001fantastic everyone give me one second here we're going to do a couple things I'm gonna let anybody in there everyone was joining now miss brandolina you are all set to go thank you so much all right I would like to call the November 7 2022 school committee meeting to Warner 603 uh we will start with roll call vote uh randallini yes lit one yes or foxy yes dates yes and Mom yes uh the Scituate 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 feel welcomed and respected we ask our committee members Paul and all who participate to commit to these standards
002to support and respect our community okay first end on the agenda is public comments not seeing any hands raised nor anyone in person As you move forward all right our student Representatives Mr Bowker and Miss right out keeping us on our players foreign application deadlines for colleges were last week so seniors are getting a side release before turning to the regular deadlines of January so there's a few week downtime here and then they'll pick right back up term one has concluded as of today it's gonna be a stressful time for students because we're already a quarter of the way through the school year which is kind of shocking just an hour ago girls soccer kickoff happened to Canton for the first round of the division two playoffs the football team will be playing against hollison
003in the second round of the division four playoffs this Friday at 6 p.m congratulations to the cheerleading team for taking second place at the Patriot League competition the Olympic regionals next Sunday at Duxbury High College visits have concluded they gave an amazing opportunity for students to access invaluable information about many schools that students have not learned about before lovely homecoming week has wrapped more than 20 clubs gathered the football game on Friday for the second shs block party for rock painting to bake sales it was a great way for clubs to fundraise and provide a bit of joy for the community students from all grades came to the dance Saturday night people praised its improvement from last year so special shout out to our local Student Government 14 students were nominated for shs's first outstanding
004senior sailor award six finalists recognizes the homecoming including our own Victor balcony I'm Lily George and Danny Thompson were announced as the winners at the homecoming dance all Juniors participated in the credit for Life Fair last Wednesday as this is many students first exposure to some of the financial responsibilities of adulthood they learned a lot about the sometimes scary process of building Ally's not bystanders helper training for freshman facilitations which will take place later in early December the VFW speech competition took place in front of local judges on Thursday the 3rd with a topic question of why is the veteran important multiple students took the time to write amazing speeches Sunday speeches will be heard on Thursday during an age-long celebration again including her very own Victor Belkin but rehearsals for knock knock and when
005bad things happen to good actors are picking up as the show quickly approaches Friday and Saturday next week at 7 pm I actually just came from a set building day so if you see any green paint on my pants just know that we're very hard at work term one celebration will take place on this Wednesday before school students and their families that exemplify the values of service achieve serve achieve invest and learn have been invited for a recognition ceremony okay and that's it for this week yeah awesome thank you so much foreign um perfect this is just going to share our PowerPoint so thank you for having us this evening we appreciate being here to celebrate wakatuck um the Wapato School Community has a lot to celebrate we've had a wonderful start to our 2022-2023
006school year tonight Mrs Donnelly our art teacher and Mrs Carr our school Justin counselor and I would like to take a moment and share some of the ways we celebrate students staff and how we spread the message of you are in court so these are the two pillars which Drive our decisions and keep us grounded in making sure that every student is able to reach their full academic and social and emotional potential I know you're familiar with these so I won't spend too much time on them so how does lava Tech celebrate student learning there are many ways that we celebrate daily weekly monthly and at the end of the year this is an end of the year celebration hosted by Mrs Green's first grade class and it's a literacy Cafe families are invited to
007a delicious celebration of writing and reading hosted by their first grade Scholars and students showcase a menu of literary pieces they've authored throughout the year and they celebrate the growth that they've made in reading and writing how does wompatuck celebrate academic achievement so academic achievement is the current level of the students learning and it's important that when we celebrate academic achievement that we think of children individually and their individual growth so we have two online programs Lexia and St mad and these are programs that the students go on and they adjust to the student's ability where they're at and each program allows each student to have their own personalized journey to achieve Mastery so Lexia focuses on literacy literacy skills and ST Math focuses on math skills and every week when students achieve a new
008level in Lexia and I should also clarify these are all K2 students they are given a certificate so on Fridays I walk around to all the K to two classrooms and I hand out Lexia certificates and when I say it is a highlight of my week it is absolutely great and the kids all week long will tell me um which level they've finished and they can't wait to see me on Friday ST math is new to us this year it's similar to Lexia only it focuses on math students go on and it's it's the same in that they take an assessment and the program sets them at a certain level and the kids work through those levels at their own pace to achieve mastery so um ft map makes recommendations on how many minutes kids
009should spend on it in order to achieve Mastery so each month the top three classes that have the most minutes logged on ST Math are awarded a mascot which is a stuffed animal called Gigi and they get to have Gigi in their classroom for the month and then I just spoke a little bit about end of the year and end the unit celebrations on ways that we celebrate academic achievement so this is Donnelly in this card I'm going to talk about celebrating personal growth so along with our theme um that you are important we want children to know that their feelings are important and so we proposed a school-wide mural for grades um Pre-K to fifth grade um so that children could emotionally identify how they were feeling and we were hoping that this mural
010would spark conversations in the classroom around feelings as well as coping strategies and so um we popular responses where that children were feeling happy and excited and the goal was to use artistic Reflections um as a hoping strategy we want to do it again at the end of the year um so what Caroline did was she worked with teachers and students spoke in their conversations about the different feelings that they had coming into the going into the first day of school um and after their conversation as a group we asked students to they all were given a heart and on their heart they either had to write a word or verse or they could just draw a picture that represented how they felt going into the first day of school so some kids um wrote
011words like peaceful or excited or one said grumpy and other kids drew pictures I saw one of them someone has spent a really long time drawing a beautiful thumbs up hand um there were peace signs and hearts and just all different kinds of artistic Expressions that were all unique to each different parts oh yes so artist of the week um in the front of our building we have a bulletin board for the artist of the week um each week I select a different student who has shown personal growth um and that person is celebrated by having their a piece of their artwork put up in the front of the school for everyone to see and Miss Ruden announces it on the loudspeaker so everyone hears and being announced um and it just is so meaningful
012to the students and the teachers are wonderful about celebrating that student's accomplishment in their classroom um and it just is wonderful to see what it means to the students to be recognized in that way for you know meeting a challenge or working extra hard on something and seeing them you know respond to you've seen that in them it's just wonderful I love I love along the very game of personal groups we have our ambassador program and our ambassador program is a chance for the fifth grade students to be leaders and representatives of school so they go through an application process where they're asked being creative and share what would make them a good Ambassador and so I received videos and collages and wraps and poems and all different Creative Expressions sharing how they would be
013great representative how they would um be great with younger children and also help with different responsibilities within the school and so our goals really are to spark responsibility and empowerment and Leadership and Outreach to the community so how does Walk The Talk celebrate our staff our staff is so important to the success of our students we work hard to recognize and celebrate that each person's role is important and impactful on all students learning so some of the ways we do that teacher appreciation week which the PTO is so great in helping us celebrate that week in May um this is a picture of fourth grader Emma cook bringing flowers to her teacher one of the things they do that week which is so popular is they ask students to bring a flower not a bouquet
014but just a single flower in and um they're all put together into a beautiful bouquet for every teacher and it's really very unique how each of those bouquets come out at the beginning of this year we started on the first day of school with the welcome back staff slideshow I asked all the staff to share three to four pictures um of highlights of their summer and how they spent time refueling and rejuvenating and just connecting with their family and friends and this is one of the pictures I pulled out I feel like it sort of encompasses what the entire town of slideshow was about this is kindergarten teacher Julie Sylvester spending time with her grandchildren it was an amazing slideshow when it came out so you think about we had about 70 staff send in
015pictures and to put them all together and just to see all the ways that our staff sort of leaves for the summer and what they do with their time and then we all come back together in the fall too um to serve our students um and then we also hiring is very important right to having a great staff and so um any new hires that we have we provide them with a staff to swag bags filled with Quantum gear and things that are going to make their your grade at Montauk and I think that's a great way to to welcome new staff and make them feel like they're important to our community even though they're just joining us and then how do we celebrate students so there there are so many ways we do this
016and I really had to think about um like which one to to bring to you tonight because we don't have a lot of time and I just feel like you probably hear a lot about this but this is our house assembly is such a great event that really focuses on celebrating students and their individual and unique um personalities and talents the theme of this is our house is um lit which is love inclusion and trust and what makes this such a unique celebration is students volunteer to be part of this um and each year it's gotten bigger and bigger and I still have students come to me and say I can't wait to be part of this is our house next year so some of the highlights from this year we had two fourth grade
017students Claire and Lena and they each penned an essay in their own words of what this is our house means to them what want to talk means to them and how love and collusion and trust is spread at our school and they shared those um at the assembly to the whole school so fifth graders Natalie and Ella they love to sing and dance so they wrote an original rap song and they choreographed their own dance routine and the whole thing was focused on love inclusion and trust and they performed that and then our musicians Parker who's on the ukulele and Drew who's on the saxophone they played a song together with metco director Daryl David in the background playing background music and they performed for us thank you and then finally we had some student
018artists Tallulah and Desmond and we had some others too um during the assembly they created their own pieces of art on how they felt listening to the essays and listening to the song and listening to the music um and they created their own masterpieces of Art and those are displayed in the front lobby of our school so what do we have to look forward to we have a lot to look forward to but most importantly our goal is that all students every student at want to talk is meeting or exceeding benchmarks and is able to master the standards so that they can move on to the next grade level ready the next grade level not just academically but socially and emotionally as well and then one of our goals to share in our school Improvement
019plan is to strengthen our Community Partnerships because everything we do at school is important everyone there is important but we're part of a larger Scituate community and it's important that we have strong Community Partnerships so that we can grow as as individuals and then I couldn't resist this adorable picture of kindergartener Doug and a Hearn wait can you go back dressed as the pink the Penguin and reading the book The Penguin goes to school so cute okay um just the final selfie from the this is our house assembly with um Dei director Jamil Adams um and just recognizing that everybody is important so thank you I'll take any questions I don't know why nobody can probably hear me still not working just the volumes is this one working can you hear me yeah oh great
020okay so first I just want to thank you for the presentation I I too love a good slideshow with picture so it's great to see I think my feedback perhaps might be for superintendent Burkhead um I love the organization of the slides like the different topics I know there's some consistency being brought by all the schools one thing I would love to see added to these reports is sort of what's happening in the buildings around caring for our teachers um I know we talked about the art and the you know the students talking about their emotions we all know that you know there's a lot going on with our staff um I know you're fully aware of the burnout and the worry and when we come back from vacation and summer we're seeing those so
021I just think it would be interesting to hear like what's happening in the buildings around collaboration and care of the staff um definitely appreciating but also the care so just just a thought great yes thank you um this is a great presentation it's it just you know as a graduate of wompitalk I have to say absolutely every single person I need who tells me they're to graduate her was not like this when I was there that's when we went to get at work and we went home and that was it um this is great seeing how you're celebrating the kids successes because we know now that it's so much more goes into learning and one of that is making sure that the kids are in a good space to learn so all of this is
022so much so as important as teaching um you know the basics okay something yeah I'm not going to want the doctor I didn't go to Halloween but I am on the uh until here later I'm on the Village School Council school council so far this is my response I agree with every everybody else's comments uh something that just kind of stuck out to me too was um don't Mike I'm not forgetting about uxc moment um just about you know we celebrate you know the Lexia the certificates and everything for math and reading math and reading science social studies math and reading but you know not everybody's strengths come through in those ways so I love that you're celebrating the artistic element of kids just um you know as we do things like the equity audit
023for our district something that stuck out to me during the conversations was neurodiversity and just different styles of learning so I think this is one of those examples of how that really speaks to that child so I think that's it hits so many marks with just personalization other everybody being important so I love that you're doing that country and I have to say that when when um Mr Adams brought that this is our house idea to us as teachers I would speak for elementary teachers we're very much rural followers and we like structure and we like to be told what to do we like to know what's going to happen right we don't like surprises about what kids are going to do or say so Mr Adams comes in like we're just going to let
024students decide what they want to do we're just going to invite people you know it's very nerve-wracking right like what do you mean we're gonna let them decide what we're not going to tell them like it's very but it's amazing what they come up with right and that you saw in this presentation like when you just say hey what would you like to do and you have two girls that write an original rap song about love inclusion and trust and then put on leather jackets and backwards hats and doing their own dance routine I would have never taught them that right I would have never thought to put that in so it's amazing what kids will come up with if you let them and that's when their talents shine right they pick those things they
025were not teaching we're not writing a lot of rap songs during Ela I'll tell you that um but they did an amazing job so I I 100 agree with you you need to let go a little bit and let kids sort of show us what they can do and what they can what we can learn from them uh Mr long did you want to add anything from here whatever location you're in um uh she actually just had a lot of comments that I was about to make I mean the fact that we had one that we went across all these different grades to see this success happening was great to see in your presentation but then you know the fact that we don't teach writing rap songs in class like everything that the kids did
026outside of you know on their own and you know outside of Just The Core Curriculum but that you can see that success and that growth in there in the students and individuals um that's awesome to see so you know thank you for bringing that out as part of your presentation agreed thanks Mike it should be okay all right uh Dr Dutch with uh acceptance of gifts good evening everybody able to hear me okay um we have received a gift of 16 yoga mats from Fenway sports management uh the person who gave us the gifts is a Scituate High School graduate and thought it would be appropriate that the match since they were Scituate blue be donated to our school particularly since she has the connection to the school we've sent the letter of thanks to
027Fenway sports management and Mia desano who is The Graduate so I'd ask for a vote to accept the generous gift of 16 yoga mats from Mia and Fenway sports management okay thank you Dr Dutch make a motion that the committee votes to accept the 16 yoga mats from Mia desano and the Fenway sports management with great appreciation second okay we'll call Vote randallini Yes well yes Gates yes for a costume yes long yes thank you uh principal Maguire overnight field trip for deca and Mr Maggie sorry yes sir I have to start reading the quote I read like the first name and then I just go to no worries I'm going to turn this over to Mr Mac for our chapter advisor and teacher in the business department to talk about uh the Decker competition
028uh thank you Dr McGuire and school committee Arizona um we're seeking approval for um the executive District competition um it's the same deck of competition for the district competition that we've attended for the past 15 years minus the covert year and then there was a virtual year after that and then we got back on board last year so um that really much has changed um the location's still the same so it's going to be at the Maria Quincy the dates are December 13th through the 14th um and really what the DECA District competition is if you are a newer member um so um the process that our competition it's an opportunity for our Decca students and really what Deca is it's a business marketing um club for students to be able to really in other
029words it's I mean it's students that can apply what they're learning in the classroom to real business situations you know so really that's what deck encompasses um one of the opportunities for our business students here at the high school is to attend the district competition which is um students choosing a business category of their choice so the categories um I believe I included a list in the in the packet with you um but they're across the board though I mean they're everything from accounting to a parable accessories to retailing to marketing to Sports Marketing um the hospitality industry with restaurant and traveling tourism to business law and the list goes on you know so um it allows students to you know gravitate towards potentially maybe a career path they'd be interested in they could choose
030that category to compete in um what they would then do is compete against other students within the same category um the district consists of 12 of the high schools within our district one Mass Deca District um and they would have 100 questions multiple choice assessment um from there they would also have two case study role plays where they're given a business scenario or situation that represents their category they have a allotted time to come up with a solution and a presentation to solve that case study and then they present that to a judge which scores them and um um and ranks them um from there we move on to the next day which is a great opportunity for them to attend the banquet ceremony where they can see and get recognized for how well they
031did with each of the three assessments and then the overall score allows them to see if they qualify for the state competition which takes place um in March so it's a great opportunity for our students to be able to Spotlight what they do in the classroom and then kind of bring it to life in this District competition and and test their skills against other business students um like I said the event is at the Quincy Marriott again this year um any instrument is going to be hired and is on site for the duration of the two days the hotel does provide security in addition to that us as a Deca group we provide students from each School a specific color wristband and that wristband represents what floor of the hotel they're on so um and
032again it's a return from having students from other high schools go to other floors that they don't belong so um currently we have close to 70 total Deca members at citric High School I would estimate we're going to probably look at between 30 and 40 students that would actually compete which would require us to fulfill the requirement of having four chaperones um on hand for that trip so that's why thank you very much so I'm looking at the cost I assume this is something you started talking about um preparing the case yes because uh yeah so we're keeping the cost so the cost is the same as it was last year um which is great we've negotiated with the uh Quincy Marriott to try to keep the prices the same as they were last year
033so we don't have any significant increases um um the school store the shipyard school store is going to compensate um some of the costs so what you're not seeing in that um cost that I initially published for you is the cost of the bus transportation or The Chaperone expenses um so thankfully the school store can help compensate for some of that um to help the burden of you know our essential families for um for the cost of this trip here um if and again it is you know communicated to them that if cost is an issue then certainly we can try to make accommodations and certainly help out our students that might have um a financial hardship or might need support to still be able to attend the trip okay thanks Mike anything on your
034own no I think this is great okay no other questions I will entertain the motion sure absolutely school committee votes to approve the Scituate High School Deca competition overnight field trip on December 13 2022 to December 14th 2022 at the Quincy Marriott second um we'll call Vote randallini Yes then blonde yes or Cosby yes games yeah long thanks thank you thank you guys thanks all right um hey Dr McGuire and Mr Blake full account that's all you'll try good evening uh hi my name is Phil Blake I'm a master computer science teacher at Scituate High School and this is my second year advising student council and I'm here tonight to receive approval for our first trip to the masc which stands for Massachusetts Association of student councils not to be confused with Massachusetts Association of
035school committees but um is there annual conference in March 8th through 10th in Hyannis Massachusetts um this is the first time we'd be attending uh we're allowed only to bring 10 members for which I plan on our current officers and six will be chosen by application current membership student council is about 55 students so we're going to open granted approval and application process based on involvement and what those students would hope to get from this process what is it it's uh three days two nights of workshops speeches team building activity days um workshops could include how to host a better pep rally how to engage all students how to bring the building together things that we could network with other student councils on and then bring to our own School um so I actually have
036an update on that how part I did receive the final cost should be about 400 per person which wasn't included in your packet but um that will be subsidized by some of our multiple fundraisers including homecoming dance pep rally and hopefully more and I'm hoping to subsidize at least 50 to 75 percent of that costs uh why I just want to take our student council Next Level hopefully we can bring back some great ideas and we want to make this an annual annual trip uh the idea is it can be recognized as a student council of Excellence by attending this conference and working towards sort of Dale rubric and what makes a state recognized excellent student health we're hoping to get after that okay any questions um I'll just make a comment it's kind of
037nostalgia tonight right like Janice went to Wapato I went to Hadley but what I will tell you is that I actually went to this conference in 1989. or 1990 one of I think it was 1989. if you have any questions um and and as of the report later tonight I actually went to a conference there on Friday that was at the same location the resort whatever they call it no they just call it a done order they used to call it done fees or something like that now they call it this so um I'm very excited to see that it still exists because I know that as you said this it's a second year or that were or first year after going and that pressure going to happen for two years though yeah so I
038think that it's um I think it's great to reinstitute this because this I still remember this vividly and I know that it was also an important part of my college application maybe even wrote essays about it because you do have a chance to meet and network other uh students and advisors that are um like-minded I guess and are involved in their student council I think this is amazing and I'm glad to see that it's still an existence and that situa is choosing to participate so good stuff I would also add that coming out of code that Mr Blake has done a phenomenal job in rebuilding student council as the culture Builders of our high school they are tasked with all things spirit all things inclusion bringing our Campus Community together students teachers and even outside
039the building so when it comes to events like our homecoming like our pep rally it's talking about how we come together and how our students then frame all of their experiences to say no one is left out we make sure that our events are inclusive and welcoming of everyone and that we build that culture that we want to see here at the high school Mr Blake's doing that and these kinds of conferences can give them the tools to take at the next total and uh Mr Blake um to build on this I know there's a masc but there's also a national con or there used to be a National Conference which again being nostalgic I did I did attend in Albuquerque New Mexico um and it would be great to see if there is some
040sort of National Convention as well or whatever exactly in person here in Boston in the spring and um I am um on the msaa committee for student councils at their committee chair so I'm working closely with Paul Grant and Paul Branigan from masc to bring that uh forward to student council so stay tuned you may be here for one more trip excellent yeah thank you for Luke thank you for um playing this together I think it's really important it'll be great I would love in the future if you wouldn't mind bringing some of the students on the school council to do a presentation or share with us what they're doing and I don't know I think as a committee we've always been talking about how to engage more directly with our students and so if
041there are if there are opportunities for us to be working with your school council in different ways we I think I don't want to speak for everybody but I think we'd be open to are there things we could do events activities so it'd be great to see some of them come at some point if that's possible absolutely thank you yeah yeah entertain a motion on I'll make it more time because it's very nostalgically um make a motion that the school committee approved the situate high school student council overnight field trip from RT March 10 2023 uh in Hyannis second brand Delaney yes yes yes and long yes thank you thank you and principal McGuire and Miss shua good evening everybody thank goodness for the microphone so I lost my voice I'm here tonight to seek
042approval for the 2324 Spanish exchange this is the same currently we've been wanting for 40 years um so we'll be exchanging with um the same town we will be visiting Madrid and build out we are um looking for student applications from our current freshman sophomore in junior classes um we'll be hosting in October of 23 which coincides with when our Irish and French students will also be here so that will be fun and then we will travel on April 24th and we'll spend two weeks um traveling all over Spain but primarily was an incho Madrid and below the cost per this exchange is twenty two hundred dollars that covers airfare all of the excursions and premiums that and um the reason we do it there are clear connections to our world language Frameworks there's the
043use of the target language and communication with native speakers and emerging in a culture other than ours here in Scituate and of course a lifelong learning connection that typically to otherwise but here are some photos while you mull it over um these are some student photos from our last trip prior to Coleman that's it thank you so much save your voice over there any questions yeah there's nothing it seems like a very reasonable cost yeah great well the Homestay hopes out there's your hotel so that really honestly are we invited that we can go we'd love to have this I'm always looking for chat lines I was just waiting for a story okay there's still not all right school committee votes to approve the Scituate High School out of a field trip to Spain in
044April 2024. I don't know it's so unpredictable second all right uh okay brandalini yes lindwam yes rakovsky yes Kate yes long yes all right thank you foreign yeah just for clarification um actually I'm gonna give you credit for it like Mr long realized that we should have suspended our policy on the first field trip um jghh jjh in relation to the DECA field trip because it is taking place December 13th through 14 2022 which is less than 60 days yeah okay sorry I'm trying to remember it at the top of my head which is let me just recite the policy from my head yeah so all student trips which include overnight are out of state travel must have prior approval of the school committee before any students are approached or any trip is advertised approval
045must be requested at least six months before the anticipated date of the trip so just to so we just snap back we've done this before yeah time out we're gonna have track suspend that policy okay I make a motion to suspend policy jjh second uh brandolini yes live long yes orkoski yes Gates yes long yes okay okay I make a motion that the school committee approves the Central High School Deca competition overnight field trip on December 13 2022 to December 14 2022 at the Quincy Marriott second brandolini yes yes rakovski yes Gates yes long yes now I make a motion to reinstate policy jjh second randallini yes limbo yes for possky yes Mom sorry yes just try to make sure he's paying attention Gates yeah sorry about that the rest should be all set phase
046Wise from 2023 all right the Quebec City field trip with principal Petey and mishula okay so one more trick that you're very familiar with already um note changes here this is an overnight trip we're planning with either acis which is the company that we've always used or Jump Street tours which is a company we've used before um it's basically coming down to better pricing better itinerary so we're going back and forth with two companies right now the change this year this is the difference we're joining with Cohasset minnesotting on this trip they have such a small cohort of French students that we thought it would be nice to bring them along with us so their eighth graders are going to join with our own careers which is going to be a lot of fun we're
047visiting Quebec City we've moved um we'll be traveling May 11th 12th and 13th so that's a Thursday Friday Saturday simply because the 14th is Mother's Day and we wanted to give the children back to their moms for the 14th we're not sure if they'll appreciate that or not yet but um so we're going to go on a Thursday instead of a Friday the cost is anywhere between a thousand and twelve hundred depending on which item already would choose but also how many students we have um so the more students the lower the cost and then for all of the same reasons as the Spanish exchange connections to our world language Frameworks target language use with native speakers which is a unique experience especially for middle schoolers emerging in another culture and hopefully a lot of
048kind of like long thank you but I do have a son who is wants to go on this trip so you don't understand anything um yeah yeah absolutely I don't speak French you'll be fine then it escaped badge okay follow Japan motion on the field trip [Music] the school committee votes to approve the Lester J Gates out of country field trip request to Quebec City Canada from May 11th through May 13 2023. a second um randallini yes Lindblom yes markowsky yes Gates yes and long yes great thank you uh Dr Dutch will present on the assistant facilities director job description thank you um as you may or may not be aware we have received a letter of retirement of our facilities assistant facilities director and we will be posting that position and wanted to update
049the job description which has not been updated uh for quite some time the overview of the changes that have been made to the previous job description focus on qualifications primarily looking for specific certifications and experiences um and then also identifying some changes in the evaluation process the current language has the assistant facilities director evaluating custodians and it is the building principles that do that evaluation so we've corrected that in this job description as well I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have about the job description that you have uh in your packet great thank you so much Dr Dutch you're welcome I just want to comment on you know what that the wealth of knowledge that Bob Dylan has for this town that you know it'll be a big shoes to fill
050we wish Bob had his retirement these were very hard for this town agreed anything else I just need a vote to approve the new job description um I'll make a motion that the school committee approved the new job description for the assistant facilities director job yes again thank you [Music] all right uh school committee goals no updates from last time to share no additional feedback but thank you for the feedback that was received all I will entertain a motion on school committee goals for 2020 23. thank you I make a motion to approve the 2022-2023 school committee goals as presented second okay brandolini yes Lindblom yes markovsky yes Gates yes long yes all the gates is approved thank you Zach okay Dr McGuire the high school Improvement plan a long time ago yeah welcome back
051so I'm going to present an update to the high school Improvement plan with some of our data so we have a school Improvement plan at every school and here at the high school last year we set four goals to increase participation in our coursework graduation Pathways personalization and connections and school culture and those goals are excuse me have not changed what we're looking is at is how can we tweak those goals in here too and become more intentional given the data that we have received over the summer and into the fall we have a wonderful school council who has joined together to come up with the goals of the plan they are inquisitive and curious and intellectual about what we're doing and intentional about how we move our school forward and I think every one
052of them we have wonderfully Rich conversations in these meetings and um they're just so we had a lot of data at the high school that we can be looking at but there are specifically three areas that I'm going to focus on tonight our accountability data with a special emphasis on attendance our AP exam data and our MCAS data so our school has an accountability percentile every school is ranked between 1 and 999 based on the factors in the chart I'm going to talk about the the achievement in the specific subjects uh in future slides but our graduation rate and dropout rate are here and then our Advanced coursework is a number that we're looking at uh We've historically been in the high 80s and that's something that we want to move forward for being intentional
053about how we name our courses to be alive who Dusty um increasing our AP offerings and we are also working toward offering the Project Lead the Way for us for next fall which also falls under Advanced coursework so those would be courses that Juniors and seniors take on each student should have at least one and then with our chronic absentee rate uh 3.4 is in the last year decimal to the 20 for chronic absenteeism so 3.4 represents about 30 of our students and 30 of our students missed 36 Days of Memorial School that's a very very high number um but even with the 10 our numbers in 2019 we had 12 2021 was a spike with Cobra 29 and then 19.8 percent uh last year that wasn't the target for Desi but still still important
054to know that even at 10 18 days missed is a huge number and we need our students to be in school we know that even if they're making up work the experience that they have inside of the classroom with their teachers and peers cannot be replicated if they're not in the building so that is very very important to our staff and our Administration specifically with regard to mcat's data we have our student achieved student growth um here the growth percentile measures how about your students performance has improved from one year to the next relative to his or her peers other students Statewide with similar MCAT scores in previous years so this determines whether a student grew at a faster a slower or similar Pace greater than other students so we have median student growth here
055and persituent is in the typical growth range for ELA and has remained pretty standard through the past couple of years here for MCAS at Ela our average Ela scores 512. we have achievement percentile at the top that compares the skills for each group to the average scale score of the scene group across public schools in Massachusetts so here in the 83rd achievement percentile for ELA and then the colored charts show that 81 percent of our students are leading or exceeding expectations the Statewide average is 58. we have 17 partially meeting with the state average of 34 and 2 not meeting State average of eight in math we did have a dip in 2021 but we're back to typical growth at 56 so um between 8th and 10th grade this data represents the range of experiences
056that students have had since 8th grade the end of eighth grade which for them includes some of the covert time um that we have come back into that range of student growth which is typical for average growth for our map Ela data we're in the 79th achievement percentile our average score is 509. 72 of our students were meeting or exceeding expectations last year State average of 50. partially meeting 27 and not meeting two percent and then for MCAS biology we have the Ada achievement percentile we have our average skilled score of 512 in biology and we have no growth percentile for science we don't compare from eighth grade to 10th grade in that subject area I will note this was also the first administration of The Next Gen Science and uh test so um that's
057that it was new for US 71 of our students scored in meeting or exceeding expectations compared to 47 Statewide and then partially meeting 27 State average of 40 not meeting two percent State average of 14. we're going to jump over to AP now we have kind of AP by the Numbers here excuse me so last year 242 students in the high school took one or more AP courses of those 242 students they sat for 559 exams last spring 192 of them and she just scored three or more 20 79 had scores of three or more total and this these numbers represent 28 of our student body last year we took an 88 course that's on the lower side because typically our 80 courses are geared towards Juniors and seniors um so we're we have an
058eye toward expanding some of those experiences for a 9 to 10th graders in conversations about whether that's appropriate but by senior year last year our graduated 71 percent of them have had at least 18 course in their four-year experience to put this number in perspective we currently have 296 students enrolled in one or more APS this year so our enrollment has decreased but our AP number has increased which is part of our goal that's intentional these are our AP exam numbers uh um and I think this is something that we don't typically report out uh at a school committee and I think it's important for us to have a start of the place these are numbers that our teachers are talking about our departments are talking about um and we're looking at where we're strong
059and we want to maintain that and where we should focus our attentions which is in the math and science areas for sure and we're making strides to move that our cohorts uh once you're on a smaller side Chinese environmental science Latin and music theory we're too small to report out here but we have those scores as well overall the highlights for the high schooler that our MCAS achievement percentiles are strong in all three of our subjects that we have average growth in ela and Mac 79 of our AP students score three or higher on one or more exams and our teachers are working on our outcomes they're working in professional learning communities around mcats AP and attendance data to improve those outcomes and then our Focus areas for growth we want to move students in
060those charts to the green and the blue we want to get them out of the red and the orange out of that not meeting or partially meeting and move them forward we want to get our meeting expectations up to the exceeding and we want to increase those outcomes as well what we're being very intentional about increasing access to and participation in advanced coursework and AP classes this is some of the work we're doing with mass Insight grants on our teachers are working on um we also are as a school looking at decreasing the number and intensity of chronically absent students so this has impacted our school Improvement case goals and some of our action steps for this year have become a little more laser focused given the data so the first is under academic Excellence
061to cut in half over the next three years the number of students not meeting and partially meeting expectations so to do that and move them into those blue and green areas would be you know strong for the school and strong for our students this summer seven teachers participated in summer AP Institutes we have 12 teachers who participated in two day workshops in October and they're working throughout the year in on National Nationwide based elc's for APS our teachers are working on AP and AP potential so this is the first year we've given the PSATs to stock Force as a whole as a whole class so we um paid for the test and we're using that data which in December when that comes to our school um show us through the reports what students are showing
062through their scores even potential and then we can use that data to have conversations with kids about particular areas you've shown an aptitude in this specific area have you considered and will you consider pursuing an advanced course in this area and then we'll continue our work through Mass insight the second goal is to increase the number of students in corresponding demographics so we want our numbers to reflect our student population taking and passing the APA exams by 10 and 22-23. so we know that we've increased that number already by 22 percent our job now is to ensure that they sign up for the test which sign ups are due on Thursday so make sure to get those in um and that they are able to achieve at the three four or five level so we
063have action steps to do that and then finally we've added a goal in the personalization and collaboration uh pillar and we'll put our attendance there to improve attendance for students who are chronically absent we'd like to see that goal fall under five percent for this year um and that's when the chronically absent ten percent for this whole year as Desi is moving back from 20 and so our staff has developed a PLC that will work during faculty meetings to talk about action steps teachers can take to support students who are at them and that we're also working through the main office and the administration to develop early intervention strategies to identify our students who may be at risk for going over that number meeting with them and teaming with their families and with their school
064counselor being able to offer supportive measures ongoing collaboration progress monitoring and setting goals with them and setting those through contracts and positive reinforcement to get them here to school because it not only for the academics but because it matters to us that they're here every student being here is important when they come here and want to celebrate that you want to say that that being here is an absence to our community and they're part of that community and we want them here so um that's how we updated our goals and thank you happy to say questions thank you Dr McGuire so um and we've been talking about this one thing that came up was one of the reasons that the kids uh student AP students might not take the test was because they're not actually
065interested in the test but just how it adds their to their GPA which means to me um so yeah working on reaching those kids who they can benefit or if I'm taking the test as well as the class so we absolutely have a demographic that taken AP course for the GPA boost and we're aware of that and that's something that is great but also if we're going to practice we're going to play and we need to move to a culture and an expectation that if you sign up for the test if you sign up for the course you take the test so we see how did we do in a year are we meeting the mark how can we support our kids to do better and then we have to really promote the idea that
066you can earn college credit and there are a lot lots of um misinformation and different opinions and ideas around whether that's valuable or not so the cost of a test which is under a hundred dollars versus thousands of dollars in tuition and whether you can supplement a different course of your choosing instead of a required course that maybe you're not interested in taking at the college level or if it opens up your study so you can double major or take a minor so that you can register for courses as a junior when you're a sophomore because you've earn so much AP credit you actually have bumped into the next level of grade level and then you get to take those courses that are closed down to your peers there are so many advantages and we
067have to Market those and talk to students and talk to parents about those so they understand what they're getting with that test one opportunity so um the AP test is only given once a year correct that's right so what happens to the students that get like a one or two or three that's a class that's they want to get that credit so if three will earn credit at a lot of schools some of the higher work competitive schools maybe they're looking at fours and fives but your Bridge waters are you Max the Emperors regular schools are taking three scores and five so that's the first thing um there's still value in earning a one or a two having the experience in AP course shows that you are able to do work at a college level
068so not getting that that three four or five is still a win to have experienced the course it shows us and it shows the student these are the areas you might struggle in as a college freshman or sophomore taking these classes again and that's where you want to focus your time and attention whether it's prior to the class during the class um and then how we Prep students if it becomes a trend across a number of students who are getting those courses front of them and you mentioned that the deadline to pay for the class the AP test is this Thursday and I also I just want a Blog that it's through the town of Scituate website super easy so to do we're still using unit page which we've done for eight exams for us
069to sign up for your exams that information comes to us and then we order the tests yeah um so I just wanted to mention that in case some parents didn't know thank you yeah meals went out today to students and families as well as AP teachers to push to make a good push they have about 200 tests ordered um we have about 687 seats so if a hundred percent of our students registered for the tests we would have 687 individual tests for this one thank you so I have a couple of questions part of it is just clarification Dr McGuire so you said one of the goals is to cut in half the number over three periods the students not meeting are partially meeting is that right that's right so if I go back to
070the numbers again I want to make sure I'm reading this right the number of students in those categories right now look to be 19 29 and 29 total and I don't mean this I mean this with all due respect do you think that goal is a strong enough goal I think it could be stronger um I think coming out of covet knowing we're working with our most vulnerable Learners and our most struggling students academically we want to be realistic and intentional about how we move them and that we're not saying we're going to teach to the test you're going to have a double walk with math we're going to we really want to talk about how to move these kids in a way that is holistic that feels comfortable that builds their confidence in their
071subject efficacy and for that to happen um strategically and with all of our teachers on board we we want to be intentional and we want to go fast go slow to go fast okay okay yeah the other question that I'm wondering about and maybe it's partly my own education on the high school is I think what would be really helpful is for me as a Committee Member is when we're getting the data on it's gone now when we're getting the data on MCAS the percentiles I think it would be really interesting also to hear a little bit about where our students go so are they going to private colleges public colleges vocations because I think that might help us to contextualize the MCAT scores right because we talk about increasing AP participation and increasing scores
072but all of that is making the assumption that a lot of our students are going to college so I I would just love to see what are the pathways of our students I know that a lot of our students do go to college I've seen the numbers but I just think we'll be 90 yeah so so it would just be interesting to see some of that data is all I'm asking if possible we can build that right into the high school celebration of student learning oh great December okay thank you sorry um I just want to follow up to because I was thinking about the information um like maybe if a student does not sign up for the AP class you know what is the reason why we don't because as a parent of a
073student who took a naked class did not take the test because he was not going into college he went into a trade so he you know he said why should I take it because I'm not he didn't go on to college so was that one of the reasons why some of the kids aren't taking the test just curious okay sounds good like anything on your Edge Mike anything on your own uh yeah sorry I had a couple quick questions um Dr McGuire with the MCAS the participation for a couple of the um different tests was 96 and 99 can you just explain why some kids didn't take them cast um we had a few Medicals last year had a couple kids but something like that it's not some kid opting out of the MCAS no
074we don't we don't see a lot of fun um really uh coveted outside of the um testing window um concussions and then long-term medical placements hospitalizations um students who are ill okay no the graduation requirement I just just curious so thank you um and then for The Chronic absenteeism we had the 30 kids that is 36 plus days do we have are there some general themes and the reasons for that so we can um start to address or is it different different student by student s there's certainly buckets um School avoidance um chronic long-term absent issues attendance issues over years um some students were successful with cras child requiring assistance through the court system but that drops off at 16. um so there there are multiple reasons a lot of them are medical or social
075emotional School avoiding okay thank you and we Jesse doesn't uh differentiate between a student who's absent unexcused and a student who's absent and we know where they are it's used so out is out if you have a 30-day um placement in a medical facility that still counts and so we had a number of those as well okay in my phone I didn't mean to interrupt you so thank you um you know one of the slides you one of the um ways to fix this was having a contract between the student and the um administrator or the administration I'm sorry I'm assuming they're the same the parents are also involved with that that discussion correct so when those are initiated the assistant principal meets with the student the family the counselor they developed that plan together
076as a team it gets communicated out to the teachers it's progress monitored um and then they follow up as they add you know one of the things that we have in our handbook is that we take credit a loss of credit with um five absences or more in a term and that's a punitive measure and one of the things we've really been talking about this year is that discipline isn't always behavioral and we have to get away from you did something bad and you must be punished for not getting to school and so we have that as a as a measure but we have to find what the other measures are how do we engage these students what is their reason for being in school um what is the the hurdle or the obstacle that
077we can help them overcome to get here and then feel good about getting here and do it again so we have to move away from kind of that punitive you're going to get disciplined for this it's kind of Double Jeopardy because they're out they're missing work it starts to kind of develop that negative cycle and we want to focus on kind of the positive aspect of getting here and the contracts do a better job at that that's thank you and I completely completely agree with everything you said so thank you um and then my last question is kind of goes along the lines or Dr Bukowski had said um we're looking to cut the cut in half the number of kids that are not meeting or partially meeting expectations on the empath exams do you
078see that being a goal that you work closely with um the middle school and the elementary school just to make sure that as we see scores coming back early on we're you know you're continuing to address that through the years as well or you're just looking at the high school when kids are taking the exam from a high school perspective no I think we have to do both so certainly our you know our Trends over time are going to show us that student students who perform at that level will need more support so if we look at that longitude delay we know when students are coming in exactly you know who we need to work with who we need to support and make sure that we have a plan that's one of the benefits of
079our crew model our teaming at the high school is to be able to develop a smaller cohort of kids to support So teachers know them better they know their learning profiles and they can work with them more closely in ninth grade that should translate to the 10th grade scores and then being intentional about how we offer and schedule um MCAT support for students whether it's inside there as part of their day as part of our h block interventions um and with our teachers and Department chairs working with them very intentionally but that I think you're right that it's very important to know who our players are coming up we only have you know a limited amount of time before they're taking a test that they need to graduate and for Bio that's freshman year in
080English and math itself okay great thank you thanks Dr McGuire I just have one follow-up just don't think Janice had asked us when you're looking at students who are not taking the AP so for this GPA to go that route what does the data show in terms of what's more valuable really the better are they getting into more schools that they desire because their gpas are higher or is it the data showing that it's more beneficial that they took an AP in that Avenue the GPA difference wouldn't show to a school because the school wouldn't have the data by the time they accepted them whether they took the test or not okay so it's not about getting in truly their their AP forces are all counted the same for application purposes okay it's what the
081test can do for you by passing that really is the is the game changer that's where it splits okay so why are they choosing is it more of an internal competition to get a good GPA or I'm really disappeared it's less about the GPA because I think the kids over there I think the kids who take the test want the GPA as well it's that they're willing to take the test because they want the score and they want the credit there is a real culture here or an under a misunderstanding that you there's no value in the text on it and that's what we need to change there's huge value in that shorter going to MIT and studying astrophysics you know and should expect that you're going to take physics there what can the test
082do for you well mits require you to take the test for application purposes so we moved away from those sat2 kinds of tests so they're looking for your AP score they're looking for that score to know one class to place you in once you're accepted so they want to see that score and they're still going to have them take visits at a high level but you'll have seen that content you'll know how to perform on some of it and you may get elected credit that frees you up to pursue your passion of astrophysics at MIT in some of the other schools that are as specialized as that in kind of your your um stem subjects you're going to get a lot of money and a lot of flexibility in your program of studies in college
083some students take four classes instead of five a year and Senior year so they can write their senior thesis or really do a reach delve into a research project you can take a class that helps your minor or a double major instead of taking a required lower level class that all students have to take you've already you know used the term left out of you've already tested out of those kind of requirements to be able to become more specialized in college and those are huge benefits and financially if you can skip a semester of college which frankly lots of kids are doing at this point when it comes down to money that that really adds up not just the classes but the reward but you have something to add Mr bunker oh well I'll go
084for happy here come on this side and it comes up I just wanted to add something about the perceived culture in the school regarding why everyone is taking AP classes as Dr McGuire said I'll say no it certainly is about the GPA um there's around Junior and Senior year we start to find out our class ranks because if we're within a certain percentile we might add that to our college application and a big thing is well if I take uh the AP classes that I can period my GPA will go up if I do well and then my class rank will be better and there's I would say within the top 30 kids in the class there's a very high competitive nature like cameras a lot which is a lot better ranked than me and
085I'm very angry about it so I'm up here talking more than person you know look better um but really it comes down to like I remember someone last year spoke with us and said he took 12 APS and that wasn't because he wants to validate out of all 12 of those classes because no matter what major you take you're not going to be taking psych and physics and calculus so it doesn't get really a lot of students are doing them because they just want the GPA and then the test is 97 and like I'm taking five APS so if I want to spend 500 you know that that's not very appealing but taking the class to get that GPA is the feeling oh yeah no no thank you um and I'll say that it's definitely
086like I had a point and I lost divorce but um it is interesting because you do see kids making decisions about other courses also based on these EP courses like I know that some kids like Ultra fans because it's an honors course and not an AP even if they've been taking it since like Middle School um and so it could definitely be um frustrating I would say to witness to like see how competitive it can get and like I don't personally like I didn't ask for my junior year because I knew that like it might make me competitive and I might like take AP Physics even though I would rather like eat my own foot than to take a physics class um and so I think that's something that like as a student body and
087like among my friends we've talked about a lot about like that competitive nature and how like some kids like try to necessarily gain the system but essentially like the class rank portion of it um you can kind of see that um but I know for me personally like I like taking AP classes because I like taking harder classes and um I think especially for taking the AP exams like the ones that are relevant to my major especially like will be super helpful and I know Miss Hall always pushes like leg because you always have those freshman English classes that you can get out of it so there's definitely value in them just one final thing I also know that in the student body we have sort of graded the AP classes on how hard they
088are and some kids will take easy APS because they are known to be easy but you still get the AP credit or maybe it's because the teacher that's teaching it it's known to be easier or it gets less homework so there's a lot of factors that people take into account that are unrelated to actually taking the exam the teachers have been pushing it a lot this year but it will come down to when you get home in your mom is like you really want to spend 99 so so it is definitely important um I Emma and I can both speak to the AP Lang exam yeah we've both got fives which pretty much means our freshman English class won't happen which is really cool um and so if you take advantage of the opportunities it
089can be extremely beneficial but I also I you know I understand both sides of it but do know that there is you you know you see the numbers a lot of kids taking the classes without the tests and there is a real reason that they just want the Jeep there's your students thank you thank you so much because it's really and I appreciate you speaking to it too because it's really great to have the Insight of those literally experiencing it going through it and the stress of it and uh it's a lot so congratulations on the fives but no thank you I think that's great and you know anything from our place here that we can do to support the culture that you know we welcome that feedback with the five of us definitely do
090yeah um Dr I appreciate you I know it was probably a decision as to whether or not to provide the outcomes on subjects I appreciate you showing that um and I believe that obviously you can see it from here there are certain subjects or classes that we not very well and I I feel like the advances that we're making relative to I know that Heidi has implemented some programs I believe you've spoke of of some of our teachers participating in in order to better prepare the students and then also um I believe probably soon they'll have practice AP exams that they'll be able to participate in so I'm glad that you showed those outcomes and I think that um it's probably easy to say oh you know maybe there's one teacher two teachers that are
091responsible but it sounds like if they are those folks are going to support necessary to potentially increase those scores and that's exactly what the fear is right we don't want to teach you to say well I teach that lane class or I teach that Spanish class so they're talking about me yeah we're talking departmentally we're talking as a school we're talking as a faculty how to support that but we do have to have conversations when we show these scores the the conversation came up is there a correlation between our math scores and some of our science scores that require math so why is biology higher than chemistry and physics is it because of the math component to those classes so we can have that thoughtful conversations like that and then support teachers with four selects
092with teachers who teach it if you teach it here you're an island and that's isolating who's teaching it in the local districts who's teaching it across the country who's done it for a long time and and how do I have conversation with them on a regular basis to enhance my practice that really helps to break down those walls for teachers and then to be able to go to these conferences um teachers who have taught for 20 years went back to the conferences and in the workshops not as a new person teaching it for the first time but as a return or experience and got so much out of the experience because one you know what they're talking about now that you've done it for a number of years and you can apply it in a
093different way and take that information back to class that you're really just trying to get your content set and hit the ground running on you know the curriculum your first couple years then you can enhance that with now now the more you know and they're bringing those back and having conversations with their department and then hey you know you're teaching the younger grade I need you to support me with this skill with this experience with whatever it is that helps build in in the theater kind of programs that you will to feed your horses that help support the outcomes and that it is a shared responsibility we can teach skills that are cross-curricular to all students that can also kind of push our bottom line as well um and last one is uh and actually
094Nicole Nicole mentioned it but I'll I'll say it when he was when when folks say um School Improvement plans um you know the first thing I think about how you can improve the school like the outside of the school so where is this going so um as we look you know you included the picture of the I guess the technical the front of the high school it's not really that nice it's not well we've talked about it before um I know that we've made some progress there we're just um just curious like did the kids does anyone respond to Liars outside of them right here yeah do you does it matter to you what like the entrance to your school looks like yeah this one interestingly enough that's not the main entrance yeah if we
095could table this conversation we are having discussions and talking about how do we show our school pride how do we unite our culture how do we Market our brand and have those conversations around the words the images the graphics the Traditions that matters to us and how do we display that around the school so we can do the aesthetic things we have some benches on order for outside um whether it's signage or you know our entryway we kind of bolster up how that looks those are all topics but really we have to talk about we have a good building we have the foundation and how do we take it to the next level so that when you get here you say wow this is Scituate High School this is the home of the sailors what
096does that mean and that you feel part of that when you step through the door we're working on that right yeah and I don't want to overstep but like I don't know like when I come in through like the cafeteria and like I think we talk about this one of our school updates but like there's like more than 100 in there like most mornings and like that does actually like make it it's like when I walk in and I see like Everyone likes talking with each other um and so I mean I don't think that like I think like a lot of it honestly like at least consciously but I know like walking through the cafeteria and like seeing like fill them with like people being here in the morning and like interacting and stuff
097just like being dead inside like that is definitely like made an impact so I see that like I said the people to make the place absolutely oh yeah I think we all agree with that I know that we started to paint those panels of blue without a start um yeah we're being mindful of the buildings and um I think you know just Town wise maintenance and making sure that we're taking care of what we have before we ask for new so mindfully thinking of the high school and how it looks and making sure that it's Tip Top all right well thank you everyone thank you and riveting category of policy subcommittee coming our way foreign policies here today for our second read um I don't think we have additional feedback on we can start with
098the non-discrimination policy choose one story no okay no well I think a lot of things a lot of us just kind of cleaning up language and making sure it's more inclusive updated uh make a motion to approve file AC non-discrimination policy as updated yes yes yes uh second reading about harassment policy and again like uh Gina said um questions no all required language changes that is so no questions here anyone else I make a motion to um approve file policy acab harassment policy as updated second okay Brandon leaning yes yes yes yes okay so for the first reading which you have in your backup packet um is the new policy that we do not have right now it's a real charge policy and the essence of this is about um holding I guess and so
099there's just particularly a process that we would deal with um to make sure we never denied a child lunch of course but also not have um hundreds of dollars that's a reality yeah I know um so this uh this just outlined that it's uh it's an masc uh policy and um Bob Dutch recommended um this year just to remind me lunch and self history this year but we always sell extras so yeah if you get a second you can buy an ice cream office so just to clarify this policy will address all those extras but this year as long as the school lunch is free this policy will only affect students that want to come back and pay for a second lunch or snacks yes things like that correct yes um in the future if
100you did have when she sat 13 or you would always get a lunch with Italian um and support them together questions about that [Music] I don't have a question I don't know if it's just a comment The Kindergartners the first graders second graders learning about cafeteria etiquette and you know maybe even um money and kind of processing your lunches I just wish there was a way to kind of I guess it's tough to manage it but I mean I don't want my kid getting multiple ice creams yeah they do not give that thing so that does that's outside of it okay all right so the right the rest of the display to my questions are not relevantages it's about water like why do we have to give them a milk they don't want them okay
101never mind but okay it's a separate outside of policy questions no more questions specifically to the way that that works okay um so the whole scoring policy if you looked at that in the back of this again um we simplified some of the language to make it very clear um that homeschooling does not have anything to do with classes that are taken outside of the school day they want to appear in chooses to make a useful movement that chat was actually they are choosing to withdraw the child and to propose their own educational but in the people chooses to do any amounts of these outside of the school day of course they will not leave questions don't hear anybody else thanks first readings and no voting that's it so we lived it brings up I'm
102hoping each time you come back thank you all right thank you so much foreign myself um I do want to acknowledge one of my friends that's here tonight Mr Zack gates at the table welcome back and hopefully you're there when it comes up my next contract vote welcome um so tonight I wanted to share um a collaboration of of efforts to um give updates and I think elaborate a little bit on our communication plan and uh instead of waiting till the end of the year and you're probably seeing you'll see more of this this kind of a theme tonight on uh the calendar for the school committee is to be more intentional and proactive in our meetings and be very purposeful I do want to acknowledge the picture that's up there it's a Michelle's second
103grade class A bunch of silly heads there and that's our silly photo and um that's that class wrote me uh in this word letter [Music] um and expressed the amount of pride they had in their school their class and their facilities and the love of learning and their teachers and they come up with a list of really great ideas to improve their school and invited me to come to them to talk about it so that's the picture there it was a great opportunity to go down there and the kids are one of the ideas that flourished unintended is a flower club that's going to be happening in the spring to plant flowers around the school so the kids can have sexual participation in beautifying their school you know I left there with a bunch of
104laughs and some great artwork that I was hanging my office today so thank you to all those students so it's kind of important that um I show the goals here just refreshing people's memory and these uh part of this presentation tonight is going to align with both the uh newly I was hoping that would pass tonight at the school committee uh goals and uh the district goals and if you they both have to do with communication and all that on the left it talks about the district goals of proactive communication well the district um and the outcome is to provide accurate and timely information engage the public in open and respectful conversations all about something we can all agree that's most important in our jobs is student learning and then tonight we're going to talk
105about the deliverable of an efficient goal-oriented focused school committee meetings and agenda items that aligns pretty nicely with the school committee goal under their professional practice goal by the end of this year having topic schedules and agendas that highlights uh they're also highlighted through District communication next day and you probably noticed uh for the most part after each school committee meeting there uh is a more detailed summary um of what's been talked about tonight because we realize that people are busy and um you know make all the school Community meetings so we're going to take it to them and share that information with them and I think that's really been beneficial to folks and we also include the link to the to the meeting in case they want to catch up on our Cedar section
106of that so tonight I'm going to share specifically this calendar that has been again feedback from Katie working with chairwoman renalini our leadership team back in the summer and what we thought we'd do and I don't know a lot of districts that do this but we wanted to map out the entire year of school Community meetings and put topics down and this is a living reading document so certainly there's room to add things the dates may change a little bit but I think just having this idea when things happen and this is based off of looking in the past and what's been Staples you know like the budget dates and all those kind of things and then some nuanced stuff that we just started to implement this year that I'll go over um and even
107something that you know Dr because we wrote up tonight if we want the kids to come into this student council that can be plugged in here easily but these are some of the core things and again to make this available at the meal school committee will have an actual a live document a Google doc where you can access that more readily so it keep real-time updates as they happen so here's a little bit in the past Snapchat I won't spend a lot of time on this but again this also acts as an operating record and then we'll go back and after the actual meetings if things change we'll update that so next year we can look at it again and you know maybe one of our summer meeting Workshops can kind of look at it
108what went well what we can approve what what timeline you know you'll see for example one thing that was uh asked of me to do this year was to change the calendar to to move that up from January we used to do it in late spring and people have already made plans for next year and if you want to know what the first day of school is so we did that so a lot of subtle things that make a difference that can be done here so again superintendent goals policies things that happened in October all the way through tonight's meeting and just wanted to it's good that we had the high school Improvement plan presentation and the celebration of student learning if you remember last year um a celebrate student learning would kick off every
109meeting and it was kind of what we noticed it was great we're kind of disjointed and everything was different somewhere videos somewhere uh presentations some involved kids some didn't and when we had a Leadership Retreat this summer with our department chairs principals um central office we spent a lot of time on organizing this and said okay how can we be consistent uh purposeful focus on the student learning of pillars and then be efficient when we come into the school community meeting with the idea of the next day we can add some detail to the presentations when we blast it all through the app so all this has been done purposely to run official meetings the timely manner that's why even tonight's presentations they were capped you'll see the falling ones that have done similarly have
110the same templates and we're pretty strict on timelines you know 10 or 15 minutes and then as long as the Q a that's however long it takes but the presentations we wanted to um so that that's and then for example High School Improvement plan just a little history when we when I started three years ago they weren't doing school employment plans in this District uh is kind of lost so it had to be done um it is an expectation so I think we've come a long way from not having them in year one and then even during a pandemic the principles some teen and staff did a really great job of developing them in their school councils that you're a representative of community members and parents and caregivers and staff in students um so they
111were being presented to me do some ketchup and then we those are presented in the spring initially because we took all year to get them done to start them in the next year in the spring and we felt it's important that the station was done in the fall so that they could be updated and you're like you saw tonight with uh at least we wanted them to include the why what are the goals uh what our our data showing us and then what are action steps that we're doing um to address this as opposed to sharing with you in the spring what we've done is related and so that and then we'll have a follow-up in the state of the schools at the end of the year you'll see them here somewhere where they'll kind
112of summarize what's been done during the year so it's like celebration of student learning uh was focused on our theme to make sure that we are doing what we say and you are important and you saw that a little Lighter Side a little bit more on the culture so we've got one that's a little more heavy on the data and academic piece and one that's uh born on the social emotional learning and um culture of the school so you'll see they'll do one of each um can you show a little flavor of those tonight and um that's on that the you'll see had always coming up next in the middle school so we'll all take those and you know we're interested in everyone's feedback on that as well get some good feedback tonight as we
113go the December meetings [Music] um he again more Improvement plans more things and what we also wanted to do is is you remember some of the LED elementary schools in the school of improvement plan did them all together last year we wanted them to have uh although we've done our I think the principles and their teams and their schools have done a real good job of a lot of consistency bringing consistency into a lot of what we do I think that's important we still want each school to have its own unique culture and flavor so that's why you'll see each each one of them present individually in the field well it's the same setup and themes it'll be different at each school which we like school calendar you can see there is uh and actually
114it's in December so the first draft ready for you there it won't include PV or things like that but it'll include the first day of school the holidays and things like that so we can get a head start into getting folks that information out uh financial literacy should be very interesting it's um that's going on at the high school and we'll have a team Commitment Report on that in January we start with program of studies in the high school the reason for that is scheduling starts pretty soon after that um than the vote and um you see sprinkles in here we have the mass Insight in AP so that's kind of the midpoint now of the year now we'll talk about you know a little bit of follow-up on what we our goals were today
115what we've been doing to support our teachers kind of uh what Mr Gates said we were courageous enough night like Dr McGuire and it teaches credit for being okay to share those scores and say okay this is what we are but the whole goal is how can we support our teachers and our kids and our administrators and making sure that we show Improvement and that's the whole goal you have to start with being transparent on where we are um so that's Mass Insight uh down here quarterly budget updates have been included Dr Dutch will be giving those out uh thank you Mr Gates so those are really important because they focus on this fiscal year so while while in a parallel track we'll be talking about next year's budget pretty soon we also want you
116to hear updates on how we're spending the money this year how much is left any concerns we have and so those are very helpful I think um so those are those are new then we've got kindergarten um information we'll talk about there then something new again we've had medical presentations in the past this will be a presentation of Medco it hasn't happened it didn't happen last year so a new director uh David Mr bonds coordinator so excited to bring about what's been happening under their new leadership the anchor program is a new program so they wanted to highlight that a new spin on the an old program that used to exist here with modernizing it I think you'll really enjoy that and then the golden High School February is a lot of budget stuff those
117that fourth is the Saturday of February which is a Saturday Workshop and then the sixth is the Monday after this was a very special meetings with only one agenda item in the budget uh and then the vote happens a week later so um and you'll see here we start seeing in February the social studies and history celebration of student learning um should have taken the names out there but I'll fix that but so what we decided to do is the principals are doing the celebration of student learning so we're going to get a double bang for our buck and include our department heads and chairs in in in reporting out what's happening in each department K through 12. so something that we've been missing where now I think we're getting a double dose of the
118principal's perspective macro and micro within departments I think it was something that spool is the K-12 is that for example English we have uh coordinator you know K through pre-K school K through five and we have one six through 12. they're going to work together and present K-12 so I and that's exciting and that's uh I think something we're looking forward to and you can see there's all the Departments are represented and we wanted to purposely put that on the second part of the year because we wanted them to have start potentially has to get things going and running and then be able to report out in April that's our annual town meeting May school choice is uh has to be voted on there so that has that's in there um is my self-assessment as
119we get that's not that process of evaluation for me we moved that to May um and spoken to reorganizations on there superintendent evaluation more celebrations of student learning by departments another quarterly budget then in June some of the housekeeping what liaison assignments for the greatest we get down past the last day of school vote of knowing that there'll be no snow days this year or hurricane days um which would be nice and um then that state of schools we talked about keeping it simple but a little summary of the year and goals and how we've done um for each school that that meeting and then a social emotional team and peer update that is very important to give a summary of our goals on social emotional learning throughout the year and also we'll have completed
120our care assessments by then we'll give our action steps and what we've accomplished through that and then you get into the last day is the 26th of June last year the fiscal year you can start talking about summer meeting schedule and then like what the school committee goals reflection um to remind you to look at your own goals and put a placeholder there but that can be done anytime that's something new so and then we start getting into handbooks in the summer I think that's it so we hope that gives a little snapshot of division for the year again living breathing document that can give you all working copies uh that when we ended up that you'll see it live being changed up but also maybe something to share with the community tomorrow to have
121a good perspective on what's going to be happening throughout the year thank you questions or comments or mechanics no thank you very much for that obviously um this is one of the goals that you sent out to improve communication I think is a great way to complement what you're doing with what we are wanting to inform the community about what we're going to be talking about um that's really my main comment the only other one I thought that this um update might include a little bit of update on how our like app is going but if you don't have that we can table that yeah I think this is very specific to the calendar I'll be doing more communication updates throughout the year you know the app and there's some other things definitely going on
122okay yeah so thank you for that I I love seeing the calendar and being able to sort of plan ahead I you I I heard you say when you were describing the presentations by the schools that we go heavy on MCAS and then share something like about culture and so Sam Castro academic achievement you said we said empath and academic achievement and so it just made me wonder and I don't have a good answer for you uh superintendent birken but something for us to think about is I know we go over pair data you know during the year and and you're thinking about collecting that twice just wonder like you saying that you saying that the MCAS and student achievement is heavy and culture being light I'm just wondering what do you like what does
123that mean for you if they said that that's not what I intended it meaning that one presentation tonight focuses on yeah the pillar of academic Excellence personal Excellence the other one was more collaboration and social emotional learning culture that's what I said yeah I think they're equally as important okay in fact I would say I've said this many times in social emotional learning is more important an academic machine because if you can't um you're not socially emotionally adapted adjusted feel a sense of aligned you can't learn yeah yeah okay they're equally as important yeah I just want to clarify because if we I love I love seeing the photos and love hearing about the art I think it is definitely important I just wonder Maybe I don't know are there ways that we can capture
124the social emotional in addition to the pictures and the like right like are there I don't know just something for us to think about like measures wise yeah and I think the uh certainly and I think the the pictures just so you know we've all been training and working with communication training on presentations and what we wanted to get away from is reading oh yeah a lot of words so our goal The Shield is include a lot more pitches but you'll want more dialogue so I think there should be substance in the dialogue however it will include more social emotionally updates of course yeah and I I'm grateful that I've changed thank you uh superintendent thank you for for putting this together I think it's a great um insight for us into what is being
125planned out for the the rest of the year as well as giving it to the community I apologize if I missed it but you said this will go out either through the app or on the website yes both and then okay thank you and then on October 24th you have the msba update I don't see that anywhere else is that something we're just going to weave into some of the other presentations I just I know that's a pretty big topic for our time I want to make sure we we covered it as often as we can yeah it's a good question there's no msba dates on there because it's a lot of its PVD so once we get that information We'll add it I know right now the only our dates are the um 15th
126and one the 15th and 19th of November when we had the designer selection process which doesn't impact the school Community meetings yet so once those happen um we have a designer on board we'll start having more information hardened timeline if you recall the uh vertex came in or as project manager kind of gave us a timeline nothing in stone until we have a architect once we have an architect in place working with our OPM in our school building team you can start studying hard dates and once those are realized we can start plugging them into school committee meetings because there are going to be meetings where we want to do updates and we want to do there'll be school committee votes that are necessary we just don't have that those dates yet so I don't
127want to plug them in uh yeah but they'll be on there for sure okay thank you but now like I said I think this is a great um great way to put out to the community what we're working on so thank you for doing this cool yeah um I'll just add just a quick comment that I think this is another example of Scituate really um kind of being vulnerable and kind of trying to go outside of the norm in the box and you know all these Trends in education through covet it was like what this is a chance for us to reset this is a chance for us to think differently and then it just broadly feels that you know it normally you know it just such a huge system it just goes back into
128the traditional ways pre-covet but I really applaud superintendent Burkhead assistant superintendent Driscoll the whole team for doing things like this teachers you know everyone who is contributing to all these kind of different approaches to communication to understanding social emotional learning to bringing that to us to bringing it to the Greater Community um just uh all of it is is there's a lot of changes there's a lot of piloting going on there's just a lot of connections being made in the community and Beyond so I think it's great and um you know I know we're open to the feedback I know you're all open to the feedback from anyone and everyone who wants to reach out about any of it that it's you know it's exciting things and and um just wanted to applaud you all
129for kind of thinking outside of the box and trying to implement new things for us here in Scituate so thank you thank you foreign no minutes to approve no Warren all right uh correspondence from mask Mass Bulletin Mr Gates attended the mask conference on our behalf yeah would you like to share anything with us for what you learned so as I previously mentioned and bring It full circle when I intended to Master Association of school student council in 1989 it was held in I think it was called Dunphy's in Hyannis on the cave and um as it happens it's been renamed to the Resort and Conference Center so I didn't know where I was going until I got there and it was the same building so that was exciting um but any event it's I
130think that as a school crew we we bought well every year maybe we discussed about actually going um and it's like ah we'll we'll talk about it next time and then it was kind of upon us and Nicole and I were talking and Nicole found out that we could just kind of show up on the day um it was held November 2nd through the 5th so some folks actually were there for four days um I chose to attend just for the full day on Friday the 4th um I just thought I'd share a couple of comments first of all um similar to kind of the school council student council choosing to attend again I think that it's something that we should make an effort to attend um each year for the same reason that we
131want our students to attend the school student council I think it provides us an opportunity to network uh with other school committees kind of see what other issues are out there um and hear from some experts in both administrators teachers and students that are out in the field um so they said I did attend and the theme really this year of the of the um conference which really focused around Dei um uh just to give a couple of my um basically they had a welcome panel so they gave a speech for the first hour and a half with a panel about some individual experiences then we broke off into different seminars or small conference rooms and you could choose which one to attend um just a couple of the titles um that were out there
132were building an inclusive Equitable culture in your in your District what should Equity look like feel like sound like in the 21st century schools um communities divided how to navigate and polarizing issues um and then there were some other ones um what school business officers want school committee members to know that was an interesting one that I did participate in um um and then there were some other ones changing the narrative launching and sustaining a Dei lens um and again this was just one day but there were four days Wednesday after Saturday or half day but essentially four days all different um or sorry different um little seminars and and pull out groups so um I had a lot of takeaways from it I was kind of Uncertain as to what to do but I
133guess my biggest take without getting in too much detail is that in the Dei initiative is kind of Blazing the trail um it sounds like um there are some larger school districts maybe like Cambridge um Newton Brookline who have hired um and successfully implemented uh the position of Dei coordinator um but not many districts other than that have made the the investment in it um there are lots of questions about how to do that how you get approvals to do it how you you know how you pay for it um and I think that if I were asked I think that the majority of schools are looking at potentially adding a similar position to what we have so I think that we're ahead of the game we have to um we owe that to superintendent
134Burke and his leadership initiative and making that possible and I guess for the school committee for approving that that position um but I felt proud to be from chituate and tell the other folks that you know that we talked about that I talked with that we we have a DI director um a lot of DDI coordinators or directors who were actually were there um and some of them even even presented some of these panel discussion uh so I was proud to say that I was part of situ I think that we're doing the right thing and we're we really aren't blazing the trail so that was kind of my big takeaway and I was I was proud to do that um we'll go to too much detail but again I did attend several of the
135sessions relative to DDI and just um really just reinforced all the effort that we were making it right there so that was my takeaway and I would um recommend again that this committee next year I think it's always held at the same place generally on the same time try to make some effort to get there and and um I'm a personal story that I will not share but no I mean we all we all work we all have full-time jobs so it's a big investment to take a day off to go down there um and that's the difficulty that we will always come out to but as we approach luckily Mass allows us to go down for the day and then just sign up so and I think Nicole and Heidi are going through a
136Nash just like this student council has a National Convention there's a national um school committee convention what do you call it conference conference um so I'm sure that Nicole when she comes out that's the School Board Association and I think it'll be great to have you you and how you experience that and and again a big situate I feel like we're doing great things we'll hit you and share what we're doing and learn some of those things um so that was I just again this is what my sixth opportunity to go and I finally did it and I'm glad that I did I get the opportunity yeah you'll get a bill I think that was yeah thank you Peter for attending I appreciate that I agree it's it's hard to uh and I did see
137I'm in a group of teachers on school committees I know this sounds riveting but um they were going back and forth about um how hard it is to you know take the time off of work to go to the conference and you know how what that looks like and people were kind of tag teaming going in two days and then somebody else would go the other two or one or someone as a group and they just went for the one day so it wasn't I I will say it's not just a situate um struggle to get there I think it's felt in other places but we much appreciate you attending and bringing that feedback on the Dei in Scituate troubles and you have to declare I gotta I got a swag bag s worth everything
138that's about all I got but I think obviously Peter do you know if they took minutes or if they're going to um if there's any recordings that mask is going to put out you know on their website or on Facebook I saw a lot of pictures of the events on Facebook but I didn't see a lot of like detail on what was actually happening I don't know the answer but I don't think that they recorded are going to put any minutes out to any event what I can provide um I have a program that can give an overview of all the different things but it won't give you the the minutes or anything like that but um I think it's interesting to see all the different opportunities um that were provided I don't know who
139can give up four days of their time to go with a little bit burdensome I think um I did hear feedback about there not being a virtual option this year and that frustrated some people because you know even for me personally I couldn't get down there physically but I definitely could have tuned into something that had been virtual for a period of time so I don't know if my mouse is I'm sure they're taking feedback and things like that so yeah I would say from the attendance where I was there on Friday I know I'm going to guess there were I don't know 250 attendees maybe I'm guessing maybe maybe more um but I don't know for sure but a lot of them one of the takeaways I did have is I think that we're
140lucky they were not part of the Regional School District seems like things are a lot more complicated relative to everything from budget to everything they just seem they have so many problems that we don't have to consider um I kind of felt lucky that we want to party but there were a lot of Regional School District representatives there I think for that reason that they have a lot more complexities to what they have to do in a day um but there was I did not see a lot of social representation I did um sit with some folks in Hingham um other than that I think that um lunch from the case just because the location and a lot from you know from Central and western Mass yeah yeah and North smart not too much smell
141sugar thank you again you're welcome please um any other business that anyone would like to share including some committee updates I'll say this every time the difference between the liaison and the subcommittee member I don't really get it um so um I'll just update all the things that I did uh October 26th we had a financial forecast meeting with superintendent Burkett and Dr dots I attended um again this helps determine the school budget for next year um the good news at that meeting was that our new the Town's new growth meaning the new buildings that were done in town we're certified at a larger dollar amount than we had originally thought so that will hopefully help our budget number for next year but we do have a meeting tomorrow which most likely might take some
142of that money away uh but we will um we'll report back on that uh on November 2nd I did go to Capital planning and that was just um the police and fire provided an update on their Capital requests um ongoing yes um and on November 3rd I went to the Walter school council which uh was my first meeting as a member this year and principal Reardon pretty much presented a lot of what we had talked about we kind of reviewed the um School Improvement plan um but I was I felt as though the um the parents who were on the committee I thought it was great because most of them had younger kids like first grade kindergarten so I felt like that was great because you're getting these families involved early on Military can maintain
143that and uh they seem like a very um invigorated and and and intense group that I think is going to do good work at the leadership of this rear end um then that was it and then last Friday I went to the max conference anybody else have an update to share I'll share mine I went to the recreation whatever it is um committee meeting and um you know just gave a quick brief update about data towards the msba process a little bit so gave a quick update on that I do also I should share out that I do communicate um pretty much every week with select board member Goodrich and we share sort of Select board updates and school committee updates so that channel of communication is good um and I did also attend the
144capital planning meeting so we cry out so Capital planning is one of those sort of heavy uh subcommities for a short period of time but it does require the weekly uh attendance which is tricky kind of sharing a load on that so um but yeah ongoing process over there um anything else before we before we take a motion to adjourn tonight yeah Nicole um sorry real quick I um during the homecoming game um I just wanted to congratulate the the high school and the athletic department for putting on the celebration of the Title IX um at halftime of that game um I was standing near one of the end zones where the girls were playing field hockey on the field and see the excitement on their faces both before they go on the fields and
145then coming up after um which is great to see so I did want to say kudos to um the high school for putting that on during the football game um and I also wanted to to quickly thank situa TV because they make a lot of the at the school events that are going on possible for people to be able to see um so whether it's like the football the Athletics the different um Theater events or band events that are going on in the schools and those are always very easy to go and either see live from home if you can't make it in person or go back and view after the fact um that's you know a great way that we're able to give back as a community and really share Student Success outside of
146just you know School community meeting or an email going out from the schools so I didn't want to say um thank you to situate TV as well I know we haven't done that in a while but um it's a good addition to the time that we're able to put up great thank you Mike uh Ben thank you for remembering those questions very much appreciate next scheduled meeting November 21st and there's nothing else we'll take a motion over here motion to adjourn at 8 17. second the uh we'll call Vote randallini Yes yes Dr we're asking yes yes sorry it's long yes all right good night everyone