001thank you so much have all right the situate school committee is committed to providing an environment of respect during meetings we ask all members to interact in a polite manner even when there is disagreement we value the participation of our community and want all participants including marginalized and minoritized communities to feel welcomed and respected we ask our committee members and all who participate to commit to these standards to support and respect our community right so we call the March 24th 2025 school committee meeting to order here at 6:01 and we'll start with public comment see nobody logged in remotely nor in person we will move on with our student report [Music] hi can you just remind us of your name again I'm so sorry um I'm Lauren Thompson I'll be filling in for Jane Ryan
002tonight thank you for coming of course um to start with our sports news spring sports are underway with a large number of athletes competing our cheerleading team placed sixth in in New England congratulations to the shs model United Nations club for their outstanding success at the recent Yale Model United Nations conference held in Geneva Switzerland many students earned awards for their top performances best delegate Chase Bissell Quinn corkins ma Lynch Alice mcgerty Ava schelberg outstanding delegate Savannah garabedian Liam Holden Noah Shephard Hy Wade honorable mention M Mason Alvarez Nikolai bovich and Kira Schneider in addition situ high school was awarded the prestigious best large delegation award standing out among a highly competitive group of private international schools congratulations to all students who attended situate High School sophomores will take the English mcast exam on Tuesday
003March 25th and Wednesday March 26 Mrs nnar Mr Mr ler and the English teachers expressed this sophomore students the importance of taking this exam seriously robotics competed in rier last weekend and placed second in their category congratulations to all stud of the students and advisers guidance news during Wind Block on March 3rd students received an introduction to the course selection process for next year with their homebased teacher students will have until March 17th to make the make course selections through their Aspen portal school counselors will follow up with all students individually to review course selections and discuss placement or level recommendation these meetings will take place from March 17th through March 24th during nth grade math classes 10th grade chemistry classes and 11th grade English classes thank you so much couldn't get my microphone on
004thank you in so I got permission from your dad to embarrass you um he's not here to do so could you just share because I think we're in the presence of greatness and we have our kids here we want to share that um I was just blor she's a lawen wonderful student she's Chief Thompson's daughter well I should say he's your father right and um just had a as a former track and field coach I was just so impressed with how far you went on your uh track and field um accomplishments this year could can you share with us what how your season went quick summary of how far you went and how you did please um this year I went to Nationals the Indo Nationals at New Balance um it was a really cool
005experience and really like good accomplishment to kind of end my Endor senior season thank you thank [Applause] you okay next we have have our leadership report assistant superintendent start us off sure thank you um so this evening um I shared with you inside the packet our student Opportunity Act Plan update so sorry I wasn't here but I'm just going to do a quick refresh that last year Dr RAB and the leadership team presented our student Opportunity Act plan which takes place uh school year 2025 through 7 this is part of Desi regulation so as part of uh this process the student Opportunity Act plan focuses on um you know supporting students where uh gaps are identified and then committing our district to evidence based programs so what I shared with you was our required uh
006update which I put together and with the help of our team and that we're required to have voted uh before April 1st and submit back to desie so this is a a draft for your review um in our original plan we talked about closing gaps especially among students who um students with disabilities um and also accelerating the the performance of our um lowest performing 25% and the evidence-based programs we committed to are the comprehensive tiered supports which involves our mtss work the whole child review process our data dashboard through open Architects second one we committed to was an inclusive curriculum adoption process so our work implementing The Envision and saos math program our professional development this year and our development of benchmark assessments and math all support that finally our third evidence-based program is uh
007resource allocation aligned to Student Success so our work there's a five-year plan um that identifies implementing Universal Design for Learning um our team has worked together this year and we recognized that establishing a strong foundation for what good teaching and learning looks like is an important First Step so we've committed to some work with research for better teaching to really establish that foundation and to have consistent um aligned evaluation practices we're excited to kick that off this summer so that's just a high level overview of the 11 page document that I included and I'm per happy to answer any questions you might have about this um progress report thank you questions but this is based off uh so there was the one from last year and now this is a second addition of that or
008things that we're doing correct so there was the initial plan that was shared last year which three year plan and then desie requires us to articulate what progress has been made in the first year so what I submitted was or proposed is progress that we've made toward um our three goals they also provide an opportunity for us we wanted to shift our so that may happen to some districts um but we're we're not drastically shifting anything we're just reporting on our progress so um this is an update on the overall plan that was submitted last year and Ryan this is not associated with any money from Dy right this is just a regulatory thing that we have to do because of the student opportunity that right that's correct we're our district is not one of
009the ones that's receiving additional chapter 70 um support but my understanding that all districts have received a little bit more funding since the past passing of the student Opportunity Act so we do benefit but not below the minimum amount that's been yeah and do you feel like these things work together with the um school-based Improvement plans and the district goals as well like this is all kind of flowing together do you think I think so I think our our principles last week they were looking at um their list of lowest performing uh students to make sure their those fors were in place we're thinking about benchmarking and making sure that aligns with our mtss process so I really it aligns with our strategic plan so I I do think it's a bit of work to
010do this but also yeah we're trying to close gaps for all of our students and this makes you do it so I think it I think it all works together thank youse so you said we need to vote on this next time probably or you our vote it would be great if the committee uh could uh vote this evening so that we could submit for the April deadline I was gonna say we have to post this on our website too I think right yeah I believe so well first we submit it with your approval desie reviews it and then when sometimes they give feedback if they approve it there's a future date typically this summer when all of them become public like our one last year is is up on des's page yeah um so
011they they will make it public after they approve it um on page five we you're talking about resource allocation align to Student Success and the second paragraph early evidence of change there's a mention of better aligned instructional res sources and changes to math teacher practices are those practices referring to the tier one instruction that's referenced in the top paragraph or is it instruction generally I was just wondering do you see where I am yes the sentence before uh refers to the professional development provided yeah and so I I think part of our as we've been talking about as a group part of our work is an improved and aligned program we also acknowledge that part of our work is uh ensuring that we're teaching in a way that supports strong math learning so I I
012think part of resources are part of it and so so our teacher practice and and as our the time moves forward we will continue to look at both so I guess I I just want Clarity on so when savis offers PD is that on both the new instructional resources and practices is it one of the other is it a particular I'm just curious like is that pedagogy for their their resources or I just you could just share yeah I I can find out my assumption would be that it's both okay um but I I can absolutely follow up to see yeah I'm just SC I'm only asked because there's a explicit note about you know the the vision for high quality tier one instructions so just getting a sense to make sure that that goal
013is aligning with the early evidence is all I'm asking more more of a curiosity I don't mind voting it's just expansion of the information um take a motion on opport update I make motion make a motion to approve the student Opportunity Act planed progress report for fiscal year 2025 as presented second all in favor thank you okay we have our director of special education Dr bber um so I'm giving the annual update on special education that I typically do in March I'm going to pull up the PowerPoint minute feel free to interrupt me and anytime if you have any questions okay so um tonight I'm going to speak about um our student population students on IPS their um disability profiles a number of students and the various U placements where they're at I'm going to
014talk about funding and grants circuit for ER and then give an update on our integrated monitoring review from the state which we just received our final report um this week so it's breaking news um so so basically um we always count our students October one and that uh amount of students on IPS are used to determine funding uh for the for the next year um so and I also do a count in March so we see where we were in October 1 we see where we are in March and I have some comparison data here so as of October 1 we had 519 students on IEPs this includes 496 students that were enrolled in attending our elementary middle or um High School here in situ plus 28 students that were enrolled in out of District
015programs but funded by us we also had an additional 23 students on I who were either homeschooled or um in what we call parentally placed private schools so schools such as inle or theer um schools that are not necessarily Inu but um the families live in situate so these students are um need to be evaluated and we need to have annual reviews for them and run the IEP process for them as well as homeschool students our disability rate for students institu on IPS hasn't really changed much so it was 18.7% um last year was 18.5% the state rate is 20.6% so we're certainly under that um if you compare um the numbers we are slightly increased by five students from October 1 2024 to um compared to the previous year so that's a I would
016say a negligible change um if you look at um um the other the other dates I would say we're trending increased number of students on IPS overall so when you look at March 2023 we had 532 students on IPS um however we're trending slightly down for out of District programs for the uh the students that we pay for and we're trending a little bit up for these students in the private schools so um and terms of um the disabilities so the state had we're a categorical State we need to um determine a disability category for each student before being put on an IP even though we recognize you know not uh all students are different even students with the same disability can present very differently um one of the the I would say kind of
017flexible category is the developmental delay category because that is not necessarily um a disability it's just a students presiding with lagging skills in various areas they would need to be determined to have a disability at some point after age nine um because the state only recognizes this disability um developmental delay disability uh from age three to age n but does give us that flexibility but um basically if you look at the big um light green that represents um all the students that are on um that are been identified as having a specific learning disability so dyslexia disia um dis graphia Etc mostly you know reading disabilities um so that is our most prevalent disability which is typical so we have 31.8% that is followed by the health uh category of disability Health can be a
018medical disability but more commonly um that represents students that have ADHD or add that follows that falls under the health umbrella so that is 18% and then that's followed by the developmental delay which I um mentioned um can you know may Rectify itself um or some students may eventually be put on another category like learning disability or Autism or something um and then the next most prevalent category is autism at 12 and a half% um and then communication so this data is based on 559 students um in March and this is all the students on IPS including our district can I ask a quick question sure um I just couldn't tell on that last side the colors um is the 15.2 the development no that is yes it is just Carri I know the I
019wish the colors were like because there's like three shades of green three shades of blue you know orange is out there but then there's like a dark orange that's really little you um and then the next slide I just kind of represent the differences between all of our students and the students uh going out of District so the big category the lake green is almost 50% of the students attending out of District programs are eligible for a disability of autism and then that is followed by um emotional disability which didn't even really show up in the other category so 14.8% emotional and then the next most prevalent is Health at 11% and then we have um 7% for multiple disabilities so monitor to severe disabilities that may impact all areas of communication autism Etc um
020and then intellectual which is um typically determined by the IQ and life skills so 7% the students so you can see where the students that are out of District you know they tend to have um a little bit more needs than the students that we can provide services effectively for within the district um so in terms of the funding piece um we obviously we we get a lot of our funding from the town from the states we thank all the taxpayers um we also have um federal grants um entitlement grants that basically you fill out the grant correctly you get the money you're entitled to that it is based on that October one count from the um previous year um and then we have other grants sometimes those are competitive grants um I want to
021give a big shout out to Julie ward has helped with the um Meco special education grant as well as the 274 Grant that's a training Grant um that last year we got 20,000 this year we got 10,000 to help us um with the new IP so that was like a new Grant um last year and this year the other big source of funding is circuit breaker reimbursement I have two slides on that stay tuned um and then we also bring in students from other districts if they don't have a program for them so uh last year we had six students this year we have six but we have one that's just started and one that just about to leave so we um charge stud uh the district's tuition so we call them the non-resident uh
022students they become part of our programs there are students but we are not um fin we're not physically responsible for them and we actually do get funding that goes towards those programs for Staffing and supplies um and then obviously you know we have a lot of needs it's special education so we have um salaries of special education staff contracted Services um supplies equipment summer programming uh training the tuitions testing and transportation so um the next slide talks about a little bit about grants um so um we did get a little bit more this year compared to last year for our big Grant the idea um we have 757,50 188 we use that Grant to fund three pair professional salaries uh to fund training to fund partial salaries of some of our um cyps which is
023specialized instructional support Personnel some people call them RSP related service providers or more commonly known as P language therapists occupation therapists physical therapists um so that are um we able to use a piece of the grant for a piece of their salary for uh homeschool students that may be getting Services through that supplies for testing instruction um contracted Services um so I don't know if you recall a few years ago we our teacher are the visually impaired retired to two days week we were never able to find anyone so we contact with the school blind so we have someone through that we also contract with um Southshore Audiology for like those real specialized um services that we don't have um we use a piece of the grant for tuitions and transportation for our district as
024well then we have a similar Grant but on a much lower scale um for uh students with disabilities that is called um the 262 and that is for students ages 35 so we got a whopping $28 more this year compared to last year um and that Grant typically covers the salary of one par professional and some supplies for the ECC program talked a little bit about the 274 Grant um last year we had um you know more than twice as much but it was a new you know new IP format um this year we got $10,000 and we're using that for training we had a great presenter on March 18th that we paid for out circuit breaker so um basically you know I like to have this little slide about the um electrical safety device
025because the parallel is um you may have a student who moves into the district and they have a very expensive outstate tuition that you weren't budgeting for could be $500,000 so the circuit breaker kind of allows us to kind of continue to operate without shortening out anything else or damaging the whole system um so the way it works is that um we take the foundation um budget amount which is um $1,930 125 they multiply that by four and then that is like the threshold so the state feels like okay if you are paying more than that special education costs per pupil or you know a specific student it's not you know in total then we will fund a percentage of your excess costs over that so they kind of really expect us to spend 51,70275
026per uh some you spend 69% then that cost remains so um we can use this for industri students however it's really more and more difficult to do that given the high threshold amount when I first started doing circuit breaker I think the foundation amount was like 4,900 or something so it's just gone exponentially up um last year I tried to claim 45 students I only was we only had 30 eligible so I try to like do as much as I can to see who's eligible but typically it is the students in the out of District programs um we also can can get reimbursement for the transportation um but that is a lower uh much lower degree um so right now I'm in the thick of circuit breaker extraordinary relief so if by chance we spent
027so much money this year then we did last year have to be like at least 125% more than last year um they could give us additional money I think that happened once in my career it wasn't situ you're welcome um but um I don't think we're going to get it but I like to get ahead on you know ahead of it um so that we can see where we're at um situ does it right with our business U management here where um we don't as we get the money in we're not spending it right away so the way it works is like the funding that we were awarded in September of this year was based on last year's tuition but we don't spend the money this year we spend the money next year so that
028can be in the budget so I've been in some districts where they didn't have that and so they were kind of like hand to mouth um and then if you get into a situation where you don't you know there's unexpected cost and it's kind of could um so it's a little complicated but of course the you know Desy changed their system so I got to learn about that dur my vacation watch the Youtube videos on how to do circuit bre I reimburse one all over again um this is a slide that just kind of um encapsulates the last um six years of where we're at so you can see um you know the number of students that were eligible ranged from 29 to 34 um the reimbursement percentage if you look at the second to
029last column you can see that um changes so we were able to start claiming for transportation in 2022 and at that point um and 23 we got 75% last year we only got 59% of the transportation cost and then um last year we got only 44% so I was expecting a little bit more money back but because of the lower cost of Transportation I think um all districts are spending a lot more on Transportation um costs are going up everywhere so the state only has so much money and then they try to they do this formula to provide the support um so our total reimbursement any given year since 2019 has ranged from milon 63,000 to almost 2 million in 24 um it's okay when you're not um getting back a lot because you're probably
030not spending a lot so it just depends but it is based on per student um so you could still spend more but if you have a lot of students and their programs are less you might not get I know explain this I do like I do like I like talking about C any questions I have just a general question I guess just a comment too I actually couple meetings ago I was responsible for calling the um the O off odr oh yeah osdd OSD and um I did call them I didn't leave a message but I did happen to speak today to uh our state Representative Patrick Kierney and um the the real issue here and Michelle I mean this is this is I love the stuff too I appreciate all this but the real
031issue is the increase in the cost of outer District placement so what we're trying to figure out and Patrick was going to a um I don't know some sort of budget presentation um Amur today about the state budget and so we talked a lot about out of District placements and how these um providers are getting the approvals for such an increase in their tuition so we are collectively Patrick and I are working on an answer and how can they reasonably approve all of these like 15 or 20% tuition in increases so we're working on that I think that um that that's all relative to what you're doing here Michelle I think it's great I mean I mean I think the number of students is important to kind of see how many we roughly 30 a
032year but you can see that our expenses are just gone up dramatically with exception of 24 to 25 um but I know that there are 15% approvals out there for next fiscal year so assuming these 30 students remain which is a big assumption that you know our expenses are going to go up additionally or 20 26 I would say yeah it could and this is only I mean our expenses are more than this these are only based on the students that were claimed um so if we had a student um previously at the collaborative and they didn't attend summer program the tuition was so low it didn't even make that threshold so their prices are going up but it still is less expensive than a private school and you know the collaborative is like our
033collaborative it's local we want to support them um but um yeah you include expenses it's everything related to the services for that student so the way this the file works is that it's like like I mentioned I have the um teacher the visually impaired the state assigns a cost per hour so they don't care how much we spend on it they don't care how much puras for the blind charges us but they're like all right a teacher visually impair $85 an hour we might be spending 130 an hour so like we only they have this formula that they and and and the IP has to stipulate is it one onone is it small group so if it's a small group then the the actual rate is divided by you know four kids so it depends
034um but you can't assign that service to that student to I put them in but they have to basically equal that 50 1,000 thresholds so that's where it's challenging I think it used to be easier to do it when the thrh was lower what other type servic like PT OT those those all go towards the cost to provide services to a student y okay and special ed teacher um the summer program the hours um some you know and then the trans uh the transportation we don't get reimbursed unless they're out District they don't allow us to do the in District transportation so I try um I try and like some you know sometimes I get $44 or it's like yes but um but it's mostly these um okay I appreciate again I'm gonna come report
035back to the committee and I did invite Patrick um he said in May one of our M meeting so we'll talk we'll put down for the future the item that he wants to he be willing to come and talk to us about the state budget and potential impacts and again we're kind of initial phases of trying to figure out how these other District placements get appr for such a large increase because we just accept it right we have to whatever the whatever Desi or OSD approves we have to accept it we have to fund it change mid year too like it's going up yes budgeting is almost like impossible right I think we have the 14% was it was last year we were worried but yeah they can they can do a price increase um
036some and some of these programs don't even have like speech and language therapists so then we're still funding speech and language therapy outside of that so but there aren't enough spots either in some of these programs so we're kind of if the student really needs it like you said kind of stuck we have to do it and I think the costs are going up because it's been difficult for those programs to hire um and they can't be as competitive with public school um for hiring but also it seems like some of these programs they recognize that they're tuition increases 75% funded by Circuit Breaker so they're like oh we know that we're not really affecting the district that much we're affecting the state so the state budget is basically reimbursing three4 of every dollar D
037increasing tuition after that 51,000 right but if you're paying 300,000 for you know every dollar you increases right 75 cents is coming from the state the way that OSD approves the program so um they have to put in their budget and what the their salaries are what what their stopping are and then the state will give them that number back I don't know if the executives at the top are making a little bit more money than the people whoots on the ground working with the kids I mean that much more money obviously they are making more money but I don't know where the disconnect is um I'm going to help yeah it's affecting every it's affecting every District every town right I mean everyone that's requesting an override they all point back to part of
038it one of the reasons is out districts and we know they're so expensive yeah so we I don't know if's going to come up it but just to learn more about how these price increases get approved and how we can potentially prepare yeah and I you know I want to give credit to all of our staff and our families for you know we're we're kind of like building our programs within the district and our people are competent and certified and um that doesn't work every student but wherever possible we're trying to provide you know the least restrictive environment for students and help these these students to grow um and then they don't have to get on a bus you know or live somewhere else but that's not always possible for all students but where we
039can we're doing that um did you um so I want to kind of shift gears a little bit we just had our integrated monitoring review so this has been called many things over the last 20 years it what used to be coordinated program review the CPR then was TFM to focus monitoring now it is integrated monitoring review the IMR but basically desie comes out um every three years and they look at um Criterion for special education and in civil rights um we were in group b which is predominately civil rights um about three years ago we were group a and that was mostly special ed so um they look at our compliance to see are we fully implementing these standards and these laws in these areas and um obviously it's based on evidence so we
040need to show the evidence um but um we had um 11 special education criteria and 18 civil rights um we started um and again thank um a shout out to Julie Ward um who helped with scheduling interviews and um uploading documents of course our assistant superintendent who's like the first week it's like hey the self assessment is due um so um because it was Heavy C rights which is his part of it and my part of his special but we we worked great together and we helped each other out and everything but the first part was the self assessment we had to upload um all these documents I stopped counting at 107 separate documents that included my 200 139 page special ed policy and procedure manual which I wrote during Christmas Vacation um but they
041they want to make sure that we're um implementing these aspects of the laws so that was the first part was uploading the documents the policies that we already had Etc um sh showing the evidence of we're doing what we're supposed to be doing then they came out they did a site visit at the end of January they went to each school there was two representatives from the department and they were looking to make sure that the classrooms were safe that they were accessible that um special education classrooms were comparable to facilities um for General Ed Etc um and so that was a day then we had um a survey of special parents so they sent a survey out to 800 parents they got 51 back and they thought that was good um so I guess
042we are better than um some districts or most District and state um and then they had interviews with selected staff so that happened in the beginning of February and um they interviewed me Ryan um principal's special ed team chair a parent of a special ed student who was also on the CPAC board um uh and a j Rel teacher and they just you know so they're triangulating the data right they're getting the documents they're observing and then they're uh the survey and then they um in terms of some of these criterias like I can just give you some examples so for civil rights um our procedures for in school suspension uh are we doing alternative remedies to uh sus suspension um outside of school um bullying intervention and prevention are we providing an annual notification
043of non-discrimination um are we um following all the requirements related to phal restraints including training and uh Behavior Support policies are we do we have evidence that we've trained our staff on confidentiality of TR records um confidentiality um I'm sorry of um the responsibilities related to civil rights um Etc um are we translating for families that do not know how to read English um we making sure that our students who are considered English language Learners have full access to programs and as well as students with dispos so those were all that's part of the civil rights that was all great that was fine um special education and they were looking at child find are we evaluating students that we suspect may have a disability um are we evaluating our specialized programs are we doing assessments
044um before we are and around technology um those kind of things they looked at teacher licenses or teachers license they looked at student handbooks um floor plans and so it was um it was quite a lot um but we did really really well in my opinion um they released their preliminary report March 13th like I said before this went to press or after I guess after I created this PowerPoint we just got our final review our final report um so we had lots of like debrief meetings with them as well so one of the things I like that they said is that they observed lots of positive interactions between staff and students when they were you know visiting in the programs they um they made some recommendations that were like non-binding but um at the
045high school we have a wing where we tend to have a lot of our special education academic strategies Support classes you know maybe switch out one of those with a with a J that teacher so they're not all like in the same way um at hatherly and Cushing school because we are using like big classrooms the regularized classrooms we sometimes have multiple groups going on at the same time we might have the reading um interventionist or reading specialist working with a couple kids or may have a specialist teacher working with a small group so they didn't love that even though they were partitioned but they understand once the new school is built this will address it um the other issue that they thought we should focus on is recruiting more CPAC board members so PSA
046if anybody wants to be on the board please send me an email um as I mentioned we have one um parent who is on the board um we do still hold CPAC meetings but they thought it would be great we can have more and I think it'll be great too so we'll keep trying um for the survey they sent out to parents like I said um 51 were received not everybody answered all the questions in survey but um for the most part part um Henry our representative at desie felt it was very positive and that most parents felt and you can see like the number so 30 out of 35 parents felt welcomed at part of school team most parents felt their special teams valued their input during the IP process they felt that Sports
047services are provided in a wait to meet suit needs and that the evaluation process adequately addresses um the concerns so that was all good um so the findings like the final report basically we um fully implemented with 11 out of 11 of the Criterion for criteria for special ed we fully implemented 16 out of 18 for civil rights so two minor issue again it doesn't mean that we're not uh upholding civil rights it's just we need some more evidence right so one um issue was um the code of conduct in the handbooks it needs to be um I guess the middle school was good but the high school and Elementary needs to be improved by school committee so that will be coming to your desing okay um coming soon and then the other thing is
048they wanted to make sure that we have evidence that teachers and administrators are reviewing the curriculum to make sure there's no bias or stereotype related to uh sexual orientation gender identity religion race ethnicity Etc so um I know that with the equity audit you know they everybody's been working on this and they they are going to try to identify a tool to kind of do this but this is the work that they want us to then come back and say yes we did review this curriculum um we do not find this or we did find this and we're not going to use this or we're going to change whatever but that will be um written up in a corrective action plan and um there'll be like Steps we're going to be doing these steps and
049then um they'll be reviewed and there's like progress reports of where we're going um and I think probably a year we'll be done with that then we got a couple years and then group a special education comes back with the another TFM CPR I mrr whatever it might be but overall it was really I thought it was really really positive um they were they were you know pretty happy it will be like a a document that um will be like uh public as well the website um on Jess's website any questions oh I think it's great yeah it sounds like a sounds like a very positive outcome and I know it was labor intensive for you guys to go through so it's great it's great to see this perspective and see that it appears like
050we're doing really well in our special Department um I guess one question I'm not sure we can quantify is uh I know we have the number of IEPs um do we have evidence or anything to show that we have some students who are um meeting their goals and objectives and are no longer on an IEP versus students who are who were not on IEP but are now are on an IEP I don't know if we get that I just be curious if there was anything made I'm sure sure it's a couple students on either part of the spectrum but I curious um so I I can probably find some data we we track like number of you know the evaluations and the outcome so we're always getting you know more initials I would I think
051we're we're um terminating IPS less frequently than we're and the numbers show that too right then we're we're putting on an IP I mean students naturally go off an IP when they you know graduate high school are turn 22 um I do know that um the school teams also make referrals so that's part of child find so when they go through the instructional support team process um and with ntss they're they're looking to um frequently progress monitor of students and how they're doing and then if they're not making the progress they make the referrals and usually not all but most of those are found to have disability which makes sense um sometimes parents will make a referral and you know want to know their student has a disability those are not as frequently found eligible
052but some are we want to catch we do and we want to catch the students earlier um before parents are like concerned about that yeah but um in terms of like the progress on their goals you know the goals are written every year and they're kind of upped a little bit so um I don't know I probably ask I was just I just CU I think that ultimately you know I would say that in most cases if if you're if our students can reach their goals and ultimately I don't know what the word is terminate their IEP then I think that everyone's done a great job and the student's probably very um you know positive about their experience just be care I don't need to know just something something something to think about I would
053say just to see if yeah and sometimes we've had that situation where we're celebrating and and the student no longer really present with a disability but it can be a safety net too and parents don't want to let it go because like it's sort of like well would they make the progress without the special services so then sometimes we call what it's a state put IP which is okay they're still on the for those protections um but um you know I think especially at high school it makes sense to transition more to a f or accommodation plan because once the students leave um you know the schools they're not going to be on an IP they might they may have a five plan um and that's sort of a logical transition I have a question
054about that actually I was wondering if um fours are under your perview no they're not Tam okay um yeah so this is just um students onps okay so the data you had at the beginning I was just thinking of a little bit about like some students with ADHD for example have an i they have 504 and so you were noting that that was a fairly large group of kids and I feel like that's something that I tend to hear about from parents sometimes like who are worried about you know movement breaks and things like that so I was just curious like right how do we know how many kids acting you know well Tammy probably has the stats on the 54 so we can get them but but um so students on IPS are protected
055under Section 504 which is like the anti-is Discrimination making sure we're proving access students on 504 plans typically just have accommodations they don't need that specially designed instruction or specialized services so they might not need special teacher but they need extended time to do their you know assessment so usually um you know the 504 accommodations are in the IP yeah so there's not a need to have both sometimes parents like to have both and then if they're making progress maybe they don't need the specially designed inst struction but they still need accommodations then we could go to the 504 so it can kind of go either way yeah um or sit on a 504 might not be making the progress with just accommodations and then we're looking at other things I think some districts they
056don't typically pick up as much ADHD maybe as as we do but it's okay because that also can be correlated with meeting difficulties yeah so I was also curious about um you were saying this uh specific learning disabilities and how dyslexia is a larger you portion that I was wondering if you're noticing yet any difference in the number of kids that are being um referred for special aded with more training on science of reading and more focus on that in the early grades that we've been kind of doing in a general classroom I think since so I've been here since 2020 and I think that we are picking the kids up earlier yeah which hopefully will have um a better outcome later so what was happening when I was first here a lot of kids
057with to suxia they were making progress in elementary they went to middle school and they kind of hit the wall because they weren't able to decode these unfamiliar words we text fluently starting to impact their their academics in elementary kids are making progress because they have their teacher and there's like a lot of things built in already for them so I think we're seeing that um sooner and then you know we had the pandemic and then there all that that happens with that and I think kids weren't exposed to like just you know everyday things like the young kids right so currently your kindergarteners were one right so that has a little impact but um we did used to have like a a special reading consultant at the middle school and I'm like no no
058no let's like bring let's bring this down to Elementary so we have a lot of more teachers now especially teachers trained in uh Bon Gilling and methodology and I think that the foundations and all the work that Megan Gregory's done is wonderful and we're we're catching them so and and interviewing obviously but we're able to catch them so I think it's kind of like a very integrated approach right also so lucky to have all these reading Specialists as well yeah in situ so whether or not they're on an IP they're still getting this help and support that's great I'm really happy to hear about that change because I think you know what I understand about the sexia is just you know how important it is to intervene early and the earlier the better and the
059better chances that that child would have you know right and it's hard to diagnose like too early too so we want to make sure that we're doing that for all kids um and then like I said we do have that developmental delay category if we need it but yeah you know I I think I'm I'm pretty happy with what we I have one more question I was just curious if the um if the IMR like review would be available to offer to parents who wanted to maybe look at it I think we're gonna share school right the final or if there's like some version of it be shared I just thought some people might I think the plan was like anything to have the presentation tonight so they could hear it too but then read
060it sometimes when you send a yeah I agree a document like that out people just don't understand it so yes but it's a great question so we we'll send it out to all of you and then have it posted for part of this presentation with for the public to take a look at because you know just to follow up on that thank you Dr bber and Ryan and um you know this is probably the most positive Desy meeting I've ever been in like any meeting you usually get beat up pretty good and that's okay because that's what you want they to you see all the amount of work they do to take a microscope to something this support and um you know and Ryan was thrown into the fire and our principls did a really
061great job and ultimately it comes down to the the boots on the ground our teachers our special education teachers our you know genner teachers power professionals everybody this is really a credit to our whole District the people that work with our kids and the families too the kids obviously for but the feedback when I was was in the we went to um Prett comprehensive breakdown of their findings in a meeting and um again it was start off positive and I go okay start with the nice stuff and then we get and as you saw some of the things that we have to approve on which is great to see because I think that's what Dr cber and the team have done in the past when we've had these is we get right on this and
062we take it seriously and then we fix it we improve it but we also keep going on things we need to improve on So This was um it's a really good report and I want to you know also thank committee for your support and all we do in funding the programs and supporting them because this is something we celebrated so we make sure we share it and uh presentation tonight because it is good news also room for improvement but you know certainly the way that the uh Des representative spoke about it he was like you know beaming about it this the parent reports what he saw when he went into ilc plc's one of the things I wanted them to look at was the Jenkins program and make sure that everything was safe in there
063because we made some renovation in there's also done some other things to encourage more kids to stay in District which they looked at too and uh they were all thumbs up safe productive good um so it's just really nice to hear that we got a few things to improve on and um it was all a very positive overall report so want to just thank everybody for that we have our teaching and learning update with this r thank you for having me here tonight I am really excited to be here I've been wanting to provide some information to the school committee for um for a while now in terms of our goals our objectives a lot of data points that I've shared with you at this presentation um so I have my notes I have my
064speech I have everything I'm ready to go um so thank you for having me um and I just want to start by talking about um down down sorry um so I shared with you in your pockets a list of our goals and objectives for the year and I wanted to T show you how they tie into the Strategic objectives so um when we look at counseling there are three domains in School counseling there's an academic domain there's a social and emotional domain and then there's the College and Career Readiness domain and we have our goals tied around all three of those domains in terms of academic support um I will say that the mtss process at Gat has been um a wonderful change for our school counselors our school counselors are the ones that are
065doing the um whole child um the interviews for the parents and the caregiv they're providing information to the mtss teams they're also doing this data portion with the students as well um and that's been super helpful for um for our team they're really leading the way in terms of our mtss and I look forward to learning and sharing their best practices when we bring it up to the high school and also we bring it down to the elementary school um another important academic piece of data is regarding our attendance so often times the counselors are the first line of contact with students who have unverified um absences so often times we'll be calling home saying you know we're wondering why Johnny isn't here today trying to help um intervene before it becomes a major problem
066um for example I had a student who was struggling with coming to school um and after talking to his talking to him on the phone just trying to get him in he was saying saying that he had a hard time coming in because he didn't have any friends in gym well let's talk about that we can get you in let's get you into the building we noticed that pattern was on the days that he had bized he often was not was was not in school so we tried to put together some um combinations for him in the um in the bized setting to allow him to access the day um and I and his attendance has improved as a result of that um I know attendance is a big um concern and a big issue
067for situ but also for a lot of other schools as well um and then in terms of academic planning we provide academic planning for our students in terms of scheduling in terms of providing them with um their courses of study um moving forward through the through the school years um and then in terms of our social emotional development I feel like the counselors do a nice job championing the S programming for the district at the high school we provide we co- te a signs of student suicide which is a research-based program for um for students with the health teachers the nth 10th grade health teachers so we co- facilitate those classes and what's nice about those Pro that programs at the end of the program we provide a an Avenue for students to say that
068they want to im an immediate followup with a counselor so that way the students getting the information that they need regard buing suicide awareness um but also so if they have a concern about themselves or about a friend we have we we give them almost like an exit ticket at the end to be able to provide them um with that support in the counselor um and then also we provide the mandated suicide prevention training for the district for all all staff um districtwide the counselors school counselors and the school adjustment counselors and I provide that mandated suicide prevention training we've been doing that for the past few years and we do that through um through faculty through faculty meetings and we also provide them with an opportunity to provide us with some feedback what was
069helpful about pres presentation but more information they needed um in terms of social emotional the character strong curriculum we provide lessons to the students especially at the elementary schools um the counselors do a really good job with providing that um that tier one support for students at the secondary level most of our councils will use character strong in their work with their um with their small groups with their targeted group uh tier two and tier three uh groups um we do run a number of groups throughout the district we have self-esteem groups running we have self-control groups we have a a very popular unfortunately popular brief group that we've been running the high school the middle school has one and also at the elementary schools we teach skills and anxiety mental health we we also
070have executive functioning skills uh um um executive functioning groups that we run to support students at the tier two and tier three levels um as part of some of the information that we get from the mtss and the HSA and other early warning signs we would might make a referral to outside therapists Community Resources and agencies we may provide individual counseling to students students depending on what their needs are um and we also run caregiver events we have events at the elementary middle and high school for for parents and caregivers um and then I just added the perfect peer program at Cushing and the beacon program which is a mentor both of them are mentoring programs at the elementary schools um that was put forth as a result of the HSA data showing that school
071bonding was issued for some of our students so so they created a program for um students to be hooked up with adult mentors and at the high school their mentors their students are hooked into um upper classmen so we have students that are like freshman students that are paired up with with um students that are almost like a best buddy type program so I thought that was really helpful to hear and we're really making nice stdes in our College and Career Readiness path with the implementation of my C meath the pathway this year we rolled it up for grade 6th sth 8th n9th and 10th grade um there's also a parent uh parents can also go into the the pathway and um use that information to help them guide to to different uh postsecondary options
072but also career paths um that's been uh something that we've been working on as a school and as a as a department The Gates has a wonderful career day that they do in um November where they bring in professionals from the outside um that's super robust kids love it they always remember oh I remember I had the uh the photographer from the Boston Herald was there um they tend to remember that because it's really impactful for students to see to see the adults in the community and how they can make those connections between what they want to do um what their skills and objectives are with what they what was available out commun we also provide the asab to students at the high school level the asab is a um arm Services locational assessment battery
073it's the assessment battery that students need to take part of the um to go into the military but um it also has a wonderful career exploration tool so some students will use it just for that we've introduced score this year which is our College Planning exploration tool to uper classman we've had nothing but positive feedback on that program um in the past we've used navian but score we found it um more user friendly and there's a um a parent portal a parent account with score and we're finding that students are really like a lot better um another piece that we've added this year was an early postsecondary planning event um as a result of feedback that we had from parents from our Junior and senior parents night that they were wishing that they had that
074information earlier and earlier so we created nearly postsecondary TR that for students and the parents us me for parents and the um the Sur the survey response was quite positive so I'm super happy about that um we also have college breakfast exent this spring we're having a college essay panel workshop with college admissions College admissions um officers and we're also looking into having the trades and unions panel to kind of diversify some of the work that we do for um not just for college but also for for career that brings me to my next um goal is around communication Community Partnerships as you know this has been a for U at the Forefront of my work over the past couple of years in terms of making sure that we've laed School counseling website that we
075update it regularly I've been sending more and more posts to the situ app and I've been really analyzing the caregiver and stud student feedback to improve our practice so whenever we have an event we ask them you know do you feel you're better prepared to supp what was helpful what wasn't helpful instead of just taking that information and putting it in a file someplace we sit down as a counseling team and say okay what can we do better next time how can we improve our practice and that's been really help that's how we ended up with our early college planing um event that we just had and then we also this new this year is we are setting out periodic new newsletters from the high school which I think is then uh again another piece
076of kind of take a look at the information that we sent out in posts have it all in one spot for students and parents to reference in terms of upcoming events and things that we are doing in our department and then the last goal uh touches upon the finance facilities personnel and Technology plan uh our school adjustment counselors have provided consultation with the mergen operations planning team regarding the behavioral health supports they're also looking to ensure consistency of practice of crisis team protocols in the district through consultation and collaboration with the EOP team and the school-based crisis teams a lot of that work is being headed by our school adjustment counselors on staff and finally we have been participating last week participated in District professional development training um with K12 counselors with District administrators and
077other staff to increase our working knowledge on threat assessment um our uh threat assessment safety protocols procedures and practices that's just an overview of all the touch some of the most of all the touch points I didn't even talk about 504s I you were asking Dr BT about that um happy to share any information about that um but now I just want to switch over just in the interest of time some information that um I've been collecting since since I since my role I started in this role was about college application Trends um back in the day we probably had about 30% of our students applying under an early admission program where now we have a majority of our students apply early um an early applications would be like early action um um program or
078an early decision program or a priority they have restricted early action the colleges are trying to have really um expanded their uh ways of getting students to apply earlier to their schools and um students have really taken taken to that um so we've had to really shift our post secondary planning we've have to shift our so scope into the sequence for example when we used to um when we met with our Juniors we usually meet with them in April their junior year well now we're doing in December so we have to push every we have to move everything back and one of the implications for that is beginning of the year because so many students are applying early they want to meet with their counselors early um that's been a little bit of a challenge
079for students for counselors because when they come in like the first day of school we're dealing with schedule changes and things like that and they're like they're ready to like apply and like we need another day so we really appreciate the fact that school was sted before Labor Day those those couple of days really do make a difference um for some of our students and some of the work that we're doing is doing can we do like we added a summer send off for for summer send off for juniors so that when they leave for the summer they have a good idea what they need to do so they can work on those information and those Tas for the summer where you know 201 10 15 years ago the application process was so different and
080we'd be working with students up until like December grade but now everything's done like November 1st um majority of our students are applying under that program um so we've been trying to keep up with that uh another piece of data as you know I'm the uh a coordinator for the district so I've been collecting this data over the past 15 to 16 years um and as you know we've had an increase in the number of students taking AP exams we also have an increase in the number of subjects that we've been offering and the number of students requiring accommodations so which is great because we are uh diversifying the student population who can access college level work but because we have a significant increase in the number of students requiring accommodations it's placed a lot
081more um challenge for the counseling department and the um the department chairs to provide the proctoring for those for those exams it's not just like throw them all in a room they have some students need extended time some students need extra break so it's like it's it's a lot to manage um we do it well um but it is a point of um a challenge for us especially in the spring when students are really wanting to talk to us about postsecondary options and we're getting pull to Proctor AP exams um and then just the shared number of AP classes that we offer when I started it was like 10 to 12 and now we have up to 22 AP offerings um so that comes with challenges in of and I'm just going to flip GE
082uh switch years right now just talk for a second about um the mental health needs of our students as you know for um the mental health needs of our students continue to be a concern for us the number of students with anxiety disorders and depression contines to um be a challenge for um for us as a district I did share the youth risk behavior data um that the that the wellness Department puts together and you will see in the 20124 we've had a slight decrease in mental health um students feeling hopeless or having a plan to hurt themselves um but it's still something that we are it's still alarm 4% is one is too many right um so if you take a look at the next slide these this this information is based on the
083number of hospitalizations partial days Eating Disorders or substance use St for situ high school that we've been collecting um over the past 10 years um I will say our situ High School Lighthouse program which is our transitional learning center um that's staffed by a school Psy a school adjustment counselor and a par professional has been has been really um helpful for our students last year we served a pych gr service over 20 students and 95% of them were able to reintegrate back into their courses um by the end of their time with the lious program um the other piece that I open toce is home hospital triggering and I will say that um just making a note that educational technology really helped with providing Tech uh tutoring supports for students because everything is available online
084students can access their teachers at AT regular hours um as opposed to providing that one-on-one District Tut tutoring so I feel like that's a positive change with education technology um and just in terms of making sure the students get what they need when they return finally looking forward next steps um as I mentioned we would like to expand opportunities for students to explore alternatives to fouryear college um trades unions military Gap Bridge programs um not only just talking about them but bringing them in for students to have uh oh I didn't know that there was a a gap program that that I could participate in instead of just talking about it but actually bringing in professionals from the community to provide that information to the students and families and then the second um Next Step
085that we're going to be taking a look at is how we can support ncss efforts and the whole CH of Ming process districtwide especially at the high school level um and share the best practices from the GES model and then finally this is a a bigger um goal I guess we could say is examining our district practices and policies uh regarding like graduation requirements and things to ensure that the students courses of study programming are optimized what I mean by that is we have the um Project Lead the Way we have the AP Capstone we have the business pathway we have the environmental stewardship pathway we have all these wonderful opportunities for students but we also have to take into consideration what they need to do to have to graduate and earn that diploma um
086so it's just something to kind of think about in terms of um we're providing all these this information to to students sometimes making sure that they have all the information to make the right decision for their student um so I'm out of breath fair enough answer any questions um I have one you had referenced um the increasing number of students with um anxiety disorder of some type and I was just curious if you could talk a little bit more about that like what you're seeing what you feel is effective that we're doing or what you kind of think is on the horizon sure so um I actually pulled some data from the um William James interface referral program I'm not sure if you're familiar with that I do know so that's where um um people
087in the community can call and get a ref a referral to mental health um support um and there has been the overwhelming they they categorized in by by issue um and anxiety super number one we have seen an increase in the number of students requiring 5504 plans for anxiety and depression related um impairments yeah um so that has been a challenge for school counselors um both in terms of the number of 504s because we are also the 504 chairs um we don't have a team chair for for 504 okay um so they're pulling all that data together running through the process writing the plan making sure plans are being implemented um but we are have we have seen an increase in the number of students with the anxiety um our counselors are providing like SE
088uh tier 2 supports through um through um psycho educational support groups one-on-one counseling referrals to outside um counselors um requesting release of information so that the school counselor can speak to the outside therapists to talk about you know what we're seeing in school help help support the students get in the classroom um but it is something that um especially during Co saw that you know back 2021 the number of hospitalization really yeah it's just something you hear so much about I was just thinking about like kind of back to the mtss model and how like what it would look like to kind of include supports for kids differently outside of you whether or not they have4 I guess you know at that point yet or yeah so I know in Gates like they have like
089our school adjustment counselor will run has run and is running certain groups based on the data from mtss okay um from the teams yeah whether it's a brief group or anxiety group or DBT which is bial therapy she is she is trained in that as well so there is some movement in that yes Generation Um I was wondering I know we do pair in Elementary in Middle do you collect any data I'm just looking at that risk youth risk behavior data do you collect that at the middle school like do we have a sense of I mean there's stuff about suicide ideation and sadness and just wondering if that's correct I know this is partly based on what the federal like the federal data is collecting but I'm just wondering if that's something I mean
090I just worry unfortunately that I think it's not just a symptom of the high school I think earlier I wonder if early intervention like what that would look like to be just again just a thought yeah that's information that I um that the counselors do have so I can pull that information for the other thing just if um for folks watching who watch the recording um just being mindful that this data is great let me just say that first but just in in interpreting this table you just have to be mindful that the N for students changes year to year so making sure that like 16% in like 2017 and 16% in 2022 is actually a different number of students so just drilling down just being mindful of that I just did some numbers just
091to see where we actually so yeah um I just want to say that I think you run two departments yeah that you know all that you do with the high school and everything that falls under that umbrella is one full-time director's position in and of itself and running the social emotional well-being department for the district is also a full-time job thank you I wish we I wish we could to two completely different functionalities and both are really important and you know well plus with the yes and with the data that you're sharing and the question that Maria just asked I know we're in budget tightness and I'm not saying but like if it was on a wish list that would be you know something to be able to have someone who could really not I
092mean you're doing a fantastic job just having more help right in a place that feels like it's needed yeah I agree it almost feels impossible to get it all brought well our parent I mean I hear from the community all the time and and the feedback you know when you send out the surveys superintend focused on academics the reality is like you can't solely focus on academics if a kid is sitting in a class feeling anxious or won't come to school I mean that story you shared of not coming to school because they're bullet so they're missing an entire day because of one period that's a perfect example of where we can focus on academics all day but if this kid is being bullied and bized we have to address that right and so like
093I just appreciate that you brought that story and I hope parents hear that those stories because I unfortunately think that does happen right yeah and I have seen that um in terms of like the traditional school counselor role has you know used to be like academic and postsecondary academic postsecondary it's changed dramatically yeah because of the mental health needs for our students yeah um I do Wonder Tam I feel like the school committee has been asking about attendance data right and I wonder this is the data that like we keep asking to drill down to say like what kinds of absences and like you seem to have your finger on the pulse of what these attendance right like so I just think the more you can educate us on what you're seeing in the fluctuations
094is it you know people taking vacation at different times people taking early vacation or is it kids you know feeling those because of bullying I think we could be an ally if we have more data I'm not trying to add more work to your place but I feel like we've been asking for drill down attendance data for a little bit now since it's been on the radar of all of us so and everyone has their own story right yeah exactly but there but there's definitely there are Trends yeah there are parents that take their students on vacations students what percentage of it is that cuz like I think that's the question what percentage of it is vacation and what percentage of it is other stuff it would just you have no idea it's hard to
095see yeah and it would help us to say like is it really chronic absenteeism in like a way that we can control as a district or is like I would love you know Michelle you showed those great graphs and I was thinking it'd be awesome to have a graph that says absenteeism and like 50% of it is vacation and 30% of it is I know you want you have the category so it makes it a little bit easier we don't have that we have to sort of make them but just to know sort of the composition of absenteeism would be I just think it would be good data for all of us to have so do we are what we're worried about attendance what's the worry and then what's the problem we're trying to solve
096right we sometimes solve for the wrong problem right because corly do the hospitalizations count as abs um they they're medically excused so's eyes is that Absol matter what reason so that could count towards chronic like if it's multiple days that idea of breaking it down we can do that that will tell the story of yeah we do do share I do like that story too Tammy that you share because I think that we have to do more of that some examples of how it impacts kids you know even nationally you know Educators have been beaten up since Nation at risk in 83 never really defended it nobody has nationally every new Administration beats up Educators in education so it's nothing new um and saying we're 30th or 100th or whatever we are versus other nations
097no one ever brings up the social emotional issues that teachers in the front lines dealing with this so I think this this uh presentation tonight really shed a light on the amount of work I said Timmy and and others in her multiple tasks many of which they never have for those folks I think the problem with education I found in my 30 years is that everyone can comment on because everyone went to school not everyone's been a doctor right or everyone's bu that's true repair truck but they've all been to school so they they assume that it hasn't changed it shouldn't have changed so has so when I hear they stick to the three hours I mean that person has not been in a school or maybe had a child in school or had a
098child that has had anxiety depression suicide ideation all the things that we deal with on a dayto day so it's not an excuse it's just a the job's complex and I think sharing this information was helpful and I think my team's doing a great job in this the presentation was was awesome teaming it but I saw both these presentations tonight is that we're we're taking a lot of feedback and we're making changes based on what we hear to improve things and we continue to ask and want to get better so that's I think the best you can do and I also like the feedback Dr and about ATT tenants because that's something we're trying to wrap our hands around too so we'll go and dig down I know Jam team can help us with that
099to process got some access be a team effort to spread out the we get yeah simple powerful oh yeah vac thank you thank you all right Mr Hermon we have history bow field trip approval coming up hi folks uh I'm Richard kerm oops uh I'm Richard Kerman I'm a history teacher at the high school and I'm a faulty advisor for the history Bowl Club um just a slight little bit of background history Bowl has been a club for gber Take Five Years start during the pandemic um and really U looking to give kids in Outlet who are not necessarily musicians or athletes or sports kids but really celebrate just knowing more than everybody else and um and they they do it constantly they meet uh every Wednesday and Friday afternoon my room for at least
100an hour um this is um they compete in tournaments that are run by the international academic competition which runs both uh us tournaments and international tournaments um against kids just like that um so what uh this year just we participated in the Greater Boston opening came in second which was held at Quinsy High School back in December and then we hosted the massachusett state tournament here uh in February and fielded four teams and one two of them actually qualified to go to National um so uh based on who could go and again this is a a somewhat group and a number of them actually literally just got home from swiland trip um they are uh we're uh uh proposing Fielding one team of four but allowing eight kids to go because what they can do
101during the competition is swap out and it gives an opportunity for everybody to participate in a national tournament um and that keeps toost down um and just a little bit more bonding as it is the tournament itself is um in Washington DC it's actually held in Crystal City um it is hosted at the uh Crystal Gateway Marriot which is one Metro stop from National Airport um they have contract rooms so everybody stays there and then the ballrooms are what all the all the actual competitions so the tournament uh the history Bowl the whole tournament starts on Thursday the 24th um our uh kids would participate just in the history full piece of it which is the team comption part which is uh will uh occur on Saturday starting at 8:00 we work uh they will
102compete all day long um and then if qualifying for playoffs playoffs will be that evening at 7:30 and then if they really go far in playoffs then they would actually finish the tournament after lunch on Sunday so what we're proposing is is to um slide down meet at Logan Airport on Friday the 25th morning of Friday the 25th uh we have not made polite reservations just pending approval of the trip um uh meet at Logan go down there spend the day uh in Washington DC um tely right now again a selection of smithon Smithsonian museums this is a group of kids that really wants to go to museums um and uh so we would do that ahead of time check into the tournament when we come back at about dinner time and then start competing
103on Saturday morning U and compete all day uh also to reduce costs of the fact that we hosted the Massachusetts tournament takes uh reduces our cost for uh the national registration fee uh and then if we provide a year which would be me uh that takes another about $150 of that um we participated in Nationals a couple times before it's a wonderful event because it is your Cal uh Gateway Maria just build with kids who are dying to show how much they know and against all these other kids who say that they know um uh so that's really about about the sort of it in a nutshell so pending your questions that's about all I have coule questions I was curious about I know you haven't booked flights yet but do you have an estimated
104cost per student uh yeah estimated cost per student is probably about $300 as it stands right now pending some also there a couple things from The Works to try and uh uh do some fundraising beforehand uh the goal with the fundraising is to try and reduce the the cost for St to as low as we possibly can we did go to Once uh I think the first time we went we actually had no AO pocket expenses which pry wonderful um we have I think right now and I'll check specifically with Tom later on I think we have about $800 in our account so we have money that we can throw at it right now um if we do that that will keep it right about $300 the contract room price is $160 and then with
105four kids in there that keeps the room cost 12 I have another question this isn't for you but more about the the chaperon policy because you follow the policy but I was curious if the policy differs if it's an overnight trip I see that it's one adult chaperon for every 10 students which makes sense if you're going to like the science museum but I'm just imagining on a flight and a hotel if that's still the policy yeah like it just is that enough have one ch oh fre high schoolers yeah fre high schoolers sure okay all right and having done in the Chon before it's okay okay all right just elaborate is a good question so that's that one to 10 is obviously the max or guide we fluctuated with that but we talking you
106know and and doing it before take all that consideration who the kids are you know that kind of stuff he's comfortable with it that the sounds very exciting [Laughter] somebody I make motion that the school committee approve the Washington DC history bow field trip as presented second all in favor thank you so much I appreciate it f beat them all thank you yeah right oh canab be late hi everyone thanks for having me tonight I'm here on behalf of the gates band and chorus program uh group is proposing taking their annual field trip to Canopy Lake Park on Friday June 13th uh we anticipate about 80 members of the Bandon chorus attending estimated cost per student is $60 at this time which would cover the cost of admission to the park as well as Transportation
107uh this is a special event for our Bandon corus because they first get to uh perform for a judge get some feedback um and then celebrate their efforts as well as the recent performance um which will be critiqued by a judge um I don't know how long they've been going but for a very very very long time uh and it's always the highlight of the band chorus experience uh at Gates so this is for seventh and eighth graders uh for Friday jun3 question okay I make a motion that the school committee vote to approve the seventh and eighth grade B in for field trip as presented all in favor and also and also uh we're here I'm here to uh seek approval for a donation in the amount of $1600 uh from the situ situate
108rotary club for the purchase of four Lego education Spike Prime sets uh to be used in our Lego interest based club uh the goal it's a new club this year the goal is to grow this program into an after school club for next year and participate in the first Lego League challenge uh which could very uh easily serve as a theater program into our high school robotics program so we have a great group um of students we have an awesome new computer science teacher at the middle school um who is working with a existing English teacher both who have a passion for this uh and they have found I think it's 13 students who this is their life um they space Club it's obviously happening during the school day but they've extended it to I
109think five o'clock at night just because they're so into it and our friends at The Rotary Club uh two members are also very passionate about this and have been talking to us for many years now and finally all the pieces have come together so um we appreciate well there it is we appreciate their support with um I'd like to make a motion that the school committee vote to approve the Rotary Club $1600 donation to the Lego Club as presented second all in favor thank you to the Rotary Club all right um policy subcommittee um so we have undertaken review of uh three policies related to technology um they were something that we had on the docet starting last year but we are waiting until um we had our new director in in her role Jackie
110frello um so she really hit the ground running this fall with her team um to take a dive into these policies many of which were quite outdated um and so she did a lot of work to um bring them into the current times and also make sure that they were consistent across each other and I'm actually going to probably ask Ryan Lynch to give a summary of what some of the changes are um think he'll do a better job than I will but Janice and I are also here for questions we've had a number of meetings with this SP since the fall honestly um and so we' we've really been through these quite a quite a few times but I still think Ryan is probably GNA do a better job at summarizing so gonna turn
111it over thanks I'll try um that I we do really appreciate the work of the technology subcommittee that these were due um to be done and so thank you uh to Mar um and Janice for spearheading this and then also including Jackie FR frello Terra goet Tracy Newman our librarian col Simpson the Middle School librarian and Chris and the um the network administrator to all work together because this these policies have their hands in lots of different places in different departments so essentially um and these policies were reviewed by uh attorney Coleman um for the legal review prior to us bringing them forward so um inside of your packet you can see the three policies they're in a single document we we left the highlighted sections readed to demonstrate that that was a part that
112was updated basically um we needed to include that our district is now one to one we still had language in there talked about kids braining devices from home doing mcast testing on home devices so that was one change number two is that um we have third party software to keep our students safe on Chromebooks U and devices and on their Network that was not in our policy but um that's something that we use we wanted to inform families and lastly that we needed to ensure alignment with Copa the children's online protection act which you know states that anyone under 13 can't have an account generated for them without parental permission and all those kind of components so again thank you to Jackie and the team um corrupting the student responsible use of Technology policy and
113um and lastly they also included what what that students manage their devices and are responsible for them and if a device is broken there is a flexible policy but essentially identifying the cost associated with damage to to Chromebooks um on a on a scale if the they continue to be broken and things like that so these are some of the changes under IGN and DB any questions on that [Music] one we want to like touch on the um how Jackie was like chasing down the um the agreement from parents you know when kids were given a their device parents are supposed to sign something for he sign in return was like yeah I think we just didn't have a system at all really for so creating an understanding between families and students and us as
114a district about the responsibility of like so what happens if something breaks it's kind of like by accepting it you acknowledge that you're responsible so hopefully the this policy will help kind of bring that to the Forefront and you know when these policies are officially updated it will cause a bit of a ripple effect to hand books and you know kind of be something that gets highlighted for families in the fall um which is probably best timing but going forward we hope to have families have a better understanding that this that your child is using have some responsibility that's speciic toook yeah and even the because Tom and I we joke now even the one of our kids damaged their Chromebook so I had to and I received a what was supposed to be a
115bill but I because I know Tom I was like Tom can you look at this am I so it was yeah nothing on it didn't say what was Ed didn't say where just said make a check to the town I was like before I do this so so I think that'll be great because then you know being able to and I know Tom was already addressing it so I'm not worried about that part but I think that's great that we'll have better correspondence in that way yeah all right so we move on to the next one sure IGN DPC is the corresponding staff responsible use of tech technology so just as the policy above identifies that children won't be signed up for accounts when they're under 13 without parental permission this advises staff that we
116can't sign children on per accounts if they're under 13 because it's violation of CA and fura also that our staff are uh assigned devices and we want a safe Network for everybody and so the same um you know software that filters and has a firewall is is protecting um staff and students so that those are just the pieces that were updated with I JN DBC we have to make sure the motion is right the letters aren't rightn should be D not and then n DBC we don't have to make any motions tonight next time so when we right this is first how it says vot require the blue sheet okay all right but yeah that's a good cat I just want to make sure correctly yeah sorry me to disrup I was just F along
117Ryan every time you said the letters I was like where I'm looking at the blue document oh thank you it's okay ran can you just comment you mention something about making sure that underage students or 13 are not signed up for particular software or can you just help me understand that reference so for uh I can I can explain this so for example sometimes a teacher might want um to use a certain website like G kit or Quizlet or Zazu or any of those things right um and sometimes students need to have an account in order to use them and so what kopa says is that teachers cannot say like oh I want to use this with my class sign everyone up grade parents have but then they can proceed and register as an underage
118user yes whatever like those things are designed for teachers they're designed for they are safe but it's just like you know we need to make sure that yeah that's why I was ask I was curious how are these how are we going to access these programs with and then this supposed to go through the tech Jackie first before they that's what the policy says yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's tough I mean there's tons of resources out there and many of them are great and you know teachers want to use them we want our students have access to them but also you know we need to have some gatekeeping and making sure that whatever so what do you think the process will look like will a teacher at the beginning of the year say I
119think I'm going to utilize these resources and then have the parent sign off up front so I for example got something like that at the beginning of seventh grade and I was like you know for such and such class these are the websites I want to use here's the link if you as a parent want to check them out this is how we plan to use them if you sign off sign off and so question it was very helpful for me asent I like oh great yes yes all of great my kid uses them they are great you know so it would be I think just formalizing that process everyone will do that everyone will have to do there'll be a lot of that is there like a list SPS like some something that Jackie
120is working on I don't know if you want talk more about that Ryan but creating more of an approved list of pieces of technology that the district approves up and supports so meaning if a teacher has an issue with something someone in the district will help them a list separate from that list a list that the district approves of but does not support so if you want to use this website thumbs up but you're on your own figure it out problem um and then so from there teachers will be able to yeah so we right it is we spent a lot of time on U just no I'm glad that how teachers can then the flow mentioned a little bit was that even before it gets to the parents um giving permission it's teachers coming
121to Jackie to ensure that uh the technology is sort of you know safe and improved and aligned up with our system so we have some internal stuff to do just to make sure we're um all those pieces are working together the policy outlines that so uh they're all they all seem to be working in I just I'm glad that you guys had talked about how to kind of facilitate that that no go ahead I concerned about how to manage that from a teacher perspective you do out like if you have a list like if you come up with a pretty comprehensive list of what the district and our director approves then could you do just an opt out or does it have to be 10 yeah don't know seems like that would be easier yeah
122where does the line cross between approval of this what does it so from a technology perspective I'm guessing this is literally based on internet Safety and Security but from an academic perspective how does that cross over if a teacher really thinks that this resource is important for their students probably more so happening at the high school level I don't know I yeah I feel like those two things will always need to be true that it's and UC the majority majority of educational websites are not precarious you know what I mean like majority of them are going to be safe they want teachers using their products they're going to want to prove that they're safe right so I don't this isn't like a huge problem I would say like masses of websites that are unsafe it's
123just like everyone's also trying to catch up with a moving Target yeah you know there's always new new things coming and then everyone needs to learn how to comply yeah I also think it's more of an issue of parents knowing yes right because you have the situation is that the last sentence in there parents wishing to limit or restrict must do do so in writing is that true across the board with any kind of op out with curriculum is that that sentence like always I I I understand that do they always have to do it in writing they do is that pretty consistent like if it's a book they don't want their kids to read believe that we wanted to be consistent with whatever process so this should be consistent that's what I figur that'll
124make it easier for parents if they just know that's the way it has right okay so what if the teacher comes up with a new resources that they just discovered Midway through the year but we've already do they have to continue to get these approvals from thech honestly I don't know another way around it because honestly what happens if they come up with something new and it's great and it's exciting obviously don't have bad intentions but what if you know this is what we have to figure out hopefully teachers are planning enough that it's annoying it right seems and this is only for kids under 13 and under so once you get to the no I think under 13 but we still still the teachers who want to use things that are new every technology
125resource should be reviewed by the tech team yes agree but for if you're working as a teacher is going to sign kids up for a new account on some new platform that's not associated with our like yeah Google package or something like that they need if the child is under 13 you need to communicate to the family for parental permission or else it's a violation CA makesense so those are the steps that we would follow so maybe in high school is exle because the students not under 13 we still need to run by the tech director but it may not be the case that we need toal I feel like that's good practice I don't really have I know that'll create an issue for teachers every once in a while but I think that's good
126practice that it's a collaborative between the tech the director of technology and the teacher right right it just feels like good practice to me yeah because a teacher could find a new website and it would be safe and appropriate then it's then available yeah that's theen light yeah more about how we yeah easier easiest for teachers as possible well and also our director of Technology exactly that's easier to be proactive and get things coming in than she's doing now chasing them all around yeah you know when they cause not even necessarily a harmful thing but it could not complement our Network and cause ripple effect you know what I mean that's what's happening now so we've got too much stuff out there and I guess this will be like an internal there's gonna be there's
127going to be a trickle from this policy which is by X date you need to have submitted X technology in order to you because otherwise that seems tricky so going need to figure out yeah that's one of the reasons we wanted to get this policy moving and the last component is just I not just but J and DVA inappropriate use we needed to update the policy um to include uh just some protections around students uh or potentially trying to disrupt or degrade the system so we added some language around that and since this last policy was written there's a new thing called um artificial general intelligence generative intelligence which we're all sort of navigating and we in the policy wanted to be clear that um inappropriately produced um work using uh artificial you know generative
128intelligence is uh prohibited and considered to be like cheating like cheating is considered cheating so nowhere in our policy that refer to that we we do have handbook rules against cheating and things like that but we need to be explicit in our technology policy that we treat unauthorized uh use as cheating which um is in our is in our Tech policy and then will be tied into the handbook to to list the inappropriate use of generative AI as as G so we need first in this Tech policy and then will be also reflected in our and you'll notice there's a bullet in there that says that students may use generative AI when it's explicitly permitted so it's not like we're saying it's never allowed it's just there need to be some parameters around the teacher's
129ability to say whether and when and how it is or is not ass so I'm working with um we have another subset of of staff and there's actually three students on it working on how will we update the handbook to reflect that and also are there other practices that we want to be using with students like um remember how do we properly site things or what happens when we are given the opportunity to use AI how is that properly cited so we're thinking both about how to educate students and also have the handbook and Technology policies all plan up so there's a small group of people working on that um including how to update our handbook language which will be ready this this so when you say work inappropriately produced from gen generative AI what
130does that mean so an example could be um when perhaps the social studies teacher asks um the student to like do we're specifically instructing the research process students are supposed to use primary sources they're not they're explicitly told at the beginning and it's on the assignment that they're not to use generative AI the student in that case would then um use generative AI to complete the research paper after the assignment specifically says not to do that that would be considered um cheating because from the outset it was made clear that um it would be inappropriate to use generative a that's that's why I pointed out that last quot I think it's anything that anytime it's not exped or integrated I just think we're gonna have to make sure that then we go through have to
131do like a a an audit of all assignments and make sure that it says up or down on AI or how to use AI right because this policy only works if the classes are defining how AI can can and cannot be explicitly per so it's if it's not explicitly permitted but it's not allow I just think at the classroom level it's gonna have to be really clear people are going to P I don't think we have to like panic yet I'm not panicking I'm just like I think this is probably the smartest way to use yeah because this way the AI if it's not explicited it falls under that which I think historically everybody any in any form I'm just I'm just again I'm I'm fine with this policy I just know from like submitting
132Journal articles at the journal level they are telling you what is allowable and what is not and some journals say nothing and some journals say you can do this but you can't do this so I do think at some point at the classroom level teachers aren already having those conversations for sure and it depends on the subject area it does what the assignment is they're assessing and all that stuff how will these changes impact sort of like social media use for sports or clubs or the there are some um in the spot the section on um yeah staff use um it's under staff use d Internet yeah number six little a I'm following okay yeah it's like highlighted y yeah feature pictures of students are their work as long as the students are not identifi
133the written consent has been obtained from the students par guardians or the platform ades to coob for regulations and also I'm sorry the question was how will it impact it so that part is new none of the other sections in White have have changed so I think we're just looking to bring things under um just to make sure that in those places where um their students picture that small a is follow um also we added some language about backing it up knowing that we're subject to um the public records requests that um you know staff should use like their situ they have to use their situ email so that we're uh we can follow through on that so there's not a tremendous change to um staff controls related to social media and how do we
134know what's well I guess the list of what's approved and what's not approved in terms of platforms they have to adhere to the C reg Instagram for example like Instagram no idea well that's why I think we I mean yeah I'm not the tech but that's why I think it helps to go through the the tech director because um there could be a platform like maybe we approve Twitter but not blue sky and then it's like how it's on in the policy and so we can never keep up with exactly something that's out there so I think that's where the rules came from what if someone's using a platform or something that they're suddenly going to find out isn't on the list of approved how did that impact there current process this moment I think
135they would submit it to the tech director and say I would like to use this social media platform to promote this activity that my students are doing and then the tech director would say um would give them a response on that so I think that's the process that we're proposing is that there's we're making sure that anything that's used uh on our system we need to get permission for so we know what's on also be a great conversation because hopefully the tech director would say what's the learning goal and then the tech director with her expertise will say you can't use that but you could use that sort of like instructional design right it's like hopefully there are enough substitutes out there if you know what the learning goal is they come up with something
136right hopefully all right [Music] so first reading yeah first reading all right for all your you it's good to have that feels good [Music] yeah so good yeah so happy about that all right right um another yes SPS competency determination policy now this one we are voting on y so we talked about this not the last meeting but the prior meeting it's been a little break I know it supposed to happen the last meeting we're back um you all remember the background here it's just because State mandated criteria um are there any questions it hasn't changed at all since our first reading anything you want to discuss or I'm just wondering um the last little bit there where it says the principal May on a Case by case basis review and determine you know is
137the district giving the principal a bit of guidance on that and just worry about one person having the responsibility to make that if that would to come up we mostly felt that we needed to have something in there because this change happened so suddenly for kids who moved here maybe in high school and didn't have the opportunity to do some of this stuff and would have missed it it's kind of like that um but I don't know about there's other I just would hate for it to be like a thing and then the principle being the okay yeah it's a good question that always goes through me any um alternate to a graduation in this case under this Clause that would be a conversation me had probably no way in advance okay get kid out
138medical to come back and take an alterate course made by the teacher to help very specific okay and I would know about that and you talked about advance and approv so yeah it you don't want the person sitting at the front desk to be the one that has to likey would be involved that process to curriculum multiple be a team decision okay and it is really meant for like those very rare I totally get it good to have you didn't have it was a child in that situation anything else right you do you're so good at it uh I make a motion that the school committee vote to approve the SPs competency determination policy as presented second all in favor I all right we have approval of minutes from March 10th make a motion to
139approve the uh school committee minutes from the March 10th 2025 second all in favor La nothing um no correspondences um other business said something oh represent k your agenda would be for um May 19th probably okay I'll coordinate that know try find information about that state there's like a group of mask and superintendent and things that were coming together to form an advocacy group on oh yeah so not alone no I know I'm not alone I'm just going to help solve it though I love that you should I am do I am at least have answers right well yeah I think P I mean it's Patrick will be it'll be nice to get his perspective too I mean the state has to see this as well entally there are dollars that are being spent on
140these out of District so we'll see we'll see what information we can get yeah okay uh um so that's future agenda items and nobody has anything else take a motion to adj motion to adjourn at 09 all in favor