you an affirmative answer I do believe you could I think the problem is that you wouldn't capture enough income to

158counteract the cost of running an entire program I was more thinking if this moved you know with the Futures program and you know we you said there's 15 students now we could maybe up the Futures program accommodation to 40 but if we only have you know if next year moving into this model we only had 20 Middleboro students in the Futures Academy but we could accommodate 40 could we potentially do some kind of school choice placement to well director avitab and I have actually talked about I'm just going to explain that um we've talked about this concept not in the context of school choice we've talked about there is such a thing as school districts having seats that um function as placements for other districts for much more than what you get for school choice

159so we've talked for a couple of years now about Futures Academy and ways we might try to expand that programming um and I don't think our plans are firm we've talked with other communities about interest um we've also talked and explored potential opportunities for where that program might be housed I mean there's we have limited space um so I would be more interested in more thoroughly vetting that concept no that makes sense that makes a lot of sense yeah though as a committee school choice is the school committee's call it is not my call and something that you'll consider in May I will certainly re you know review this concept but but I don't I can't think of anything that would prevent you from designating seats that way because currently we designate seats um based

160on grade level so I think you I do think you could but I I just want to take the extra step to make sure I'm correct before I certify that but I would challenge you to think more broadly because were you able to bring in an income stream you would be able to fund the program I think more robustly I think the the option that you mentioned is is more appealing it was just a you know the the goal of you know the thought that all of these students who were here even if they weren't getting what they wanted and they all had to go find other Pathways is is disappointing but understandable obviously um but it was just a you know how could we potentially open up whatever we come up with to accommodate

161more students with needs who may not be in our district if we have the space and the Staffing to do so but with the expectation that you know they become our student with that perp expenditure coming with them if there's additional options um through a different pathway than school choice I'm very interested in in learning more yeah I mean candidly I think that we we have to really take the time to vet this and I couldn't tell you the there was a period of time last year when the flashes reflected the development of this concept I do not expect anybody to remember that and I know I write an awful lot in the flashes but I'm happy to you know kind of revive this concept and flush it out more um I do think it

162fits within the confines of thinking about this program evaluation um and considering next steps all right I got two other questions um is there a a age where students kind of age out of our current Futures program yes 22 22 okay well I mean yeah that's when anybody would Age out um you know typically they're getting their diploma 189 right but by state yeah kids can get eligible for 22 um and then are any of the students who have received a diploma through this community evening school program in the past at risk of so there's nobody's going back and and no saying you weren't doing it right and these students are gonna if you can believe it they they were kind of all over the place in terms of their Direction and kind of what

163they need and you know I think there's still some communities running programs like this that like aren't overseen and you know that haven't evolved so no we're not in Risk I think that we we need to evolve with the time and and move forward and try to figure out something that works best for our kids in our community um but in terms of like the decades that we've run this program like it has been useful and beneficial and you know we're going to accept it for that and it's okay good to hear I'll take that as a win thank you any other questions just a quick one so when you take away the traditional timeline for that Futures uh program is that to say that some students can take more than four years to graduate

164or yeah technically yeah they could if they you know something happened where you know trauma happened or they missed it for hospitalization or you know whatever they yeah they could they could extend their time or they you know they can make up time quicker that way too though if you come in and somebody who's credit deficient who we see a lot of um you know they they fail their freshman sophomore year and they're now on a four-year track to graduate at 20 but they come in at their junior year and they're super motivated now they can move as quickly as they want because they're they're really steering their own kind of ship so it benefits a credit recovery model as well for students that you know and maybe even students who who have kids or

165who are working who are just like I just want to be done with high school and you know they're kind of in that that mindset they can come in now and and really work towards that at a pace that could never be accomplished in traditional education how does the Competency Based program um work with the the time on learning requirements so because so this is something that the state is it's a new model there's not a lot of districts doing this matter of fact we I think we'd be like the third model the Third District Public District trying to do this Charter Schools tend to do it more because it's easier to kind of unravel um but the time on learning all of this counts so you need to we need to offer the opportunity

166to um basically have access to this curriculum in this material and have it in such a structured way that the state basically signs off that we're we're accomplishing kind of their their qualifi qualifications uh and this does that so um you know I've worked with the the state with regards to this it also works with like GPA which is a little different because you're not really getting grades so like we got to figure out like how we're transferring the grades into a transcript so kids can apply to college but there's a system that has already been pre-established that we're adopting through the consultant that we hired uh to to make sure that that's that's seamless and there would be no really uh fallbacks from doing something differently that's non-traditional great thank you thank you very

167much Kevin appreciate it that completes my report for this evening thank you all right beautiful uh subcommittee updates so policies me um so Zeke and Sue we had discussed the uh having a subcommittee meeting on Wednesday um there is currently no space available for us for the time we had allocated um or one is not yet been found um Carolyn also has a conflicting meeting so um I didn't know if you wanted to keep pursuing space for a a meeting knowing that superintendent couldn't join us or if we wanted to kind of go back to the drawing board um but I know the meeting hasn't been officially posted yet because we were still trying to deal with space just a question of clarification could you use a classroom at the high school we could use

168anything that the public but that's uh parent teacher conference night so conf rooms at the high school would be more difficult principal brinan and I will touch base okay and so we'll actually Dr Tucker and I as well I'm confident we can find you as space so I don't want you to cancel the meeting based on Space okay you guys okay determine a time for that we said 4 to 6 4 to 6 thank you all right so the policy subcommittee will plan to have our our meeting posted that we will be meeting from 4: to 6: on Wednesday the 5th we just need to finalize the space and then we'll figure out yeah I I think they looked at the conf room and it was scheduled but we'll we'll figure it out tomorrow and

169get it nailed down so we can have a space for Wednesday so okay we'll continue with that and um move forward from there so that's that one uh when it comes to budget um I have nothing of substance to add other than what was already presented um Sue I see you shaking your head to yeah so there's nothing there um for negotiations um I just want to I feel comfortable saying because they have to be uh publicly posted um we have negotiation meetings with the Union on the 10th and the 24th um and in between that on the 12th before our meeting on the 13th there is another uh negotiations meeting um for General planning and discussion it's executive session yeah and it's also executive session um with that said I don't know what else

170I could actually dulge I don't feel comfortable deving anything but if it's okay with the um with the board I'd love to talk with our communications director and our lawyer to make some sort of formal statement yeah no all right thank you very much I I do think I'm comfortable saying that you know they've been very amiable meetings and so far so good yeah I agree beautiful um any updates from any other committees subcommittees all right I would entertain a motion to uh approve the consent agenda as presented so moved second motion a second any comments or questions you just read out the donations sure we have a donation from The saan Pride Foundation to the middlebar high school and we have a do donation from cican lands trust to middlebar high school and support

171of the mlab all in favor I I opposed passes unanimously um and Al would you like to speak to the third annual coola M Fair again well Mr Mr chair through you um feel free to hop up Al um I just wanted to one reiterate it is Saturday the 1st um from 11: to 2 here at Middleboro High School sustainable Middleboro reached out this year and said hey superintendent can you help us um we're looking to drum up you know more business I'm really excited at this partnership it's a newer partnership I'll be there on Saturday I can't wait to see it I'm very proud to tell you we've expanded the yes Club at uh the high school has been wonderfully supportive and I have Britney buy one of our teachers at the uh Nichols

172Middle School who's going to be there representing our middle school but I'm using this as really a launching pad I would really like to build on this I'd like to get elementary students and their families involved in this process um I'll be better equipped next year in order to kind of drum up business earlier I think that would be a big help um but lots to learn I think it's an exciting opportunity for our community to come together um with children at the center so very exciting please come if you can and Al by all means if I messed anything up or said to add since I did go last year um there are a lot of opportunities for um homeowners to learn about uh renewable energy resources options out there for people to come

173and evaluate your homes for better efficiency cost savings um a lot of of information and then there's the great big inflatable whale so even if you have little kids they have something that they can do that's fun while you're trying to figure out out how you can take your old house and actually insulate it better or do something more efficient so it is a u there is enough family friendliness going on that there's at least something for everyone I'm hiring both of you as as PR folks for us I just um U reinforce that I mean part of the idea here is that there are lots of activities for little kids coloring the inflatable whale uh Coastal water Wild Life stuff so the idea is that the kids can get engaged in that and give

174the parents a chance to walk around and talk we've got altogether I think 25 different groups uh coming and and uh uh presenting you know as exhibitors or vendors here uh more than a dozen of them are around home energy improvements uh weatherization uh heat pumps solar power electric vehicles uh we've got information on the kinds of rebates and incentives that you can get through Middleboro Gas and Electric and through the feds and through the state uh for home energy Improvement so there's lots of good information for for homeowners and for for renters um and for families um and a lot of fun stuff and one of the core ideas behind this this is supported by the Harald greenspoon foundation and a group called cooler communities that operates probably in about 10 or 12 districts

175now and part of the core idea is that if we can get students engaged in projects they're not only learning but they're bringing their parents to the the event so it's it's a it's a it's a very Sly model um but we are we are uh as superintendent said we've got uh representation from the middle school science fair from some of the high school uh environmental uh science courses and uh I think it's going to be a lot of fun hope to see people so uh one quick question the inflatable well that's for children of all ages right not just little kids absolutely and and we're also interested in volunteers so if you want to come and kind of play with the whale all day I think we we could we could find a role

176Alan were you wondering if you could attend Alan that's exactly the the point of that question you are welcome you can you can you can do an opening ceremony even you know check it out for the kids thank you thank you very much all right with that uh I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second I have a motion to Second any comments or questions all in favor I opposed passes unanimously thank you very much folks have a good week for