001yes this evening i am the temporary leader of this meeting until such time as the chairman of the school committee is elected we'd like to start tonight's meeting if we could normally with the pledge what we'd like to do first is having a moment of silence this past weekend we lost frank coutinho long-time middlebury teacher and mea president um he was an honored faculty member and uh we we sadly mark his passing unfortunately so if we could stand and have a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance please thank you thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united one states under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you first like to congratulate marcie fargo and her election and rich oakley on your re-election that forms a six-member
002committee and the six-member committee needs a chair so i would at this time accept nominations for the chairperson of the middlebury public school committee mr oakley make a nomination that mr young be our chair and uh if it's okay i'd just like to expand a little on that um we'll do that okay i have a i have a nomination for rich young is there a second that i saw marcy's hand first sorry i'd like to make a nomination as well oh describe a little bit about why um i got to learn an awful lot about what it takes to be the chairperson of the middleborough school committee by serving as vice chair next to mr young had to run a couple meetings sat in on some agenda meetings and realized just the scope of what
003it is that mr young does for us and although i would love to at some point um chair this committee i cannot commit the the extensive amount of time that mr young puts into being our chair and i think he is the right choice for this so i'd love to vote for him any other input okay are there any additional nominations marcy i'd like to nominate teresa farley is there a second yep second any discussion i just feel that she's done a lot to help collaborate with the community and the parents and i know mr young mentioned in one of the more recent meetings that he may not be running for re-election at some point so i think that a new chair coming in while he's still here would be a good idea thank you
004any other discussion okay we will take these in the order in which they were nominated this takes a roll call vote so for rich young as chair roll call vote beginning with marcy yay or nay nay zeke yay teresa nay megan yay hi rich okay i and rich young votes i so that is a four to two vote for theresa farley roll call vote rc aye and that's a 2-4 against mrs farley at this time i would declare that rich young is the chairperson of the middlebury public school committee and he now will take over the meeting thank you congratulations thank you i appreciate the members of my committee and rich thank you for those kind words um the chair will entertain a motion open the nominations and entertain nominations for vice chair okay mr
005oh sorry mike i'd like to nominate zeke um i'll expand upon that later i guess yeah i have a nomination for z do i have a sec second thank you discussion on zeke meg you wanted to go um i just like that zeke um just he really wants to learn and i think that um like mr oakley said when he nominated you that being vice chair is a really good way to learn um and so i welcome that sure um mr chair um i just believe in giving people um chances when they ask and i got a phone call a nice phone call from zeke about that and so i wanted to give him that chance thank you any further discussion about z shall entertain other nominations for vice chair hearing none we can do
006it by um acclimation because there is only one all those in favor of zeke lewis say i i opposed abstentions it's unanimous thank you christine shall we entertain a motion to um nominate christine albert as the secretary to the school committee so move do i hear a second second discussion uh christine has been our long time secretary to the school committee um this is sort of our usual mo any other questions or discussion mr oakland sure i just want to take the opportunity again to say how great the the um minutes are that she puts together and um i mean we're voting on some minutes again today and i just reading through them they're just really great and i've you know we've all probably seen other minutes and um they're very different than these so
007i think that she serves us really well and also she left candy so but i guess i would just ask will she accept um yeah okay uh any further discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed it's unanimous welcome for another year christine um chao entered in a motion to uh adopt robert's rules of order 11th edition 12th edition excuse me which is now the current edition so do i have a second this is just again this is a typical piece for us any further discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed unanimous uh challenging their motion to set our dates time and place as the first and third thursdays um of the month um and the school committee will continue to meet at seven o'clock at middleborough
008high school in the auditorium unless otherwise noted do i hear a motion so move go ahead a sec discussion yes um that excludes vacation weeks though because we have to talk about what we normally do is when we put out the what we'll do is we've taken vacation weeks off of this calendar year we establish what we meet for the summer time we generally meet once a month during the summer time and then at some point during the summer we bring up what our calendar will look like for the year and we take vacation times off there and move those around any further discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous um assigning a warrant um what we have done recently in kovid have has made it that we've allowed
009any member to sign warrants primarily because it was if somebody gets sick generally speaking it's the chair and one other person who signs warrants i think this has been you know i've been able to do it for the most part on a couple of occasions when i was out of town the vice chair did it um but that i would still like to keep that any member can sign warrants if that's okay with the so with that the chair antenna motion that all members be allowed to sign warrants do i hear a second discussion and just everyone knows warrants are to pay the bills of the school and so what happens is generally once a week there's a packet of warrants that i review if i have questions i sign them and then they get
010sent to the town treasurer's office the treasurer reviews them and then the bills get paid and so they are also included on our consent agenda too yeah mr chair i just want to say under discussion for that that it was probably one of the more educational experiences i've had to sign the warrants um because you get to look through those you know hundreds of pages and everyone that's in the business office is super helpful in explaining things so if people get a chance to do it i would it you know it sounds kind of boring but it was actually really enlightening so i would encourage it thank you any other discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous as in the past i will send everybody the list of subcommittees for the
011school committee and i will send those but i will say one thing uh um that because of her we lost greg greg was serving with me as on the negotiation subcommittee um in the past meg has served with me um in some of the negotiations so i'm going to put mega on that subcommittee especially with the teachers contract um and then as i've said before when we start negotiations with other groups i'll have some of you included in that and work with me or meg on that so i just wanted to point that out right now and with that chairman obtained a motion to adjourn reorganization so moved do i hear a second second discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye and thank you very much everybody it's unanimous now we'll go
012to the regular agenda of the school committee as soon as i bring that page next item on our agenda is public comment does anyone have anything they wish to talk about that's not on tonight's agenda welcome hello hi i was just um wanted to um come back i know the last time i was here um or at the last meeting i had brought up the the pledge that was required or then not required by the school the diversity equity and inclusion pledge um and i just wanted to kind of it's more for the community to be aware of so there has been a lot of advocacy around that pledge and whether it's something that should be a required element or not i know at the last meeting the athletic director did change it after we
013emailed him to a non-required element but it took several months in contact with miaa to understand whether they were requiring this or not because as we do now know they presented it to all of the member schools as a requirement for participation in sports so it in turn was presented to our athletes as this was required to participate in sports um but it becomes a problem of compelled speech so we now know after five months of advocacy that it is not compulsory for students to be forced to sign something in exchange for participation in their sports so they have a right to participate in sports as part of their school and this had to come from mia's legal team so i think i want the community to know that no student nee or coach for
014that matter or administrator because that was how it was presented by miaa that administrators athletic directors coaches athletes were all required to sign this pledge so and they left it as very confusing or very much implied that this was required element to be able to participate in any sports and students in other districts and other towns did not refuse participation for not you know participating in this compelled speech type of thing so i know from the school committee you were saying well we need to listen to what mia tells us they tell us what to do which is the same thing we heard desi tells us what to do but i really think it is important for us to always consider what they're asking us to do is this a required thing or is this
015a framework are they suggesting that we teach our athletes about diversity and inclusion and equity and that's a framework well that's one thing can it be required for them to sign something to participate it sounds like that's a no at least based on the press release that i got today so i just want to share that with the school committee i think it's important for all of us as we as we move forward after two years of kind of you know looking at things from a different perspective that we should not always be taking things from any agency whether it be miaa or deci at face value we have to look at it whether you know how it's being implemented and it doesn't even sound like it's in this scenario it's legal that legally they
016can you know compel students or coaches to sign things like that looked like they were coaches that were upset too because they felt their job would be compromised i'm not saying in middlebury i'm staying across the state um you know if they didn't um comply with this so while i think that's a good initiative to do something like this um you know i i think that's great initiatives i have a problem with kind of the implicit bias piece and some of the things that you know the compelled speech so i just wanted to make sure the community knew administrators knew um that we don't have to just do what they tell us because they said so so um i just want that to bring that up to everybody's attention thank you anybody else see no
017one uh next time our agenda is um reports from school committee members um so to start with i'd like to just say a couple things i want to echo the words that um brian had said earlier about mr catino um it's a sad loss with the town of middleborough i enjoyed um the lengthy periods of time i get to spend with frank not only in negotiation but just having conversations about things that were going on frank was a very open and honest person and always had a good conversation so i appreciate everything that frank had done for our community and especially really the work that frank would constantly do for kids and working to make sure that there were opportunities for them and i really appreciate that i did want to say something give the
018community an update on what's happening with the high school uh as as everyone knows we had an overnight incident here i i do want to go into the fact first and foremost that it is still a police matter under investigation i know that the superintendent had a conversation with middlebar police yesterday it's still an active investigation they expressed how they're pursuing the matter which i'm not going to get into but as i've said time and time again we have the utmost confidence in the middleborough police department and in what they do and we know the perpetrators will be caught but i do want to take a couple of moments to thank some people first and foremost i feel like a lot of times i come up here and i say it over and over again
019and i know the school committee gets it but i hope the community does too the person who found out about the markings was hutch it was a sunday it's hutched his day off hutch is not supposed to work the weekend hutch comes by the schools every day and by every day i mean every day and so that does a walk through in the morning just to make sure everything's set and that's the type of person hutch is and for him to be there and for him to immediately react again is the type of person we have running our facilities so i can't say enough for hutch i also do want to really thank roy morse royce from the class of 2011 and he almost immediately reached out to hutch and he's the owner of lmm
020asphalt in middleborough and he paid for the cleaning of the school he hired an outside vendor also from middleborough named all washed up that man is jason graca and so we thank mr morse for his contribution um it wasn't a situation that was asked for he just went out and did it as a good member of the community so we want to thank them i also want to thank all the parents who showed up the day after the monday after to sort of let everyone know that they were behind them it was a good crowd and a good amount of people i also want to thank bran you know again sunday is brand's day off too sometimes we forget that i know paul forgets that sometimes but that's the kind of person he is um
021and i can't say enough how respected he is in the community and how the community responds to him and i've i've said it and i will continue to say it the reason my children went to middleborough high school is about brand and brand alone we looked at other places to take our kids to high school as other people will do but it was brand's approach and brand sitting there selling the high school and explaining his vision of what happens and also he was i've been to other places and seen people say you know thank you for coming but you know you should be happy to be here brand's brand's that different person that explains that he's thank you for looking at middleborough and thank you for thinking of us this is why you should choose
022us and i really appreciate that um so i wanted to thank those people um it's you know it's a it was a tough time i felt badly but i think as happens over and over and over again middleborough responds all across the spectrum so i did want to say that and with that i'll turn it over to other members mr oakley right sure um first i just i didn't want to leave out um just my sorrow for um what mr catino's family must be going through right now and i always found him to be someone who was really kind of down to earth and logical and um could kind of put the emotion aside and i used to really enjoy his um all his different ties um that he would wear and um just uh
023prayers to his family on that and um secondly i wanted to talk uh quickly about the the high school incident and i'm so happy to see the way that the community has come out um in support um of all those that were hurt i mean not not the least of which obviously mr branigan and um i hope he feels it um all the love because um i as far as i can tell one of the best things we got going here in middlebury is mr branigan um but i also wanted to take a moment just to acknowledge that there's another kind of there was another kind of target um as well um in that vandalism and i know of one particular um young lady that uh couldn't uh did not feel comfortable coming to that
024school um this school that uh while that was still you know kind of on the walls before before it got fixed and again just a huge thanks to the people who acted quickly to fix that um but i just want those folks to know um that that we're here for them too um so uh i just wanted to quickly say as as a my school committee report that i've been in communication this is a separate topic now um with uh joanne babin um we've been monitoring that senate bill um uh s2518 an act authorizing the treasure of the town of middleboro to pay from available funds to middleborough high school students parents or guardians amounts paid but not reimbursed for the cost of the 2020 senior trip that's the whole title since probably the summer
025of last year i've been checking it every few days and um it was a little exciting there for a little bit in october and we saw ooh it got a second reading and i'm kind of hopeful that uh it would move move forward from there and we get some sort of resolution and i want to acknowledge that there is a lot of really critical important stuff going through the house and the senate right now but i also just want to acknowledge that the the amount of money that um these families are out is not insignificant and i'd i'd really love to get a resolution soon and so um i've i've emailed um uh senator pacheco and uh also the senate president and the um the rest of our reps and senators a few times and
026they they do respond and they say they're kind of doing everything they can and i believe that but i do think it would be helpful to hear from more people on these issues too and so um if you get a moment it's just senate bill 2518 and i think that the families that are out this money would really appreciate some additional outreach to the to our um uh members of the house and um so that's it thank you thank you anybody else um my brother was there when he passed and from what he told me he uh he was with family uh doing what he loved i just wanted to make that clear because i think that's just an amazing story he was playing d d his last role the night was a nat 20
027which for those of you who play d is the best role that you can get sorry i was just geeking out over that but uh yeah he was an amazing man anybody else with that i will move on uh next up is the mma co-presidents welcome sam and kate thank you for having us um we don't have a lot to report tonight but we just have a few points um uh quarter four began at the high school today so we're three quarters of the way through the school which is hard to believe and to that seems to go so fast but then seems to go slow at times so we're moving through pretty well and uh on the notes for mea we're we're in still negotiating our professional contract um hopefully wrapping that up in
028a a meeting or two hopefully we'll get that one done uh to be followed up with the esp and cafeteria contracts after that and i'm gonna turn it over to kate thank you um let's see mcas exams are really underway in all levels middlebury high school did have biology exams um in february and again they'll have them in june they get you had ela in march nichols middle school started their ela mcas exams this week and i really just wanted to report and thank everybody for their efforts to pull the hbb and mkg school testing to a really tight really workable schedule we are now able to thank you to the technology that we have and our technology people do all three tests grades three four and five all in the same day by school
029so mary kay good went yesterday they had three three four and five testing all at the same time and we went today and it's working wonderful um it really will bring down the school-wide changes in the schedule and and just makes it a lot smoother and and then everybody's all on board and grades one and two really supported us this year by giving us a lot of encouragement and as well and then as you all have heard um you know our association and our school community and the whole town of middleborough did have a tragic loss this week a loss of a great man frank who was our former me president for many years vice president before uh was a friend to all a great guy he was a mentor to sam and to me
030and he will be remembered very fondly and missed very greatly that's it any questions for the presidents see you soon thank you ladies thank you up is natalia welcome natalia so for this week starting off with the mech the mec is preparing for a very vis very busy spring with lots going on with help of the fantastic pta they have some fun and engaging enrichment events happening they have musicians storytellers and magicians coming to entertain and teach they are also planning a field day and a parade to first grade for our kindergarteners there will also be a patriotic performance chick hatching caterpillars to butterflies sing-along and field trips to the fire station library and pierce playground amongst many others for the mkg the ela mcas has begun for students in grade 3 4 and 5.
031they have completed session 1 of english language arts so far the students are focused and working hard the mec has many end-of-the-year activities planned a few of these include the 3rd grade play camp read-a-lots grit for grades 1 and 2 a field trip to barney's joy for grade four a visit to roger williams for grade two a variety of shows for grades five along with a few other field trips and field days still being planned there is also events focused on finishing the year with many opportunities for learning and growth for all students next for the hbb it's mcas season last week on friday they celebrated their first hbb mcas rally in three years the mcas rally has been a tradition for the hbb every year as they bring the whole school community together to
032celebrate all their hard work and to talk about the importance of hard work and perseverance it was great being able to get everyone together again they would also like to send out a huge thank you to all the parents and teachers who are who organized this year's readathon as well as a thank you to everyone who participated for their support this year the event raised almost 32 thousand dollars all of the proceeds go right back to the kids in the form of enrichment author visits field trips and husky the husky haven and so much more for nichols middle school the nms 8th graders had a successful basketball game playing against teachers and staff the students proudly won this game against their teachers mcas began this week at nms the 8th graders just completed the ela
033portion of mcas the 6th and 7th graders will be taking the eli test next week the project or the nms project 351 ambassador miss lilly pierce held her clothing drive for cradles for crayons and she would like to thank everyone for their donations the builders club is planning two dances for this spring for 6th and 7th graders however they are still looking for a dj any suggestions can be made to mr redpath the 8th grade dance will be held on thursday june 16th nms would like to thank their pta for their donation in supporting their motivational speaker david flood to speak to the 6th and 7th graders and a big shout out goes out to all of the nms students who participated in the stem fair there were many entries displaying great science and technology
034minds at work congratulations to the winners in each category and lastly for mhs the official ribbon cutting for our new school and the rededication of the wayne m karen auditorium will take place next thursday april 14th at 3 p.m in front of the high school a reception and tours of the school will follow the event springo bingo will also be that thursday hosted by student council this event will be take will take place from 7 to 8 30 pm i'm sorry senior dues need to be collected for all members of the class of 2022 dues are 50 and should be paid no later than friday april 14th dues can be paid in cash or a bank check slash money order checks are payable to the town of middleborough all dues can be paid by seeing
035mrs holmgren in the main office the senior prom will be held at the grand view in mendon on tuesday may 31st at 5 pm tickets are on sale now and you can see mrs holmgren in the office to purchase the junior prom will be held at the middleborough town hall on saturday may 7th at 6 pm the following clubs will be taking place at wednesday on wednesdays at 2 p.m key club in room c149 gsa and room c158 and yes club and room c159 and lastly all members of the national honor society are offering a program to all students in all classes allowing for weekly meetings with the one-on-one tutor this is a free tutoring opportunity please reach out to mr goldman if you are interested natalie that i have for you is how are
036you doing you don't have much time left um it's weird i think about it and i'm like oh my gosh i don't know i it's like a bittersweet feeling i'm excited for what's next but it's very weird to know i'm not coming back i don't know scary well because i mean you're here announcing everything you know like senior prom and everything like that that isn't that far away yeah and so those things are sort of on the horizon yes rich you had a question you're right yeah so i mean given that are you kind of like shepherding someone along to take your spot at some point i've been looking i've been asking around i'm not sure that's something i'm gonna have to talk to bran about but i'm not sure yet i'm looking well if
037they get your approval i guess it's good for us too so not a question just a statement of how happy it makes me to hear all of the activities that are happening again at the end of the year so that just made me really happy to hear me too you do realize that the next time we meet what the big question will be oh yes okay yeah just so we're quick i'll have my answer we've got you a couple more weeks but then we'll go from there so natalia as always thank you very much we appreciate it yeah and with that i'll turn it over to the superintendent for his report thank you mr chair good evening and good evening to all the members of the committee and those in audience tonight i have my
038first reporters covet 19 as i've done for the last couple years it's been number one and i would like to provide some community information and then school information in our community the town of middleborough's public health reports includes a low community positivity rate of 0.02 this represents 15 positive pcr official lab reported positive cases in the community over the last seven days there was one positive lab pcr case was a school-aged child two cases were under the age of five this week's diese reports of new positive cases in the district from thursday march 30th to wednesday april 7th where the data includes at home testing reports and pcr lab reports is five new cases it is been diminished as the week has gone by a view of the district data dashboard for today would indicate
039that we have total active cases in the district of three now that's up slightly uh from zero as you know which was exciting and we went to one then we went to three we know there's a little bit of slight of slight uptick in in the region in the community so we'll watch that carefully and contin continue to be on guard with regard to cleanse cleaning the buildings and and mitigation strategies and and keeping the water bubblers off at this point the water fillers are on for all the students that want to bring bottles to school so we'll continue with that and that completes my coven 19 report mr chair there's any questions from anyone any questions any questions from the audience go right ahead seeing none we'll move on in our i'd like to
040invite ms caitlin mcsweeney to the microphone caitlyn's the coordinator of the plymouth area prevention collaboration she's been here before providing the results of a survey that we sent out last year and tonight she's here requesting uh permission to do another survey the same survey with our students to collect additional data anonymous data that's collected and reported back to the school committee in a summary form and used in terms of data to apply for grants and continue the programs that are in place so we certainly welcome caitlyn here tonight this is a survey that is an optional survey and parents can opt out of this survey it's not required for students but it's important data that we move on so caitlin welcome and and thank you for coming and the floor is yours thank you for
041having me um as mentioned this is the same survey that we conducted last year through our prevention initiatives um my name is caitlin i'm a prevention coordinator um through high point treatment center and we have grant funding to work in middleborough as well as surrounding communities to provide programming around prevention initiatives you know working with the stadium supporters club as well as our community coalition middlebury matters and i really just wanted to come today to see if anyone had questions about the survey and i know the last time i was here for the survey last year we added some additional questions about covid 19 and how students have felt on peer pres their substance use set you know related to covet 19 so i do have those surveys included again since you know we still
042have cova going on so yeah any questions from the school committee sure thank you i know that the information we get from this can be really helpful for a whole bunch of things the the only and the only question i had was just specifically around the notification to to parents and and the opportunity to opt out um just making sure that people have notice on that but otherwise i think it seems like good information to get and could be really beneficial um so i just wanted to hear just a little bit about um how soon do people get notified and how much time do they have to opt out yes that's a great question so we do have a consent form that goes to parents and we typically work with the school leaders the assistant
043principals that work on conducting the survey and coordinating it with the schools to send a notice of a passive consent form and parents can return that within three days is how we have it on the form if they don't want their child to participate in the survey so when that happens if a parent opts out we make sure that that student doesn't receive the link to complete the survey okay great thank you thank you um can you explain like the process of the kids taking the survey are they taking it in school in their um advice we call it advisory i don't know what it's called here but just kind of how that works in the school yeah that's a great question um so it is an online survey so typically i work with um
044miss loku and letendre to for each of their schools at nms and middleborough high they work towards what works for their schedule typically we do this in the springtime around april so whether they decide that it's a certain block or advisory i think last year we did do advisory block for the survey so teachers were informed and got the link via email and then the teacher put that link in the i think you guys use google classroom the google classroom so students can click it and take the survey then caitlin just a question of just the clarification there's a middleborough committee and on it who who are the members on the committee the the members of this committee that represent our school system and present our town sure in uh the middlebury matters coalition our
045schools matters yep so we have um laura loco heidi latunder meg quirk i work with mr branigan a lot i've also worked with um sean ceciliano to get things on our tv screens so those are the folks i'm thinking at the top of my head i know it's been a very busy year for school leaders as well so i've definitely worked also with miss alicia lane who is the advisor for the stadium supporters club and mr finch at the middle school as well thank you um that it would be sent home on a form that parents would have to sign to opt out i just i just may be able to share the logistical pieces of how it's done so basically with the approval that the middle school and high school would work collaboratively on
046a timeline so would go through the consent form actually would be sent in an email that would go to all parents so basically they would then reply to the email or simply download what whatever the process would be the easiest for them to just let us know they want to opt out and then what we do is we collect those names we would then be working with sean in particular and the tech center to make sure the fact that those students are taken out of the email that would go out to those students and then whatever the time frame we choose whether it be the beginning of first period of the day or an advisory or something then those teachers would receive the directions to read to the students and the survey takes literally about
047five to ten minutes to do um so basically what we would do is let's say in a hypothetical that and this is not even in place yet so i'm just gonna use it a hypothetical that on like a monday it would go out to all families and be from monday to friday that it would be that you have the week to let us know and then basically after that then we would then spend a few days preparing that the following week to make sure that we have everyone who wanted to opt out is a survey at that time and it's only certain grades it's only grades 9 11 and 12 i believe this time around is that correct yeah we also have um at nms yep grades 6 7 8. thank you other thank you
048so much for the description of the logistics because that was part of my question also the age ranges but are the parents going to be provided sort of a sample of what the questions are so that they can make a truly informed decision whether they want to opt in or opt out i i think that would be very easy to do i bet we just have to work with the i.t department to figure out how to put that into the letter so i think that's easily to be done i mean the the survey itself and i respect why you want to see it and we can probably work on to figure out how to do that but the um survey itself is completely anonymous so it really is tracking you know data of release potential
049substance use in our in our in our students and then to allow between middlebar matters and the schools to be able to look at that data and to be able to discern well what do we need to be doing because if we're seeing a collective bubble in some way shape or form whether positive then how do we capture that and keep that going or an area of concern then how do we navigate that to make sure what programming work we can put in so just the context of really the questions but we can work on with caitlyn and with middleborough matters of how to take that electronic survey and maybe put it into a document somehow that you can see series of those questions understood thank you um also follow up um is this some
050sort of like collaboration with this uh sel program that's being implemented no it's uh it is truly through the middlebury matters and the plymouth county substance abuse coalition so i i don't think it has any totally too different gotcha different focus understood thank you hearing none did sharon tay a motion to approve the survey to go out to students second second discussion hearing now knowledge in paper say aye aye opposed it's unanimous thank you caitlyn for coming and when can we anticipate the results um i know they have to be processed at a data warehouse and then they come back so as soon as they're available if you could contact me and and have you reappear with the results so that you can share with the uh community and the school committee yes absolutely typically
051um we as if we get the survey uh completed before like the end of april early may we should be able to get those results um in mid-august to have those before the start of this next school year thank you very much mr chair i'll continue with my report uh moving on to the natasha stole my thunder a little bit but the middleboro high school ribbon cutting ceremony is coming up next thursday at 3 p.m there's been a committee organizing that for a while and the announcements will come out and and sean is here our communications expert is it going to be on the website to invite people everyone's invited it'd be a large gathering we thank boston tavern and mr brannigan for coordinating again the sabranigan production and he'll be coordinating the food with
052the folks at the tavern so anyone in the community is welcome to come and take a tour of the school enjoy some nice food from the tavern light fair and um and enjoy the ribbon cutting ceremony for a beautiful facility that we have so we're very proud of it and we want to share it with the world so especially with the community that's for sure so that is next thursday at 3 p.m teresa something that came up when i had shared it was people were wondering since it is so early in the afternoon which is completely fine but will there be opportunities maybe on a weekend for tours for people who may cannot make that ceremony i think that's something that that mr branigan has uh we've thought about for a while opening this place
053on a saturday or sunday now that we're fully open and um so i guess we can we can work on that maybe announce that at the ribbon-cutting ceremony so because it's going to be filmed yeah there will also be another event upcoming which i'll probably have for you at the next meeting um that'll be more weekend-oriented event that will include i have to have a conversation with paul about it but it should be okay there will be more opportunities great to know and this ribbon-cutting ceremony will also uh we'll also have the rededication of the wayne and karen auditorium by the military uh the veterans in town will be taking care of that so that will also be part of this ceremony okay on i invite sarah hickey up to the up to the table
054she's already here and has been here every meeting i should have noticed that and she is going to report out on the before and after school child care uh request for proposals thank you very much superintendent lynch and school committee members in in this process um my office follows mass general law 30 b which is also called the uniform procurement act and it is the law that we follow for procuring supplies and services and the law was put in place to ensure fair and open competition and there are some thresholds in the uniform procurement act if if we as a district are going to be spending under ten thousand dollars it's our duty to keep the taxpayers in mind that we're spending their money and do our due diligence to to to spend their tax
055dollars wisely if we're spending over ten thousand but under fifty thousand dollars we have to go up we have to get quotes you have to solicit three quotes and go with the lowest quoted price and then anything over a hundred thousand dollars we are required to either go out to bid or to um do what's called a request for proposals so because the before and after school and and these money amounts apply to when we spend money but also when we get money so because the contract for before and after school care has the possibility of giving the district more than a hundred thousand dollars over the course of a three-year contract we have to go through the bid or rfp process and so on january 19th superintendent lynch and i made the decision to
056use the rfp process the the request for proposal process allows us to examine the proposal from a vendor separate from any pricing proposal there's you know we make an evaluation based on the criteria that has been given out in the proposal without the influence of any money on it then once that decision once that evaluation has been made the um then the price proposals are opened so i will talk about that in a minute so in this massachusetts general law 30 b there's a legal advertising portion of it so the the request for proposal was posted in my office it was posted online at commbuys through the state it was posted in the goods and services bulletin with the state and in the legal notices of the brockton enterprise the request for proposal was available
057to vendors on february 7th it was due back to my office on march 1st with the cooperation of sean siciliano in the tech department i was able to pro to host the bid documents all online and so we have a record of who picked up the bids it was picked up by eight vendors actually i'm gonna say it was eight vendors it was really nine vendors but one of them was an hvac company that i think clicked on the wrong link and they were looking for the mac boiler bid so it was picked up by an hvc corp company and eight child care vendors and out of those eight child care vendors we received three proposals part of the rfp process was to check the evaluation criteria with references that the vendor supplied so there
058are the people that applied uh do business in other districts so i sent out a google form to other districts and collected information over the period of three to four weeks and then the evaluation team met and reviewed proposals the evaluation team was superintendent lynch incoming superintendent karen carolyn lyons or pupil personnel director carolyn lyons however you want to refer to her myself as the facilitator and the three elementary principals so we met and reviewed the proposals using the evaluation criteria and the team selected the vendor that i'm present that i have presented to you in the letter that you received in the dropbox so the the group selected unanimously champions to be our vendor and to offer them a three-year contract with the school committee's approval sarah a couple questions um first was champions
059the preferred choice without the money yes and was champion's um contribution greater in the way it's set up that's why so so the way i have the money piece evaluation set up we can look at the amount of money that comes into the district and the amount of money that the parents are going to pay so the the champions proposal was the least cost to the parents highest return to the district thank you any other questions about this particular proposal mr oh sure um thank you very much i i found i was not a voting member the last time we put this out for bid but it was very educational for me especially around and my antenna always goes up with stuff like this where i don't i don't know how obvious it is to
060focus on the public exactly how this works but it was really cool to see that there was a very substantive discussion about the proposals and there were these envelopes sitting in the corner of the room and only after the decision was made on what program was the strongest where those envelopes opened where the money came out and i think that it's cool to see that as as a you know member of the public and so i just wanted to give a thumbs up for that but the question i had um about champions was um obviously maybe it's not a great time to figure this out because of this significant disruptions over the past couple years but i know that when champions and all the vendors for that matter submitted their proposals in 2019 i guess
061it was they had made some projections on what the money coming into the district would be and i don't need specifics at all but i was just wondering if they were pretty close to what they had promised or if we really can't use it because of covid so the the spreadsheet that i give out with the rfp is just model data you could look at it to say it it really asks how much would you charge a family if they had a student come once a day in the morning i'm sorry once a week in the morning once a week in the afternoon twice a week in the morning twice a week so it breaks it down that way so we can look at exactly what they would charge families and then it says using
062the this uh example if you had this many p students in the program at this location what would it be what percentage of that would come to the district so it it really allows us to to really drill down and look at it you know i i had children that went to a before and after school care program and the check that i wrote every month really mattered and so this is something that we can look at in this proposal to know exactly that that we're doing the best for the parents in the community great thank you sarah the other question i have is given that the committee chose champions for the recommendation does champions still have the opportunity to run programs vacations and summer yes thank you are there questions for people meg um
063i just want to make sure that we can get champions in here at some point to just do a program overview and all that absolutely thanks thank you they're very amenable to that any other questions any questions from the audience seeing them the children entertain a motion to take the recommendation of the before and after school child care proposal evaluation team and recommend champions be awarded the program for july 1st 2022 through july 30th 2025. june sorry so moved to her second discussion hearing on the scene than anybody else all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions it's unanimous thank you sarah i appreciate it i i do want to say one thing um in my current company and my previous company i do handle rfps i do work a lot on rfps i
064will say sarah is singularly the most hardcore person i've seen and she does a fantastic job with it and she follows it to the letter of the law and i appreciate that i appreciate that when i do rfps to make sure that people do that and to be honest with you that's part of the reason why you know people are allowed to protest um and go through a process of protest the protests don't get sustained because we follow it very clearly and outline the way it's supposed to be according to the terms of the rfp so i really appreciate that thank you mr chair my final note on my report for this evening is just a reminder that we have it does say special time meetings on my report but it's a special time meaning
065and the regular town meeting um both on april 25th 2022 right here in this venue this beautiful auditorium so i would invite everyone in the community to come on down it's a vote of the people and you're all welcome obviously and just a reminder april 25th it's a monday correct yes it's a monday is that is it seven seven pm thank you um i know that this happened last year but do you know if they're going to be offering babysitting services during the meeting anybody i'm not sure no i thought you're going to say you were do you have a question on the town meeting i do not i was waiting for that to finish oh okay okay that concludes my report okay next item on our agenda is the msba building report um the
066school building project um the superintendent and i have documents to sign tomorrow uh that kristen murphy's sending over about the um it's sort of finishing up the end of the budget pieces the project is still under budget and as we mentioned we're having the event which is the essentially the ribbon cutting which is important but am i missing anything else that's going on i know you guys meet more regularly we have a meeting next to the building committee meets next week next week and public is invited to that we meet in the select town hall and this is also available by zoom and it's a posted meeting and what time is that the five o'clock five o'clock five pm do you have a question on that i had a question for the superintendent just in
067general oh okay um so and i apologize if this isn't the appropriate moment to ask it um you alluded to mr young in your opening when you were talking about the um the different committees about the contract negotiations and i was just curious as to the the general timelines for those different contract negotiations in terms of i've no i've heard in the news in the past that there's issues always if things aren't completed in time for next school years so i was just curious if maybe some details about what the general process is in terms of making sure that all those negotiations are completed six unions that we negotiate with um all six have their contracts up at exactly the same time we have tried to change that but it it we need to to
068tango so to speak um uh we generally find and it's been past practice that we deal with the teachers contract first because that's the mo that has the most moving parts um and so i would tell you that we are near the end of that then we move to the other unions and and go from there the other thing too is just to be clear one of the reasons we also do that is the uh teachers union in middleborough the middleborough education association represents two other unions um the cafeteria workers and the um educational supporters so there's that and then we have other unions secretarial unions we have custodial unions um and i think i've hit upon everybody many plus drivers many bus drivers thank you so then um what typically happens to be honest
069with you in most cases i found some end early before the end of the school year some end during the summer time i can only think of in i've helped negotiate two rounds of contracts six each and we've only had one last beyond um sometimes pieces get put off um so for example last time we did most of the teachers contract with the exception of one particular piece that we agreed to keep working on and we continued to work on that and so to be honest that didn't get finished up until january of this year because it was a piece we need to go back and forth on as you can imagine cobit the other thing that's sort of different this year is the town manager is not involved in our negotiations he has been
070in the past but i keep bob informed and we do that to make sure that we're we're having the same conversations that the town is with our unions because i believe in fairness and equity um i i would say this for the most part it works out pretty well um it's me and another member i'm very happy the superintendent and sarah always involved but a good crew from the administration this year carolyn's been there from the beginning as has heidi letendre and in the teachers union we went with a particular kind of bargaining it's called interest-based bargaining it's not the traditional bargaining unit in which we spend a lot more time discussing issues and stories related to issues we have sort of a mediator who helps run that we also have our attorneys with us
071so it's it's an interesting aspect i've tried to get members involved i think for the most part it works out really really well i believe we have a good relationship with all of our unions um and part of it's about having conversations all the time does the transition of school committee members and the potential transition of superintendent while these processes are ongoing have a detrimental unforeseen and perfectly acceptable but does it have a negative impact on those negotiations or obviously if ms lyon's been there from the beginning their transition okay but just kind of curious is the the timing of town elections and things makes some of those negotiations kind of have to wait longer than you might wish the only to be honest with you we we met last week um and you know
072been open since the very beginning greg stevens was involved with me in the negotiations and so um when negotiations ended last week everyone understood that the the subcommittees of the school committee are the responsibility of the chair and so at tonight we decided who the chair was so i couldn't promise anything i i could promise um you know obviously met with the committee talked about parameters that were allowed to negotiate with so i could promise we were within the parameters that's it um and then what would happen after that would be totally up to the chair um as i said um in finishing up meg's the one person that i've worked with in the past in negotiations so it made sense that i'm going to point meg to that committee for this pair of space
073i've also made it clear to the committee members that this round of contract negotiations would be learning for most of them so they would put my expectation for them would be and marcie's the only one who hasn't heard this is that they would participate with me in in some of the negotiations so i can get my fellow community members ready for as we move forward past two times most of the negotiations were done with myself and brian giovannoni who is now a member of the selectmen's office um and occasionally one or two other people depending upon if if for example brian couldn't be there or brian wasn't able to commit because of his workplace so it's been good i think we've worked hard to i try to keep everybody informed as we move along we'll
074have a discussion about that in a little bit um but we really hold to the parameters um i think one of the things that we do maybe a little differently is honest and upfront about numbers i know exactly what the number that the committee has recommended that we're going to town meeting for obviously i hope the town meeting honors that and that's the point i negotiate with and so knowing that there are certain things i can and can't do um based on the numbers that we have um i also feel very good about the fact that we have sarah and any number i need i can get from sarah pretty quickly she'll know right where it is on which spreadsheet so that's wonderful um so just in general um things are on track i guess
075you could say in terms of the timings from you know previous years yeah i mean you know on track is on track some take a little longer some some people some you know i don't know i haven't sat down with any of the other unions yet so some are pretty quick and easy um some take a while based on just language um but for the most part as in every other time we sort of negotiate along the same parameters we haven't uh really changed things for different people um except in some minor cases based on things well thank you for the update and you know as many meetings continue any type of update just in terms of whether things are on track or not or how things are progressing through the list of unions you
076have to negotiate with would be appreciated just so that we uh know that things are running smoothly so and so just a point in perspective we met eight times each time is a three-hour meeting yeah um four or five five i'm sorry um so i appreciate the time we spend and i appreciate that side spending time um and having conversations but i greatly appreciate the time that mr stevens put in um i can't imagine doing it in knowing i had you know three meetings left or whatever number you want to give um but uh he was fantastic in it and uh had a good time he also has a sense of humor which was needed occasionally so thank you it isn't something that i think i've heard a lot about the the committee's involvement and
077how integral it is to the process so i appreciate that um and i do want to say one thing it we do things differently than other places um i know of places that send their lawyers um and just the lawyers meet with the union um i know of places that send the superintendent and the union and the lawyers we don't we send members of the committee i think if you ask anybody in there it is the committee who leads negotiations it is not the lawyer because you know we're the ones but by the same token the other piece that i want to make clear is i don't have to live through the day-to-day operation of a contract so i rely heavily on my administrators to tell us what they need or what they'd like to
078see because the principles and the superintendent are the ones who have to live it and so i'm not going to put anything in there that makes their lives difficult um and that's important to me too i appreciate that thank you and just one other comment because i'm standing here in i probably should have said this during the open part but i do want to add some personal thanks in relation to the vandalism incident so it hit my family and my children very hard so i do just want to mention publicly thanks to mr patrick converse who reached out to me personally when he noticed my daughter wasn't present in school to check in and he had connected the dots um in that it could have been the incident that had affected her so i just
079want to publicly say how grateful i am for his personal outreach and and that it meant a lot and then also to to to bran with everything that he was going through personally and professionally he did not neglect each individual student who came to him and the time that he spent with my daughter talking one-on-one was so important and so meaningful and i thank you for that thank you thank you um i i do want to say one thing too and i uh before i forget it was part of what i should have said i also want to thank administrators throughout the district a lot of them came to the high school did lunch duty so that paul could meet individually we had an opportunity to meet with students and so i want to thank
080paul again for his opportunity to be there at lunch with students but i know for example uh carolyn and brian and i know ryan did lunches and details who were sitting here so i really appreciate that and uh again i may sound like a broken record but i will stack up our administration against any in the state or the nation because i really believe in what they do so thank you thank you next item on our gender is consent agenda so the chair would entertain a motion to approve consent to jim go ahead a second second consent agenda suggests uh the fundraisers approval meeting minutes and approval warrants all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions it's unanimous um we have one action item on our agenda and that's an on estate field trip
081the birkeland wishes to go to roger williams park zoo in providence on june 2nd this is an annual trip out of state field trips require school committee approval do i have a motion to approve so moved very second second discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous two things one is in looking over our past we decided not to have a second meeting this month because it was it would fall on april vacation so we will not but i will need a second meeting this month from the committee so i will be sending you some information that second meeting will be entirely an executive session we'll have two purposes one is to do grievances and the second is to fill the members in on negotiations okay um i i'll i
082try to hold it on a thursday because that's what we're sodium used to but i want to see if anyone's not available if anyone's going away for family vacation i just want to take care of that but other than that we'll be all set um with that does anyone have anything else for me before i move to adjourn okay so um after the executive session meeting when will our next meeting be oh thank you so it'll be the first thursday in may which is may 5th okay thank you cinco de mayo cinco de mayo um with that chill entertainment motion to adjourn so moved during a second uh all those in favor say aye aye opposed it's unanimous thank you everybody and uh see you in may you