001okay you're all said have a good meeting all right so we have just exited exective session [Music] back right back to our regular agenda items here post executive session and we are going to proceed with public comment seeing nobody in person and also not uh seeing any hands raised remotely all right we will go forward with our student reports Louisa Kinsley and David Murphy short to share there hi everyone hope you're all doing well um so first we have some sports and extracurricular updates the spring sports teams are having great Seasons um baseball boys and girls lacrosse boys and girls tennis and track all have winning records and boys lacrosse is also R third in the division which is awesome um every year there are two students chosen as Cate High School of scholar athletes
002for the Patriot league and David and I were excited to find out that we were the two chosen this year and so we're going to a banquet tomorrow night for it aome congratulations thank you um s High School select choir sang a national anthem at the police chief Gala at Gillette Stadium on Friday April 12 um 106 students from situ High School were inducted into the National Honor Society on Wednesday April 24th so congratulations to all of those students Mr aala and Mr Barnes scheduled a lunch cruise on Saturday April 27th for all Boston and situate families to attend the crw left from Rose WARF in Boston and we heard it was a great time over 100 people were in attendance the C high school music department performed at Disney World on April 27th um
003we heard that the syonic band and select choir gave a wonderful performance there and it seemed like a great trip Savannah garan will hin and Bailey young competed at the DECA national competition in Anaheim California from April 27th through May 1st which is an incredible accomplishment and many Deca students also presented at Gillette Stadium on Friday May 3rd on initiatives to increase Revolution ticket sales and lastly SATs took place at s High School on Saturday May [Music] 4th all right um all right uh so social studies teacher Kelly trus was the recipient of the promising teachers award by the Massachusetts Council for social studies so a huge congratulations to miss ters there who's an excellent teacher and amazing uh model un supervisor so yeah congratulations and we are also pleased to inform you that Louisa
004was selected as one of 6 25 semifinalists to advance to the finals of the 2024 US Presidential Scholars competition the final selection of high school seniors who will be selected as the 2024 US Presidential Scholars will be announced by the Secretary of Education sometime in mid May so guess you're having a pretty good uh pretty good month so far with this and the scholar athlete thing but yeah congratulations um the class cup event for the month of May is also continuing on and students are guessing the baby pictures of Staff members and attending the spring for the Arts currently the Juniors still remain in the lead the school administration celebrated all students with perfect asend attendance students on honor role and students with high honors by handing out popsicles on Thursday during Wind Block so
005that's always fun and our unified track team competed in Whitman Hanson and at home the past few weeks principal arranger wants to say a big thank you to rad Scott P head coach Bren iberg coach Mike Timco and other volunteers for all of their support situ High School's Junior Prom is at Venicia in Boston on Friday May 10th starting with the prominade at prominade sorry excuse me at situate high school at 5:30 and the school administration also announced the sailors of the month for the month of March they were John tarala Cecilia Griffin EK uh Lavida sorry Mr reneer Mr mof Mrs odonnell Brooke McCarthy and Mrs LS so congratulations to our Sailors of the month and with some guidance news AP testing is underway and will take place at situ High School for the
006next two weeks best of luck to all our students as they test throughout the next two weeks and yeah that's about it thank you all all right new business shs andc principal ler and Scot athletic yeah so we actually have the sign right out [Laughter] here I love that so this is a new sign that would be out front at the gates uh High School Entrance and it will go into the existing space that's there now so right now we're putting pegs into you know with the with with making words pegs to try to create so this would be something that we can control uh by our computers automatic shut off at 9:00 at night so it doesn't uh bother anyone with the light um and it can be displayed with all kinds of town
007events that we're having school events that we're having um you know things can just roll through it you can program it I believe right start like a a week prior or whatever events happen and they'll just roll you can change it on an hourly basis wow and where would this be again IP with the DPW one no so you know the existing Marquee I'm sorry the existing Marquee that's out there now Marquee that screen fits perfectly in to that slot so there would have to be no uh Construction done at all to the Marquee just trim work to finish it off after it's installed the electricity is already there to run it um yeah and it does not cost much to run the power that power's minimal very minimal electricity what so this is this
008approxim the side right size that's the exact size that's the exact we could buy the demo one we can buy the FL model that's the exact one that's that would be the exact size of the sign y I think detronics produces the electric signs to mimic great what we do is we need the school committees approval to go move forward to the planning for so we need the school committees approv that move forward to the planning board so the first steps would be approval from school committee and then we'll go to the planning board um with the sign we're probably not going to bring the sign to the planning board yeah well because it helps to see I was like I trying to picture it because all I know is the sign that they part
009on the lawn yeah you know announ right now if you go up there a little sign stuck on the lawn that says it's a baseball game today you know that would be on here when he's really state of the art really really nice sign happen to know if um it's hear sorry do you happen to know if this is the same type of sign that the public safety complex uses because they do similar announcements it's just the same company same company okay yeah the same company yeah I love it I would say you can bring the demo to the next one you should because honestly I was kind of like I don't really understand and then as soon as I saw it I was like I get it the fact that that sign fits in
010that I would not have thought I would smaller and so I think that's very compelling yeah absolutely and so um just from a budget perspective this was part of the maintenance or the high school maintenance item so essentially we have the funds to pay for that you're asking for any additional p no okay no additional p I just I just want to you know thank thank Mark and Scott for for doing the research on this it's part of our overall we' talked about the high school and bringing it to life and beautifying it this is just one more example of um you know modernizing things and but also people come in sometimes confused you know where the signage is not enough sign where the entrance is all this kind of so you know this is
011a a great investment I think but also I we like partnership with a town where we can put a town meeting up there and work together with the town where it's right across from town hall so a lot of good things it does have to go for a few more steps after this obviously to because it would have to be you know approved by some other boards but because we safety piece is important too because we um our shelter was also school that was one of the reasons they approved the lease of public safety building so we have that going for us as well so okay what's what would the timing be assuming you go through the the proper approvals and so on you know when they would be able to install it like end
012of the summer before the school year starts you time frame so we would have to get approval from the planning board and the zoning board we would have to get we would need approval from the planning board and the zoning board so i' have to see what the timeline is with their meetings and when we could get on those agendas and if they that could happen in the next month or two this could be ready for the sub will thank you we're really excited it's really huge upgrade yeah okay we'll take a motion electronic sign you look like you're ready to do it I know Mar looks ready I I will move that we approve the new electronic sign second right all in favor all right thank you very much thank you I know I'm
013actually that changed my whole mood all right uh shs Branch teacher Mr Jake K hello hello uh so I'm here to request permission to continue the uh French trip that we've been doing every two years um we're not really changing anything it would be a 10day trip um uh based around April vacation so probably three days before maybe few days after instead depending on ticket prices and scheduling uh this is open to Juniors and seniors uh who take French and uh students who are seniors who took three years of French um have priority over under the class uh we're looking at 25 students three to four shop Bron the price is last year was 2 or last trip 2,200 and we we think it'll be pretty much spot on again uh 7-Day home stay with
014our sister city uh families in Su for about 7even days and then two days Normy again this year the French high school students might actually to join and travel with us which would be a really cool um modification on it and uh we would then host the fall afterwards so seniors who traveled would not be able to host but it's a great way to keep interest growing uh and going by having younger students host who haven't travel yet so this is the second time we'll be doing that way perhaps during the summer instead of all school year um did you just come back from friend no I uh I couldn't do trip like that no that was run by um community members Like Pat car and the one that they came back today yeah they
015literally arriv in my 20 minutes okay so this is separate this is different than yeah this is the school one um that's a school sponsor trip and that one was they originally tried to have it potentially as a school trip and we said we can't take it on but the community can set it up and I know that she came for as well I just thought was like wow you just got off a plane priorities are in order this one this seems like a just a well oil machine that you have going with this so I don't have any questions you said of Juniors and seniors correct thank you all right take a motion on haris I make a motion that the school committee vote to approve the Paris sus umbre field trip second second
016right and all in favor thank you thank you very much all right more motions here um nonunion Personnel job description superintendent B thank you Mr brini this position is u a current position that is um it's not a new position it's a current position the director of Technology position it's slightly U modified to include title of director of educational technology and the major adjust to this um responsibility would be um Communications and information systems which would oversee our newly formed digital comms team the website uh the app and um all our Communications that we really um have seen grow over the last few years we would like someone out the community to kind of oversee and help support the vision for this this person would also be overing instructional technology pieces um and the new
017position voted in our budget for the instructional technology piece help with that uh job description and hiring process and where that person fits into our um vision and also the elementary instructional piece uh obviously something that's come up a lot help us you know kind of assess and audit that situation and um give us feedback for that so overall the um responsibilities have expanded in this role um it's still the same job with some with those specific adjustments to the position to strengthen um what our needs are in the district via [Music] technology thank you superintendent bad questions all right take a vote on nonunion Personnel job description I make a motion to approve the non-union Personnel director of educational technology drop description second all right all in favor thank you right and non-union personel
018contracts so this is a um request there were 11 non-union contracts negotiated this year and specifically discussed in our executive session I will list them for the community of folks who have further question question for me be happy to answer them um assistant principal of the high school out of district coordinator director of food service information manager athletic director Meco bus driver monitor excuse me Meco bus monitor not driver um superintendent executive uh assistant accounts payable and payroll position administrative assistant to the business director and director of supplemental services all right I was just say I don't know if it's worth noting that the reason we're not discussing the description or this is because we've been in an executive session talking about this I just want folks who are watching or watching this recording not
019to think we're just like letting this skirt by that we had a long hourong discussion about all of this and now we're voting publicly I just thought it was important to say that absolutely thank you for noting that go ahead peterw I make a motion to approve the non-union Personnel contracts second all right all in favor yeah okay so four in favor one oh oh oh oh sorry yeah yeah yeah right next on the agenda 20 2024 2025 student handbooks presented by building principles while they're coming up I just want to give a little context for the community and to the board um excuse me in the past we had done these in the fall and which school had already started which seemed odd so um they come up earli in the year now they're
020back but they've done a great job working with their teams and they School councils into to um get these ready for this year so that we can go into a new year with these ready to go for families and staff and students hi everyone hello um yeah so this is super helpful because um at the beginning of the year we do ask parents to read our handbook and sign off on it but then we don't have it approved until like October November so then parents have already been they're done that and then you're trying to get them to go back and read it and sign up so so um as much as I I'm full transparency was a teeny bit grumpy when Mr burad emailed us and said can you please start working on these
021I did send a clarifying email do you be next year's handbook and um and he did clarify that is exactly what he um but I will say now that it's done we feel really good like we're really excited that it's done that's right and get it posted and parents can read and sign off right in the beginning of the year so um so the elementary handbook um Elementary student handbook there's a lot there and um last year we spent well this is my fourth year so each year we spent a little some time trying to go through that and make it better make it more readable and more user friendly um this year we probably put in the most time we've ever done um so we met the four of us met um four or
022five times for a couple hours after school and really went through it and I will say I do think there's still probably some work to do um but I feel like we' really come up with a good document here one of the struggles was it was like 35 pages long and I don't know there aren't a lot of people that have time to sit and read 35 pages of a student Elementary handbook so we've really tried to condense it down and um I think we got it down to like 21 or 23 Pages um but you know there's a lot of important information there so without trying to um you know compromise the message and the intent of the handbook we've also tried to make it more user friendly so the first thing we did
023um was we changed the format of it so it was all in alphabetical order by categories and unless you you were in the mind of the person who set up those categories it was really hard to figure out where where things were what they were called so we we reformatted the whole thing and we used subtitles um and I'm I'm sure you've habit and had take a peek at that and then we tried to group things underneath those um subtitles so um so that's the first thing we did is change the formatting um the other thing we did was we added the caregiver acknowledgement statement right on the front because that is one of our biggest struggles is getting parents to read and sign off on that so I think two things helpful now that
024we'll have it ahead of time and we'll have it posted right when school starts and also we put a statement right there that says you need to read this and please Sil off in in um Asen that you've done that so those are the two big things um and then Christine's going to go through some of the other things we've done hello so one of the biggest things that we did is we removed information that fell under specific policies or were just not applicable so as we went through everything we found several examples of that which we could then link to the actual policy so some examples were the absences due to religious reasons we have the um section for absences with the policy the school committee policy linked and so we were able to
025shorten that up a little bit the community use of facilities was in there but we didn't feel that's really a student handbook um type of information more of people trying to book using the facilities the concussion protocol that was in there was actually for grade six and above so not a part of the elementary anymore now that we're K to 5 the other piece was under report cards so they had descriptions of all the letter grades and the percentages that went with that we determined that that information is actually just sitting right on the report card so it's there for people to see when they need it under school health services there was a really long section which was essentially the job description of the school nurse um so we didn't feel that that was
026appropriate to have in there um we removed detailed information about the special education evaluation process so there still is a lot of detailed information in there about the spe special education process but some of what was in there actually got into what questions you might be asked in a meeting and and that is all information that once you enter the process that they would share the special education department would share with you the student conduct SE section was condensed to reflect essential information with the link to the more detailed policy so as Tracy mentioned earlier sometimes you had to find you know in the old handbook when it was alphabetical things about student conduct was everywhere it was under Behavior it was under suspensions with somewhere else so we just tried to make sure everything
027was together logically and they had the information they needed to know when they clicked on those links what they were going to find um we also found there was a large amount of just redundant language and so what we tried to do was to remove that language we tried to we took the first couple of lines from the policy right from the school committee policy manual and put those under the category and then made sure we had the link um some of it was just long explanations and really just didn't need to be in there um the other thing we did was we aligned with Gates we did work and collaborate with Ryan to make sure that there are some overlap you know so we did um you know if we thought it was going
028to be an overlap or it might um go against maybe something that was in the gates handbook we did collaborate with him on those um attendance and student conduct those were two of the big sections we collaborated on and then we also did collaborate with some of the department heads um because again those K to2 department heads are going to span all three handbooks so we wanted to make sure that what we were saying the elementary aligned with the gates in high school for example um under the health services so we did work with Kelly Bell to make sure that what we had under Health Services was in fact um what she agreed with and one of the big ones too was taking out that nurse's job description um okay that's all we have do
029you have any questions for us I I was I wasn't gonna ask that I was gonna ask another is that okay if I go so I think this looks great as someone who actually does look at this a lot I appreciate the the sness this is super ticky tacky but I'm wondering if there's any way in this beautiful table of contents to link so that like when for example if I wanted to jump right to technology I could jump down and then there could be like a back to the beginning I think you can I know you can do that in word I don't know if you can do do it in PDF but that's a great question well it's so it's so ticky tacky but it would just be a nice easy when it's
030posted on the website you want to be able to just so like you know when you're scroll like if I wanted to go right to Transportation instead of having to scroll I would click on Transportation it would take me right to page 15 yeah that's a great suggestion PES that's why I'm saying it's it's it's minor but it would just be um this is great I love the links to the policy and I don't know if it's um because we're in the um the extra like looking at when I click on it it does this like funky thing where it's just like flashing can you see it when I clicked on policy J inside the window I don't know if it's because it's mask though because when then when I do a separate link it
031works right if I just go to the our website it just runs it up but it say yeah that's funny that never happened with us when we were because we did try we checked all I think it's because you're inve in the X Drive I it worked for you see we obnoxious where your test where your obnoxious test well I was like what's it doing I looked at her we're creating problems you didn't know that's okay and I only I clicked on it because it said uh was the policy about interrogations I was like kind of harsh but that is the yeah no this is great I love the lengths and concise to the point yeah thank you I had a question about just the process that you underwent to do the update so first
032of all I love it thank you it looks way better I think it's GNA just be a lot easier for people but I was just curious like sounds like the four principles got together I was curious who else has maybe had a hand at seeing this or like kind of understanding the changes that have been made like teachers families yeah so that's a great question and I I was say it's been a couple year process um last year I used our um my school council to go through this last year so I would say that was sort of the beginning of like sort some of the major Renovations um and last year we cut it down from like 40 something Pages down to like 31 um so um in my school council we we divied
033up the whole book everyone took a section and they went home and read it and then came back and then we had a lot of great discussion about making revisions so that was sort of a start there and then this year we did the same as the four principles we took that document we split it up into sections we each read through and kind of put our um kind of two cents into it and change it and then we came together the four of us and we went through every single section together so it's it was interesting because it's some of the things were like well who makes that decision like is that for us to make here you know and and honestly there were times I was kind of like I almost like to
034see what school committee thinks of this or like um you know that's where we like collaborated to with like Ryan and and Kelly Bell and um we did collaborate um a little bit with teachers probably not as much as maybe we should I would say that would be a great step as well as to have it um teachers look at it um so and then also even some um there were some questions we had at times about like well do does this belong in the handbook is this the place for it should it be someplace El or do we have it in multiple places should we have it in multiple places like there we still did have questions went through it um so it was it was a great process we spent a lot of
035time we had a lot of good discussion we we all feel way more educated about the policies in the school committee gambo because we've had Tove we did do a deep dive into those policies and we learned some stuff we absolutely learned some things that we were like wow um we didn't realize that you know so um so it was a good process your enthusiasm oh oh that's right Julie Julie Ward spent a lot of time with us as well yeah I was going to say a couple things I think as a member of the policy subcommittee if you found policies and the bigger thing that you now have questions about or curious about if you'd love to flag those we would love to take a look at them we're kind of always in a
036process of going through and trying to figure out what needs updating um so if there's anything that Springs to mind if you want to note it down and let us know that would actually be really helpful because there is an awful lot in there so it's just hard to know what needs to get updated um and I was just curious about um did anything like content-wise change or is it mostly just organization I I guess I'm asking because I'm wondering what then would be the process for helping families who maybe have are like oh yeah you I've seen this before I'm assign this um helping them to realize no there are things that you should read or you know this part has been updated in particular next fall I think one of the things that
037we've been working on this year is the attendance policy and making sure that that has been updated so I do think that is something that um parents should be directed to as a change so that that's the only one that I can think of I think that was the biggest one yeah that's the one I was wondering about actually I couldn't remember if I just was misremembering this but there was I thought the piece about like whether or not were the fact that teachers are not expected to give um homework ahead of time I think that's new I don't is that not is not I was going to say that's one that doesn't seem like people know because I think a lot of parents are like oh I'll just write an email and I'll ask
038the teacher for a packet you know that's a very common practice um and so I was wondering I didn't wasn't sure if that was new or not but that seems like something no to a lot of families and and I'll tell you um that does come up when talking with families especially families that are doing a planed vacation outside of the school vacation times and um I know I have several times had to cut and paste from the handbook and I just give them that language and what's a struggle in the elementary school is um teachers always want to do right by their students right so what what gets tricky is when we have some teachers who want to do that and do it and others who follow the the guidelines of the handbook so
039so I know we've had a lot of conversations at wetch about that and that understanding that this is our handbook and this is what parents have signed off on and we need to all ad here to that but I we do run into that because it is easier for us for teachers if kids come back with that information under their belt right because then they're especially if they've been out for a week or two now they're trying to make up that so it it's a very tricky situation but but that has been in the H at least in the four years I've been here kind of Segways to the absence um in the under school oh absences and dismissals it mentions um taking like the prescription like the antibiotic for like 24 hours before coming
040back but there's no nothing in and it mentions the temperature of 100 degrees like don't come to school but there's no language in there about um returning to school that um if if you don't have a temperature without without Tylenol you know that's in here somewhere it might it might be under Wellness isness well under the policy Wellness yeah I'm looking under Wellness because it has AB has Wellness school health absence absence and dismissals okay I to SC down I would have to check I don't know if we remove that or it just hadn't been there um and we did consult with Kelly Bell on that to make sure that we have the right thing yeah I mean it could be in one of the policies links to one of the M policies that details
041but I bring it up because you mentioned like the antibiotic and I think something like if your child has a temperature but doesn't with Tylenol you know where going you know what I mean I know what you're saying like if they don't have a temperature and you haven't given them tyen or something yeah then you can send do whatever we can to get them back to school yes some time know get on the bus so I I don't know if you want to ask Kelly we we can definitely take a look at that again before we get just because it's like that it has mentions the antibiotic so like yeah yeah yeah the about the fever reducing medications is in the attendance policy okay but it's not here so maybe you just put it in
042both plac yeah we can defitely do I knew I saw it somewhere it's number two number two yeah okay just have a quick page five comment um first of all this is great I mean I I don't maybe car I don't I don't remember if I've ever read the handbook and my kids are through hel much school so appreciate the effort look it does look good like up to date I feel like the other one was just template from like 1980 or something so this is great um and I think that I know this but so for parents to claim that they've read it they go through Aspen and they just click there's a link to the to this handbook and then you click on and say that you've read it and acknowledge it that's
043how work and every family has to acknowledge that supposed to yes all right so that's great um we have this again this is just like form minut except which I'm sure someone will pick up but on a lot of these it has like the the title of the section and then it has a semicolon and then the policy but some of them are missing the semicon so whatever that is I don't know if a semic Colon's already punctuation or what I just at first glance I didn't I love the fact that it lists the policy but I don't love that there's no punctuation between it so I'm not sure if it's punctuation or separate line or what but I like it all it just doesn't look right we are happy to add a semicolon excuse
044me we're a some of them have Aon that's the only reason I mentioned that yeah so and we down also first not not and then we started adding we must started get really tired but we took a break and we came back and then we were distracted and then we're like we got to add Co it so we'll we'll fix that as I don't know what the punctu I love that there's a link to the policy there if colon is right then useon whoever wants to okay we can definitely but no thank you for it's it's I know it's not that much fun but you had a whole new year now to worry about it we do we learned a lot we learned a lot and we will have some suggestions for school committee policies
045it's really important and It's tricky to write policy like it's harder than you would think and that's part of the reason I asked about the process just because when we do this we have the first reading the second reading we have all these eyes on it and so often you miss little things like that are contradictory or that like it's one place and not the other place and it's just it's it's harder than it seems when you think you think you found everything right you're missing a you knew we were gonna have those so you knew we were gonna get you with that we wondered what you were going to ask us that wasn't one of them no no that not that was not one of the things thank you thank you next up Mr
046be you get yours down to 21 Pages that's what I my is cut cut cut so yes so uh very similar to principal Sheen and principal and I was very excited to get the invitation from superintend yes but uh again similar right similar to uh to my colleagues uh we are in a really good place uh in the sense of having been able to look through this at a time when it's not very chaotic um and our process was we worked with our school council uh which has teacher reps Community representative parent representative uh and together we looked at our existing handbook came together and made some recommendations and had good discussion around some of the big things that are included in our handbook so just from our executive summary um Page 6 through eight
047just some updated Staffing to reflect our staff that we know of for next year as well as dates and um trimester dates report card publication all that uh we included on page nine the new attendance policy uh that includes language around verified and unverified as opposed to excused first unexcused and I think it's your question to my colleagues what's something we need to educate parents and Community about I think it is this policy um in the sense of although it might just be a a coding issue in Aspen um we're trying to change that mentality of you know when you are in school you're present when you're not in school for whatever reason um you're not here this instruction so I think that's one thing that we as a school as a district across the
048board would like to kind of promote as we go into the next school year um on page 12 uh we went through our infractions and removed unacceptable social behavior uh because we found that to be B and everything else is very specific um and that might mean something to one person and not mean it to another so we want to be as concrete as we can we updated our dress code on page 19 thankfully our students offer a lot of advice um specifically around uh their civic Action project and there's always one or two groups that looks at the dress code which is great because their voice and their feedback is something they care about um and if you look at how our dress code has you know transformed over the last you know six
049to 10 years um very inclusive language does not necessarily Target one gender or another um but there was a statement that's been in there for a while about hair styling and it was less about like how you can wear your hair it was more a statement of the courts have ruled that schools um you know do have some form of uh way to regulate how students wear their hair um and so we did take that out we will educate students if there ever becomes a problem with hairstyles um but I think that was the the piece in there that our students really were concerned about that we didn't have much answers to or experience with um but there is I guess there are court cases around hair styling and um the school's ability to do
050that so we took that out um and we'll continue to have good hair and that um we updated Health Services with nurse Kelly Bell in 20222 um this year we we adjusted um our requirements for National Junior Honor Society to align with those at the high school uh for National Junior Hite used to be a 3.6 grade point average and we have increased that to a 3.8 um we find that uh students are motivated by the ability to be inducted in um and we find more and more students with certain grade point averages and so we figured that would be a better cut off to align with our high school colleagues uh we also added in a piece about attendance and discipline into National Junior Honor Society um that those will be factors considered into
051it because as of right now um discipline is not necessarily um a you know something that can be considered it's not saying that students with a discipline record would be disqualified um but that's something that we should be looking at that that the high school also looks up in theirs um and then on page 25 uh the idea of artificial intelligence we don't have a policy or or anything about artificial intelligence we're still learning about it our students are learning about it our teachers are learning about it we did just add it as a piece to our plagiarism that um we expect students to generate their own work use their own ideas um and as we continue to learn how to responsibly use and and teach with artificial intelligence um I'm sure policy will come
052out of that shap form finally we upd the pronouns um everything was he she and we there so that was the gist of our summary um and wanted to thank just our school council because they did spend a lot of time offering and good discussions around question middle school handb I just have the same request about the being able to click through the table it's very minor it looks great looks like he went without the col Mr Gat over there glasses down so see all there's parentheses parth I think I like the parentheses will upate I I think I like the parentheses cleaner so the highlighted portions are changes yes yeah okay looks good it fantastic all right right principal arranger you up next not as exciting as a sign reveal you got the hand
053put the sign behind me I was going to bring up that no all right thank you for having me tonight our will first change just page one we just changed the date 20242 on page 9 we changed our our Med Cod director to Mr Sean haa page 19 um cafeteria to sign out of the cafeteria now we have a um they have to sign out they're supposed to remain in the cafeteria they're going to another uh destination we have a QR code now we sign out to so we know where they're are and that's more or less for parent calls and and and there supposed to be in the cafeteria we know the QR code what what area they are in the building um our anchor block on page 19 ankle blocks are now for
054seniors only so we took Juniors out of there on page 21 for restrooms um cell phones or other electronic devices should not be used in the restroom so we're going to I'm going to go over that a little bit later but we have a new cell phone policy um and they cannot take the cell phone out of the pockets when they leave the clroom to go into the bathrooms page 21 student parcking this is a mess last year I dealt a lot of student pocking issues so seniors with a valid driver's license can receive the first parking spot so they have to have a driving license in order to in order to go for it uh for a parking spot and then all other spots will be decided by Lottery and this year I think
055we'll be in a better shape because last year we had a high senior class so numbers be a little bit less we should be in a better position for the parking spots on page 23 students Sports we got rid of amp 2 and harbor Academy because it no longer exist on page 35 for classroom communication we changed appropriate grade administrator to Department CH the department sh will be the first uh uh person like be the second person that has contacted um any classroom communication issues and then it'll go administrator after that on page 47 and 48 under El eligibility requirements we are changing our policy to two FS or more and you're ineligible for athletics right now we have a policy where we follow the Mia rules where if you pass four classes you can
056participate in athletics and we we carry seven so they could literally fail three classes and play athletics so so we've made it um more difficult um and I still think it's fair and then we have a policy also we call it our um amp policy that's AMP one policy and that if a student has must have five C minuses or better or they go into the ant program and the Ant program is some extra help that they receive during Wind Block and if they do not attend the ant program then they can't play sports or be part of the band or whatever their extra Cod activity is so just to give students extra support we're struggling academically um our big one is the cell phone policy um which on page 66 we're changing the wording
057and went to a no uh cell phone use in classroom so we're going to have pockets for all staff and and then students going to be ask to put their phones in the pockets while instructions going on and when the class is over they can take their phones and and and head off to their next class and that's where that piece where the with the um bathroom restrooms comes in because they're not going to be allowed to take their phone and go to the bathroom with it um I did some reading over the actually last night I was reading and it was I believe 77% of Massachusetts schools are now going to a no cell phone policy in the classroom so we we're can you back on it's going to be um Gates does it
058now in the ninth grade so our income in nth grade is going to be used to it and then the sophomore juniors and seniors we're going to send notification home and we're going to be pretty strict with it one one of the good things about the cell phone policy a lot of teachers have asked me this and we've involved them in in these decisions and you know they're not going to be the teachers are not going to be the ones that take the phones away all that it's going to be done by the administration so far student has the phone out the first time they have it out they simply going to be be asked to put it away if they refuse to put it away then it's going to go to us I'm not
059going to ask them to take phones and argue with kids in classes just let us know that that's occurring and we'll come up and we'll deal with that and then we have a policy first offense second offense third offense fourth offense for the for the cell phone fractions we've got great kids I don't foresee a lot of hassles going on most of the kids we have do something that they're really respectful kids I don't I don't see a lot of that going on but but if it does the teachers aren't going to have to deal with it we're to deal do you uh so sometimes when teachers have the kids use the phones to access you know look look up such and such a you know the internet will they just be logically using their
060CR books for those things now not that's what yeah see we have issued uh School issued chromeworks so they they have it right in front of some teachers already have this no cell phone policy in the classroom it is is I I would say probably 20% of our teachers right now are doing it right now so you have some good models anyway we do yeah I had a question about when you said leaving the cafeteria there's a QR code does that mean that they scan that with their phone yes so what was happening in the first couple of weeks of school kids were grabbing their lunch and going to different areas of the building we have a food Cod outside the seniors we a senior calf so just keep tracking where kids are going I
061like where's there anybody going and and they're in they're in a place you know they're not they're not leaving and going they're in a place but I didn't know where those so now in the qle there's like four different areas they can go and eat eat lunch at it and that's more or less if a parent calls us and says hey we're looking for somebody and and oh they're in the Cal we see the C just looking the QR code find out where they are I was just curious because that means that 100% of kids carry phones yeah yeah just I like that though that feels like a safety a layer of safety people are even though you know they're here you don't know we actually to use it yeah we've actually had to go
062to it and say oh boy having launch c yeah been good use of technology for a good reason yeah I'm um regarding the eligibility requirements and the two FS or more it those specific like do those refer to core classes or any course any course yeah okay yeah so if they're taking seven if they feel their second F they're ineligible okay um and regarding the senior parking I know this comes up uh parking is tough and you said anybody with a valid license but there might be those seniors that get their license maybe they get it later after school starts or there's probably fewer seniors but yeah most of them will have it most of them but you're right there will be a small portion that don't a lot of time spots open up and
063that would go to those seniors first so seniors are going to have first kids at pocket you know it's only it's only fair they're seniors they should have spot on campus um but we're not going to uh let them enter into the parking policy prob if they don't have their license they have to have their license so if if there was a a a a case where a senior wasn't going to have their license until after school started could they go to you or somebody yes Michelle is going to keep a list of those let's say it's middle of September then we're going to save a they'll have S yeah that's only fair I have a question it wasn't in one of your highlights I'm actually just more Curious and other this can you um
064can you talk a little bit about the bait detectors do we really have those how that work just I'm just curious with anything it's not I know it's not part of any change I'm just curious yeah we have the VAP detectors um and I mean they don't go off as many times as you think they do but when they go off the administrator can run up there and and se's in that bathroom not every bathroom has them either um but you know and then and then they can see but typically there's a there's a pause in between it by the time you get up there there might be three kids in there you know person that might might be you know the the best way to control the vaping is we do bathroom checks and
065if you do bathroom checks and you see a kid vaping and and then you know it's right there I find that be more effective just to do bathroom checks from time to time we don't have a major major problem though right now in high school at least when I catch him enough comforting I mean you know it's kind I was in other districts where it was a lot more Ving women were having here you know the we think yeah we hope yeah yeah just I do want to comment that um VAP protectors too they have a lot of false positives too with Pere clone aerosols so I know District that that's why we haven't gone all in on continuing to fill the rest of the bathroom so it's it's more of a cultural thing educating
066the kids maybe not having the phones because it's a way I'll meet you in the bathroom usually in groups they do that so I think there no cell phone policy will also help with that visibility is a huge thing um yeah being being in the hallways and and checking bathrooms is probably the best way to just to see that you know it prevents kids from doing it if they know you're popping in today I popped open four or five doors you know everything was good but but they know you're doing it so they you know tend to make better decisions I think I was curious about the process so when we were looking at the other handbooks we saw links to policies and it looks like you and your group decided to include the long
067policies in the handbook so it's an 83 page handbook I'm just curious what was sort of the discussions around whether to link out to policies versus versus having extensive like bullying and cyber bullying policies right in the handbook I'm just curious we really didn't discuss it that much to be honest with you but I mean this summer I'd like to get my team together and go through it again because it is wory it's it's a big handbook and it's wordy and and we could condense some things into you know different codes and things so we're going to take a look at that okay thank you very thank you very much appreciate [Applause] it no that really just superintendent brookhead when will we see do we we vote on the handbooks committee votes on them I
068can't remember that's one of those have we have do we to be voting not we'll put on the next agenda just to give you time time to tge could have had it tonight I guess but yeah I was goingon to say if they want to I mean I like the link I love how the is doing that it feels consistent happy to give them time on that if that's what they need doesn't have to be next meeting everyone awesome all right leadership reports the Director of Human Resources Taisha ler I going to pull up my presentation for you all excellent well Mr L doing I I forgot to mention during my short time that I spoke tonight just I just wanted to um thank the U the community that showed up on uh the last
069special town meeting um what I hear it was one of the biggest turnouts in Rec memory and I'm just so proud and excited of that alone that there was that many people uh that gave up an evening several hours to come and talk about and learn about and discuss and vote on the new building project so I want to thank them I want to thank the committee for being uh stalwart in your support um and our transparency uh and just to remind the community also that there's another big vote on May 18th that we you know need you to go out there and vote and and to also so uh continue to send questions to me or to the committee uh we've received a lot and we've gotten back to folks so I just wanted
070to keep that coming because we want the U Community to be educated on the vote and to understand and um have every single question answered so we're still very open to that right up until the 18th I know there's early voting as well so all that going on but just I just want to thank the community for um a great show of of Civic unity and and no matter what your thought was on on your vote just thought there was very respectful um courteous debate on the topic and that's that's a great sign of a strong community so thank you all thank you first off I want to thank the school committee and superintendent Burke have an opportunity to share an overview of some of the fun work that I've been doing um in my
071now seventh month here in um so today's presentation is going to be about the time that I've spent here since October um I mentioned this is the seventh month I'm going to go over some entry findings and what things that I've done and put in place to um of corrective action for those things um I'm going to also show you what our um situate school um School Sprint web page looks like um talk a little bit about the BSU education career fair that I attended recently um give you a little um information about some as publicity that I was had the opportunity um super intendent BR and myself had opportunity to be a part of which is really cool and just give you a little overview of some of the things that I'm thinking about
072for next steps as I continue to um build on the foundation of our human resource department and leave some time for questions so some of the things that um I have um found is when starting our school spring that we had was one of the oldest versions versions that they had and so I spent time um from October until March implementing their um enhanced School spring um module that they have as well as their applicant tracking module um what this has done is it's help it will help um streamline the hiring process by making time making it more efficient for our hiring managers on the backside but as well um and I'll show you when I show you a screenshot of what the website looks like our own very own um situated School spring website
073is it will allow our internal applicants for any like when they apply for clubs and advisories or coaching when they're already employees they really can apply with three clicks so it's saves time so we're working through that right now um and then there's been several processes that I've moved from paper to electronic just to give you some of the the quick ones that I've done well not quick but some of the ones that are like really huge that I've saved a lot of time and I've gotten good feedback about them being helpful is I built a hiring Staffing info tracker and so some in the background when you're hiring you think oh hrst hires people but I don't do it on my own there's a team of people together so our director of data our
074technology team they all have pieces in when a hire gets processed so that they can get access to the various systems so now we all have a document that's living and breathing that we all can look at as soon as I put them on uh a new hire on the document and give them information that they need they're able to all go and Branch off and do their other things to give an example in technology when someone was hired Bonnie would have to send an email Tech ticket just to get the technology started right now we all work off that one document um and it's been helpful we we've morphed it and like worked together to like add and change things to make sure that we're continuously having something that's efficient that's um working for
075the team um something that I built for the hiring managers and our principles um based off of that spread sheet I've use a formula to pull data that they need into a hiring an onboarding tracker so when their person shows up there they know that they're ready to go in their building so that's their instant notification that they've done everything they needed to do and that everybody who needs to know about them knows in their person should be able to walk through the door ready to um to step in front of the kids or do whatever they need to do whether they're coaching or not and then a very simple one but helpful for me is our reimbursement receipts um coming in they were all being sent via email so that can easily be lost
076like even right now I have people emailing me saying hey I email Bonnie in August where I wasn't here so um i' I made a Google form for reim SPS reimbursements and asked them to upload them there it just helps me keep everything in a centralized location so that when it's time for me to process them at the end of the year I can have all the information and if I'm missing anything I know who to go to and where I need to go for that um I've also created s SPS exit survey um what that is it is a Google form that they can fill out but at the end they also have the ability to request the meeting with me to go through that so if they request the meeting I don't read
077it so that I just have like so I'm an empty slate so they can come in and tell me what they need but if not I'm able to read that and then report back to superintendent Burkhead about any like flags that have come up in that um another thing with that is it allows me in that letter that I sent to them to give them their Cobra information and the unemployment pet all in one um we obviously don't do that if there's a termination or anything like that we handle that separately in a different letter but this just encompasses it all together and make sure that we're in compliance with all the things that we need to be with um and then lastly I know you've gotten an update about mtrs but I just wanted
078to share that that is something that we're working on and that we sit and I've done a lot of work with our rep so as of January 2024 our backlog um dated back to November 2022 and so what that means there's two parts there is report there's submissions of inter mtrs reports that we have to submit to mtrs and then we have to work with our rep to reconcile so right now we are up to date I will be sending the April one now that we've closed out all of April soon of submissions the next step is for suay and I to sched those meetings with our rep so that we can start reconciling we are officially reconciled all the way through 2022 now and then we now have to catch over 2023 and then
079jump into 2024 but I believe I haven't seen the data but based on the emails that they sent us that we're like ahead of the game um with the districts that have been behind since the pandemic this is um just to show you what our website looks like it's sit. schoolspring.com and a few things I just wanted to point out I was able to pull a picture approved as our um situ at Lighthouse um I'm pointed out the number two is our tab for internal jobs so when employees log in and they click that tab that's every job that's there that they can apply for that allows them a three-click application verifying their name is correct verify their resume and cover letter is there and then signing off with their initials it's that simple and
080quick which allows then our hiring managers to submit them to me to say I want to hire them which is a huge deal because prior to this system we had paper recommendation forms and they would print out the whole school school spring packet send me that in the recommendation form so now everything tracks with the applicant in the system and also when hiring managers are like they're able to see each other's notes or whatnot so we're able to just communicate and not have to print out so much paper and it will be in the system here so just wanted to point that out another cool feature by upgrading their school spring website and getting our own situate website we the map is only for situate so you'll see where the three is it's really tiny
081but everywhere we post the job and we say the location it shows the applicant where the job is actually located so there's 15 here that's my coaching jobs and the few jobs at gates in the high school but then you'll see how they on there J so all anywhere we post a job they'll get a little bubble and they can click and see exactly where our school location is so it's a pretty cool updated feature some of the fun that I've also been able to have is May 1st I attended the BSU um education career fair um as you can see that um took a picture of the table um something I actually enjoyed doing going to Career Fairs just setting up all the swag walking around meeting with um my fellow peers to see
082like what kind of swag have so um we have little little notebooks and I have to bring you some so you can see them but I was able to help me we were I was able to um personalize little notebooks with pens and then we have situate pens and so like a few of my peers are like oh can I take one of those so I can order them so we had some good discussions and I saw a few things that I would like to get press as I continue to represent situ at these type of events um a few things that I will point out it was a great opportunity to talk about the lit work we're doing I think it sets us apart no everyone when as soon as I said love it
083was like really and there was a couple people that were like super excited just about the opportunity to apply here whether it was subbing or just like to if they were graduating I think they were graduating this weekend um and then some were just like I'm not graduating yet but I'm looking this up but they were really really excited I felt like I was excited to meet them but they were also excited once they got to learn about that and for me it was a shocker but there were a lot of people that never heard of Meco so it was a great opportunity I had some of our Meco one pages one pagers with me and I was able to pass that information out and just talk briefly about Meco um so I know in
084the future I'll probably be tag teaming and pairing up with our Meco leadership to come to those events with me because I didn't realize just how many people never have heard of Meco so that was pretty cool unless you're in a district you wouldn't know yeah I think I've just been fortunate to just be in Boston and be around districts that have it so I just thought it was a known thing so um it was a cool opportunity for me to like to find that out so now I can plan accordingly as I attend these events and overall it was just like a really great experience so um thank you to superintendent bur for allow me to go um and I look forward to continuing that with them and then um other um events as
085well so to the S SPS publicity um little fun fact I thought I was grown when that fidget was taken I know now that I am grown now um so just a little bit behind how this took place um I got a random email from um Jack church he happens to be the assistant editor for the daily Beacon that writes for the lady ball so I know Bill had Shar that I played basketball professionally while I went to the University of Tennessee and played for the famous P Summit and when Jack was doing research for his next Ser um his next story he said that he saw that I was in situ he just happened to grow up in Marshville so he he um emailed me and the editor that was working there when I
086played is still there so he he seen her on the email he emailed me and so she piggybacked on and was like Hey I vouch for him or whatnot we were supposed to meet in person I I did ask for permission to um go ahead and do the interview um just because he he wanted to do it and I was you know here um and I happened to be sick so we had to do it virtually but I um didn't get opportunity to meet him in person but after we talked and he just really wanted to know like how I ended up here and like what my thoughts were and I did put a little excerpt here from it just to show like you know we put another way of you know all publicity you
087know for um C Public Schools just to talk about the district a little bit and then some of the kind words that superintendent bad had to say about me um really touched me I like I scroll down the whole um article just to get to that part and then I ReRe it but you know it's it's great um to be able to show even our students that are seeing it like the connection with AC DCS and sports and like you can make it and they can see me in this Ro in being able to be a role model so you know after being a role model playing professionally I thought those days were kind of over besides for my kids but to be able to have this opportunity it kind of just brought all those
088feelings back up so just wanted to share that with you [Music] guys a and then some next steps so U my next big project is tackling our new higher onboarding and what I mean is the actual do doents that people sign um they fill out you know IDs I9 um tax forms right now it's paper I'm looking at converting that as well to electronic um and so my hopes are with that to also integrate because I've started meeting part of the Strategic plan is into making sure we have diversity in our hiring I've been meeting with um jam and um we have been like looking through the um lit and Meo documentation that I can insert and you know some when you when you start I don't know last time you have to apply for
089a job but when you go in they give you the policy that you sign up on I want to insert that information in so that we are like I'm not only just talking to them about it when I'm like having them give me their IDs or whatnot but also like so they can actually see and I can you know sign off that they've seen and they know what the work we are that we're doing here that we're committed to in the district um I utilizing our new membership with um mpde which is the Massachusetts partnership for divers in education I recently um was able to join for situ um we did miss their um their job career for they just had recently we joined like the week that they were having it and it just
090didn't work out scheduling wise but this is just a little information about it they're a recruiting group of mass CH since public school districts whose mission is to not only locate outstanding candidates of color um but to also provide resources and supports towards the development and overall increase of educated and color so we're really excited to be a part of this group and find out what it can do um what we can learn from the group by networking um and utilizing their events so they do have career Affairs they have conferences um and they have monthly networking meetings so um J and I will tag team sometimes we'll be a to go together but based on our schedules we'll make sure that we have represent representation so that we can really utilize that membership um
091with um mpde and lastly just pigy back in on ntrs update that I gave you is really making sure that Cindy and I work with our rep to reconcile those reports so that we can like you know brag a little bit and say you know situ is done um but not only that um the real personal human side of it is our teachers who log in and can't see their real balancers or can't see their updated information so being able to say hey we did the work so that you can um actually see because that's sometimes they just log in there and they don't you know have to call or call me and try to figure out what's going on it to me will be a really good um thing to be able to get
092to that point so they can loog in even when they mail their statements so they can be accurate and that's my update for tonight a lot like you're doing a lot all of been very busy yeah no thanks this I don't think we've ever had an HR presentation before so this was this was great and I don't think me personally I don't think I ne knew the obstacles or the frequency with which we're like hiring or you know or staff is leaving and you have to maintain that information some I never I never really thought about the work that goes into it so it sounds like that was one of our obstacles and really like big time takeaways I guess you guys were spending or somebody was spending a lot of time on handling new
093applications and retirees and resignations I think the paper OB is an obstacle but also just like the system being old so like there hiccups like you download something and it's not there or like I give you real example for myself when I applied I did upload my new information but it still held on to my older profile information so there was like a old letter that came through so just like being able to like get rid of some of those roadblocks by updating it to 21st in technology which they do offer um is I think um some of the best feedback that I've got from my hiring managers as they learn and so one of the things I've done is I've done online trainings I've done iners training and I just let them know like
094you're not in this alone just because I trained you once doesn't mean you can't come back and just like work through it as we all learned the system I've been using it for the last six years so I'm like well worth in it but I understand that it takes time so just being able to commit to that um before like really jumping into the very the next big thing but this has been huge I think so two two other quick questions one is the mtrs uh reconciliation so that's essentially to provide updated information so that they can C properly calculate current benefits to our staff is that why the reconciliation is necessary so what happens is is we um we've worked with the town and there's um a report in our system where we pull
095like everything that um the deductions that we're taking out of our teachers um paychecks and so the reports that I'm standing over are is just that way these are teachers that we have this is what their salaries are this what we pulled and the reconciliation comes when there's like there's um if they got paid sens so make sure that certain things that are um pensionable eligible um pension eligible um that those show up correctly um they ask like questions for instance like if we process a retal we have sometimes we do Lane changes and so if they if we're processing them a little later for various reasons because there's like a deadline that they have that's kind of close to like the first paycheck and so we process it after we do a retro payment
096to them mtrs wants to know why do they have extra money so it's very is and so that's what that reconciliation looks like yeah see yeah um look at that's crazy TOS new all that I feel like there should be a more efficient way for everyone to do that but well their system is updated they do have a new portal so we're able to like push them through and they get them it's just a matter of um also working with them so some of the things we've done is found out where those errors are coming from so that we can build a better report that I'm pulling so we have made some quick changes with that I didn't put in the um in the um presentation but we changed some some of the coding to
097try to cut down on those errors so the time that we're spending within those needs of reconciliation is minimal to them just one more quick question I love the uh the situate internet options but um just for clarification it's kind of a policy question I guess is um those aren't jobs that are just available to our internal staff it just happens if you are an internal staff member and you want to apply just gives that quicker way to do it that is correct so I I also spent time building um an intentional external application that doesn't take two hours so if you um if you're more on your computer savvy side of it it's about 30 minutes if you if you're not it's about an hour depending on how like if you're able to blow
098PDFs or whatnot so everything that's posted externally has it internal L but not all jobs are external so like our club advisors are not things that are in the contract so only those you'll see on the internal site which they like they have to like actually verify that their employee to get to that um but that's kind of the difference but yes there's a full application great thank you you're welcome um thank you so much for all the updates you've been doing that seems like a lot of hard work and hopefully you will soon realize the fruit of it um and I I was glad you kind of brought up the the work that you do that's not that mundane stuff but the work that's more linked to the Strategic plan the equity a all
099of that um and I know that you said step one was this split one pager um and I just I don't expect you to be there yet but I'm just saying I'm excited to at some point here like kind of what you think is next um and also I was I was wondering if if we could see the lit one page set of curiosity because I think that's a really important step to include in the hiring process and I'm happy that people are seeing it I'm just curious I'd love to see it too so the easier answer is yes I can send that out and so it's a play on word I don't know if you saw it said one with iny so it's actually four pages but we us one we feel like we
100actually have one in doing this work one is doing anything like us um and so I have no problem sharing that with you I think the work is like jam and I understanding like where we are so we are a meeting um to find out like you know one the first step was actually like getting those documents down and then it's like okay how do we integrate that and then join an MP um de so those are like those first steps of like really like understanding and then I think the next steps are looking at as you aware um we Jam's tag team with me on ini um hiring committees to come in and talk about lit and like what just to remind the Committees of like what we're looking to do as far as
101diversity equity and inclusion in our um our hiring process so that was the first step that we've implemented and we'll continue to grow from there thank you you're welcome can you can you give can you give an example of who your hiring managers are I guess I thought you did have thanks I appreciate that though everyone has heart so I when I say hiring manager I am referring to anyone who has autonomy to hire someone for their building okay so that would be the principales and then I know at the high school level um Mark has delegated to some of the department chairs to hire in their individual are so say that's me um Scott pay as our athletic director is one the Hing managers thanks you're welcome have any questions just I just love
102that the streamlining and the sensibility of it all is just exactly just very exciting to see as Mar mentioned sort of what comes next because you know it's just good to see all that and easier access for people to apply just means more applicants are able to access you know opportunity so love it thank you so much I appreciate your time thank you just follow thank you T um I think it was Mr Gates's comment just that you had had an HR director that was the school committee IDE I know if you remember one of our earlier conversations so just want to let you know that check that one off in case you get so I I do pay attention at these meetings and take good notes and um but I thank Ty for that
103but I I found it very helpful for you all to hear and get those questions answered but also the the community to know the magnitude of the position but but also improvements that we're makeing in plans that we have in the future so thank you for that yeah especially since it came up so strongly through the equity audit too just divers you know seeing it linked together and you know the work that's being done it's really nice because it does tie back to that strategic planning and yeah 100% agree thank you all right well made it to that point uh we have some approval of minutes for tonight 25th and April 8th which I was not in attendance on April 8th so I will obain I I make a motion to that the school committee
104vote to approve the March 25 March 25th 2024 minutes second okay all in favor I make a motion that the school committee vote to approve the April 8th 2024 minutes as presented second sorry I got excited second by Dr MOSI all in favor I have all right yes uh Warren nothing in here uh correspondences our invitation to the commencement our holders fantastic looking forward to it other business anyone I I had a question um I am the school committe lays on the C Education Foundation and I was curious um am I supposed to give updates on that to you all can I do that now or should I wait till that's on the agenda okay um I would just say um the Sig Education Foundation um had a very successful um Seaside stories event on
105Saturday night it was attended by about 300 people it's one of their major fundraisers for the year um and I think a couple of important points to note are that that group has been in existence for about five years um we are one of several um education foundations that exist so we're in very good company Marshville ducksbury hangam coaz Coral H they all have them we all have them um and SCF has raised about $280,000 that has gone back in a situ um since their Inception and um they the board is currently reviewing grants that have been submitted um and I think one thing that's important to note about SCF that's a little bit different than say the PTO are that the types of projects that they fund range from prek all the way through
106senior programming and situ Public Schools as a frequent recipient of SCF grants um but as is you know situate town library situate Senior Center um there's a number of organizations and so um I wasn't that's kind of just what I've learned and what I wanted to share with everyone and make sure everyone kind of understands their role and how they're different from other um organizations but I personally really enjoyed getting involved and I thought that the community members that stood up and presented their stories were fantastic it was they did a great job presenting also it's just a really generous thing for them to do they a lot of time learning um about the storytelling process practicing um and at the end of the day donated their time and talent um so that SCF can
107make more money and give more grants so great I think that's that's about it but I really enjoy well thank you for the update I think it's that's an important acknowledgement we haven't done many um subcommittee Le on updates lately I don't know if there hasn't been a frequency of meetings for those maybe I don't know I please feel free to bring updates if anyone has them at any time um similarly we do have an update also from the policy that in that we reviewed the policy um about lifeat life-threatening allergies and we have a an updated version that we should put on our agenda next meeting for a first reading and then I think beyond that um we were going to take a look at some of the technology ology policies I'm actually wondering
108if maybe now we want to wait until person this new rule is hired but that makes sense just I don't want to updating I don't know I just if if someone new comes in with expertise on the topic it might be wise well I think you we can look at it butell usually doesn't so she did the life Tey but the technology a lot of technolog there's a lot there's a lot but there's probably some redundancy that we can get rid of look at them what do you think's missing no there's a lot of there's a lot of extra stuff extra stuff I don't think you need to wait for we can do that like do a cursory yeah we but as far as voting voting I mean I feel like the the things that
109the building principles are doing especially at Gates and high school would probably be some great Partners in that work yeah I would be curious to know what they came up if as they were going through policies it's just it's like a maze It's Like A Rat's Nest documents and so it's kind of like where do you start sometimes you don't start with something until you look at it and you're like oh boy this needs updating and so I'm just trying to toar what Ty was saying get through some of that yeah it's really important though yeah so if we put liveing allergies on the next agenda do that anybody else okay I have a quick update so I didn't get to update you all on my trip to New Orleans for the National School Board
110Association where I represent situ and practically the whole state of Massachusetts by myself there was about five other people there uh but it was a lot of fun I I think it was um it was a great opportunity to get a pulse for more of a sort of grasp on what's going on around the country Beyond Massachusetts and it in our we're very lucky I would say in our position here that um lots of conversations about um funding and lack of funding and um just everything buildings technology all of the same topics and challenges that we Face here but um you know there was a large scale certainly um districts in more of a crisis mode I would say then um fortunately we are not in those shoes so um but I did learn a
111lot as well kind of overall and I think it's something that we should all consider um you know attending more conferences and really representing situ out there mask asked me to present at the fall um conference the same presentation too yeah wow yeah fun but I just think it's good it's best practice is for us to keep current and engaged so the date of the Fall conference yet so oh no no I thought you going to see say nsba it's funny because last year I felt like they really promoted New Orleans but this year I didn't see as much connection to what's happening next with that so we'd have to dig into it but uh fall is November November yeah I loved it last year yeah actually I learned so much um and I if
112anything wished that we could have been there to divide and conquer sessions more because I often had a hard time choosing which session should I go to Y um and so I feel like as soon as they do know the dates I'd love to get on our calendars I know maybe not everyone has to attend every day but I thought it was great that's exactly how I felt about nsba it was you know it would have been better if we could divide and conquer and then reconvene and sort of you know that's what most districts were doing they had multiple representatives from you know they they had teams there they had t-shirts and teams and it was yeah lots of superintendents were there um but I don't know I have to look into it but
113it would be great to go all right uh anything else before we take a motion to adjourn see nothing all right motion to adjourn at 7:41 second okay in favor