001thank you rep in boy that's better okay all right um the situ 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 uh call the meeting to order at 6:01 um here on March 10th 2025 and and we will start with public comment seeing none and our student report I'm not seeing our students present T much all right we'll go to our leadership Report with superintendent berad thank you madam chair good evening everyone I've got the pleasure tonight
002to introduce um someone most all of us here knowing knows are lead on the moror and consu Resident to come and speak to us um Don Walter and a little presentation periodically we've done this to keep school committee apprised of our um progress but also the community and as on makes his way up I'll just um steal his highlights and then he can do all the other stuff but um best two things you'd like to hear on a school project that is it's on time and on or under budget which it's u in a very healthy place on both those fronts Don will share a little bit more detail of that but I think that's obviously most important without giving anything up or cutting anything so a lot of really good news coming out tonight
003I believe um opportunity to vote on something as well but don't give it the details on that also want to um we had a working group meeting today and you know the excitement about you know actually breaking ground this fall and talking about um setting a date for the groundbreaking which is a real fun exciting Milestone that we'll be doing uh early fall so lot happening there things will start happening Fast and Furious obviously over the summer when that would be great ground in the fall so and also the um the enrollment plan or the redistricting if you will calling it our enrollment plan uh is underway uh partnered up with um proper GS Consulting Group which we've used in the past was used by many many schools very experienced in this they're in the
004data collection phase right now just collecting our enrollment numbers Geographic locations all the building specs they'll be doing that throughout uh July and then over the summer we'll be forming um Committee of stakeholders to be part of oversight of that that and then as we head into the fall there'll be um a website that'll be up with all the information there'll be public meetings there'll be a very um Community involved process like the school was on a micro level where we'll get a lot of input on those initial uh feedback good news about this what we like about meeting with Cropper is that there' be a lot of good information that people can use to make informed decisions and feedback and and it'll be in real time so we'll be updating that as we get
005the information so that when decisions are made people will be very uh much in the know on the what and why behind any decisions we have to make and they'll have input on those with the goal of next January of 26 with the school committee vote that will give us 18 months on the other end to prepare busing for parents and caregivers to prepare and which is a nice healthy timeline over year to prepare for that so it's not a rush so I just wanted to make sure that people were clear on that if people were asking we did have an early fall meeting just to get initial feedback um and that we're in good shape with that and one of the upcoming Thursday thoughts I'll do a a summary of this for the the
006community as well as an email BL talk just so it's on their uh the plan and the outline of the timeline is on their minds as that we head into the summer months can I ask question um you might not know this but I was just curious if you do know how the um data collection happens for students that are not yet enrolled in SPS like do they at any point survey about younger siblings or do they talk to local preschools I was just curious how they do that if you know Tom J that from I don't I can talk to Mr yeah I'll have to ask on that he did have a method said we have a method whether it's the clerk's office and births and hospitals and things like that it's pretty involved
007but I didn't recall if he had surveys going out I was just curious because I think that is a question that we might get so 100% yeah okay thank you one we need to know yeah questions before I turn over to Walter done you everyone it's been a little while since uh since we've been back here a lot is taking place as you can uh imagine we're we're here in March and we'll be breaking ground sometime in September October of this year so a lot of detailing has been happening over these last few months and weeks and that'll continue through June but uh we can go ahead and click to the next uh image basically going talk about schedule give you a snapshot as to where we are and where we're going I'll let you
008know where we are with the Conservation Commission and planning board going through our permitting Bill alluded to our most recent cost estimates we'll give you the results of that and then uh really the the meat of the meeting has to do with these proprietary items but think the work that's taken place over the last nine months six months I guess since U last September with the work group in the school building committee uh getting to a point to where we representing you tonight you'll uh you'll appreciate all that work that's taking place and hopefully agree with their their recommendations so looking at the schedule the uh the famous red dash line is where we are today uh we did go through the 60 60% cost estimates with our estimated in vertex's estimator and it's continued
009to be good news moving forward uh what we're doing is that 60% we'll be submitting to and we submit it to msba we'll be submitting to msba again at the 90% with two more uh two more estimates and then out to bid end of June beginning of July which is about a two-month process which will bring us into the fall for construction uh and then as the construction winds throughout you can see the building completion is about 18 months but after that will come demolition of the existing building and site work and then move in for a fall 27 occupancy with some continued work after that with the remaining site work and then the uh Demolition and the field leveling over at over Kush so that's our schedule right now and then in terms of
010per meting as I mentioned we've been going to Conservation Commission and uh planning board but prior to these meetings we spent quite a bit of time uh uh meeting with leadership from uh administrators from both of these groups and they've been a great help in uh bringing us down the right path for um for hopefully getting conclusion and approval which we don't see as being an issue but you can see with conservation they're most concerned with wetlands and buffers and how we address those the the upper if youall the upper left-and corner of the site plan and the lower leftand corner of the site plan are where the two Wetlands exist on the site so we're working excuse me with that and the buffers to U make the site very viable uh they've been very
011interested in the storm water design and site planting although storm water design is actually permited through the planning board but we do still share that information with with concom and then the the landscape plantings in tree conservation uh very interested in if recall uh perhaps there's quite a bit of buffer around the perimeter of the site to the actually to all three sides leading down to the street and behind the houses on an vinyl but there are some more mature trees which are considered invasive but they're very viable they help to create the buffer so we're they like the idea of keeping those trees and not just removing them because they're invasive but to plant some undergrowth buffer to to enhance the buffer from the neighbors so that's something that we talked about and and
012with all that initial discussion which was on the 10th of February uh will was continue to March 17th so that's our next meeting with that with planning board you can see the primary issues you met with them on the 13th um protection of the joining properties uh we've done our noise studies we looked we've done our mitigation as part of this most recent 60% review uh meeting the town zoning requirements the uh site and civil uh that's a lot of discussion as it relates to roadways and circulation as well as the storm water actually there was some great dialogue back and forth about making some TW tweaks at the turn when you come down before you get out to an Ral Road and up around the U the service uh loading area uh upper left
013side of the site so great dialogue about that we we made some revisions and we resubmitted that to uh to planning board obviously Public Health and Welfare and Water Resources so that was is considered to March 27th so we see that trending in a very good fashion also um mentioned the cost uh we continue to be on budget uh everything is accounted for we have sewer Force man and vinyl storm water site design features uh meeting the optin stretch energy code compliance which which is something as a green community that we've adopted and that more even more energy efficient measures within the building and then the cushion Cushing abatement Demolition and site leveling everything is within that budget and here you can see some of the detail from the schematic design budget that that's what
014was to msba that's what the town voted on right so that's something that we do not want to exceed to go back to town uh but as we promised back then we would we would work to try to continue to bring the cost down as as best without sacrificing any of the quality our educational experience within the uh building or community experiences on the site so you can see at design development we're able to see about $2.8 million in savings or about 3% there I believe and then at the CD reconciled estimate another 7 and a half 7.6 million so total savings about 8% of our schematic design it always comes with caution because you know as we know that lot of discussion about tce and how tce may impact the project to date it
015is unknown so it's hard for an estimator to include cost within that um that estimate right now because we just don't know what what they may be if they'll even be there um but that's why we're cautiously optimistic the um and as as mentioned as we contined before we'll look for ways to save money but if you go to the next slide you know how how did the why did the cost change and even from DD to the 60% CDs was some scope change so you can see there was some added detail with the site work storm water in particular um because of the way the project f is phased and with the school building still being on the site before the students move in obviously we looked for ways to um strategically locate storm
016water underground storm waterer basements uh without impacting the existing building or elongating the U the construction schedule so we're actually putting a lot of that in the courtyards so if you can a nice opportunity to put some of the underground storm water within the courtyards of the building we worked with that but that wasn't added cost to the project moving forward and then um some of the detail with the foundations was updated because we have to bring in quite a bit of fill because the the level of the current fill versus the level of the existing hather lead and balancing the site so that was worked out there was just which is very typical when you as you go through details you start to um U understand more about the building and how it's going
017to be constructed so there some more increases there just normal things as you go through the process um some of the decreases that we saw on the budget you can see Market Corrections in steel windows and Roofing but we saw that the biggest correction had to do with your mechanical and architect systems so it's something we're seeing across the market in in Massachusetts so that helped to realize some of the savings and then as we get into more detail you can see the design and estimated contingency which is something that we started up at 12% way back in schematic design and it works its way down it'll zero out when we get to basically 90% because everything will be captured within the drawings you can see that was reduced down to 3% and same thing
018with escalation that's that's how we we measure when the building is going to be bid and start construction so obviously the further out you are the higher the escalation is that number gets smaller as you get closer to bid dat so you can see we're down to down to 1% now so that's where we are with the cost um in terms of updates on the uh site plan uh we continue to work with the fire and the police departments as it relates to the emergency circulation and um we actually were able to increase some parking on the site uh really isent parking and if you can see in the lower left corner that that green bar next to the Bus Loop and the same thing up the top and the same thing over to the
019right we're actually able to gain about 29 um additional spaces and it's in what's called a it's basically a grass grass Paving it's structural grass Turf which allows people to park on it and we have the same situation out in front of gates between Gates and the veral pond for fire emergency vehicle apparatus so there whever was an issue and you know large apparatus need to get out there we have sinking to the ground structural Turf below that so we're able to go through and U and get that worked out and increase the overall uh parking space from 147 pave spaces up to 176 um I was just curious like I'm having trouble imagining 176 parking spaces what has 100 what has something what's comparable that we have currently like is the parking lot of
020gates how many spots is that or like the current elementary schools do you have any idea I just can't IM this this is this is certainly larger than say um the other elementary schools are uh it might be comtable to gauge we we can certainly get you the number I just don't know it's the top of my head yeah it sounds like a lot yeah honestly so I was just thinking like trying to imagine thinking about Community functions and events and things like that you know we think it's a lot too but um you want to try to maximize your parking because you there's always those events where you're gonna say gosh we wish we had more parking and we think we're capturing that obviously we want to keep it going off the road and
021the whole circulation pattern with the blue line coming in and around and circulating back up being able to get so many cars off the road so they're not queuing um on andine so um yeah I get you that yeah that's the site plan uh floor plans uh really haven't been any any updates uh we've been going through the detail we've been talking about some of the security and safety measures which we'll talk about in some of the proprietary items here but uh the basic building layout has stayed the same the kindergarten prek the lower level on the left first grade second grade above them and third grade and the second level over to the right and then fourth and fifth grade uh to the right on on the ground level and all of the shared
022four facilities and after hour usage in the middle of the cafeteria the gymnasium the art the music the library media center and of course the administration the light blue color right there next to the the main entrance so ground floor second floor and so I don't know if there's any questions about any I just have a question with the ilc and the PLC that be the ilc and the PLC there will they be in the building so I don't know the specific locations but all of the pink spaces that you see uh within the building on both the second floor to go back down to the first time those are all your your special education spaces spread throughout the build what's that is that feasible to have it spread out no it won't be I
023believe it's on the second floor right now above the pre there's still flexibility that right now still okay working so you're interested in locations yeah think other people too okay yeah I I know we've discussed it before I just don't exactly it is end being on the second floor related to that question are teachers still involved in the kind of like planning and the layout of this phase because I think that may also be related to Janice's question is just how are we making sure that you know what they know is going to be needed is taking into account absolutely respect quite a bit of time with with staff all varieties of staff and whatever we learn there we bring back to the working group and have those discussions those decisions that may be made
024based upon uh staff and teacher import and working group been brought to the SBC so it's a pry pretty detailed process throughout I just want to follow up on that that was pretty recent and when I moved to monoy as principal teachers absolutely loved it practicality because one thing on drawings but then when you live it so I think that's where some districts go wrong they don't have intermediators dep at least this late in the process we had the visioning but visioning meetings they were so long ago now we had a pretty pretty good strong draft here and then teachers came in over multiple days by groups and spent a lot of time with the most current plans you see in front of you and got into a lot of detail even about sound sound
025berries in the gym storage Soup To Nuts so I want to make that clear that that's very important because that's huge in the outcome and we learned a lot from that so I want to give dnw credit again spending that amount of time with all the teachers having the opportunity for each discipline everyone was represented they all came in the volunteers were credit to our teachers were overwhelming so we plenty of people getting feedback so that did happen it did happen very recently and we we show you these plans which don't have any furniture laid out but laid out in them but we actually do blowup plant we bring them in we sit down we walk about we walk through where where all the casework is where the furniture might be of course flexibility is
026in there so Furniture be moved around um but also all the materials that are in there we go through we develop we call room data sheets so all the outlets are identified and switches and everything like that so there's there's quite a bit of detail that put into that so we make sure that they're meting there their expectations and their needs and we need to be able to get that information to our Engineers so they can build that into the document so I can be constructed thank you okay so uh proprietary specifications and I know there was a lot of homework that was sent out to the group and basically this is a a public process public bidding process uh in Massachusetts has its own public bidding procedures what we are required to do is
027um provide at least three of everything that goes into a building so three manufacturers of mechanical equipment three manufacturers of flooring types three manufacturers of brick grouping things of that nature throughout the whole building with some items you just can't find three manufacturers it's either because the the product um is so new that other companies haven't caught up to it yet it's because they have a that company may have prioritary method of building it you'll see that in flooring or constructing it uh that no one else can meet um sometimes it's meeting either uh what your Public Safety may be uh requesting in terms of the nox boxes that we'll talk about or technology and security as it relates to the school uh department and how School Department funes with other schools or door hardware
028so what we have done uh we have gone through since last September and developed this list should tell you that we have uh in-house specifications people so we're it's not like we have a consultant we talk about it well it's constant discussion back and forth because we're always trying to find first of all we like to find three if you can but if you just C we need to get to justify using that in the building and obviously having a vote taken on that so we've gone through with the working group we've gone through the SBC ultimately on the 12th of February the SBC did vote to recommend the 11 items that U we'll go through tonight um with a vote of the school committee as the uh as the rewarding Authority uh with minutes
029published and there's there's will be something here that we'll send that say yes and call sign um so and then we'll let msba know at our 90% submission which is honor about the month of April so I'll try to be brief with these I can go into detail if you'd like but I I'll start brief and we can always go back and go through questions so the first item that you see up here is what's called phone glass it's actually a compressive string insulation that sits on top of a steel angle that can support brick so what's important about that it's generally up up at roof levels up at high high AAS within the building and the reason it's it's a high highly compressive um has a high compressive strength insulation is that it creates
030a break between the outside and the inside because your your steel angle is a great conductor of thermal transmission from cold on the outside to warm on the inside so this helps to break that but it can also support the brick uh as you can see there's only one product that can do that so we recommend that and with the with the way the energy code is now we need to put this in to meet the uh current energy code so that's the thermal installation next one this is easy this is door hardware um similar to GES so this is just keeping up keying rep placement Hardware things of that nature for what the school district currently has next item is laminated safety glass or School guard uh this is an intrusion resistant glass so
031uh this is important if someone's trying to break into the building uh they come up to the high school area to throw a rock to the window and you're in this is a a laminated safety glass it's true of all your windows I nobody wants to they're not breaking any um so what this does is well it doesn't it can't keep someone completely out it it delays it in such a way allows for emergency responders to come and or they get frazzled and they walk away so that's that's School guard um this is really the best product it's the only product that's like them um so we recommend that uh the translucent glaz units okalux uh this is something we use for the high glazing in the gymnasium so it's it's a it's a basically
032when you look through one here clear glass this is a a frosted glass or a translucent glass so you can't see through it you can't see this guy but you get the LI in and what it does is it diffuses the light as it comes in so you get you don't get any glare sun coming in blly someone playy volleyball basketball or something else within the in gynasium so that's okalux they're the only ones um the gypson tile backer board there are two manufacturers for that and uh this is important because the these are the only two that are milde resist so you can imagine in a in a wet atmosphere introduce heat especially in Winter mildew could could start this is mildew resistance so that will avoid that from the current with thater and
033that it's a backer a tile wall backer the next item is flex flexible gypson wallboard so two manufacturers that we actually just have this located in the the media center over the circulation desk we do have high curved soet and most drywall will work it's a gentle sopit but it's it's a sharp up curve to it TI enough radius that this is required ex need two manufacturers for that uh the flocked flooring flotex this is this is an awesome flooring system which is made particularly for prek kindergarten students uh as you can see it's um water and stain resistant it's also comfortable to sit on almost carpet like uh but it has a backing such that water is not going to penetrate through and create an issue down the roow and it's easily clean so
034that's something that we're using in the prek and the K classrooms uh fire protect Specialties this is the KNX box I mentioned earlier on basically for far dep B the keys they come to the building they want to be able to get in they have a key to open the box uh and then electric vehicle charging stations a charge point this is something that the town is going through where they're going to have these particular stations throughout public SPAC so we want to keep up with the rest of the the town to vehicle charging stations Communications equipment so basically these are meeting the district standards for the network switches Ruckus networks voice over IP and the distributed communication so this is keeping up with everything that you're doing now and moving forward and then lastly
035uh similar to the communications You're Building security systems your door access controls and video surveillance so that'll be something that be the same as the rest of the bu District so there are 11 items up there we did go through this as I mentioned with the working group School building committee we had a favorable vote on that and happy to answer any questions or take a vote um just just to confirm the proprietary so these are obviously kind of special type items in the committee's um review of It kind of what what it they consider just said this was really proprietary goods and there's nothing else to substitute for them and they were okay with that solution what about like what is the entire is there a way to give an entire cost of all
036of these items is it minimal not sitting here today but I can tell that everything is within the budget that we've posted so far so in terms of the dialogue we try to find three items if if we can obviously if there if there's a district or a town request we want to work within those parameters but the other items that you saw up there some of them there were two two in count you have to have at least three so we do quite a detailed betting of that even before we present it to the working group I don't know if you said you have you have folks in your I know this thing works you have folks in your um office in your office that this is kind of what they do their focus
037is on they they are full-time specifications writers we have two of them and what they do is try to get it all right and when we go through kind of batting it back and forth between them and Tom hurg our project manager and our project architect is just see what the best way is to proceed with these items I will say that the items that you see up here are not unique to sit we're using similar items in all other schools that we're doing too and we're not the only Architects doing that anyone who for instance did that Progressive insulation for the brick that's it so that's what other Architects Builders are using also so thank you the same thing about flooring is like a unique item that wasn't really comparable in any other product
038with the durability the way to sort of interchange it comes in these little squares it was sort of not there was nothing out there that met that same level but you guys don't and this is just like crazy question but you guys don't have like salespeople coming to your office say hey you should be using this particular product like you don't have an incentive to or your firm doesn't have in I mean there are people who are not going to do it no doubt just as they do with our Engineers but just because they do doesn't accept that uh I I will say that we if in this case looking at the flowex versus carpet we have carpet in other areas but given the nature of the the youngest students within the building uh and
039the propensity for spills this seemed to make a lot of sense and a lot of this is a lot of floor activity so this flowex made a lot of sense for that if I could add too that Peter that that keep in mind the school building community prised of a lot of Trades folks lawyers I think they all had good questions on all these they weren't surprised by it so to answer your question was a very indepth U conversation throughout the meeting and the entire group and I believe the both unanimous felt very comfortable with this number not being uncommon not being too high already built into the package and things that would help project um for all those reasons it was voted approved but it did take a while to talk to each other
040they they knew what these things are better than some of us do so yeah yeah I mean you got to see that floring so that was kind learned a lot one to wrap our brains around we learned a lot yeah do you expectedly more proprietary items to come this is it this is it yeah that's why we wait this long because we want to make sure there's nothing else coming with the caveat something does come up with but we don't expect I think also like it's it's all within the budget it's not like asking for any shifting or changing in any way but nothing was sacrificed to me the and some of the things are just things that we're using throughout the town to make it easier yeah the hardware pce little extra this is
041also very similar list to the other two projects I've done especially around technology the security the doors it's a pretty similar proprietary list because it has to match the rest of the district uh my only other question was um well to follow up on Janice's ilc PLC I'm assuming that the special ed teachers maybe provided a recommendation this is very um generic but I would guess that ilc PLC might be preferable on the first floor yeah for accessibility purposes and I'm assuming that you've received that feedback already if that's accurate ask question I don't know I don't know if that's accurate or not but I just thought maybe that they might have provided that commentary I don't really know I would think so for Wheelchairs and things like that yes there would be an elevator
042but that's just a pain you an emergency an emergency I I just want I'm sure that it will work itself up I just wanted to fall up on that yeah I think that's so uh we're looking to vote this proprietary list sort of just as one item one sort of slate of items um that be that would be the recommended motion there so you might want to just read that whoever's making the motion okay oh not just the sure I mean so just read that there is the school committee The awarding Authority for the situate hatherly elementary school project hereby finds and interes after discussion with dor and Whittier Architects the project designer and after DW's reasonable investigation of other feasible Alternatives as reviewed by the owner procurement official that it is in the best
043interest of the owner and the public at large to have certain portions of the work as detailed in this presentation be included in the specifications for this project as a proprietary specification and not provide for or equal substitutions like I said is that a motion yes yes second okay all in favor thank you that covers all covers all great thank you so much thank you appreciate okay appreciate it do you have mind Dr R if we okay I'm happy to um I apologize my excuses simply that I lost track of time so um well thank you for having me here today is this song oh hello okay um so thank you for having me my first update is that both the boys hockey team and girls hockey team won their Patriot league title and unfortunately
044the boys hockey team made it to the semi-finals round of the tournament and they got knocked out by n last night but they both had to seasons and we're very fun to watch and also congratulations to wrestling coach Sean P Petrino for being inducted to the Massachusetts Hall of Fame on March 1st and principal ler presented coach Theo's award before the All State wrestling finals where Liam Holden competed um furthermore congratulations to Willis Ames for being selected at the 2025 um mssa scholar athlete essay Award winner his dedication to both academic and Athletics truly set him apart and this recognition is a testament of his hard work character and commitment to Excellence Willis will represent Massachusetts in the section one selection process to the National Institute of athletic association scholar athlete of the year year
045award furthermore um during February break n were high school students um and two teachers embarked on an unforgettable trip to China visiting three cities which include bangh um in Shanghai and this journey to China was more of a was more than just a sing tour um they truly merged themselves in the culture and were able to practice their Chinese and also right now the um malan trip is in Switzerland in Paris thanks to your approval um furthermore um more data on our Wind Block survey 10th 11th and 12th graders shared input and 79.9% of students think that Wind Block is useful and 98 .1% of students think when block should be longer so that is the 39 minute break we have um before the last block of the day and I know they've talked about
046making some changes um then we also have a student voice um this will actually be helpful for the new Elementary architect know he's still here but um Junior Shay ner wrote a letter to the building committee regarding food allergies and adding more s to the new elementary school she wrote as you plan for your new Elementary School situate I urge you to consider students with food allergies and include more syncs and opportunities for handwashing in the cafeteria and classrooms this will reduce cross contaminations and limit contract contract contact reactions that food allergic individuals experience um and this actually states that the elementary school will have more things installed so I'm glad that advice was taken in and furthermore congratulations to Jayla May Stevens for organizing in a Black History Month celebration on Thursday February 27th
047the event was great and she did a great job um planning everything and it was overall a great time and lastly currently the um during Wind Block on March 3rd students have received an introduction to the course selection process for next year and they will have until March 17th to make course Selections in their asking portal for next year so that is all I have for you guys today any questions thank you I have one quick question sorry um I was just curious if it would ever be possible to get it's like you reach off something typed would we to get a copy of it I ask only because when I was doing the updates this morning um Jane has much more specific information than what we have like I was like I got to
048shout out the robotics team and I'm like looking on Instagram this morning to try to find like what to say and like I wanted to you know share about the play but similarly I was kind of like I know I'm missing things you know and I just feel like they have so I don't know if the timing would work because we do it Monday mornings and we do it every Monday so it wouldn't always work but I just feel like even the stuff that you just said like I was like oh I missed the M trip and the trip to China like stuff like that I just think it's like part of what we're trying to do with the updates um so I don't know just a I am happy to email this to someone
049and Mr ler reads it up and I kind of yeah add little things yeah I mean if someone's already writing it it just kind of feels like it might serve more purposes it's uploaded somewhere you if you want me to email it to you or upload it somewhere I should go to I should go to sah used to go in our back used to go in our backup okay okay so yeah if it could go in the backup that would actually be the best way but when did when do you get it Monday or Friday usually by Friday Friday yes that would work if you want to send it to missling we can add it to the school commit get send it to you s Sarah Sarah on that kind of note on that kind
050of note that Maria said um I think I was reading somewhere we get all those substat things all those TOS whatever I was reading um because we we voted that model un trip and I know it wasn't controversial but it was we had a lot of good discussion is there a way you think that we can get a calendar all of our field trips just so we can kind of see them I think it's a great thing to communicate too as you yeah I wanted to share it because I think we vote on them but I don't remember when they are Galapagos gagos is coming up very soon can I think it' be cool to to have a visual of like all the different field trips that either we approve even the ones that like
051the instate ones that we don't just so we have an idea like everyone has an idea what's all these other opportunities that kids are getting you can do that I'll have Mr you have to worry about it okay Mark emails it to her so he can just email to Sarah Mark just Sarah thank you great thank you very much all right and I apologize again thank you so much right Dr RAB 25 budget transfer thank you madam chair just me one moment I draw the committee's attention to the blue memo as we did last year there have been a lot of changes in terms of you know hiring replacement replacing retirements any changes that we've done basically since last March I've reflected in the fy2 budget and there's two reasons I do this one to
052make it accurate for the current situation but also so it's an easy comparison to the budget book in FY 26 so these are the numbers that I jump off of 25 into 26 into the budget book which I just finished today and should be out next week so we'll be able to have that printed pretty soon and out and about in the community so this year going in 25 there aren't a whole lot of changes most of them you'll see are contract settlements whether they be individual contracts that have been settled over the last year or uh you know just as part of a regular collective bargaining agreement so there's nothing that really jumps off the page in terms of how things move around but the bottom line is and I can certainly answer questions
053on any particular line um but the bottom line not to be dizzying about it although there are five pages to presentation well if you go online and you look at the the presentation the last line keeps it at the same $ 47.4 million so um that hasn't changed clearly and and the big areas clearly that you see changes are are in you know the teacher lines the par professional lines we're always keeping current with the needs of students on IEPs and so that's primarily drives any special education changes so again I'm happy to answer any questions but um basically we're keeping the number the same and we're making this the most accurate comparison as we move forward to FY 26 and I would appreciate a formal vote just so I can put in the book
054and this is the same format that's in the budget book so anybody looking at it's the same exact format this to the next so thanks very much again I think we say this every so up but we've never really had this level of detail so this is great can you just confirm that do you anticipate there be any more changes by the end of this this year this this will take care of it because we only have what April May 31th right thank you consistently me the same anyone else question not um we'll take a vote on these budget transfers um I make a motion that the school committee votes to approve the FY 25 budget transfers as presented second all in favor thank you thank all right all right Mr Newton with our science
055department updates presentation teaching and learning good evening thanks for having me in right um because Jane is everywhere she does appear in a photo in here so um all right so um just kind of teaching and learning updates in the world of uh Gates and High School Science Tech and Engineering um lots of stuff going on as there should be um I'm pointing out and starting with this because this is just kind of what I very very very firmly believe when it comes to teaching and learning in science and engineering is that it's active it's what we do um you know folks that have been on the committee for a while have heard me say in the past like science is a verb it is a thing that we do it is not just memorizing
056a series of definition and so on and so forth so um I do love every time I get to go into a classroom and see things like we see in these images of kids doing stuff of kids figuring stuff out of problem solving of all these bigger better things than just and I say this as a career biology teacher memorizing the equation for photosynthesis which I have taught more times than I could count um so exciting stuff that of course is happening in going on within the department um we are helping sort of pave the way with our environmental stewardship pathway this is one of our desie recognized um icps Innovation career Pathways um we are still very very new we're about a year maybe two behind the business pathway in terms of implementation um
057so uh we are looking to grow we are actively growing at the moment uh I get one or two inquiries you know every day or or two at this point from students just looking for more information whether they join or not is to be determined but um word is getting out there which is great uh we are expecting five students including Jane to uh complete the pathway this year um as we are in the process of students registering for classes for next year this is where that like recruiting and and buildup is coming from I think that's the logical time and place to do that um another student made some very very nice artwork that has uh draws kids attention with a QR code that they can scan and and get the information they need
058which is awesome uh as part of the pathway uh and this is kind of how desie designs icps uh students need to complete two technical courses those are currently our ninth grade bio and 10th grade cam classes so um an easy way in as all of our students are currently taking those classes in nth and 10th grades um they then need eight additional credits in stem from a menu of options um but it's a fairly wide menu of different science and math and Engineering courses so everyone can find their way in um the real differentiator as it is with the business class is that 100 hour internship or Capstone um but we've been working with some Community Partners to offer ways for kids to do that um so shifting gears a little bit just kind
059of where we are what we're working on um how we're looking to get better um this is our eighth grade stte mcast performance I will remind you as I do every year that this is a unique Middle School test because it covers sixth seventh and eth grade standards in one test whereas math and Ela have separate tests each year for those um you can see we have been remarkably consistent um what we are currently looking at and for as we uh go ahead um Jesse has uh proposed some pretty significant changes to the test itself um we along with everybody else across the Commonwealth we'll be piloting those changes this year um I recently saw we will be piloting again next year when they originally said we would be on the new test at that
060point um but the new test is uh in my opinion awesome in that it is far more practice and um doing based right exactly what I opened with um so we have teachers working on that with those having students try the three modules that desie has put out there as samples already um and we're getting there um as such we're working on how do we teach and assess these practices along the way so that we're students are getting feedback and we're getting them better prepared um and the curricular materials that we purchased now two years ago are better aligned to this they require a lot more of this doing and practices um so we continue to monitor the implementation in those situations um High School happy to say we've uh in my opinion moved forward
061quite a bit here in the last couple of years we see an improvement in the number of students that are scoring in that exceeding expectations range uh we see that that is for the most part happening at uh the expense of reducing the number of students in the partially meeting expectations range uh which is really one of the two places we'd like to see that coming from um so we continue again uh PD and monitoring and all the same things because we're doing that as a department related to practices and getting better in that realm um one thing that we need to spend some more time working on is embedding student supports for students with disabilities this was an area when we looked at our high school data um we weren't necessarily happy with what
062we were seeing as results there thankfully this aligns with mtss and and some of the other initiatives that are going on around the building and District um AP exams um what you're looking at here is just the number of exams uh taken each year from the last couple of years uh only going back to the year that it got really weird because the kids took the test at home and they only lasted an hour um the big difference of course is the addition of AP environmental science that now happened for 2023 um so the two pieces of good news that I take from that was more kids got access to Advanced coursework because we see more students accessing AP level science classes and the concern or question at the time was would students elect to
063take that instead of our other existing AP offerings and they're not doing so in large numbers we're still seeing fairly consistent participation in AP biology where we questioned if we would lose the most students um we just really haven't um so we are also doing a little some preliminary work on exploring course sequencing to see how we can make sure students um are getting prepared for these accessing these courses um the additional Project Lead the Way increases some flexibility there also which we've talked about so we're hoping to get even more students into some of these Advanced courses and getting the benefit the results were seeing bio is killing it I mean just to say that out loud it's unbelievable I think it was a 93% um pass rate pass being defined by a three
064or better on the exam um you can see there's some areas where we got to relook at what we're doing uh which we're starting to do we've been doing um AP Physics one um we saw a good jump there in 2023 and unfortunately a little bit of a regression in um you know in doing so we've looked back we've identified one or two curricular areas specifically uh circular and rotational motion that we got to take a look at how we're teaching and how we're assessing uh we're doing a lot of work on making sure that student practice problems are better aligned to the types and expectations of problems students are going to see on the exam again getting ready speaking the language all year long so it's not different um when you get there uh
065to throw for a loop however College Board decided they needed to add a topic to AP Physics one um which is fluids so while we're looking back at that work we're also looking at how are we including that um this year and going forward as we sort of prepare for that um so I've talked a lot of what we're working on but here's a lengthy list this is way too many words on a slide for me um but implementing curriculum addressing PD needs related to that implementation and the way that um I firmly believe we should be teaching and assessing which again students are doing and problem solving and figuring things out asking questions um we are aligning um our understanding of teaching to these what they call scps science and engineering practices um they're
066listed in the Frameworks they run six through 12 they're the things you would expect um we're implementing more Project Lead the Way we know we've got uh intro engineering design running this year that seems to be going great we're expecting principles of engineering added for next year which will also be great we're also looking at adding an environmental sustainability Project Lead the Way class um I'm teaching a Project Lead the Way class on uh intro to biomedical science which I'm having a blast with um so all that is going well we're looking to continue growing relationships with some of the Community Partners we uh do work with already Center for student Coastal research out of Cohasset north south river Watershed Association who's in here all the time all of a sudden um friends of Holly
067Hill Farm of in Cohasset um and we're of course looking to find new partners and continue to find new opportunities for our kiddos um and while all that's going on we're still looking at Gates engineering and DLCs DLCs is digital literacy and computer science um at Gates and refining curricula there um and again making sure our kiddos are getting the biggest best most inclusive of experience we can provide them um what we're looking to complete over the course of say next year for the most part starting now so some of it's this year um refining these common Assessments in all our courses again looking to make sure those practices and that we're better aligned and that we have consistent ways of rating student work in those areas providing consistent feedback so that students are aware
068of how they're progressing 6 through 12 as they work on this uh skill set we are preparing for this they're calling it The Innovative assessment uh pilot for the new it's actually Fifth and e8th grade but I started sixth grade so uh mcast that will work on in Gates they'll regret that name when they go to change it again in the future um building in more of these Project Lead the Way classes and what really feels important is finding better ways to show off all this awesome stuff that our kids do um that our teachers do that they do together um and so on and so forth so that's my very speed through updates of st6 through [Music] 12 so going back to the AP exams uh you have identified exactly where that dip like
069what caused that and focusing on that yes unfortunately we saw a big time change we do get data back from the college board that breaks everything down into a handful of different categories and in a couple of different ways um we could see where we were trailing both the state and National students um curricular wise again at the moment the the focus is on rotational and circular motion um which actually is probably the most complex part of that course at this point um there a lot of variables involved when you have to do those problems um but that seems to be again statistically and datawise our biggest area for improvement or need Improvement H thanks for this this is great um I have a couple questions can you help me understand the course sequencing as
070the biology AP is that a second biology course is that a freshman course that is a second year of biology the majority of students students that enroll in that course are in the 11th grade um with some seniors also um So currently all of our ninth grade students take biology at either the CP or honors level all of our sophomores take chemistry at one of the CP honors or AP levels and then for the 11th grade the umbrella opens up and there are tons and tons of options and choices for kids in a fairly wide variety of uh subject areas within the heading of Science and Engineering AP Bio is one of them AP Physics is one of them all levels of physics would be on that list um AP environmental okay is the I'm
071just curious the difference between freshman and then then the AP Bio is it for kids who think they want to go into field of medicine or it just further is it totally different from original ninth grade bio it is um not completely different it is in considerably more depth in detail um so much of biology is basically an application of chemistry and in the ninth grade the kiddos haven't seen chemistry yet so so much of what we teach in the nth grade is in this proverbial black box of like this just happens they get chemistry and they get two further years along in their math education and now they can come back and the chemistry and the math can all be there so there is considerably more detail in depth in AP than there is
072in CP honors great thank you that's helpful I don't think I don't think I need that yeah I was GNA that was one of my comments actually as a parent registering a junior and he said the umbrella opens it was a pleasant problem to have with what to choose see my son was like I like that principles of biomedical that looks it was just intriguing if you have a child who was interested in anything medical even just the thing anything in this massive umbrella which lane to choose was a good problem at least in my house to have and there were more options too but that was a really there was in the Project Lead the Way components just I just feel like the your department is doing a great job with offering that to
073once you get to that upper level selection moment when we have a lot of different kids with a lot of different interests and a lot of different skill sets and a lot of different paths that they desire to follow and um again to come back to what I've now said four or five times already it's about that skill set that's built into the practices and whether you're practicing it in physics or biology or environmental shouldn't really matter if you're developing those skill sets related to analyzing data and arguing from evidence in planning investigations those are all the same regardless of the science content that's being used to get you there yeah that comes through came through at least yeah good um first of all I wanted to say thank you so much for the presentation
074I think it was really helpful to have like the historical data just made it I think much easier to digest like where we are currently seeing where we've been so thank you so much for that I had a question about Project Lead the Way so I don't quite understand is that a curriculum or is it a TD and like do is it a subscription like how can you just kind of talk a little bit about that it seems like that's working well I kind of want to know how do we the short answer is yes um it is um it is a fairly um diverse and large organization at this point yeah um that I don't know if this is actually a 100% true statement but the easiest way for me to describe it to
075folks is in some ways it's a competitor to college ating okay so what they do is create courses U at moment they are all STEM related courses yeah but they create these courses with curricula with resources vetted kind of ready to go they offer training to teachers in how to deliver that curriculum and run those projects they are very very project driven um for example in the class I'm teaching this year which is the biomedical science we do not have tests every unit ends with a project um and it's a different project every time so it stays a little fresher uh I just listened to student recorded podcasts explaining a disease outbreak too soon I know and um but they were great kids dive into it they really enjoy that um and so it is
076all of those things um combined with the reason I say it's sort of a competitor to college board in AP is there is an opportunity for students to earn college credit at the end of the course um by meeting a handful of Fairly clearly defined criteria so do we purchase it like we own it now it was originally Grant funded right or is it like a subscription that you kind of pay annually to of stay current so we do have to pay a membership fee to continue our access to all of those uh curricular and instructional materials okay and what percentage of science courses are sort of relying on Project Lead way right now is it a small at the moment it's small so we are running two courses this year looking to expand it
077to four for next year Okay so we've got Project Lead the way we've got AP and we've got some others and so in the others that are not either of those what is your curricular looking like in those is that teacher created or are you generally speaking yes um the one that stands out is going to be our honors anatomy class which um is a fairly standard Anatomy physiology class yeah um teacher does a fantastic job and has for years um and kids love it even though it's challenging which is the really sign that the teacher is doing a great job in there um but I would say that is yeah kind of you know yes we provide curricular instructional materials but um that particular teacher has for the most part developed that curriculum over
078time so when you were talking about the common assessments if it's not AP and it's not Project Lead the Way those are something that teachers say would collaborate to build that's correct and give their kids and then come back and a look at the data together that's correct and I'll even give you one example as we just passed mid years the ninth grade biology teachers create an exam to give us the midye that's made up of old mcast questions that are publicly available um so that they can a mimic that experience for students but also then hopefully be able to identify oh maybe we didn't do so great in this area let's make sure we Revisited so on great thank you no this is this is great um I guess I love the opportunity I
079know that one of our part of our strategic goal is to include community and that sort of thing I'm curious do we have any classes or programs that involve the ocean like do we have an ocean orphy class or do we have a way to I know that Stell wagon bank is a big I it's what the largest natural resource whatever it is just offshore like I'm curious what kind of offerings or opportunities are for that either for internship or some working together so we do currently offer a semester long oceanography course um and we'll find overlap with all of our different environmental whether it take the environmental or or hopefully next year the environmental uh sustainability project Le the way class clearly there's going to be ocean aspects to those courses um we have
080students that do projects you mentioned internship they I would argue it's more like Capstone than internship but that are able to get some experience out there uh one of the photos I showed the one that has Jane in it um we had four students this past fall um and this is them at their uh ceremony for lack of a better term where they were granted their um certificate by Noah um so you know government agency through Stell wagon Bank um they call it their stream to Sanctuary certificate um and this is basically for completing an independent um research project that is somehow built around connecting these watersheds that we experience where we live and how they are how changes or human impacts on those are impacting Stell wagon Bank you know off our coost that's
081great thank you I I could just added that there's a little bit of an overlap too with the Innovation career pathway so on this slide talks about the 100 hour internship so um you know Patrick Greg reri uh Kula all have on their radar that thinking about ways for students on the pathways that we have to really to highlight the internship component so that goes back to developing our relationships with uh and Community Partnerships so we spent some time with the Holly Hill partnership and um if students are going to do these 100 hour internships we recognize that we really need to build uh make it easier for them to get connected to the community so that's part of our work too with these Pathways it's just um having students communicate what they're interested in
082and then having us have existing relationships and being where we are geographically it would be really nice if we could have Partners who are you know doing really good work related to the the ocean and our stream so you know that's definitely on uh Patrick's radar in terms of the intersection of the cours work and our Innovation career path so it's really exciting the lob Association har that up I mean work a lot with the state regulations absolutely a grp to talk to thank you thank you thank you all right Dr R thank you I'm very pleased to announce a donation um in Kelly Bell our district nurse leader has a relationship with convenient MD through their school nurse partnership program and they've donated free 20 free youth physical vouchers to our school they're worth
083$50 each so $1000 donation in kind and they've delivered those to her and they'll be distributed to families and students and shall work together with the principles but we really pleased to to receive that and it gives anybody a free pH 20 right take a motion on that and there donation I make a motion that the school committee vote to approve the 23 youth physical vouchers from convenient MD as presented second all in favor hi all right we have some minutes to approve from February 10th take a motion on those minutes um I make a motion that the school committee vote to approve the February 10th 2025 minutes as presented I'll second okay all in favor La the back up tonight what else I do have for your read yes with your permission sure from
084February 13 2025 for February 27 2025 for $745,000 oh okay so Maria and I Meto Maria totally lost um a week ago to talk about the data subcommittee because that's part of our goal and so we were hoping to get on the agenda okay that you know the next couple to present sort of what how we think our appro what our approach should be and to get some opportunity to discuss and get feedback from everybody it might be wise to actually check in on ours yeah good idea anything else all right take a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn at 7:15 all in favor