School Committee Meeting - April 13, 2023

001leave it on my way foreign to order the first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance please stand if you're able in joining me in the pledge [Music] before we begin I'd like to express my congratulations regarding the recent Town election and welcome our newest members to our school committee the election was held on Saturday April 1st [Applause] good evening my name is Carolyn Lyons I'm the superintendent of schools acting as moderator Pro tem for the election of the permanent chairperson of the school committee accepting nominations at this time I will ask for nominations for chair of our school committee I would like to nominate Rich Young okay second are there other nominations for this position hearing none discussion I mean Rich Young has been here for as long as I can remember he

002was on the committee when I was in high school he has by far the most experience so I think he's the best for this any other discussion hearing none I will call a vote all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed it's unanimous congratulations chairman Young this is the rest of our Organization for the school committee the chair will open uh nominations for vice chair and with that the chair will make a motion to make uh the Z device chair any other motions for vice chair hearing not all those in favor say aye opposed it's unanimous thank you everybody um chill entertain a motion to make Christine Weston the secretary to the school committee sorry second second discussion Christine is um has had some family issues and does the minutes of our meetings

003and things like that via um uh the television and so she does a really nice job for us and with that all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous chill entertain a motion to uh adopt Robert's Rules Award of the 11th Edition as our guiding force so moved wait a second discussion other than this is what we have in the past um and we'll go forward from there all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous last but not least oh sorry there's two more um chilling today in a motion to hold our meetings the first and third Thursday of the month dire second Harry none all those in favor say aye aye opposed the eyes have it um and last is the signing of warrants uh normally what we do just

004so everyone knows is we as you know the warrants are there in the consent agenda tonight we do have two uh signers It's usually the chair and it has been one other Zeke has stepped up and been the person um what normally happens is we go through the warrants all the warrants that we receive have the bills attached to them so we'll either have a conversation with uh Carolyn Sarah or Pam who's the billing person if we have particular issues and then the warrants come before everyone here tonight it's just the ability to sign and move on there are three levels of warrants that we signed we sign a a warrant for the new high school and all the building that's going on here or the little side things that are still left to be

005that should quite honestly and next month um there's the regular warrants for the committee and then these the final warrant is the meals tax any adult who buys a meal in school or buys anything to do with the cafeteria has to pay tax on that and so we have to fill that out and amazingly every two months it's about a 15 thing that people have to put together the other thing that we sign is the payroll that goes over to the town There's a check and balance system because all those people review it we review it we have individual reviews and then it goes to the town for a review so with that share an entertain a motion for the chair and vice chair to be able to sign the warrants discussion hearing none others

006in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous so that concludes the reorganization the school committee so thank you very much everybody [Music] and with that as Carolyn said we would like to recommend recognize the new members of the school committee Michelle Mr Frawley and Mr Benson so welcome um and uh congratulations to everybody in the election who won and thank you to everybody in the recent election who ran um as all of us know it takes a lot to run for election so thank you um and we'd like to we didn't really have a chance to we'd like to thank the old members too uh Miss barley and Miss jeunesse who uh were excellent members so we want to thank them also um with that shall move to public comment does anyone have a comment

007not on tonight's agenda please if you could just state your name that would be great testing okay perfect um my name is Sarah zagoras and I am here um I have a few concerns I wanted to share uh first thing is the bully plan for middle or Public Schools is outdated uh this bully plan says it's supposed to be updated every two years um at least every two years this bully plan is dated August 25th 2020. um so this is uh much overdue at this point and I'd like it put on the agenda that it is going to be updated and what the plan is for that um the other thing is on the website it's kind of hidden but there are some bully emails that can go to each school I'd like to know

008who's in charge of those because some of them are non-responsive so I'd like it put on the agenda that those will be found out about who is responsible for answering bully concerns at each location um the other thing is I am speaking tonight as a voice for many parents in Middleborough we are concerned about the lack of accountability that exists at Nichols Middle School we are tired of our children not feeling safe at Nichols Middle School and want real actionable change to take place not just be discussed over and over again with no executable steps taken the behavior at the Nichols Middle School is out of control the lack of follow-through and accountability only incites others to make poor choices and continues a cycle of bullying and disruptive classroom and school Behavior the behavior progresses

009from verbal to physical without any real consequences how is keeping our kids safe how is that keeping our kids safe inside the building yes I am concerned about the safety of our kids and people that want to come into our building to harm them but what happens when the harm is in the people that are inside the building are already causing these problems and inflicting harm on students and staff on a regular basis these unresolved and ongoing problems have created so much anxiety in parents at the elementary level who do not want to send their kids to Nichols Middle School how is this okay other parents currently at Nichols Middle School including myself have considered removing our children from the school why you wonder because enough is enough the lack of effective communication from the

010district and the school itself have left many not trusting that our students are being given given an equitable educational opportunity I would also like to address the climate in the building it is basically the land of islands you have teachers on one Island an admin on another there is no bridge between why is this important you ask because the students are left in the middle treading water with some feeling like they are funding for themselves and others just trying to survive each school day how does this reflect the goal of the Middleboro public school system which is to provide a safe and positive and productive educational environment that is free from bullying and cerebral bullying thank you for my hearing my concerns thank you we can't discuss anything so we have a hard copy of

011it absolutely thank you thank you anyone else on anything not in tonight's agenda please go right ahead welcome hello good evening my name is Liam Morrison I live at 519 Wareham Street I'm in the 7th 10th grade at Nichols Middle School I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today I never thought that the shirt I wore to school on March 21st would lead me to speak with you today on that Tuesday morning I was taken out of gym class to sit down with two adults for what turned out to be a very uncomfortable talk I was told that people were complaining about the words on my shirt that my shirt was making some students feel unsafe yes resonance shirt made people feel unsafe they told me that I wasn't in trouble but it sure

012felt like I was I told I was told that I would need to remove my shirt before I could return to class when I nicely told them that I didn't want to do that they called my father thankfully my dad supported my my decisions came to pick me up what did my shirts say five simple words there are only two genders nothing harmful nothing threatening just a statement I believe to be a fact I have been told that my shirt was targeting a protected class who is this protected class are their feelings more important than my rights I don't complain when I see pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the school do you know why because others have a right to their beliefs just as I do not one person staff or student told

013me that they were bothered by what I was wearing actually just the op it several kids told me that they supported my actions and that they wanted one too I experience wait no I was told that the shirt was A disruption to learning no one got up and stormed out of class no one burst into tears I'm sure I would have noticed if they had I experienced disruptions to my learning every day kids acting out in class are A disruption yet nothing is done why did the rules apply to one yet not another I feel like these adults were telling me that it wasn't okay for me to have an opposing view their arguments were weak in my opinion I didn't go to school that day to hurt feelings or cause trouble I have learned

014a lot from this experience I learned that a lot of other students share my view I learned that adults don't always do the right thing or make the right decisions I know that I have a right to where those five a shirt with those five words even at 12 years old they have my own political opinions and I have a right to express those opinions even at school this Ray is called the First Amendment to the Constitution My Hope in being here tonight is to bring the school committee's attention to this issue I hope that you will speak up for the rest of us so we can express ourselves without being pulled out of class next time it may not only be me there might be more students that decides to speak out thank you

015for your time and good night thank you anyone else on public comment saying no one I'm going to move on please go right ahead hi my name is Rebecca um I just had a comment I was at a school committee meeting last year shortly after you while you filed the incident and I'm sorry can you tip the microphone off yeah um and I had brought up concerns with the school safety [Music] particularly at the elementary school and um just with the safety issues about people getting into it and how we really liked Middleboro high and how it has that vestibu that people need to come into and there was discussion about Ace security audit being done at the school to a safety audit um and I was just wondering if that had gotten anywhere and

016if it was followed through I'll just answered that particular question correct sure sure so you would emailed me about this um and we are vetting companies this is in process in terms of trying to decide um who is the appropriate company to do this in order to come to this determination I've been in contact with the Middleboro police department and the Middleboro fire department so this year we spent time talking about whether or not those two departments would conduct uh this security audit for us as you can imagine there are different parties that offer this service and communities are right to be concerned about who's doing that audit and what that agenda might be most recently we're vetting a company that offers this service for free we found some like for example um retired police

017retired fire that do this um but the company that we're looking at right now is called Galaxy okay and they offer a free security audit now in full transparency I have no doubt that this company will want to sell us products following the audit there's no obligation to do so so this has been batted around with other areas superintendents as well so this is something that we're in conversation with but not settled on yet okay all right thank you thank you anybody else with that I will move on um we are having a discussion tonight about a there's a flyer on everyone's place about cooler Middleborough and so I would ask those people to come down and have a conversation about what's going to happen April 29th here at the high school it's a combination

018of sustainable Middleboro and the yes Club so welcome hello so my name is anzo I'm a member of the Middleboro High School yes club and we as you just said are organizing the cooler Middleboro Fair where there's going to be like family activities there's going to be food trucks and we're going to talk about like you know renewable energy and new Energy Efficiency Technologies you can use and add to your house and all that good stuff so it's April 29th 11 to 2 at the Middleboro high school gym and it's free anybody can come you can bring kids and everything um the yes Club is going to have a carbon pledge table where you can go through a spreadsheet and kind of see how your individual actions can influence your carbon footprint um and we

019are also having a student energy competition with the elementary school kids who have made solar cookers and those are going to be on display at the fair thank you hi my name is Ryan and um one of like the organizations that are helping yes Club to run this fair is the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance and they're a local organization that researches the environment and like shares a lot of that research data that helps like support conservation and management efforts for wildlife and yes Club is fostering a diamondback tariff Terrapin from them and they create a lot of community interests and local local wildlife and to the fair they bring a life-size inflatable humpback whale which is a great opportunity for children to learn about more like nature and Wildlife stuff thank you hello Miss

020French hello and I'm Kimberly French I'm one of the leaders of sustainable Middleboro and I just want to say all right thank you to Mr Harris who's the sponsor of the yes club and to these great students it has been a thrill for us to be able to partner with them to put together this Fair we've been planning it for a long time there'll be lots of different activities if as you've just heard the energy competition of the students they'll be the I can't wait to go inside the inflatable whale I'm very excited about that but our part of it is that we are bringing uh local contractors for heat pumps insulation we'll have an electric vehicle event this is the first EV event that our rebate provider energy New England has had in three

021years it will be here in the parking lot outside the gym you'll be able to meet people who have EVs and learn about how you can get those Federal rebates that are coming which are very large this year and it's for anyone who is interested in any of those kinds of Technology oh and also we have a um we'll have a solar consultant on hand so any of those Technologies insulation heat pumps solar and electric vehicle vehicles um it's one stop you can come you can get your audit with energy New England you can talk to Middleboro Gas and Electric there about what rebates are available to you you can learn about the federal rebates that are coming and you can get sign up for estimates with those folks so I left a flyer for

022each of you um I will also send you our social media posts I would love to have your help help us with promoting this Fair we like to have a good turnout and um I'd like to personally invite each of the school committee members to come by uh Saturday April 29th 11 to 2 p.m in the gym as well as everyone here and everyone listening on cable TV so thank you very much for letting us tell you about our Fair we're excited about it thank you does anyone have any questions for these guys I have just one sure right ahead uh Ryan or both students can you tell us what yes Club stands for oh yes it's um the youth environmental social society and it oh go ahead I was just gonna say we do

023a lot of like we'll do the recycling in the schools we do trash cleanups the Terrapin as he said so that kind of thing if I were a student that wanted to join your Club could you tell me when it meets and how I might join yeah yes so you can join by just dropping by it's not really much of a commitment it's on Wednesdays at 2 p.m to 3. so you can stop by it's what's your room number 159 it's in Mr Harris's room which is room 159 so it's fun thank you thank you students thank you Mr Harris thank you Miss French thank you yes before everyone goes I do want to take time to thank Mr Harris because not only being a science teacher here at the high school and running the

024yes Club Mr Harris has put a considerable number of hours as a member of the building committee for this new high school and so I do want to thank him for his time and we are thankfully finishing up that committee hopefully next month but I know how much time he put in an effort he put in and I know how much he did to help out especially with the teachers making sure that people were picking the things they wanted for their classroom so Mr Harris I want to thank you personally for that and uh say thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything that you did and thank you for coming and um I will definitely try to be there the 29th and looking forward to it it sounds very interesting and sounds

025like a great opportunity for everyone in the town and correct me if I'm wrong Kim it is open to everyone whether you're a renter or a homeowner there are lots of opportunities for everybody absolutely um we'll have information about um people who have our income limited how they can get the get the SE kinds of things paid for and anybody in town and it's open and it's actually open to people in other towns too it's free open to the public we our information in our section will be focused on Middleborough which is a little unusual because we have a municipal utility but but a lot of you know the contractors will go anywhere I'm sure so thank you very much thank you uh next item on the agenda is reports from school committee members does

026anyone have anything they wish to mention go redhead Jeff thank you thank you so thank you everyone I wanted to start by echoing um chairman Young's comments about thanking Megan Teresa for their their time on the school committee I know that they had hoped they would have a final meeting before the election to say some words and they fortunately did not have that opportunity um I also want to just take a moment to um thank the student services team they organized a very powerful family strong event presentation by Jim McCauley of the Riverside trauma uh Center which was on suicide prevention it was live streamed I don't know if it was recorded and you can go watch it but I'm seeing nods so hopefully that means yes but it was a very impactful evening and

027so I just want to thank everybody for coordinating that and to end with I'm not going to speak specifically to anything that Liam mentioned from his personal perspective but I do want to mention that after that event and hearing the Staggering numbers of uh death by Suicide for young people in our country and in Massachusetts um that with in 2020 suicide was the second leading cause of death for people from ages 10 to 14 and that was really staggering for me and to see protesters on public property outside the middle school today holding signs that could potentially trigger uh feelings of Despair in students of that age was very disappointing to me I felt like it was um very potentially harmful to children to see those as they were trying to come to school and

028go about their school day so thank you yes any other school Community member have anything I wish to mention Chris I've just had a number of parents contact me about the uh bullying intervention plan so I know it's a second if we could get that on the agenda sure thank you um anybody else I do want to mention one thing to the community and that is April 24th is town meeting night um so just remind me it's Monday In This Very Room so just a reminder there and with that I'll turn it over to Nate Nate welcome foreign hello everyone um so to start off with the Mech um the PTA coordinated a fundraiser recently that created quite a bit of excitement at the mech uh classes competed to collect change which also turned into

029cash and checks and the class that collected the most money got to apply the principal uh we had a whole school assembly where each student in the winning class got to gently place a whipped cream pie in the principal's face each t-shirt also had the opportunity to put some pie in the face and um a little concerned about how excited the kids and staff were but all fun and games um this week there's another fundraiser where students and staff will go to the gym for a dance-a-thon and students got sponsored by family members and friends and students have also been studying space with lots of fun and engaging space related activities so from the mkg um they started MCAS testing for this year all the students are working hard during their test sessions recently they

030had two authors Ralph Fletcher in fourth in grade four and Brian lease in grade one Soul Farm has been visiting Mr O'Brien's grave 5 and Miss cronin's fourth grade class each Monday afternoon the classes have met farm animals learn about what they eat and fibers such as spinning wool they worked outside with simple machines that we use every day the students also learned about seeds soil and planting the students have also had the opportunity to walk around the high school to visit the my lab space and work with Power Tools hand tools engrave on leather view a 3D printer at work and visit the greenhouse house and how it works and then for the MHS thank you to Ali Crowley Izzy Mosley Alexa Scanlon Tristan sieberts in Johann lovestad for help with providing Child Care

031during the family strong Community event and we are so grateful for you guys help thank you to the student council for representing our school at the cmask spring conference at Plymouth North High School you truly represent the best of orange and black well done a special congratulations to Mr Wrench for receiving the Excellence in technology in teaching AP biology award for Mass Insight education and quarter three report cards will be released to all students and families on Friday April 14th at 2 pm through Aspen and class of 2024 College boot camp will be happening this summer you can sign up through Brands bulletin and contact Miss Hill or Miss Connor with any questions and then finally orientation leader applications will be available beginning Monday April 24th and see Mr Brannigan with any questions thank you

032any questions for Nick again you're getting off and using it so congratulations thank you very much for all you that you do and with that I'll turn it over the superintendent's report thank you chairman young before I enter into the agenda items um if it's okay I would like to respond to miss chartoff's report um it is my duty to address what happened this morning as a citizen as a woman and as your superintendent I received messages today with the degree of concern about why I didn't email or send a communication about what happened that choice was mine I chose not to email because I knew I had this meeting tonight and what I had to say I wanted to communicate orally this morning two individual adults arrived at the base of tiger drive and

033stood on public property not school property while they held two signs as this is the only entrance to the building every student family and staff member entering the property saw the content of these signs the individuals were there starting at about 7 A.M and remained there for about an hour today's the second last day of school before a period of break further our middle school students took an MCAS exam today and they did their very best to put their best foot forward despite this occurrence when I presented to this Committee in January I discussed what I described as a community issue namely the need for the Dei task force and the need to start having conversations about issues that are characteristically hot button this continues to be a community issue it occurred on public property

034and it was not endorsed or sponsored by the school district in any way as a community today we failed to model what a productive conversation looks like and sounds like for our children today our division defined us instead of our similarities today our children were caught in the crossfire of a debate that doesn't belong at their feet it doesn't belong at their Schoolhouse this is unacceptable to me our children deserve the right to go to school in a safe and supportive environment as the superintendent of 3200 students here in Middleboro I don't get to choose what people think when I told you that I would represent all students and Families it invited a degree of disagreement when have 3 200 people ever agreed on anything this is no exception the dividing line for me as

035this District's leader is when all students are not protected not accepted for who they are and told either directly or indirectly that they don't belong here in Middleboro as a community we talk a lot about safety and the need for our children to attend schools that are safe two weeks ago we confronted yet another school shooting in our country and I heard from many parents about safety I heard about structural concerns of our facilities I heard about fears and worries I share those concerns as an educator as a parent and as a citizen exposing our children to messages that marginalize groups of students is a safety issue mental health is a significant issue facing our children today this is an issue that existed before the last few years and it only worsened since 2020. student

036rates of self-harm and suicidal ideation are at rates that are simply terrifying we must Safeguard against anything that harms our students Mental Health failing to model measured and reasonable discourse is also a safety issue whether we like it or not our culture needs to cultivate a practice of unpacking disagreement in a respectful way that protects our children our children are always watching us they model their behavior based on what we show them I think we can do better I insist that we do better on behalf of every student in the Middleboro Public Schools I've spent the past nine months talking to members of this community I've spoken with students parents staff community members school committee members while I talk at length about this later in this presentation I've been collecting this information in an effort

037to improve our system there are lots of opinions to consider when trying to improve anything respectfully it's the students voices that matter the most to me they and all the other groups I mentioned have told me that they want Middleboro public schools to be a safe place for all students I will be renewing our effort to achieve respectful discourse on matters of disagreement specifically racial Equity diversity and inclusion I will be calling on Town leaders to join me in this cause I will be seeking the opinion of employees families and most of all students in this effort as I've told you before I don't hold all of the answers I will not be able to solve a community issue alone most importantly I will only allow our children and the protection of those children to

038be our compass with that said on a much lighter note I would like to open up tonight's report by recognizing our Middleborough parent teacher Association and specifically Miss Ashley farini and if you would like to come to the table I would like to talk a little bit about you as we get going tonight welcome Miss farini Miss farini is our Massachusetts PTA secretary and the Mary Kay good PTA vice president I've invited her here tonight to talk about the important work that goes on every day by this Association what Miss farini is probably not going to lead with and tell you is that she is also the recent recipient of the Carol Woodbury leadership award from April 2023. Carol Woodbury was the president of the Massachusetts PTA from 1999 to 2002 and during her term

039she inspired units across the state to work together and form positive relationships with school administrations and Community Carol continues to work on behalf of students parents and teachers in Massachusetts now that she works as a superintendent Miss farini models all of these principles we are very fortunate to have her and I've invited her here tonight to talk about the work that goes on every day with our parent-teacher associations some of the activities and initiatives you're going to hear about tonight are things like the employee break room makeovers the bottle filler stations basketball hoops playground equipment sponsored field trips for zero costs to families other enrichment activities for zero cost to families t-shirts additional school pride clothing this work is critical and with that I would like to say thank you to miss farini congratulations and

040if I will turn your slides as you tell me to move them perfect well I had reached out to um oh is that me with the feedbacks okay I reached out to this close that's scary they usually don't need a microphone I'm loud enough all right well recently I reached out to um chairman Mr Young because the Mary Kay good is undergoing a huge project which we'll get to at the the end of the slides but when I was approached by Mrs Lyons I was hoping the award wouldn't be brought up but thank you it was a big big to do mainly because this year Massachusetts PTA brought the annual meeting to Middleboro originally our thought we reached out to Mr Brannigan we wanted to be in the beautiful high school but it was the

041same day as Town elections so my second best choice in town was the bertwood School of Performing Arts um the space was donated to us to use for all the leaders in Massachusetts and we all met for a very long long day we showcased student work from around the whole entire State as well as the meeting was led by some of our middleware students as well from across the district which I thought was pretty cool a lot of people here at PTA and they're like they look the other way they're like no no I don't want to be involved um it's the commitment is yours whether it's an hour a year or 100 hours a year um you could come to every meeting you don't have to come to any meeting you just have to

042want to be involved and make a difference many people think that PTA is all about fundraising which is like nails on a chalkboard to me PTA is not an ATM right PTA is there to help the district with education um the welfare of the Children Health we're there to make the difference we are there to support the students the staff the family the community um and for everybody right just just like we were just were talking about every child one voice it's our voice they need us um you can switch the slide so I know it was mentioned but I just wanted to say that when we do our fundraising some things that we do touch upon are teacher chosen enrichments field trip buses we fulfill books for the libraries and the classrooms we definitely

043have teacher appreciation weeks throughout the district we assist in copying and Communications we have supplied devices such as Elmo's MC systems and portable speakers for our staff Book Fairs which Supply our Science Spin and Scholastic News magazines for all grades throughout the district we host annual fun runs readathons dance-a-thons all the authons we pie our principles we slime our principles um we have holiday events or inclusive to all holidays not just Christmas the update recess equipment and structures and during covid we did provide the social distance markers and anything else that was needed for the classrooms one of our biggest accomplishments at Mary K good was our fun run three years ago four too many years to count we we wanted to update our water fountains this is an actual picture of one of our

044water fountains um and the students were able to raise enough money to purchase their refillable water stations for the entire Mary Kay good um they're beautiful they're maintained by the district um and it's just pretty cool that the Fun Run if you ever have a chance to volunteer all the kids get a free t-shirt sponsored by local companies they come out they have their running shoes on they run they skip they hop they dance every single student is involved whether they've raised funds or not there's no identity of the highest earner or anything it's the best event in my opinion that we have all year the Specialists really help us the PTA members come it's amazing so it's usually in the fall so I do invite all of you to come and help next year

045here's some pictures of past fun runs there's an example of all the local businesses we have you know our usual ryco elements asphalt thing and Waterman Roofing these these amazing Community businesses are always there to help the students so it's it's awesome I love that Community feel with our fundraisers um some enrichments for all grades storytellers authors Scholastic News anti-bullying speakers you name it PTA funds it it's just a couple pictures we have toe jam puppet band which I know goes to several of the schools an author all the fun stuff um two years ago post covid coming back Mary Kay good wanted to show the teachers that we appreciated them you know I'm a home-cooked meal wasn't just enough they were told they had two hours to pack up everything they needed and go

046home and teach from a screen so Upon returning to Mary Kay good um Stephanie hewins our president looked into the break room and said let's do this so we took their old break room we got donations from wood Palace and Skyland all from local businesses and with help from the custodians we labored the whole project and got it done over February vacation the hardest part was keeping this a secret no one including Mrs White knew Hutch was amazing to help us keep this all under wraps so we put a big bow on the door and they came in from February vacation and I wish I recorded I made Miss Donna gimano cry which was one of my biggest success stories of all PTA it was amazing and I know hbb recently redid theirs too so

047this is something that the district across the board really really wanted to give the teachers and threw up some other mkg PTA happenings our annual touch-a-chalk holiday shop you name it we've beautified the school we've given ice cream to the teachers it's just there's nothing bad I can say about the PTA it's something that fuels me that keeps me going the month the monthly meetings are an hour to an hour and a half but the memories last forever you know they're not talking about the test they took on Tuesday they're talking about seeing their best friend at Touch a Truck they're talking about running their fifth lap at the Fun Run they're talking about how many books they read for the readathon PTA in my eyes of the memory makers so what's next for Mary

048Kay good this is Mr Young this is what I've been bothering you for this is our next Endeavor we are putting in a double slide over at our first and second grade playground we're putting a Gaga pit in the centralized pavement area we're putting Swings with an adac in the second third and fourth grade area and we're putting a one pole centralized shade area for all classes to use as an outdoor playground and that's coming in soon a week or two so we're really looking forward to that I think it's needed the bigger kids have been asking for slides but I mean for swings the little kids are asking for the slides so we've been able to fulfill both of those with this funding it did come from our most recent fund run so we

049wanted to thank the parents for all their support and why PTA well because we're the the reason why is because schools were making a difference in Education Health and the welfare of Children and Youth we're building strength in the community and supporting the students and of course we're having fun while doing it there's Mrs White completely Green from slime and I just wanted to show you that this is a glimpse into our Massachusetts state PTA meeting that was held two weeks ago over 100 attendees from across the entire state um Middleboro PTA volunteered their time to make sure it ran smoothly and like I said we had students that led the Pledge of Allegiance assisted with lunch it was great to see that leaders from all around the state could come to one building in

050our hometown and all have the same goals thank you Mrs Freeney does anybody have questions the one question I have is if somebody outside of the you know the school Community wanted to donate how would they get in touch so each PTA has a different email address I think most of the town ptas have Facebooks but I would suggest maybe going to the principal for that email address most principals will be able to get in touch with the board other questions Jessica it's not a question it's it's a thank you I think everyone that has a child at mkg knows how tirelessly you work and how hard you work um I think people from all the other schools also recognize that too so I just wanted to let you know that it doesn't go unnoticed

051all of your work and all the work from the PTA so thank you thank you as well tirelessly was the adjective I thought of as well so thank you for all you do but also all you encourage the ptas across the state to do as well thank you very much thank you guys and I'm just going to plug our Touch a Truck it's May 6 so please all come 11 to 3 at the Mary Kay good school please come it's a lot of fun thank you [Applause] I'm just have to regain control over that okay so with that I'm going to turn into the much anticipated entry plan of findings um I have talked to you about this a couple of times I started this process in August presenting my initial entry plan and I

052am back to report out on what I've been up to for the last nine months and what my findings were I'm going to begin with starting the writing of the next chapter of the Middleboro Public Schools the past three years in education have been challenging whether you were a student family member or an educator as a community we navigated a Public Health crisis changing in brand new models of Education including A disruption to that education and a deeply divided climate that highlighted more differences among community members and similarities in the wake of this unsettled times are the children and the families of the Middleboro Public Schools who rightfully wonder what's the next chapter hold we are indeed at a Crossroads with our children gaps and greater mental health needs than ever before while still needing

053the preparation to become successful Global Citizens as we exit this time of Crisis we enter into a new era in public education and we must develop a new strategy for continuous Improvement this strategy must address the needs of all Learners and must be drafted to foster a safe place where staff and students are supported in their individual Paths of growth as professionals and as students learning belonging and transparent communication must be the pillars upon which this work stands what I'm going to be doing this evening is giving you an oh oops I went the wrong way it's giving you an overview one day I'll get that right of what this report is and is not the entry plan of findings is a report of data review information collected and identified Trends in that information I'll

054review this process the information that I collected and reviewed and explain the emerging trends of our district this entry plan of findings will not present Solutions and it is not designed to do that very specifically because Solutions have to come from very specific sources specifically the next strategic plan and District strategy a process that consults stakeholders and finally an effort to calibrate our intervention to maximize impact so I don't want anyone thinking that I'm just afraid to posit a solution where I to do that I'd be skipping over a very critical part of this process so by way of review there were three phases to this entire plan phase one involved that collection of data that's where that's where we were between August and really March um phase two is the presentation of the findings

055and after tonight we will move into phase three developing the strategy with the goal of having this completed for next school year the work of the net of the past nine months has consisted of a smattering of collection of data that I could count see and hear what that means and we'll go to the next slide at some point and I'll tell you about all the documents I read not every piece of information that you review is a document so I went to events I attended meetings I had face-to-face meetings I had virtual meetings I had five parent listening sessions I assembled two superintendent roundtables and I meet with those students with the assistance of both principals about every month to every other month it kind of depends I'm always having a meeting but I'm

056not always meeting with each group every month um I've had various meetings with stakeholders including community-based organizations the teachers and staff Administration and most importantly our classroom and school visits simply put you cannot know what's going on in school by just reading a document you have to be in the classroom you have to be in the hallway you have to be in the cafeteria so that you understand what's actually transpiring in those buildings I gave you this slide so that you could see the list of data that I did review I would hate for anybody to think that I didn't spend this time conducting Earnest research about the information available about this school system that includes the previous strategy school committee policies Financial audits I'm not going to go through each one but student discipline

057data attendance data the bullying and intervention plan which I'll be talking about the bullying prevention and intervention plan excuse me which I'll be talking about that later Union contracts the district curriculum and combination plan the the number of documents that were reviewed is part of what takes so long you have to do both things if you want to be thorough in your research so before I get into my findings you know I'm sensitive to the fact that when you are in the position of trying to create you know a called document of your findings it can be hard to hear things about your community and it's important that we take the time to celebrate tremendous areas of strength in this community which is why I'm beginning here in this part of the report it cannot

058be stated enough and if you've ever watched my presentations over the last 11 years in Middleboro you'll know that I always lead with talking about the quality of our staff hands down it is the single biggest area of strength simply put we have very committed employees in the report I cited that just this past September we celebrated over 27 staff members who have committed to this district for either 20 or 25 years just in this year alone they join a group of other staff who've already committed and achieved that milestone it goes beyond what their degrees are it goes beyond their expertise and what they've learned over the years these are people who are leaders in our system these are the people who during covid switched models on the Fly and did what they had

059to do for our kids I will never be able to say enough about the quality of our staff and that's why the report began there but it doesn't end there because oh sorry I skipped this I put that all in one let me go back there we go um the established Traditions events and celebrations are truly a Hallmark of this community in the report the full report I included some of the events I'm talking about I'm talking about the senior grad walk where our graduates walk through all five campuses on a day in June right before they graduate and you have to just look at the faces of some of our youngest Learners to see why that's so important I'm talking about our AP rally principal Branigan and I were actually there together this fall

060both talking about our experiences as students either as AP students or not as AP students you know a million and one years ago our Unified sports that are not only growing and expanding down to the middle school but highly celebrated our nms Winter Carnival the hbb big blast that mkg fun run the Mec Halloween parade although I will tell you I attended a dance-a-thon this week that might rival the Halloween parade that was a lot of fun literacy weeks our graduation week and Senior week for our kids the list goes on and on but this is what the fabric of this community is the fact that we are a community of people that continually celebrate all of what's truly wonderful about our kids says everything about who lives here who chooses to be here and

061the students who walk our Halls every day community support and pride is another Avenue that I highlighted as an area of strength simply put it's not just about Middleboro Public Schools it's about our Greater Community it's about the Middleboro fire department and the Middleboro Police Department who partner with us every single day they play an essential and critical role in the Safety and Security of our school Community they have a regular presence in all of our buildings they're members of our district Emergency Response Team which we affectionately refer to as dirt they'd conduct regular training um and to be honest with you for years we've had two school resource officers to support our system in just this month we welcomed a third member only further evidencing these groups commitment to our school system and safety

062the town departments in Middleboro are equally as supportive in the proposed FY 24 budget the town of Middleboro is supporting a five percent increase in spending in our schools a number that is significantly higher than previous years increases and they're also supporting two Capital planning projects to assist in the um excuse me the maintenance of our facilities and technological infrastructure that's above and beyond what's already in the budget while the town departments have long supported our school systems and we've successfully avoided any overrides in well over 10 years the increases in spending really exemplify the financial commitment the town has made to our schools that does not happen in every town some towns regularly fight about this money and Middleborough is really lucky because we don't the Middleboro all sports boosters Association is a group

063that I would be remiss if I didn't mention this group was created to help support Athletics which can be very costly masba was first created when we were experiencing Financial tougher times tighter times and it forced cuts to sub-varsity sports and Middle School sports and now they help supplement our athletic department with additional funding that's generated through Community donations and fundraising this board is parents community members School Employees and it's a major strength finally I'm I've also highlighted Community groups like The Middleboro Rotary Club they've been a long-standing source of support to our school system for several years they have supported the rotary raise program in an effort to provide additional and targeted assistance to approximately to elementary students in math and English language arts this program has existed for over 10 years these are

064very established Community Partners with long-standing commitments to our school system and a tremendous area of strength I also highlighted did Miss farini leave I also highlighted her a parent oh good our parent and caregiver groups I was hoping she wasn't going to leave so she could hear this part um we are more than fortunate with groups like PTA with groups like our CPAC the parent strong parent Cafe program and school counsel these groups are pure investment made by our parents and caregivers of our students and they fundraise and fund a multitude of opportunities things that level a playing field for many of our students enrichment opportunities and inroads that they otherwise wouldn't have I could go on and on about our about our family and caregiver groups but I think it's important to note that

065we are fortunate to have such a deep set of families that regularly commit not just their money but their time and their effort and their Sweat Equity into what we do every day another area of strength is what I'm calling a compreh our comprehensive services and resources to meet the needs of all Learners simply put what I just described to you means we are a well-funded school system and with that with that funding comes a really deep set of services and and resources that go right into the hands of children every day we have in the special education department four different administrative positions in special education coordinators that is not something that you see in most communities we also have special education support specialist positions who are essentially coaches to special ed teachers to deepen

066their skill set while special ed in most systems is overseen by principals and assistant principles only these resources are remarkable because of its Financial investment and what that means in terms of understanding the wide variety of things a principal is responsible for responsible for every day the curriculum Department recently experienced an investment in two new curriculum coordinator positions who each have a focus on curriculum from the humanities or step or stem perspective this also this model also involves coaching once again the purpose of coaching is to improve and deepen the skill set of teachers it is a resource to teachers we can all agree that our students have a wide variety of needs and sometimes it becomes a numbers game when there is one adult in that room that person is very limited in in

067their reach the more support we give them the stronger the instructional model that we have the technology department also has been recently reconfigured and it also supports an entirely one-to-one initiative in students for students in grades K through 12. this department has grown exponentially since 2020 and these expenses represent not just devices for students but updated technology for teachers clear touch panels and classrooms and then infrastructure for Wi-Fi connectivity finally the student services department is the district's newest Department serving the mental health needs of students and staff alike this department is Central in the creation of a truly wrap-around model of support in our school community and I can't say this enough this is some Cutting Edge stuff when there are Cuts in other districts this is what gets cut Middleboro has expanded this over

068the years and that's been going on for well over a decade because I think Middleboro for a long time has had this vision this department includes a family resource coordinator and a mental health liaison designed to address staff-based needs another first of its kind together these resources really represent just significant expenditure and investment in comprehensive education finally what I'm calling our final area of strength is our critical review of structures and procedures simply put it can be hard to conduct really an autopsy of your own Corpus and what I am struck by is this community's bravery their vulnerability and their desire to tell me all the ways that we need to improve there are communities that hide behind these deficits and Middleborough is not that what's amazing about that is our capacity for growth under

069those conditions um what I talked about in this section was that you know one of the benefits of selecting an internal candidate for superintendent meant that I would be able to draw on my relationships that I already had I didn't have to spend a year meeting everybody um and to that end there's a lot that's already been put into motion this year one of those is the professional Development Council which actually came out of our negotiations process with the teachers this was designed to improve the quality of professional development for our Educators but it doesn't stop there we created a Labor Relations Committee we've redesigned the leadership team and purpose there's been an entire Wellness initiative based model just for staff not to exclude children but really just hyper focused on on the adults that

070work in the system a Communications guide and process that you'll hear more about later today the establishment and reconfiguration of student services in the other departments I just mentioned the expansion of the central administrative offices to School Street and currently an ongoing review of Human Resources procedures what strikes me as so unique about Middleborough is that nobody feels like we've always done it this way and that's just fine what I'm hearing out of our community is an appetite for change and that's inspiring and it makes me want to be all that I can to make sure I'm bringing that change to you every week or every month or every day with that I'm going to turn to our emerging trends these are the areas where taken together I was able to see certain themes come

071through essentially the first Trend I found is one of collaboration and communication nobody wants to feel like a helpless passenger in a public school system not the teachers and staff not the students not the parents everybody wants to play a valued role and and they absolutely should they need to be made aware of what's Happening students want to feel like they have a voice in what's happening in their learning they want that autonomy this is something they tell me every time I meet with them and they want to assist in the creation of culture in fact the students see with the most laser focus some of our biggest episodes and they're quite eloquent in telling me about it I collected this information through interviews meetings surveys all sorts all sorts of things and it couldn't

072be clearer this community wants greater transparency they want communication from the public school system and I hope that you're already seeing that as a shift from July to the present I know that everybody appreciates weekly newsletters or classroom newsletters that go home but they are desirous of other mechanisms like a district-wide calendar of events and a greater effort by Administration to actually communicate about the general ongoings of each department they like Concepts like coffee talks and opportunities for families to come and have face-to-face conversations these are things that I think should continue on a regular basis I've talked a little bit already about the student the superintendent's Roundtable but I have no inclination to curtail if anything I'll be expanding that to include fourth and fifth graders in the years to come one of the

073most powerful meetings I sit in every month is that meeting principal Branigan and I have talked about it at length um the most important voice in the room is always our children if we're smart enough to listen to it so what that theme really talks about is making sure that your central office administration and your building principles are creating a space at the table where everybody has a seat and that every seat is actually valued similarly child find obligations are an area that have already been addressed and expanded and frankly are a continued area a continued needed area of focus we often uh worry about our youngest students the power of intervention at a young age can't be underscored enough and unless young children and I'm saying that means children younger than three um if

074they are not already identified with early intervention or referred by a guardian we're not always aware that difficulties exist until that child gets to kindergarten that's extremely late to intervene um what the district has done is Adopt a new model of Early Childhood Outreach drop-in days in January and March to increase our effort and be more proactive and less reactive to this obligation we're trying to make sure that families know what resources are available to them even if they're not yet at school age this has to be a continued area of focus because this age group is an age group that missed out in the last couple of years and they have ground to make up similarly special education family supports and resources are another area of increased collaboration and communication there was an extended

075school year program evaluation recently conducted and there were certain aspects of that program that really needed to be addressed such as greater communication such as parent information events so that we could capitalize on helping parents navigate students transitioning out of public education these are things that are ongoing CPAC is another group the special education parent advisory Council and attendance within this group can be somewhat minimal and inconsistent so we should continue to explore ways to engage our parents we hear all the time about how confusing that process is we should be making efforts to make sure we're ushering parents into supportive situations like the CPAC yeah my next emerging Trend I called leadership and governance simply put our data is telling us that we ultimately need to focus more intently on teaching and learning our

076director of curriculum Dr Terry marcolitis actually presented her entry plan in November of 2022 and I don't have any desire to re recreate the wheel if you go back to her report I actually included pieces of it here what she identified was vertical and horizontal alignment at our elementary complex vertical alignment and curriculum instruction and Grading practices throughout the district updating our evaluation process to meet State guidelines review and revising the process for improved transitions in students from grades five to six eight to nine including use of data that reflects academic achievement and social emotional needs continue to provide targeted professional development working with the building and District administration to address curriculum and instructional needs as they arise and then striving for a culture of learning and growth for all of our members in our

077community the next item is really the um I mean there's assessment data that I could recap which ultimately what work you know at the end of the day what it's showing us I don't want to belabor the assessment data I've really talked about this at length and how valuable assessment data is because it does provide a benchmark but how dangerous it is to Define our children by single measures so I don't want to give this short shrift but what I what I need to tell you is that we ultimately need to address curriculum if we are concerned about standardized testing performance that's the Avenue that's the trend that's coming through I think that's the most Fair way to talk about it in the context of our kids um I can share that in the world

078of MCAS alternative portfolios our numbers are actually decreasing there is a state rule that ultimately tells you you can't have more than one percent of your population taking this assessment and as your previous director I can tell you we were slightly above that at 1.4 but we hovered around that for a string of years this year under the direction of director Healy we are now at one percent and that's a good sign that means that we're pushing kids to take that test and as well we should be not because the test is so great but because if they can do it we should be supporting it kids will rise to the bar wherever we set it so the higher the bar the better the outcome there's also been review of curriculum process that's yet another

079area that has truly been something that we've needed for some time Dr marcolitis laid out a very comprehensive plan with multiple phases addressing each curricular area it's comprehensive and it's exactly what we need to be focusing on I talked about professional development already just a bit but this is a continued area of need really looking at professional learning communities which we call plcs and making sure that this is a strong model to support our Educators is important and then addressing special education areas for non-special Education staff what I'll tell you is this district is really rich with expertise in special education admittedly I have a lot of experience with this Personnel so I can tell you firsthand just how talented they are but what often happens is special education tends to get special education professional

080development but they're already the experts in that area we need to cultivate a plan to expand that knowledge base so that if you're a biology teacher you have a deep skill set for how to differentiate and address special education needs even if you aren't licensed in that area per se finally I said systems in process as my last item of this emerging Trend systems in process is an area where you have probably already seen me hard at work shifting things but the emerging Trends in these areas are work that still needs to be done so the first area I want to highlight is human resources we need to cultivate a practice of onboarding and training staff that meets our needs we have a summer program called staff strong which is great you know there's truthfully

081there's a hiring season and we're about to hit it where we hire people in the springtime and we onboard them in the summer and they are ready for when school begins but we don't just hire then if you're hiring in October November and December those people did not get the benefit of that training so we need a comprehensive system for how to onboard that includes our substitutes people who are walking into the building for the first time need a healthy sum of Education before they're put with our children there are other Human Resources processes that also need to be addressed like Recruitment and hiring Performance Management employee handbooks these are things that are all in need of review try to remember that we have no human resources department the way human resources are tackled currently

082is through central office specifically my office and Ms hickey's office and while I think we do an okay job I think that this needs closer review and arguably down the line some degree of financial investment we are a massive Department we have a lot of needs and it Bears worth you know having a conversation about how to best meet those needs um there are other systems that also need examination those are things like student handbooks and discipline processes consistency of practice and Alignment are critical across all five buildings what happens to your child at Nichols should not be different from what happens at the high school these are things that need to be addressed I also highlighted The Bullying prevention and intervention plan but I'm happy to tell you Kevin avatable through the director of

083student service has already started to attack this model we've already consulted the model procedure which is what our current procedure is based on the state will give you a model what I talked with Mr avatable about already is engaging the community I think we have to bring the community in to talk about hey do we all agree on what bullying is and how can we help how can we best support our kids understanding this so that they advocate for themselves and so that they upstand with one each other with one another you know so I see this as being ongoing work but not far around the corner it isn't something you're going to have to wait for for like another year that's that's not really what I'm thinking um in terms of safety this is

084again I mean this was in the report before a couple of weeks ago but safety is safety and our process is not new what makes safety tricky is that I can't be completely transparent about our safety procedures and I'm not doing that to be deceptive I'm doing that to protect the babies you can't tell everybody everything if we want to be secure in our practice what I can assure you is I take my lead from the Middleboro police department and the Middleboro fire department why because I'm an educator and they're First Responders they're the ones who know I am going to be looking at our district Emergency Response Team and I I think that this is a group that needs to stay responsive and adaptive quite honestly this is something that changes I'm sad to

085say that with each successive event we learn something new about this process so no one is resting on their Laurels no one is you know taking the safety of students anything other than intensely seriously but you have to put some some thought behind how you're going to shift before you shift and this one is particularly painful for parents because I can't come and talk for hours and hours like I do on every other topic and I know that's frustrating next Trend I'm going to keep going is our sense of belonging and I touched on this already tonight but school and District culture I will tell you I'm specifically talking about the culture at the Nichols Middle School but not exclusively the culture at the Nichols Middle School firstly I'm talking about student engagement Panorama is

086a new platform that we onboarded last school year last school year to give us some hard data behind social and emotional skills of kids it's really easy to fall into a pattern of he's okay he can advocate for himself that's not very scientific so that's what this data does it draws on student surveys and asks them what they think or if the child is very young it's a teacher perception survey because you can't really ask a five-year-old a lot about that sort of thing but this is an area that we need to improve what I learned in looking at this data in terms of Engagement is that really only 50 to 60 percent of our students are attending school at rates that really exemplify preparation for the next step discipline data shows a slightly higher

087percentage at 83 to 87 percent but that's of students with no incidence it only kind of balloons from there that other 13 to 17 percent and academic performance reveals lower performance at the secondary level with only 32 to 37 percent of students performing in an A B range that tells me we're missing our kids from an engagement standpoint and there's more that we can be doing sense of belonging continues to be a major indicator of student engagement happiness and connectedness to learning we are trying to create lifelong Learners and in order to do that they have to like school they don't have to love it they have to like it and they definitely cannot hate it this just continues to be an area that requires attention not just for the reasons I talked about this

088evening I've talked about this a couple of times this year this is about having a strong teacher student relationship and connection actually feeling like you belong to clubs and groups in sports and drama I mean it doesn't really matter what you belong to but you gotta belong to something and then staying with that level of Engagement we've had our share of incidents in this community and I just think we have to address them I was talking with one parent and I was so struck by what that parent told me she told me to excel we need more honest discussion not just grades but schools the kids behaviors drugs crime the pressure she told me honest discussion needs to happen and I hear her in my voice in the middle of the night sometimes because I

089just think she's so right I think it's the least I can do to be the one to stand up and say let's do this I may not do it right and I'm definitely not always eloquent but I'm willing to do it if you are building culture varies from building to building but I will tell you that I have had an intense focus on the Nichols Middle School this year and I agree that intervention is warranted students have told me this the staff have told me this the families have told me this I do not think that the issues at the Nichols Middle School are caused by any one particular issue or any one particular Avenue it is a conglomeration of many factors and quite honestly we need to have consistency of practice organization and systems

090of intervention and building Vision I am working intensely with that school Personnel right now so that we can identify our next leader and I'm confident in our ability to do it finally and this might be my favorite trend I believe that as I said earlier that we are at this Crossroads in education and it's really kind of an exciting time because we have to kind of look at each other and say what's next the only answer I can find is that we have to start challenging the status quo because what I can tell you is the way we've been doing it isn't working I think that's why you chose me I think that's why our community responds to me I think they know it and I think they know I know it I don't have

091all the answers but I know that Solutions in order to be effective need to be long lasting and in order to get there you have to actually consult with people you have to listen to them and you have to figure out you know using a scientific method really what's going to work I can tell you that one of the one of the areas that I highlighted in this in this particular part of the report is creating alternative Pathways for students simply put we do not have a hundred percent of our students going to college that's fine I don't think that every student absolutely has to go to college I do think it is our job to prepare our children for whatever awaits them next whether that's the workforce whether that's an apprenticeship a job with

092the Union whether it's Junior College Community College four-year College ivy league College we have got to create a system that is as varied as the kids that we see so there are really exciting opportunities on the horizon when I look at that my lab and I hear about youth works and what's going on with our already budding school to work program I get excited but that's going to need continued momentum we just can't have a one one size fits-all model and so that's kind of the Horizon I'd be looking to expand finally in my last area is this concept of specialized transportation I know that we have had our own people drive our own buses for students who are eligible for special education but a lot has changed since we started doing this in this

093area this has been in existence for over 20 years but Middleboro is massive it's over 72 miles which presents really significant challenges for us to navigate transportation to be honest with you we're more akin to a Regional School System than we are just a singular school system even though Regional systems get reimbursement for transportation we don't qualify despite the fact that we're bigger than many Regional School Systems so initially when the when this department started out we had a very small number of students attending our in-district programs or out of District programs and then we had a group of students attending in-district programs but the landscape of our need has changed dramatically in recent years and then again since covid our ridership has quite honestly bloomed we transport a healthy sum of students not just

094in District but also out of District many many more than what we did even five years ago additionally it's not just special ed students that this company this department is now managing it also includes students who attend agricultural schools students who participate in the high school internship program students who are in foster care and students who are touched by homelessness that's much bigger than just special education students and the simple truth is this department can't always meet our needs we are we have the the company we have we have the employees we have um and they can't be in more than one place at one time what that's led to is our Reliance on vendor transport and this is the part where it gets scary vendor transport which is wholly unregulated has experienced massive increases

095in rates and we are powerless to fight them and I'm not talking about a ten thousand dollar hike I'm talking about 200 percent 400 percent during the height of covid a 400 increase on any expense is a is a big deal but transportation expenses are particularly expensive this is an area that really needs greater scrutiny conversation and some discussion simply put you know capital expenditure is going to become really critical in the revitalization of this department our Fleet is aging and we have no um central location to store our equipment or service our equipment so if we're going to make that type of investment that's not a small amount of money um particularly as we approach the end of Esser funding this is going to be a topic of Financial and budgetary topic of conversation

096for this group so we're going to have to examine ways to best meet the transportation needs of students while creating a budget that we can hit try to remember that this is not negotiable our kids absolutely have to have transportation but we also need to figure out what makes sense for our community so with that next steps I'm going to host two Community forums because I've done this long enough to know that not everybody watches school committee even though I wish they would I'm going to host two events one targeted just at elementary and one at secondary so that if parents of young children want to talk more about my data or ask me specific questions I'll be there to do that I'm going to bring my team with me this report is very much

097a product of my team as well as me I would never assume to take the credit of a group and then same at the secondary level because quite honestly there are slightly different issues facing you know the two kind of larger age groups of children and then finally is phase three I will certainly come back this is not the last you're going to hear about this we have to develop the strategy drafting is what we go into now we're going to be drafting that strategy for continuous District Improvement I'm going to be working with the district leadership team and holding consultation with stakeholders those Community forums are a great opportunity to get stakeholder input so I'll be publicizing it I'd like to do them in person I'm torn about whether or not it makes sense

098to do them virtually because of accessibility stay tuned on that I'll be communicating with you in the Flash with that can I answer questions about the entry plan findings first I want to say thank you for doing this entry plan I know a lot of time and effort and work goes into this and I'm appreciative of that I'm going to Echo the same sentiments that Miss segoris did regarding Nichols Middle School it's a huge area concern for our district I've had numerous parents contact me over the last year there are so many different issues in that school I have two children of my own in that school um and to share personal information he's probably going to kill me I have an eighth grader who when he started at Middle School love school he was

099a straight A student and he's now in eighth grade and he hates it he hates going to school he hates doing school work he hates the culture of that school um and all I have said to him over the years is that get through these three years and you'll be at Middleboro high school with Mr Brannigan and it's like the Utopia of schools and I thought to myself that that is a horrible thing to say to our children that suck it up for three years and deal with the school that it is and so I appreciate all the work that has gone into this but my question is how long do families and students at the Nichols have to wait for actionable change at that school well I'm hoping you're seeing change as we speak

100leadership begins at the top and I've been working with our current interim principal who's here tonight miss Heather Tucker you've also seen a major focus by the three department heads who are sitting to the right of Miss Heather Tucker there's been no shortage of attention being driven towards the Nichols Middle School one of the things you've been hearing about in the community is the cafeteria it's the first place that we targeted because quite honestly we do need to get our hands around a system that makes sense for kids something that gives them autonomy but also sets that bar of expectation about how to behave um the simple answer is I don't think you should have to wait at all I don't think this is a problem we should have ever had but I can't change

101that all I can do is move us forward the best way I know how which is through honest conversation strong leadership and the creation of consistent processes it is my hope to create a team at Nichols that is long lasting to curtail some of the rates of attrition that we've seen out of that building because I think that's part of the story too quickly because I noticed in your entry plan of findings you did you assessed the students and you asked them sense of belonging and engagement and I saw for the Nichols Middle School it was 31 responded favorably for engagement and 46 only 46 responded favorably for sense of belonging which I feel ties into why also when they get to high school now it's 27 percent responded favorably to engagement and 40 percent

102only responded favorably to sense of belonging we are losing a lot of our children in those Middle School years and wants to get to high school it's almost impossible to get them back yeah I don't disagree with you I have to tell you in the very first High School Roundtable meeting I had principal burning and I were talking with the students hopefully they don't mind that I'm about to say this but um we were talking about what's going well what's not going well because I mean how you approach this with kids and important and they came right out they didn't want to talk about the high school what they wanted to talk about was their experience in Middle School so like I've said so many times what we need to do is listen listen to

103what they're talking about principal branding and I were looking at a model to have student council work with student council and Elevate our student leaders and I actually really want to make sure I say this I don't want the perception to be that there are not bright spots at Nichols there are children in our building that are amazing absolutely they are leaders they care they are going to be culture changers for us so I just I know that I've been taking a critical lens but I think it's important to acknowledge that and it is going to be that group of students that allows us to catapult simply put there is a degree of middle school education that is going to Warrant a degree of self-government certainly I'm not saying that it's Lord of the Flies

104they're going to have to figure it out for themselves but kids at that age really rely on each other right that social pressure that peer pressure is very real so trying to get what I call Early adopters in our students will be critical getting buy-in making them feel good about their culture owning their culture being proud of their culture creating systems where 8th graders are welcoming in the incoming sixth graders having pride in their school this is where it all begins admittedly that's not an overnight process you don't have to look any further than principal Branigan to ask him about his long and wonderful career here at the high school but he'd be the first to tell you it isn't an overnight thing it begins with thoughtful print planning and consistent follow-through so I'll be

105involved until I'm satisfied with what's going on other question Jessica the transparent communication has been something you've talked about throughout you know your tenure from the beginning I know it's one of the things that came up early on and you've spoken about multiple times but it was a big part of your your findings um I'm just curious if you've had any kind of response to what you've tried to implement already um in terms of what more is being asked for or how the measures that you've tried already are being received yeah thank you for that question I'm kind of smirking at um Sean Siciliano who's our director of communications one of the first things I did was establish a media team and earlier this year I presented um pieces I think of our communication guide

106did I present that Sean's presenting tonight on our outward facing guide but we no I didn't present it but we create it was an internal document in order to help align our communication practices that was one of the first things I noticed we all say things differently and that's really frustrating as a parent you know I mean we're all different humans but without any um procedures or or guidelines the way I say something is different than the way bran says something it's different than the way Mr Thompson says something so the first thing we did was establish a media team to try to assist one of the things I noticed right away because I started communicating about virtually everything was that that had pluses and minuses I was communicating and sending alarm to the families

107because I was communicating so much which was begging the question what what's going on why am I hearing all this we had that conversation in one of the earlier school committee meetings tonight what you're going to hear is an out which happens after this part um is an outward facing guide where I'm trying to debunk some of the communication misinterpretations it's a double-edged sword you communicate more and at the end of the day you're still not hitting the mark there is a component of what we do and the world we live in where everybody wants up to the minute information that's not always practical today's a great example there is not a chance I could have done that with what was going on in the district and you don't want me locked behind a computer

108not doing my job for the sole purpose of communication so there's a give and take it's more of an art form than it is a hard and fast rule which means I'm going to do things people aren't going to agree with and I recognize that and I welcome that kind of lively debate what I can tell you you have to operate from a premise of how we're going to communicate with you and when and on what matters and I think you'll like the presentation that's coming next thank you um when you talked about uh the DRT and the safety audit do you have like a timeline possibly of when we would decide to either go with Galaxy or possibly Middleboro fire and yeah yeah um so I'd like to have this decided before the end

109of the school year so the audit really I I don't foresee happening over the summer because you really want them coming in and auditing uh while we have kids right I want them to try the door I want them to see what it's like to try to gain entry you have to kind of do that in real examples so I would like to at least have it decided by the end of the school year have our company selected and then a plan to move forward um I can tell you I was communicating with the staff today I had a recent safety meeting with both Chiefs and there are additional trainings on tap for this summer um and some plans to engage with the department leaders as well so certainly more to come but I think

110it's fair to say you know that we can settle on something we don't need months and months it's more of a function of do we ultimately want to to go with this free company do we like their product do we want to explore other companies do we want to make an investment with someone in particular I mean it's not I I don't consider that just up to me I view that as school committees a partner in that and our emergency Personnel are a partner in that too yeah usually I did the school committee first and then we go from there okay any other members of this so please go right ahead um okay so um I just wanted to make ask a question to make a few comments so I on the bully prevention intervention

111um it sounds just more victim shaming from the plan where you know trying to teach kids to Advocate which they do and what happens is in the experience of people that I've talked to including myself is the children are advocating for themselves and it stops whoever they tell nothing happens so we're continuing this process of trying to teach kids to Advocate but when they advocate nothing happens so you can't put that more on these kids who are already dealing with a mental strain you need to focus on the aggressors because what's happening is it's inciting a group mentality that continues to perpetrate all over and then these kids are being bullied in groups they can't even use the bathroom because the facilities are destroyed because of these aggressors my my own son is afraid because

112of the aggressors it's not okay so I just want to put in that bully plan please be sensitive to the kids that are dealing with this every single day you need to deal with the aggressors and their families because if it's not when it's not if our kids mess up but when all of our kids are going to make mistakes we just hope they're minor things they can learn from unfortunately that's not what's happening there and I am in constant communication with that school because of issues every single week thank you sure what I what if you don't mind I just wanted to respond to the other half of the plan there's bullying prevention the intervention part also involves that accountability piece when you would say hey I am requesting a bullying investment or Something's

113Happened you really do need follow-up hey this is what we did this is what we investigated this is what we found so I think that is definitely a part of the plan that is in existence but also of needed Improvement so I anticipate that being yeah the problem is they're interviewing the victims over and over again but never dealing with the aggressors continuously so that's the problem is you have these poor victims constantly being pulled out of class for interviewing on things that they're not seeing account accountability they're not seeing consequences for these kids and all it's doing is opening up more kids to do it so it's a really huge problem there yeah thank you other questions just to piggyback on that I know you and I have spoken about the bathroom um and

114just hearing from my own children they are uncomfortable using those bathrooms they and it's a shame that our children are in a school where they feel uncomfortable to use the bathroom my kids will hold all day because they are afraid to use bathrooms in that school I agree I think it's completely unacceptable I know the bathrooms are certainly an area of concern for us I had facilities in there just on Monday fixing a broken pipe so believe me we we share that concern no child should feel afraid to use the bathroom foreign hello I just wanted to add too um I have a middle schooler and I will say I attend these meetings frequently I attend all PTA meetings it's the same five parents that show up and listen this does start at home too

115as parents we do need to talk to our own kids about this we can't wait for the school to do it it is on us as parents too thank you Mr Rainey what I will say is we are always looking to partner with families and I will not stop holding events evening conversations we do have groups that are like School Improvement school council these are important important groups at the Nichols Middle School and be on the lookout for new ways to to interact because I think that parents are part of the solution not to place blame anywhere I just think we have to solve this together the only thing that I want to say is first and foremost I appreciate the plan it's extremely well done it makes a lot of sense to me one

116concern I have is around the areas of strength odd later and the concerns that I have are you know we have worked extraordinarily hard to make the Town School togetherness work and to make sure the budget works but I would also note that we are in an unprecedented level of grant money from the federal government that has allowed us to do a wide variety of things that a we would not have ever been able to do and my concern is that money dries up and we have people in positions and we have programs that we started all based on that those those monies and my concern is that we don't sort of Overlook our strengths if you will because strengths have an opportunity to turn into something else um just by a problem with money

117and we've also you know we've also gone through pieces um in the past that have sprouted up I can think for example in one particular year we had an additional million dollars in special ed that we weren't expecting tuitions came in and so that disrupts the budget in different ways too so I just wanted to raise that because I think that's important too but but I I really appreciate all that you've looked into and all that you've done um it does make sense that this is easier as far as the ability of someone who's already in the system as opposed to somebody who comes from outside the system I think that you will see if you remember correctly for example when Brian came on um Brian was able to do certain aspects that were easier

118for him like community and stuff because he had always lived in this community but he couldn't do the culture of the schools because he wasn't a part of it so it adds to time and sometimes to track time but thank you very much this is excellent so thank you any other questions well we continue on okay I would invite Sean Siciliano up to the table to talk about hopefully the much anticipated Communications mini guide this was something that we put together to help explain a little bit about our philosophy behind communication hopefully you'll find this illuminative so Sean take us away perfect I just want to thank the board thank you chairman young so we created at the beginning of this year with the media team uh we added on to a branding guide a

119Communications guide that I had started years ago um in that internal guide that we've created for the district it's not public facing it's just for us um different templates for communications for for principals to be able to just grab a communication put in their details of what happened and be able to send it and that was Something That We're continuously looking into and we're continuously adding to to allow principals to have that quick and easy spot where they can just go in grab something put in the details of an event and be able to get that out to families quickly so that's kind of the the back end of it um this is the front-facing guide excuse me um this is for our for our families and for our community so we start off with

120a little message from superintendent Alliance superintendent lion so we're going to be sending this out to families tomorrow um we wanted to give you guys a a sneak peek of it and be able to share this with you um categories of communication uh we the way we branded this was kind of just doing different questions and then once we asked the question we then go in and we answer the question so I'm going to read you guys the questions and then I'm just going to kind of give the synopsis of of what we what we did so the question is uh who will you hear from when will these groups communicate with you so there's obviously different types of communication we've switched a class tag which had a little bit of Rocky start I think

121we're better now um we ironed out a lot of data issues that we had uh and I think that I hope that parents are finding it easier for communication and it allows an easier way for teachers to be able to communicate uh home with families So within class tag there's different levels we have a district level that superintendent Alliance has access to I have access to and other directors have access to this is for messages that are going out District wide whether it's about announcements that are something that's a district-wide issue a district-wide emergency that needs to be announced that would come from our level and then there's other things that are at the building level whether it's your Weekly Newsletter from your principal whether it's a fire alarm something like that you may notice

122that a fire alarm message might come from me um we've told the the principals and the the building Administration that if you guys are dealing with an issue call me I'll take care of your Communications side you guys deal with the building I can't come in and help your students inside the building what I can do is communicate with your families um so sometimes they'll reach out to me this is what happened I need you to send a communication I take it and I send it so it might be two hbb but it's not from Derek Thompson it's from Sean Siciliano and that's with in agreement with the different principles um social media has been a growing um a growing Avenue of communication for us we are using social media to promote our district we're

123using social media to celebrate our district we might not necessarily put every single thing that we send home to families on social media that's where we use class tag we're sending home announcements to parents whether it's about parent-teacher conferences whether it's about a fair that's going on you may not see those things on social media whether it's about an incident a fire alarm those aren't things that you're going to see on social media those are things that we're going to communicate with the families to because in the end it only affects those families and those that's our target audience uh when do we send messages we'll communicate as soon as we have accurate information that we can share with you um we understand that when stuff happens in the school parents want us to get

124them that information as immediately as they can the second it happens they want to know and we're with you we try as quick as we can to get you information um sometimes there's different things with with student safety with student information with teacher information with teacher safety that we can't share at the drop of a dime we can't share that information with you so we work really hard to get as much information as we can and share it with you as quickly as we can and share with you as much information as we can um notifications that you'll get during the day during the school day while your students are in school we like to say that those are immediate those are something that when your student gets off the bus this is something that

125they're going to talk about it might be something that happened it might be a fire alarm it might be an incident in the cafeteria something like that we're going to get that out to you as fast as we can so that when a student gets off the bus and they come home and they try and have a conversation with you you have the information at your fingertips you're not listening to what they say then going on Facebook and hearing what another kid said to their parents we're going to try and give you that information as quick as we can um after school things will be parent teacher conferences newsletters we're sending at four o'clock 4 30 5 o'clock um those are those are things that aren't urgent they are important just to say that your

126phone goes off at 6 30 at night and I call it's just the school can't be that important it's not during the day these are important notifications and they are important messages um what types of information are we sharing things that happen I kind of already covered this things that are happening during the school day things that are going home in the Weekly Newsletter uh school closings and delays it was uh superintendent Lions put out a electronic newsletter earlier this year with all of the information for inclement weather announcements luckily we only so far had to had to do one um and we do recognize that that didn't go as well as we hoped um the good thing is is in 2023 we have multiple forms of communication so we're not all relying on uh

127the news channel to watch channel five to see if our name pops up like we used to back in the day um we did use uh social media we did use text messages and we did use uh phone calls as well so there's more information on that uh families can click on that if they would like um exciting news and accomplishments for students and staff these are the great things that are happening in our schools and it's my my job these are the most fun things to communicate the things that are happening in school that make kids days that make kids years that when they graduate they're going to say remember in fourth grade when we did that or remember when this happened in second grade those are the fun things and those are the

128cool things to communicate and those are the fun things to take pictures of and takes video of um and those are the things that we're trying to communicate through social media through local media and then recognizing people here at school committee meetings um community-based information things like the event that you heard tonight about the green energy those are things that will promote as a district you might see that information in a Weekly Newsletter from a principal you'll also see that promoted on our social media um partnering with the town a little bit more now you might see more cross-platforms the town promoting school events the school promoting more Talent promoting more town events because to be honest the school district has the largest reach right we have 3 000 families that are attentive to us

129and that are our audience and for a lot of these town events those are the people they want they want the kids at their own Run Festival they want them getting their face painted they want them playing in the park um so being able to use that and being able to kind of tie those two things together the website um I think it was four years ago five years ago we launched a new website the new website was a new look it was the same stuff nothing had changed inside everything moved things got shinier um they became more accessible but it's it's still the same the same back end of the website um this summer Nick rocked the the video and Communications person in the district um him and myself are gonna totally rebuild a

130new website we're starting from zero we're not starting from what we have now and deleting things and changing things we're going to start over and we're going to know that everything that we put on that new website is what our family wants we've looked at five other districts in the area and 10 other districts Nationwide to figure out what information should be on our website um things like school hours I looked for where that when the schools start on our website it's impossible to find I went to a school district and they said school hours right at the bottom of the page you clicked on there and it was like on a full day they start here drop off starts they start class here they get dismissed here on a half day they get dismissed

131here on a one-hour delay they get start here two hour delay they start here um so things like that are pages that we want to build that we want to bring to Middleborough and that's all things that we're going to bring to this new website announcements event promotion uh lunch options family quick links all things that we think are very important um and we're hoping to launch that in early August so we have a lot of work to do um methods of communication how do we communicate newsletters social media email telephone letters Tuesday folders at the elementary level beginning of the year communication summer letters summer emails um things like that things at registration at change of buildings when we when you go from the elementary school to the Middle School those are when we

132take we do a lot of time to to make sure we're connecting with our families the importance of checking your contact information inside of Aspen is huge making sure that we have the best contact information for you and we have the correct contact information for you is vital to us um class tag is pulling automatically that information it pulls from Aspen into another system and then pulls into class tag so making sure that we have accurate information in there newsletters what happened to the good old-fashioned newsletter in the two-day folder we've switched to an electronic newsletter platform called s'more um the administration obviously usually sometimes will be like Oh I'm going to send us more about it it's just an electronic newsletter s'more is just the platform we use it's like Q-tip um so uh

133MPS communicates through those every week administrators are sending out to families to faculty and um to parents so we do get a lot of views on our parent on our pages and on our newsletters that our principals send it's their full of great information each principle puts a lot of time into that celebrating students pictures announcements things that are coming up and things that are important um social media like I said earlier social media is being used to promote our activities it's being to promote our and celebrate our students and our staff we're using Facebook Instagram and Twitter um Facebook and Twitter are not for immediate time sensitive Communications there are often reminders or they're a second form of communication we're never going to solely rely on a Facebook post for our parents to get

134the information it's usually going to be a class tag announcement followed up by a Facebook post or followed up by Instagram post um same thing with Twitter and Instagram they're not for immediate um there's obviously different limitations to different things that you that we're posting um photo limits and things like that emergency situations emergency situations are identified as multiple factors exist potential safety concerns for students and staff inclement weather disruption to the school day that disrupts the large amount of students emergency Personnel responding to the school and anything else that the district teams is an emergency there are many times during a month than an ambulance is called to the school it could be a student fell on the playground and a lot of students saw it it could be a mental health issue that's

135in the nurse's office that's isolated that nobody else knows what happened but we need to go into a stay put because we don't want students in the hallway we bring medical personnel in we take that student we get them out of the building and then we drop the stay put those are messages that we might send home to families that just say there was a there may there was an ambulance at the building today um it was for a mental health issue there was no harm to the students nobody was ever in danger um and that's where the communication from us is going to end you're never going to hear from us what happened to the student you're never going to happen if the student returned to school the next day that's not our business

136that's the student safety and that's the student's privacy um so please know that when you see those types of notifications it's not always something crazy that happened sometimes it's just a student that needs to be transported and for the privacy of that student that's why we do that um like I said earlier where we try and push out things as quick as we can in an immediate for an emergency if it's an isolated incident that doesn't affect many students that may go out after dismissal um we have been trying to do it after the school day but maybe while the students are still in the Boston like I said earlier that's so that when your student gets home you have that information at your fingertips and you know what happened during the day and it's

137from us not necessarily from another family or from something that happened oh I'm on Facebook um cross-building communication this is where it gets kind of tricky what is important for the entire District to know and what's important for that building to know and this is where it comes to the the administrative team in the media team to decide what are we going to share with the entire district and what are we going to share with the families of that school um and that's kind of a a slippery slope and some families may not be happy that we didn't share something some families may be not happy that we didn't that we did share something um and that's kind of a thing that we're going to have to kind of balance as a media team parent

138Facebook groups are not I repeat are not an official communication of the Middleboro Public Schools you should never with 100 certainty believe everything that is on a parent Facebook page we cannot control that we are at the at the will of the parents that are posting on that page I'm not going to say that there aren't great things on the page we do rely on the page at some times okay they are important they are informative to most parents but there sometimes are things on there that are not true and then they they'll call the building and they'll be like I heard this happened well that didn't happen and it's our goal as a district that now that we have this plan now that we're communicating more to be able to get out ahead of

139those be able to get out ahead of the smaller incidents that might have happened at the school that by the time three o'clock hits and the student gets home from bus the it's there was this massive incident in the cafeteria and it was 300 kids were in the cafeteria well really it was four kids in the corner the incident was dealt with and those students were brought to the office we all know how the game of telephone works and unfortunately by the time the incident happens during the day by the time the students get home by the time it makes it on social media and then by the time the story's actually told sometimes it's totally different it's our goal with this communication guide and this new new procedure that we're hoping to create and

140that we're following is to streamline the communication and get the parents the facts as quickly as we can like I said sometimes there are there are different rules that are taken that legally and things like that that we have to follow and that's kind of what puts a break sometimes on things but it's our goal to get things to you as quickly as we can that's the mini Communications guide questions um thanks for all the work you guys have put into this and Sean thank you for all the Fantastic photos you take of all of the events it's you know just really fun to scroll through them all I hope you have as much fun taking them as I do looking at them um because it's just great the quality of them is just superb

141so thank you for that um a quick comment slash question is um I remember when my first child started at the middle school they had like a technology evening for parents to come in and like teach them how to use Aspen and and all of the other things I know that in class tag there are some settings to help you kind of determine how you want to receive the communication they may not I think I wanted text and notification but I can only do email and notification so I dealt with it it's fine um but you know maybe considering including some of those things in the information that's going out to parents with like some helpful tips as to kind of how to configure things if they're having issues with getting things to the the

142the best way for them to receive the information quickly absolutely I think it's a great idea so I think you you brought up a good point that maybe at the beginning of the year that's only host a technology night right and it's not just technology for students maybe it's a time for parents to come in we all know that when report cards are released it's like this massive problem of I don't know my password I don't know whose account I'm supposed to log into my my uh report card didn't pop up um if you search Katie goodine during report card time on Facebook it's like all over the place with people tagging her and asking her questions um her phone rings non-stop so maybe we we and we have started to create guides as we

143go um electronic report cards we we just started during covid it was one of those things that we said we'd never turn back so creating uh and hosting a technology and at the beginning of the year I think would be great for for families and for students even for parents so they can see what their students are using every day the elementary school they hear about the Chromebook but the parents never see the Chromebook what does it look like um and how do the students use it every day so I think that's I think that's a great idea and how to help your your student log on when they forget their password and and you know those kinds of things but if you're creating a new website too I know sometimes Little Manuals with pictures

144of like click this here's it on a circle and this is where we start we've started building those as we go yeah you answer the same email 30 times you're like I think I should just do a how-to on this so yeah we've started to compile them so thank you absolutely thank you other questions Sean my only question is this and I think that the presentation you gave tonight is great and my understanding is it's going out tomorrow how do we ensure that this constantly gets sent to parents who are new to the system and I don't just mean like you know kindergarten when you start kindergarten I also mean uh in June when somebody starts June 1st because they moved into town because I think this is an important sort of first piece for

145them to get so they understand all that so I just wanna I hope we can figure out a way yeah I think I think as we as we uh superintendent Alliance talked about the procedures that we've we've started to put into place and we sat in a meeting the other day and really talked about hiring procedures and how do the hiring how does the hiring happen not only at the beginning of the year but in the middle of the year and at the end of the year and I think that maybe it becomes a common practice where we're putting together documentation for families that when you register when you complete your registration this is the information you get and it's those how to's that we talked about it's a Google folder a place on the

146website where they can go um and get all that information and every week at the end of the week we run a red we run a list of um who has registered for that week get those two contacts and send this information to them um because we 10 years ago we weren't seeing as many registrations throughout the year as we are now and the registration process is continuous it never stops it's not just the summer thing so I think that's a great Sean thank you I appreciate that other questions for Sean thanks Sean perfect thank you guys have a great night and that completes my report for this evening excellent next item on the agenda is Middleboro High School building project we have not had a meeting we did not have a meeting in April

147um our next meeting is in May and hopefully that will be our last meeting uh next item on the agenda is consent agenda uh Channel entertain a motion to approve consent agenda so moved to her hair second discussion the only thing I want to make everyone aware of is under Mary Kay good Elementary School Camp read a lot I got a note from the teacher that that's actually moving to May 19th so that was the only other piece just a quick question I think the caregiver Cafe and the Bingo fundraisers or initiatives both had passed dates on them so if we approve them is that just a default approval and they'll pick a new date and we don't have to make them go through the process again yeah exactly they're all set and so any

148other questions or comments see none of those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous um I have two action items for everyone today the first is um we put in the packet the administrative assistant contract um the administrative assistant contact refers to all our administrative assistants and all the school buildings uh throughout the district and some district-wide administrative assistants um as noted in your packet and as we briefly discussed in the executive session of the administrative assistant contract as does the next one complies to everything that we had discussed about going forward with increases there's some minor language changes there's a piece that adds to um the um uh of the holiday in June as added to the program and also I would also add there were some additional language around bereavement and um

149Family Leave so with that chair in a motion to approve the administrative assistant contract to our second second discussion all those in favor say aye opposed it's unanimous the next contract is that again the minibuster contract um again everything in there complies with what we're doing the um there's some modifications to the salary structure but we had some in we had some bonuses involved in the old contract that we converted into salary um and there were some minor modifications to language and change that we went over with everybody but again uh staying within in each year the contract would raise by two and a half percent um with that channel nintended motion to approve the mini bus drivers contract sorry a second discussion hearing none of those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous

150next time on the agenda was just a reminder that the town meeting is April 24th um with that I would remind everybody that our next meeting is May 4th we generally meet the first and third but the third is vacation week um and so with that channel entertain a motion to adjourn the favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous thank you everybody and have a good night [Music]