001foreign I've been building so I hope our meetings I got the sense that we're not going much yeah yeah we want well it's just I thought everyone get like Facebook and then I they want me there I guess he already has a quorum I don't think I really need it I don't think I need my um a friend's mom plays the clarinet and it has a bunch of friends and Santa's gonna be there it's like that I think three days later like I put Happy Thanksgiving December 1st like I appreciate your love awesome get so much up on your feed and then finally yeah exactly and then like something I would be concerned about like yep test does that sound okay like really this isn't unclear and you would be shocked at how much the
002stymies me are we getting an update on the incident that happened today with the students I wasn't planning to do that it's not on the agenda no it's not it's not um that's why I was asking are you all set my friend you did get an email though is everybody all set yeah and I'll address it all right customer appreciate it I will call the meeting to order and I would start off with asking if you're able to join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States one nation and under God indivisible with liberty and justice forever I will turn it over to the superintendent for student showcase okay our first item tonight is a student Showcase of the MIAA student ambassadors tonight I've asked Nathan Donahue
003and um I believe athletic director Ryan uh Sylvia will be along to join us but while we're waiting for him Nathan if you could tell us a little bit about what the MIAA student ambassadors group is I think that would be great for the community to hear so um to start off so my position is in the student athlete advisory Council what that consists of is Captains and leaders throughout the athletic community that are come together to discuss certain items that needed to be discussed for upcoming Seasons or Seasons they had what we can improve on as as a community and so my position is as a student ambassador is that I'm the connection and like the Connecting Point between the athlete advisory Council the public and the school so um something that we focus
004on mainly is like different types of fundraisers for the community and that goes mainly through the Athletics and then into the rest of the school so um one of the things we just came from was we did the sock fundraiser we ended up fundraising we had almost almost over 300 pairs of socks that um me and Izzy got to who couldn't make it tonight but um me and Izzy on Tuesday personally delivered them to the Conway house um which was great it was awesome being able to go and come in with a big old box of over 300 pairs of socks and it was um it was a really good experience to be able to help out with the community and really we take that and we look at the success rate and how much
005we are getting from this and how much participation is and then we can decide on what upcoming fundraisers we want to do and what we want to bring back to the school thank you Nathan so the Conway house for those of you in the community who aren't familiar is a homeless shelter so this is an opportunity for students to lead and lead in fundraising but also in the care and and um concern for the for the community the Greater Community so I'll ask Ryan Sylvia if you want to come to the um table and talk a little bit not just about student ambassadors as a program but some initiatives that we can expect to hear from this group going forward thank you thanks for having me thanks uh school committee members Mrs Lyons and Nate
006nice job um so this group we have two student ambassadors each school is eligible to um have two student ambassadors represent their school at the state level but we also have a broader leadership group of we call the student athlete advisory Council and it's made up of basically a delegation of captains uh team leaders for all the sports for all the sports seasons for the fall winter and spring one initiative that we just recently talked about I don't I'm sorry I walked in a little bit late we had a booster club meeting I don't know if Nate brought it up as a diversity equity and inclusion Summit at Holy Cross through the MIAA that's just the facility that it'll be at and we're looking to have some student athlete leaders along with some coaches attend
007that conference and basically just looking um you know participating in some concurrent sessions and learning about the various issues and bringing those bringing some leadership Tech techniques back to our teams back to our school so that's something that we're looking to do in January we're also talking about having another collection of hats and gloves mittens things like that for the Conway house for a local shelter to try to help and we felt like when meeting with the students that everybody kind of has um you know an extra hat or an extra pair of gloves that maybe they don't use anymore that we can wash and and make a donation um so those are just a couple of the things that we're working on currently this group has a standing meeting um every other week uh
008on on Thursday afternoons we meet maybe 15-20 minutes after school and really it's an opportunity for the student athletes to have a voice in how the athletic departments run have a say bring new ideas and a connection between the students the coaches the administration and also um really just uh a chance to have an impact on on how we run things so they also some of these student athletes sit on the executive board with student council so they have that connection with uh our principal Mr Branigan and the entire student council so it kind of comes full circle and brings all these student leaders together so we all can get on the same page we're working on some of the theme nights for the the fall the winter season right now with um you know
009the students will organize themselves and what they're going to you know wear to support the athletic teams at the hockey games the basketball games whether it's a black and orange night or a holiday theme or things like that so those are just some of the things great thank you so I just wanted to point out that Nathan Donahue who is a 12th grader and also Elizabeth wheeler our grade 11 are our two MIAA student ambassadors and I want to congratulate you and hopefully bring you back later this year so we can talk you know a little bit more about how this year goes so any questions thanks for all the work that you're doing to Mr Sylvia for for putting all this together foreign I do want to chime in on that having had a
010student ambassador in my family about four years ago which seems a long time ago to me um I do know what you do Ryan to work with the kids and to take them around and to make it so that they can participate and I really appreciate all the work that you do for that and how much you value that that ability and that role for them to have so I appreciate that my pleasure all right thank you thanks Nate next up we have uh recognition yep and I'll invite Paul Branigan and Patrick Brady up to the table um they are here tonight to talk about the saint Jim Pride Foundation sponsorship and I'll let Mr Branigan give the community a description and then welcome your questions thank you hey everyone good evening and um it's
011really um quite special to be able to come here to the school committee and of course to the community to um just really give a thank you to the Sachin Pride alumni alumni foundation and um Patrick Brady who a superintendent's line had introduced is a member of the class of 2005 and of course Joe Ferguson who's the class of 2000 who are part of the board of directors for Sachin Pride the reason why that I'm here is that as you know that anytime we receive a donation it needs to come through all of you as an acceptance of that donation and so back in the spring the sage and pride alumni Foundation reached out to me and they had identified um a an amount of money that would be available for teachers to apply for
012in terms of mini grants and so teachers from around the high school applied for programs and activities that they really thought would accentuate their programs or create a really cool opportunity for students and so I just wanted to take a minute and just if I may because I had reached out to all of the teachers who had received a grant and to be able to share with you actually what they've been what their Vision was with the Grant and so the teachers would apply for an opportunity to receive that Grant and then of course such and pride would meet and go over the applications and then award the grants to be able to be to be done and so I wanted to make sure that it was coming to you as a committee to normally
013thank the sage and pride for the support of the high school and in students and its staff but also to make sure the fact that we could celebrate Stitch and pride on really what our teachers have done so um one is that um Tony QPR Innovation lab coordinator had applied for a grant in conjunction with the speech and Theater Workshop um to build a taking the money that was donated as a project working with students in the Innovation lab as well as the theater students to be able to build a movable stage that would provide a space in the future of the Black Box Toyota provide certain programming that right now it just has the cement floor but to be able to have a movable stage that you could do certain kind of programs inside
014the Black Box it became a partnered activity between the two groups and so a thank you on behalf of Tony QB Adam Pelletier our TV production teacher the money that he was allocated from behalf of his students allowed for his students to participate in the move competition it allowed for us to be able to transport the students to that event and so to be able to make sure the fact that every student in the TV production program program could participate in that our peer leaders through our world of difference program which is now called rise up as a part of our clubs and organizations that this is our group that was the um came out of our world of difference training with the Anti-Defamation League and that they really are I'm excited because the money
015that they've been allocated was to kind of do some branding for their group in terms of t-shirts for themselves as well as actually being able to attend a conference in March of this year called the connections conference with um with students from all over Massachusetts this will be the second time we've been able to do this event since covid and we're really quite excited to be able to send that delegation um Kylie Bowen applying on behalf of really looking at mental health here at the high school and the fact that with the health grant that would hope to utilize to assist additional professional development for all staff to better educate themselves on tiered interventions Trump and informed classrooms as well as provide resources for psychologists and for the school counselors of really trying to do
016programming and organic experiences for the staff to really give them more Tools in their toolbox and to be able to work with our students in the in the last one that I just think is just so cool is Mrs Phillips our librarian that she has run a book club for many many years and in the book club the way that would work is the only way that you could get a book is if you had a library card and then they would have to go to the library get the book from the library and be a part of that well if you didn't have a library card you couldn't get a book and with this grant it allowed for that any student who wanted to be part of the book club didn't need a library
017book anymore because they would all get a book that we'd be would be a part of that so the students come together they are choosing the book in the book club that will become the book of the month and then ultimately all of the members get that book and I just want to read to you one thing because there was a student who actually had reached out about actually the the experience of that the student said it's meant a lot to have a book club to have the ability to keep the books after because reading has always been a comfort place for me having a place for open discussion with people that generally are interested in the same thing has been a wonderful Community for me and all my peers to go to after school
018and so this is just a sample of the many things that Satan pride has done but I thought it was important to take an opportunity tonight to really thank sage and pride for what they have done for our school and will continue to do and just ultimately to bring this wonderful donation to the school committee oh thank you I uh am uh thankful to be here and and uh appreciate the time that we're being allotted I I did not have any remarks prepared but uh I think I will use the opportunity to uh make everyone aware who's watching that uh we we are looking to grow uh I would direct folks to uh sachempride.org if uh if they wanted to learn more about the organization and uh what we're trying to accomplish which is you
019know uh primarily promoting uh vitality and and doing what we can to support the continued uh Excellence that uh the Middleboro high school and Middleboro public schools for that matter um you know have have been and I think uh I'm super grateful for having uh great Educators and and my life I'm I'm sure Joe would Echo those sentiments and uh it's the least we can do so uh we're thankful for the folks that that do donate that that make this possible um I know our event schedule has been uh perhaps lackluster uh since covid I think that definitely changed the world and then a lot of the board members decided to have children [Laughter] so uh I I do look forward to returning to a more uh normal or regularly scheduled uh event calendar throughout
020the year but in the meantime we've been uh successful in getting donations from Alum and are happy to give back to a school that gave us so much well on behalf of the Middleboro Public Schools I wanted to say thank you it is the definition of giving back to one's Community to be part of this hm Pride foundation and then give this generous donation to allow as you just heard not just learning within but expanding the programming we provide for our students just so the committee understands the donation was six thousand one hundred and fifteen dollars which is a very significant amount so I wanted to make sure we said Thank you in a very pointed fashion uh you're welcome and we just want to thank the faculty for not only their applications but having
021um I guess uh Innovation being a major part of their applications they are trying to change for the better and that's definitely kind of like an underlying factor is we want Innovation and our work right now with Mr QP is extremely exciting and we're looking to grow in that direction as far as working with the students working with the administration working with the faculty and you know really the the key piece is connecting them to the community I think Rich okay so I wanted to take issue with one thing you said it is not the least you can do you are doing a lot people you could do a lot less and I really appreciate everything you're doing just hearing about all of the the the ways that you've touched the schools as far and
022so just thank you so much for everything you guys are doing very well I I do want to say thank you too but also point out that when you hold events I think I've been to most of your events um they are fun times and um I know a lot of the alumni appreciate getting together and being able to have conversations with each other at various times so I thank you guys for putting that together the whole group I think you guys do a wonderful job and I know time and time again Paul's presented to us about the money money amounts that you've given and I know you guys have been here in the past too so I appreciate everything that you've done we'll hope to see you again soon and Nate I would suggest
023you join as soon as you graduate I was kind of some not gonna head now I'm ready for it thank you very much awesome thank you uh next item on the agenda is public comment does anyone wish to comment on something not on tonight's agenda I'm not just talking that's fair um I just realized that at the last meeting I didn't take a moment to thank Hannah Bradley who was brought in as kind of the long-term sub for um kind of co-teaching with Mrs Duggan until she passed and the work that she did with the theater students on she kills monsters in addition to the work she did in the class she really made the experience more than just learning lines and learning blocking they did real a lot of really strong work in theater
024foundations and acting techniques and character development um and I just thought that for somebody who's sort of fresh out of earning her degree she really connected with the students and she was just such a an excellent person for them to have and it was such a difficult transition difficult experience for her to go through personally with her own connection but she did so much to make it easier for the students who also lost Mrs Duggan and I just wanted to publicly recognize her for what she did and I know that she's still kind of around as a sub option in the school system but I think that she really made such a such a significant impact on those students in the few months that she had with them and then I also just wanted to
025mention um wonderful to have Mr Sam Mosher now officially back to Middleborough as the new permanent hopefully theater or teacher and just on a personal note I happen to attend the superintendent's listening session on Monday and I was leaving I ran into Sam and it was his first day but he said I hate to ask I know it's last minute but all of the decorations for the holiday concert are very Christmas do you happen to have anything that we could use to make it a little more inclusive and for him to have passed by me randomly and to have thought of it just made such a significant impact on me personally and I'm just really grateful that he had that care to make it a more inclusive experience for my family attending the holiday concert
026last night so thank you thank you seeing no one else I will move on reports from school committee members does anyone have anything they wish to say let's go ahead I um effective at the end of this meeting I wanted to announce that I am stepping down from my position on school committee um in August my wife Chelsea had a stroke and had to have brain surgery to fix it and we got super lucky that she is almost back to 100 except for some little things and I kind of thought that her and I were indestructible at least for a little while even though my knees might have said otherwise but we're not and the reality is that this could have been a moment where this could have been the end of our normal um
027if that happened right now I would not be proud of the effort that I have put into my family and I would have had incredible guilt and despair at the ratio of time that I spent on public service versus time spent with my family while we're still healthy my dad died suddenly without warning at age 64 and I never got to say goodbye and I don't think life really gives you too many warning shots I have uh enjoyed five years of service to Middleborough boards and committees but I feel like I have been shortchanging my family life uh as a trade and I came to this conclusion fairly soon after my wife uh came back from the hospital but I did feel strongly about finishing uh open work that I had on this committee and
028um one of those things that I wanted and wanted to finish before the end of my term before the end of my time here was the superintendent goals subcommittee and I'm very happy that we were able to present that at the last meeting and I think now it's time for me to recalibrate and reorder my priorities and I think it's time for someone else to sit here I wanted to thank my fellow committee members for their time in their collaboration and for their own sacrifice and commitment to the to Middleborough um I I think that it has been probably the pleasure of my life to serve on this committee with all of you we didn't always agree all of us but I think the one thing that I am so certain of is that everyone
029that's sitting up here is completely and totally dedicated to Middleboro Middleboro Public Schools Middleboro students and I am super proud to be a part of that with you guys um while talking about being proud I wanted to say that I am so proud of the work that this committee has done we don't operate in as individuals on this committee we operate as a committee and I'm very proud of all the things that we have done and I just wanted to thank all of you for all of your time and uh I wanted to just tell you how proud I am to have sat next to all of you um and Miss Lyons and missicky the same is true for you as well um so at the end of this meeting I will be stepping down
030and I so appreciate this opportunity that Middleboro gave me thank you Teresa um well thank you Rich we met for probably about five years ago at Hannaford Hannaford's and um you you just introduced yourself and asked me to sort of you know give you some time to speak about what you wanted to do for this community and I think through those past few years some of them I sat on the committee with you and some I I watched from afar and while we certainly did not always agree um I think that that actually makes us stronger as a committee I think that it makes us challenge our own thinking at times so I appreciate that from you and I certainly wish you well in your future endeavors and I know we'll see each other so
031um thank you for your time and um it is appreciated thank you Teresa great see uh so that was really hard for me to hear because that came out of the blue a little bit um um thank you so much for everything that you've done I know that when I started I had no idea where to start and you were my mentor and you will always be my mentor so thank you so much for everything you got it okay I'm gonna talk to you after because I will cry so I just want to say thank you Rich on behalf of the board on behalf of everything you've done you and I have worked together a lot over a wide variety of different things and so I appreciate you and um you know this was a
032tough conversation and you and I had it together and as I told you when we first started this conversation it's always about family and Families First and that's the most important thing and I appreciate that um you made that choice and I don't um I'm not a person who's gonna sort of tell you don't do that or tell you don't do things you know I've told you over and over again it's about what feels good in your heart and I appreciate that I appreciate the fact that you always listened and learned um and try to [Music] um sort of find out things in the way that you always would um so you know sometimes meetings took a little longer because you had 105 questions but that's yeah um but I I do appreciate you you
033asking the questions and being able to um spend time and listen and um but you know I won't miss you on this committee and uh but I know I won't miss you because I'll see you throughout everything else we do together so I appreciate that thank you so thanks work together along but I mean no one can question your work to this community and the school community so thank you and you know I wish your family well and family is the most important so thank you thank you Mr chair Mr Oakley um you know I uh I shared the sentiment of the rest of the committee of course um I think it's easy to forget that school committee members are not paid employees and the commitment that you all show is evident and it was
034especially evident over the last two and a half years so as I told you I think this community owes you a thank you um of course the committee didn't always agree that's that's life that's Town governance and it's actually how it's supposed to run but I think it's important to say thank you when people spend their time for the benefit of our students so I will miss you and I thank you for your service that's good sir um I want to thank you I know I'm going to be goofy about this but thank you for your patience with me we spent a lot of time on budget subcommittee and um it's thousands and thousands of lines of data and anytime we had any type of data you embraced it and and studied and did your
035homework and asked the right questions to ask and I really appreciate that because it helped with the budget process so I know you weren't on budget subcommittee this year but um the the budget subcommittee work is Hefty and I appreciate all the work that you did thank you so again thank you Rich and I will if no one else says anything they wish to say I'm going to move on to Nick so Nick right ahead sorry man I Gotta Give me something here okay all right so first of all I didn't get to say thank you but I want to say thank you um obviously coming in this is my first year I think you were one of the first people when I walk up on stage to introduce yourself give me a handshake and
036oh like had open arms when I came in here and said it and you said if I need anything let you know and that your open arms and it was I'm very thankful for you being so accepting when I came into here and for my new position so I want to say thank you for everything you've done okay so now on to my report um so starting with the Mac um there's a lot of fun stuff happening at the neck the Festival of Lights uh holidays around the world the Jingle Bell jog uh The Polar Express and visits to see Miss Amanda at the middle Bar library and everyone is super excited about the holidays and the upcoming vacation um so for the mkg the holiday shop was a huge success thanks to our PTA
037and all of our volunteers that made this happen for our students our students enjoyed their grade level sing-along songs this week our second year band students performed for our mkg town meeting on Wednesday we were excited for stem next week and we have a lots of activities and challenges planned such as bridge building catapult building and building Towers solving engineering designs challenges involves highly effective learning strategies including project-based and Hands-On learning by learning the engineering design process students build their problem solving skills skills that transfer to other disciplines including Math and Science and we want to wish everyone in the Middleboro Community a happy healthy holiday season for the hbb things are going well at the HPV um just wrapped up our holiday shop and the Scholastic Book Fair and both events were a huge
038success we have had Jay mankita from playful Engineers here all week working with classes on engineering and science as each student is getting the opportunity to explore and build their own Rube Goldberg machine we are really looking forward to next week which is our annual stem week we have present presenters from all from all overcoming both in person and remotely to work with the kids on science math Technology and Engineering related topics including Mr Rich Oakley who is going to work with the kids on 3D printing and we have a group from Mad Science coming and the kids will be participating in a number of design challenges throughout the week and lastly we are looking forward to wrapping up the week with our annual holiday sing-along so for the Nichols Middle School the PTA hosted
039the winter carnival last week on Friday December 9th and there were about 200 students that attended so thank you to all the volunteers who took time out of their day to support our students and we also appreciate all the donations from the families next week the Nichols Middle School has their Spirit Week sponsored by the student council and Builders Club uh the Annie musical rehearsals have been underway and the shows will take place on Friday January 27th and Saturday January 28 2023 the next chess club meeting will be on January 4th winter intramurals recently started and there's basketball on Mondays and volleyball on Wednesdays so finally for the MHS congratulations to The Clique congratulations to the Key Club for an outstanding job with the planning of the annual eatahit event last Wednesday evening thank you
040to all the members of the band and concert choir for the performances during the dinner congratulations to all of our fall athletes who celebrated an amazing season at our annual fall sports awards night on the same Wednesday evening um special congratulations to Kaylee Almeida for her participation in the Massachusetts educational theater Guild excellence in Tech theater contest last weekend at normal high school and then congratulations to our AP science students who hosted the AP Saturday session at MHS on Saturday morning for the AP science students from around our region a special thank you to the MHS band for bringing their music to the assisted living facilities in Middleboro over the weekend a job well done um a congratulations to the Middleboro High School fine arts program for having an amazing holiday concert on Tuesday the
04113th it was really good to hear the students student council annual holiday party is being held on Wednesday December 21st from 6 to 8 PM for student council members and then finally I want to say a special thank you to everyone that participated in the Sachem Santa toy drive everyone's help is greatly appreciated and does not go unnoticed any questions for Nathan just just a comment um thank you so much for always pulling these things together I may still tune in to listen to your uh your updates um also about the stem week I think this is the coolest thing uh that we do around here I mean I'm a little biased um but uh but also I I can't wait to be here uh next week but um I think in that update it
042said Rich Oakley was going to be doing it but I'm going to be joined by a bunch of other people too uh middleborough's own Earl gedden who's in the I.T department but who is also a huge borrowbot volunteer and will be helping us 3D printing and Chris fan uh who owns Central Square computer repair but also is a founding member of burrobot and we're going to have a lot of fun with some 3D scanning and some 3D printers So yeah thank you you're welcome and I just want to say like growing up with the whole stem program I was in love with it from the moment I saw it so I know that these students are going to take this and every which way possible and that they're gonna love it I know it's gonna
043they're gonna have a great time because I know I did and I'm sure plenty other students will as well appreciate it and I'll turn it up with superintendent for the super dancer great thank you Mr chair members of the school committee tonight I'm going to be reporting out on a couple of items um I do think I need that projector to be turned on because I have my um PowerPoint while we're getting that set up I'll ask for uh Mr Jim Hutchison to come to the table the first item I have to report out on you is an update on the School Street school project as I told you this summer and I believe this fall I think I presented a couple of times maybe it was last spring in this summer actually I don't
044think it was this fall um I presented some information about why we were doing this project but now that it has now that it has already um know that we're underway I can give you a better report I don't see my slides on the screen there we go I brought some pictures and also Mr Hutchinson who is really the backbone of the entire project that's actually where I wanted to start there we go um was a thank you to Mr Hutchinson director of facilities and his entire first his entire facilities team you know they um they've really been at this since July they hit the ground running on this project they haven't complained a single time um and a lot of hours have gone into the improvements in in this facility they started as I
045said right in right in July shortly after we you know had um had agreement to move forward and we are anticipating our first moves into the building over December break on December 29th I believe is the date with our PPS office the first floor by reminder will house the pupil Personnel Services office the registrar slash technology office the director of special education and the director of curriculum and instruction so while these tenants are moving in work is going to be continuing on that second floor um on this oops I'm really terrible with this thing huh the second floor um will house the director of student services the superintendent's office and the professional uh Development Center that's still underway as we speak the second floor moves are anticipated roughly in February of next year arguably during
046the break period again because that's when it makes most sense to close offices down um and work will be ongoing as moves occur so improvements and I'll turn it over to Mr Hutchinson in just a couple minutes but I want to kind of briefly go over the improvements that were made which include flooring and lighting um walls were you know there were you know pieces on the wall that needed to come down and bead board that was put up paint bathroom upgrades there was a new boiler installed heating and cooling for the rooms wiring for technology and Paving there are improvements still to come which include signage that I'll be coordinating with the my lab to provide to provide using that laser cutter and you know really trying to get some student fingerprints on the
047project Furniture stamped concrete out front which is really you know in keeping with the historic preservation of the building security cameras to make sure that our facility is in fact secure and then some light Landscaping I don't think it'll be heavy hardscaping but landscaping and maintenance that I'll be coordinating with the youth Works program um through Joshua Porter and other members of the administration this is a program where students can actually get paid to complete work and get some hands-on experience as I told you it was important for me when this started to make sure that students had a place in the program and saw this as their building too while they won't you know be in the building per se it's still I mean the whole reason all of us are here are the
048students so I thought that part was particularly important so by way of review I'm going to show you where we started and if you see this is what the walls look like you can see the lighting needed upgrading the floor you know or there were several upgrades that were needed this is kind of a rough look at what we were that actually reflects the first floor being pulled up because there was flooring in there as you know we had tenants prior but as you can see this is an example of one of the rooms with the new flooring the new the you know wall kind of being restored the lighting what you see on the right hand side is actually the front doorway which shows you kind of some upgraded paint and just you know
049a nice welcoming space this building will be a place for our families when they're coming to register their children for the first time this is the door they'll use this is the experience they'll have here's another photo of some of the offices um we had to you know the the space was used as a collaborative program so there was some degree of you know um re tooling of the spaces but as you can see they're they're pretty you know laid out spaciously there will be meeting space in each room and this is the hallway which I hope you can see the historic Beauty really being maintained those those floors are are gorgeous and um we haven't you know and we when I look at a hallway like this and you know you ask yourself what's
050going to go on that wall um what I'd like to do and I've actually spoken with principal Branigan about this is getting my hands some historical artifacts of this town in order to showcase the history of Middleborough in this building it very much is a piece of living history and I think that it's Decor should should reflect that um and the double bonus is that we have pieces like that it doesn't cost the district a thing um and I think it's the right thing to do so with that I will turn it over to Mr Hutchinson for not just questions but maybe a little more detail about what this project has been uh thank you Miss Lyon school committee uh Rich Oakley thank you for your dedication to the schools not much appreciated uh you
051were correct we are moving uh December 28th actually we have the move is scheduled so PPS will move into their space it's ready for them now but um they'll move in 100 as will curriculum I believe Kevin habitable will move into that space temporarily uh and um more than likely we're going to see Katie goodie move into Aerospace as well so three of the four spaces on that floor will be done for the return January 3rd um and then we'll stage upstairs and as Miss Lyons mentioned we'll it'll be a construction zone while they're there but they'll be pretty much isolated they can close their doors and we'll try to keep it as quiet as we can we've got a new custodian in that building he was a custodian in the district Ron Leonard he's
052done a great job over there he's there every day as is Cindy de Stefano who's doing a lot of our painting it's been a huge help to the maintenance department because we've kind of been spread thin around the district with the beginning of the heating season and what have you so I can't say enough for those two or were there every day we have a couple of our interns our summer interns who are on holiday break one has started already and uh and Justin plusky and then Matt Farley will start next Tuesday they'll work alongside Ronnie to get that first floor completed and get us moved upstairs so because we have quite a bit of material construction material that we need to relocate uh the the pavement unfortunately we ran out of a Paving window
053so we're on their schedule for the spring um and we have a um once that pavement goes down then we will move forward with the stamped Asphalt in the front which will give it like a cobblestone look very similar to what we've done here and it's actually the same company that is doing that so um looking forward to that um I would think that once we get upstairs uh of course you never know we've gone a week or two where none of the maintenance department even shows up there so it's some days we can get in there and work eight hours some days we don't even show up there so which has been a huge benefit to have Ron Cindy and now the two interns helping during the holiday break um and so then we
054can get that back room which is actually where uh Jen Healey will be located finish that complete the first floor in its entirety uh this morning we had our gas inspection the boiler is final so that whole thing has been inspected and it is online the first floor is heated uh the bathroom downstairs the Plumb is holding us up which would be me so uh hope to have that done it would definitely be done by the 3rd of January but um exterior we do have some exterior painting obviously with the weather is not on outside right now so we'll get that done in the spring but the heavy lift will be probably completed and hopefully moved in February uh the only we're hoping to get Miss Lyons in in February we'll see how that goes
055so um I believe that's it but any questions any questions another question just a comment um this is beautiful so please thank your team and thank you for everything that you've done because it's gorgeous they've done it I actually want to go tour it so we could arrange that that would be great yeah absolutely the question is was is there going to be a tour once everybody's in I would really like to invite you um and you know media to come cover I mean it's really a special moment so I absolutely plan it'll be open to the public of course during our hours and people are always free to come by come on over and say hi other questions for Hutch chair yeah thank you very much it is so beautiful the pictures that you
056showed and and I I thought it just deserved an extra um kind of repetition on on um how nice of a plan this is to impact student spaces um and I remember when Miss Lyons came to us at first that was kind of the goal and and uh how nice to see it kind of coming together and to free up space in some of our other buildings for for students to have a little more room so um uh awesome plan fun to see you coming together and and would love to even if uh maybe I'm not officially a member of the committee at that point come see it sometime when it's done but thank you of course everybody else um Hutch before I have you go I have to ask a question okay it has
057come up a couple of times at various other Town board meetings about mold in the schools yep can you address that for us once and for all yep so we we um have testing district-wide seasonally so change of season we have a company come in and we do our testing we do the large spaces the auditorium and the they have to be a populated space so we had our Co levels are correct so we do we pick certain classrooms in every school we go there when the cafeteria is populated so we get accurate readings there so that is something that we've been doing for quite a while as you remember which we had a a little bit of an issue years ago at the Brooklyn and since then we've been testing um about three times
058a year so in those reports come back to us and we've never had an issue with that so thank you I appreciate it yeah no problem at all one question Mr Hutchinson um also this year the health department was working with the school department to install those purple sensors which don't test mold but they do Test air quality exterior air quality yep so they're mounted they they're not all in place they'll be mounted outside of every building and they'll be they'll send information back to a website and they'll just test the quality of the outside air um not exactly not just mold because actually you're with your mold readings your mold outside is quite a bit more than your readings in the building so but yes that is through the health department the health department
059approached me about this over the fall and said how would you feel about testing um really it's not something that our that our department controls um and the results are not only monitored by the health department here in town but those results go to the state so I jumped at the chance because I thought that would be something that the community might be interested in quite honestly it doesn't cost a dime and it's just another measure to to demonstrate that we're interested in obtaining that information so that will be forthcoming I'll certainly share along with Mr Hutchinson any any updates we have there yep so once we have all of those installed at each building then we can monitor I think it's available to anyone to see that information foreign I do yeah I know
060I see you I see you when I'm here for my own kids sporting events and whatever else you're literally here all the time and the things that you report back on is unbelievable so as a parent thank you for all you do and obviously my son will be there working next week so make sure you take a little break while he's working we have his uncle overseas all right great thank you Mr thank you okay you're welcome thank you [Music] you might want to stay Mr Hutchison because the next item is actually our award of contract for the pool roof replacement so you might be handy for questions on that item too with that I'll turn to director business and finance Sarah hickey thank you it's working um I have news for you that actually
061begins with um Mr Hutchinson and myself submitting and uh a request to the capital Committee in the August of 2021 and then in October of 2021 in the special town meeting the town approved funds for the Middleboro public schools to replace the pool roof and moving forward uh Mr I think I've explained already a little bit on this project Mr Hutchinson and I were working with wesling Architects and we went out to bid on November 10th so the bids all the legal portions happened that's what I spoke about last time but the bids were available on November 10th and we had 25 vendors so when the bid becomes available people can log into our website to get to download all of the materials there were 24 five vendors from all over New England and Texas
062and Georgia and India that one was new for me I thought you'd enjoy that I don't know how somebody in India is going to replace a roof on our pool but they downloaded all the specifications on December 8th we had scheduled the biz opening there were six bids that were submitted they ranged in amount from 445 000 to 867 427 dollars and um the three lowest bids I then sent to the architect once the bid opening happens there's a two-part process the architect checks the references um and and this is uh actually a very structured process so it's not like the companies can only give us people who are going to say good things about them because this project requires decam certification in Massachusetts the division of capital Asset Management governs the construct public construction
063projects and so the the references that are given are not just all are not just anybody who said good things about them but it's everybody so the architect takes the bid and goes to work with the reference check with the other places that have had Roofing similar Roofing projects done I take the bid and I get to work with checking on the financial piece and the bid bond that they submit and wrestling Architects Joe St Germain is who we work with there got back to me yesterday and the lowest bid which was WPI Construction Inc passed all of their reference checks with him with flying colors past all of their reference checks with me with flying colors so um they are what we refer to as the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and I'm asking
064for permission to award the contract for the Middleboro Public Schools elementary school complex pool roof replacement to WPI Construction Inc from Webster Massachusetts to prove WPI Construction Inc as the vendor selector a second second discussion the community know what that bid was I I may have missed it yeah 445 000 okay thank you any other questions um how long will the process take interestingly enough as we know that there are issues with supply chain and so in the bid we we went out to bid in November to award the bid now for the work to be done at the close of school in June beginning at the end the close of school in June to be complete by August 11th so the work is to be in the summer when we can bring a crew
065in and they can take over whatever part of the parking lot they're going to need to stage their trailers or whatever a roofing company brings in got it having gone through this from the kindergarten which I thought would never ever end um does it appear that gives those them enough time with any problems with weather and everything like that Hutch yeah so okay thank you very basic um they'll turn this project around probably if they stay on it probably in two weeks so um it's it's really quite simple there there are not a lot of Mechanicals on the roof there's just one fan that pulls from the space below everything else is just a rubber roof so like with the Mac was a much more detailed roof and this should go very quickly so we
066certainly have plenty of time I am I would imagine the middle of July they would be done so um other questions because they do they bid a time frame as well or or is that not part of their the time frame the time frame is built into the bid package I present so it's uh I say this is the time that you have to do the work and the architect says this is the scope of the this is the technical piece of the work all right but it's all in the bid document which you can access on the Middleboro Public Schools website if you'd like but you'll know you did and where you were from yes I will any other questions anybody from the audience have a question hearing none there's a motion on the
067table to award WPI Construction Inc as the as the awardee all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous thank you Sarah for all your work and with that I'll turn to the last item of my report which is the school calendar as proposed for the 2024 school year you have a draft in your Dropbox this draft is largely unchanged from last meeting it denotes the four full day professional development days two at the start of the school year one on November 1st one on March 13th six early release professional development days starting in October and ending on the last day of school which is slated for Thursday June 13th um and I'll kind of turn it over to you with any questions you might have I I know this continues to be a
068question that has stirred up a lot of interest in the community as well foreign last time I just want to make sure that I'm clear we were going to have Tuesday off after Labor Day and now we're saying we're going to have school is that what I'm seeing so we're we're oh wait actually I think we're going to start no yeah so first day for kindergarten and Pre-K would be the Wednesday right Thursday September 6th first day for 1 through 12 would be August 30th right then K on the 31st and then Pre-K would start the following Wednesday okay on the sixth so the but there would be school on Tuesday September 5th yes there there is because there's no voting that day right all right and there's no school the Friday before like after
069so September September 1st is also a school day okay great okay that that was one of the things that had come up was there was it was maybe going to be a four day weekend and so we were I was trying to make sure that I had that information um sure yeah I know this proposal would leave Labor Day weekend as a three-day weekend it would be school on Friday and the Tuesday follow-on and it would get us out June 13th correct barring any days off okay all right I um I'm clear on it I like it this is just about like my visual perception can we maybe make kindergarten and Pre-K different colors because they're the same color yeah because it was it throws me off every time I look at it yes absent
070kind of designate the difference between kindergarten yeah sure any other questions rich I I forget if we addressed this already but I remember there was a question that seemed like it had some some real relevance around um PD days and um was that it was uh can we break those into hours as opposed to full days was that answered already Yes okay can we break them into one or rather do they have to stay full days and just so clear PD is a good four full days we can't create part days for full days got it that's contraction okay thank you oh I wanted to point out one other shift um in the previous draft I think we had talked about potentially um testing a Wednesday rather than a Friday and the one that had
071been selected was actually Valentine's Day and so one of the questions had been well what about the students celebrating and to be honest with you after kind of hearing the community's response or at least some of the community's response to you know when we start and end um I thought it would be the most prudent to present those days continuing on those Fridays in order to acknowledge you know the impact on families and family desire I it sounded like that the Fridays were really very popular so um that is reflected in this draft any other questions um Sharon would sure put it down to take a vote if people want to take a vote we can share with accept a motion to approve it if people want to do that during our second second discussion
072hearing that discussion in the audience seeing that all those in favor of the calendar as presented say aye aye aye opposed it's unanimous thank you thank you and that completes my report for this evening thank you very much um a couple of things next item is the school building project we did have a meeting yesterday the meeting was uh relatively quick um there is ongoing uh checklist items being taken off the list especially during the break um that's coming up so that they'll be working around the break um we did I believe I mentioned before there was some replacement of seating in the science labs so we were given to students and the teachers didn't like the current um seating that we had in the labs so we took with they're still there because we're
073waiting for them to be replaced as you can imagine so there was multiple samples set sent here for people to take a chance on and experiment with and they picked it out and Paul I believe I know we ordered them but it also looks like they're reasonably in stock and so they should be coming to us probably oh again over break and there'll be that change out then um I know they're one of the big issues was one of the elevator cards the elevator card which should is slated to be here for um the the break during the winter and so that's going to be repaired and fixed aside from that the punch list items it's unclear if we as a group are going to meet monthly primarily because when we meet we pay vouchers
074and so the the um our Compass team has decided that it probably makes more sense to tell people to promise people we're not going to pay them unless they come in and do it immediately because there's some bucket list stuff that just needs to be filled out and check off and if they're not going to do it we're not going to rush to pay them so um we'll figure those out and go from there and there's also the point where at some point they will um they have a potential to either decide it's not that big a deal on a bucket list and we don't need it and we're going to take a credit off of their work or we'll just get somebody else to do it if it doesn't fill out so there's I
075would say most of the pieces are minor at this point except for the the two things I mentioned which is a swap out of furniture and the reader card that we don't have anything over so those are coming along uh we're at the stage I think I mentioned this before where msba won't pay out until certain things until the very end for reimbursement so everyone certain people are wouldn't get reimbursed until that point um and then we are still currently roughly about five million dollars on the budget so we're happy with that questions at all or anything like that okay um next time I put on our agenda it was simply this that the superintendent the business manager and I had talked and we looked at what we have the current pay that we pay
076our secretary um and viewed it in regards to how other places are paying their secretaries and wanted to make sure our secretary has not received any significant raise in a little while um and so we have we're recommending that uh should go from the 23 dollars an hour to uh 25.50 and that brings her in light with a lot of other things across the district so it was something that we had worked on and came back to so I wanted to present it tonight and ask people's thoughts this we have we have money in the budget this is not going to affect the budget at all or in any way shape she doesn't she does a lot of work she does she's fantastic at what she does so so yeah then the chairman entertain a
077motion to raise her rate to uh the 20 uh 25.50 so no moved 30 second discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous and just uh since I didn't ask she'll make it clear it's retroactive to this past year I think I put that in the the piece but uh we'll go from there so thank you very much for everybody for that uh chill entertain a motion to approve consent agenda do I have a second um discussion this is just on um some uh fundraisers meeting minutes and approval warrants all those in favor say aye aye opposed unanimous um I think we took care of all our action items um uh like to point out that Hannaford's Supermarket donated uh to the mech we are very grateful for that they're
078another organization in town that has consistently donate over a period in time and just so everyone knows they gave the mech uh 279 dollar check and we appreciate that uh with that um we're at the end of our meeting our next meeting won't be until January 5th 2023. again rich thank you for your service to this committee we appreciate it and with that the chair on today motion to adjourn so moved for your second second discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous thank you very much everybody happy holidays and happy New Year [Music]