001and um and mr long when you are ready you go right ahead johnson uh good evening everybody welcome to the august 30th 2021 situated school committee meeting uh in response to governor baker's declaration of a public health emergency and the related emergency executive order dated march 12 2020 tennis central public meetings shall meet remotely until further notice this meeting will be recorded and will be posted following the meeting public comment will be available through zoom community members can also email me at mlong.org any correspondence with the district or school committee made available to the public through public record or foi a request will by law uh not include the private information of staff and students i know that's been a point that's come up several times in the community the past couple weeks i want
002to make sure that was clear um so before we get uh so call the meeting to order through roll call vote uh brandolini yes all right lin blum yes kate yes and uh lon yes uh so before we get into the um agenda superintendent brooke i just wanted to give a quick update uh on the deci update that came out last week so i'll turn over to uh superintendent perkins uh thank you chairman long good evening everyone i do want to do a sneak a quick sailor shout out in if i could i just wanted to thank our amazing community members that um were out yesterday at the gates middle school uh for beautification day uh there was a lot of weed pulling a lot of um dirt moved and the place looks wonderful so
003a lot of hands make light work so thank you to everybody i was able to stop by and i'm just super impressed with the community involvement and um and want to thank you all for doing that i know the gates bto and shore were um actively involved in coordinating this so my um thanks to them as well it really played off and the place looked beautiful today uh as far as the the guidance uh more of a directive and a mandate from desi i just want to read verbatim what the state had sent out so on august 25th the department of elementary and secondary education issued requirements for masking that are to be implemented at all schools effective immediately accordingly and until further notice all situate public schools students staff and visitors are required to
004wear masks while inside central public school buildings and while attending school-sponsored indoor activities mass will not be required during lunch while students are eating or staff and will not be required while outside of the buildings for any other reason the mass requirement will be in place until at least august 1st 2021 the commissioner will revisit the requirement in the near future to revise it as warranted by public health data after october 20 excuse me after october 1st 2021 if a school demonstrates a vaccination rate of 80 or more of students and staff in the school than vaccinated individuals in the school would no longer be subject to the deci mask requirement jesse will provide additional information to districts in the coming weeks in preparation for the october 1 date including how to demonstrate the 80
005vaccination rate thresholds we will be sharing our with our families as part of my welcome back letter this information we're also finishing up a comprehensive safe and strong health and safety document similar to that we sent out last year which will have a lot more details on all kovid related related matters and masking and social distancing and that type of thing so that will go out wednesday the first with my welcome back letter so folks please pay attention for that it'll have a lot more details and hopefully answer a lot of the questions you have um involving back to school and then we'll obviously have contact information if you should have questions after that document goes up um so that's the update on uh desi we had staff back in uh buildings today and uh
006we're abiding by the mandate um as adults returning to work this week chairman long do you want me to uh roll right into staff introductions next new staff yep i think that's perfect and thank you for that update okay thank you um so today we welcomed all our new teachers to the central public school family uh for their orientation training according to our local historian um miss barney donahue this was the largest group in several years that she can remember so that's exciting i want to thank miss fiddler and miss burke our mentor leaders as well as miss driscoll for planning in the preparation of this important event went off without a hitch and um it was a wonderful experience for our new teachers so much so that we've invited them here tonight in a
007tradition that i love uh introducing the new teachers at the school committee meeting and tomorrow all our staff are back to kick off the new year with an opening day celebration followed by three consecutive days of professional learning for our teachers in preparation for the september 8th opening of school so what i'd like to do is i'll start with the central office new staff and for those staff that are being introduced tonight in the audience because we're on zoom if you could go down to the reactions button on the bottom of your screen and raise your hand um that way and we'll pause after each person just to make sure that the folks in the audience can put a face to a name and welcome you aboard we'll be doing this uh in person tomorrow
008um at our welcome back celebration uh what i'll do is i'll go first and then i'll call each of our principals to introduce their staff okay so first we have um administrative assistant to the assistant superintendent and director of dei miss joanne anderson joins here if she could raise her hand okay next up we have um out of our new out of district coordinator miss megan fennessy megan is not here this evening next we have a new school resource officer um mr nick sherry who is unable to make it tonight will be in person tomorrow and then the last one on my list that i know is here uh our new assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction assessment uh miss heidi driscoll welcome heidi so next i'll turn it over to principal moffat to introduce the
009great new folks at cushing elementary thank you very much um i have the pleasure of welcoming two two new people to our christian community leah bloch who and um leah block is going to be an instructional paraprofessional with us at cushing and uh ryan vaughn ryan is now our junior custodian he's done a great job he came in mid-summer to pick things up i have the fortunate i'm also fortunate to be able to welcome back christine tarantino as an instructional pair she served as a long-term sub and she's with us now permanently and maureen gallivan as well who is um she was served as a long-term sub last year and she has just joined our food services and we have um our newest first grade teacher who was a long-term sub last year chelsea dunn
010and we want to welcome her we're very excited to have her as part of our first great team so i know chelsea's there who else is there okay thank you miss moffatt you're welcome next up we'll have uh miss ward from um heather lee good evening thank you yes i also am lucky enough to have a long list of friends people that are going to be joining us um in first grade we have jordan levine in second grade we have hanna sheskey last oh sorry i i see jordan waving jordan has been in all summer already so i feel like i already know her so well um same with hannah chesky hannah was with us last year as the remote teacher but it has is now going to be in person and she'll be teaching
011second grade um in addition we have maddie damp house and i know i saw maddie on here maddie was with us for a long term sub last year and she's going to remain a long term sub but in third grade we also have hired a few um power professionals bridgette bradley will be with us christine kalachi mara swords dauber and beatrice gallagher's our most recent we as custodians we've hired doug tolman and we are very lucky to have bob stafford have joined our staff both of those gentlemen are unbelievable and i know the superintendent will back me up when i say i was at a meeting saying how incredible it's been in the in the building so i welcome all of those friends thank you miss ward uh next miss long for the new jenkins
012staff good evening um please join me in welcoming a special education teacher margaret ayman we have an adjustment counselor for the gems program miss kaylee bloss we have a new nurse uh miss mary ryan conway and we have a cafeteria hostess kirsten gilmore we also have two instructional professionals joining us trisha mandugo and julia nelson thank you thank you miss long uh next up miss riordan from moba talk good evening everyone so we have some great people joining the wampat team for this coming school year we have elizabeth horn who's going to be teaching fourth grade for us we have sarah piasecki who's our new special education teacher we have rachel rosado who did a long term sub for our library paraprofessional last year and she's now going to be in a permanent position in
013the library with us we have carol considine who's going to be an ecc paraprofessional we have emily davis who's going to be an instructional paraprofessional we have colleen gumaras who is our new early childhood education teacher and then we have mark dupre who is a new custodian thank you miss riordan uh next up mr beatty uh gates middle school hey everyone uh we're really excited to add many talented educators uh to gates this year first up we have tracy shepard who will be joining us as an eighth grade special education teacher we have charlotte de vere who will be joining us as a specialized paraprofessional in our gates learning center we have mark dugas who will be a custodian shared between gates middle school and wampa elementary we have annie koziel who will be our
014french and latin teacher we have ben hinckley joining us as our seventh grade social studies long term substitute we have allison geinin who will be transitioning uh into the grade six science long term substitute position and uh as of today we welcome wendy grace our newest instructional professional to gates middle school so thank you for helping me welcome everybody to our great school and thank you mr beatty and last but not least dr mcguire good evening we also have a number of new hires at the high school and we're very well very excited to welcome the following team members as a 10-month secretary jillian corcoran in world language french teacher jennifer funkhouser english courtney hayden who has served as a long-term sub for us and is taking a permanent position a specialized paraprofessional who will
015work with our ixl program ryan keith our teacher jessica mcguire library media specialist tracy newman biology teacher tyler roberts english long-term sub katie rocha in the guidance department zoe ryan in history kelly trayers as our piano music accompanist uh also working at gates sarah troxler in business education ron valerian combined position between the high school and gates nurse marianne sham who is also subbed in the district athletic director scott payne we have two additional staff members staff members moving from long term sub to permanent positions rosalind kamani in guidance and jonathan schindler in the math department thank you dr mcguire and thank you principals and welcome aboard new staff as you can see we have a large number of new staff coming on board and we're excited to get them rocking and rolling so i'm
016sure they had a great day today learning the district a little bit and uh we can learn a lot from them as well so thank you all it's been a busy hiring season and a very successful one yeah and on behalf of the school committee some say congratulations to everyone uh for being for being hired and welcome to central public schools and we wish you the best of luck to the coming school year um and we're all looking forward to the great work you do in our schools with our staff and students so um again congratulations i look forward to him sharing with you over the course of the year um you're all welcome to stay for the rest of our meeting tonight but i know you have a busy week so if you do
017need to go feel free but um i do thank you for coming tonight as superintendent burke has said you know this is one of the you know the best parts of our meetings this year we can just you know we can welcome all of our new staff and um you know into the district so thank you all for coming tonight um and thank you also for all the principles for um for introducing the new stuff as well uh so next on the agenda is a presentation from our new assistant superintendent ms heidi driscoll um in her presentation and introduction to curriculum all right thank you is it okay for me to share my screen yep feel free all right thank you okay can you see my first slide yes yeah okay great um so i've
018been asked to give an introduction to the curriculum and it's been really great to put together because i've had an introduction to scituate really from july first till now so it's been wonderful to meet the principals staff members the um other administrators the wonderful support staff and i've spent a lot of time um trying to learn as much as possible so i can serve the community in this capacity so the first thing i want to show is a quick overview of what i hope uh be covering tonight the first thing is i'm going to define curriculum i'm going to talk about our culture of excellence which is one of our pillars this year i'm going to cover some action steps that we will be taking this year some potential partnerships and an introduction to performance
019indicators so the first thing that i want to share with you is my defining curriculum slide from talking to lots of people in lots of different roles it seems that our first and foremost job is to have a common understanding of what curriculum is so i oversimplified this in three steps for everyone the first thing is the state standards when it comes to curriculum and i just switched my um slide state standard page can you see the state standard page yes all right great so if you did want to look at what we are charged with teaching um these are the current frameworks for massachusetts it's just on the state website and what's interesting is if it makes you want to click some of the things under it but really the title itself is a
020live link to each of these documents and you'll see everything that um the state uh requires us to keep for each course and that's the state standards and then after state standards comes a district curriculum and in short a district curriculum is organized units of study based on those state standards and there's lots of different ways for those standards to be organized and that's usually done by department and by course and then the last part which is really what students and parents are most used to seeing are lessons lessons themselves are not a curriculum per se their teacher designed activities and experiences to help all students meet the state standards and develop transferable skills so even though i can't go into every single state framework right now what i thought i'd share with was the
021portrait of a student who is prepared for college careers and civic participation this is of course also by the state um lots of schools right now have their own portrait of a student based on these and these are just a few transferable skills or they're not standards themselves but they are qualities that we want graduates of massachusetts schools and of course scituate public schools to have when they graduate so they're they're able to achieve their goals demonstrate independence build strong content knowledge respond to the varying demands of audience task purpose and discipline comprehend as well as critique value evidence use technology and digital media strategically and capably and understand other perspectives and cultures so if you want to read more about those um again it's it's something that i hope will be sharing on our
022website and it's something that is readily available in the massachusetts curriculum framework let's see here so the next slide i have is focusing on a culture of excellence if you haven't heard and what the teachers will hear more about tomorrow is that something that we want to help foster this year is a culture of personal and academic excellence and from talking to so many parents and educators it's clear to me that i i guess one of the my mission is to help foster a sustainable culture of personal and academic excellence with whatever we do when we build our curriculum and what teachers counselors department chairs principals administrators really would love is for community members to reach out to them they want to cultivate an environment where all parents and caregivers are able to access understand
023and have confidence in our learning environments because we want students to be inspired by school we want them to love school and we want them to love to learn so what are some of the actions that we'll take to make sure we have this sustainable and positive environment these are just a few actions the first one is curriculum acceleration we're developing a team who will work on the alignment and coordination of documentation of our district curriculum documents and the first task that that group will do is conduct a needs assessment and the needs assessment will be something that parents students teachers all stakeholders will be able to have a voice in so that way the work isn't done in a silo and it's done truly as a partnership so we can decide where we want
024to be and scale it up for all departments in grade level levels something else that you should stay tuned for are acceleration academies i'm thankful to some grant funding we're going to be able to provide some school-based academies enrichment academies that will allow all students to access some innovative programming in addition to the regular school day so i'm sure you've heard from other districts um there's learning loss and things like that and we have to make up for the time that's been lost truly what we want to do is accelerate and help kids find their talents and their passions and be able to use that to connect them to our schools and let them feel and be leaders um and enjoy growing and learning um in their home away from home in scituate and the
025last thing i have is partnerships we are establishing and working on establishing some partners some partners to help scituate public schools achieve some more measurable outcomes one for example is with mass insight which is an organization that's going to help us focus on some very specific strategies to increase and expand our ap programming they've had tremendous success and some examples of opportunities that we'll have through mass insight is students will be able to work with children from other schools to do some prep saturday pd programs our ap teachers will have access to mentors um there's really the the support is is limitless really it's a wonderful place and something that we hope will be developed uh superintendent burkett and i are meeting with the team later this month we hope that we will be able
026to become a bridgewater state university professional development school district and that means that bridgewater would literally partner with us to make sure that we are always connected with high quality current and relevant professional development that's connected to really our teacher prep programs and the current field of education uh so something else that was very difficult for me to really decide what to share here i wanted to share some data but our mcas data our accountability data it's not public yet so i have two slides that are samples so i'm calling this an introduction to performance indicators so depending on the questions we want answered um there's always data that we can use to analyze and come up with measurable outcomes but here's uh something that i've been hearing that um people have been worried about
027the achievement in scituate that it might have fallen so on and so forth so i wanted to use the high school math 2019 as a sample if you look at the navy blue bar i hope that's clear on your screens you can see in 2015 16 17 and 18 that was the advanced category um and we were very high achieving in that advanced category it looks as if our advanced category took a huge dip in 2019 dropped 86 you notice my stop sign above that mcas 2.0 happened in 2019 which if there wasn't a conversation about that with the staff or with parents or with school committee or with the public um it's really important that that we redefine um how we look at data like this so mcas 2.0 is very different because they
028wanted to make sure that meeting grade level standards was clear and if you are advanced you're not just advanced at a grade level standard you are actually exceeding the expectations of your grade level so an example that i use with other people when i do trainings in how to use data is that with mcas 1.0 if i were a 10th grader and i were a gymnast which on either of those i would do a cartwheel and if my cartwheel was an excellent 10th grade cartwheel i would get advanced now on mcas 2.0 if i'm a 10th grader and i'm a gymnast and i want to get advanced a cartwheel is not enough i would have to do a cartwheel and a round off and a backhand spring and a no-handed something or other because i
029would have to exceed my grade level standards so the rigor was ramped up in 2019 when it comes to those categories so some people who maybe in the past have seen their children getting advanced advanced might have seen um the proficient or meeting expectations category that year so that's something that that changed so when we look at data we really would look at 2019 and beyond however now things have changed again i actually was at a meeting today with the state and they right now are setting new benchmarks um for districts uh because 2020 we don't have data 2021 is a whole new landscape so here's something that we will not have for 2021 but we may have for the year after and this is just this is another example of how we need to
030look at data so we can make sure that we're supporting um all students in all schools so what a percentile ranking is is it basically compares a certain group of students to that same group of students across the state so in this case this is the achievement of scituate high school students all students and they ranked in the 87th percentile that means they are higher achieving in math english and science than 87 it's the 87th percentile if we were 100 we'd be top now if you look at the high needs category that includes several different subgroups students are counted once not several times we're at the 72nd percentile which is great but you notice there's a gap there is a gap between where our high needs students are in compared to all high need students
031in all other high schools nine through 12. so we would look at that number and and ask some questions um so when we look at data it's never about um blame it's really about questions what does this mean and where do we go from here and i think um where we're going from here is up i'm ready to do this with with all of you and i know the school committee will have some questions um so i will stop my chair and um i'd love to hear from you all right thank you miss fiscal for that uh presentation um certainly now is i'll open it up to the rest of the committee for any questions that they might have hey mike i have a couple of questions for heidi um thank you for explaining that
032um that dip with the mcas because i think that's um that explanation was pretty clear and i hope a lot you know a lot of people understand why um some kids will are now proficient versus you know that advanced um so a lot of so school districts across the state will see that same dip probably correct yeah school school districts across the state saw that dip it happened in the elementary grades i want to say three years prior because they went to mcas 2.0 a couple years earlier okay um and the acceleration academies would you be able to give an example of some of of one of these academies that would be available for the students i cannot give you the details of that academy right now because we are creating a committee that is
033going to build what those district-wide expectations are for those academies but i can tell you this it will involve teachers counselors focusing on the whole student there will be opportunities for remediation and support but there will also be opportunities something i heard from parents is hey my student goes to school and they want more my student is very talented they want more to do they want more leadership opportunities this i hope will be an opportunity for some of those kids to find those leadership roles and really become engaged in the school district okay okay thank you very much okay are there any other questions from the rest of the committee uh i just make a comment i guess mike heidi thanks very much i think that um first of all it was very informative easy
034to understand and i appreciate that i think sometimes presentations that we see um you know with with items like this we don't always necessarily understand um but this was clear concise and i think a great introduction to the curriculum i think it's important for the committee as well as folks potentially that are attending here that we are held to stay standard i think he did a good job of explaining that um the different criteria and so on standards that we're held to um so i really just want to say thank you for doing that i would anticipate that perhaps we'll hear more about maybe some specifics to curriculum as the year progresses not quite sure how that what we'll want to see or or if there are specifics that anyone might want to see but
035potentially the long-term goal as you say is to get everything online and people can access it at their at their leisure i know that that's probably what a 12 month to 18 month process well typically for one content area it's a 12 month process but we're accelerating so hopefully it will be shorter than that um what we want to do right now is a needs assessment so that curriculum acceleration team needs to do a needs assessment so we can hear peop so it's we want to hear about the curriculum but we don't know what that means together so we need your voice we need parents voices we need students to give us feedback so that we'll be able to have a strong foundation um so we're not um i guess building the boat while we're
036sailing in it okay i guess you want to comment i'm i think that when when bill announced that you were uh coming on you know he expressed how data-driven you were i think it's uh it's great to see that because i don't think that we've really focused on data in the past so i appreciate that effort and i think it will show um where we need to improve and where we need to get better but thank you for that my pleasure i just have a quick comment too i think um like you said the needs assessment is kind of um i'm not sure what questions i have because i i guess i'd like more information about what our needs are specifically um i would say like a simple common starting point two is in scituate
037there was a shift i don't even know when it occurred but it used to be called curriculum night in september and that was when you could go in and get even in a first grade level here's you know what the kids will be learning throughout the year or at least like a little preview of what we're this is where we're headed and now it's just back to school night and it's like come see the the beautiful amazing job that our teachers have done setting up the classrooms and getting ready to go and maybe that's not you know that's a blanket statement in a sense but i think to get back to that um curriculum night so that that's the focus and to say hey like this is what first graders will be expected to know
038by december or something after the first trimester um just to give parents sort of a level you know a bulleted kind of view of what to expect their children to be learning what they should know where they should be at so that when they see things coming home they kind of have a better understanding of the direction that their kids should be headed in um i know that's come up a lot in conversation it absolutely has and that was one of the most common things i heard when i met individually with people so something that is coming your way um is that we are actually not just having a general open house this year all schools are having an expectations night so to call it a curriculum night we really can't show you the whole
039curriculum in one night that would be like trying to sip water from a fire hose but what we can do is share expectations so that's something i don't know if i bet all the principles are like we're doing that we have i love so that's something that um thankfully is uh is already in the works for this year right and i mean from my perspective i think hearing the you know the constant push for rigor um the expectations that we're setting in the district i think is great and i think there's a great starting point of you know what we're going to be able to show to the community over the course of this year just in terms of you know what it means for our kids to come back to school in person on
040september 8th and then how they're progressing throughout the course of the year um and getting these kind of updates i think will be will be very helpful um another question i had to turn over to your superintendent burkett is just making sure that either we get this hard on the school website and sure that it's out there or including it as part of that back to school packet uh that you're sending out on the first of with the superintendent parkour just so that um you know if people can access those links people can go and start looking at the state curriculum and not you know for the many people that are not on this meeting be able to get that documentation and you know know that this is what's coming and then you know on
041excitation night and things like that we'll be able to show um you know how we're setting the the standard for this year but thank you for this mr speaker it's a great start for our curriculum for this year thank you so much you were all so nice to me i was very nervous thank you very much i think you had every question that i sent you over the past what week and a half so that made it easier for me uh so if there are no questions from the rest of the other questions from the committee we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is uh under new business our student mr mr long can i just make one closing comment to that agenda item please yeah of course thank you um
042i just want to thank mriskel i'm she's only been here you know almost uh over a month and uh we've gotten a lot done i want to thank our team for welcoming her and just working very well together um i do want to kind of highlight some things that she said that was important what i will agree with mr gates is that the we wanted the presentation because curriculum is such a big topic is to make it easy to understand include data and then give people some focal points that we will be coming back and reporting out on uh what the sentence that i liked was that we will provide access uh understanding and understanding to the curriculum for everybody and so that we will have so so the community will have confidence in our
043curriculum and i think we want to get to that place we're not there now because we don't deserve to be that's nobody's fault the good news is it's going to be a team effort to build this including the community should talk about the needs assessment being the first step so i really i'm excited about that we plan on either through mrisco myself our department chairs and coordinators our principals this will be a common theme throughout the year that we'll be getting into more detail on so tonight was kind of a high level example we're excited about the partnerships too those partnerships um not every district has and as we try to define being the best district in the world those are some things that i know mrisco's working on um that we have that we
044haven't had in the future to help support the work we do um and so i just wanted to kind of also emphasize those partnerships and we'll be reporting back on pretty much everything she highlighted tonight in more detail and later meetings so thank you all right uh let's go on actually one question relative the relationship the relationship that um we're working on relative to uh bridgewater state is that just is that uh for teacher professional development or does it include access to college-level courses for students i'm just curious i i think i misinterpreted what what what's happening yeah i'm going to let i'll let mrs driscoll handle that i will say that those partnerships are not easy to come by so although uh mr escalante are both professors there so hopefully that gives us some
045pull and um we do have connections there so we're hoping to use those as leverage to get our school this advantage so mrisco you want to fill in the blanks on that partnership sure um so um when i can give you an example of what some of the partnerships look like at other schools and other districts it those partnerships are unique to the needs of each particular district so there is no cookie cutter partnership when i worked at galligan elementary that was the first time i became involved with a partnership with bridgewater we were a professional development school and we had um a very we had a huge amount of english language learners we had a lot of kids reading below grade level and uh they we arranged it so we would have a 90-minute
046reading block every wednesday morning and we had reading buddies is what we call them but essentially every i wanna say it was grade one and two or maybe it was k in one had um a college level reading buddy and they loved it and they read together and it motivated them and we had all these pre-service teachers that's one tiny example of what a partnership can do at another school district we made a cohort of aspiring administrators and through a discounted rate they had a cohort and all got their cags through bridgewater that was one another thing that they can do is work with us to make sure that our teachers have access to different professional development or pdp points that they need for recertification and another example is the dual enrollment opportunities if that
047is something we chose to do essentially if um when we meet we we make a wish list if you will of things that we would love to have happen for to make our district the best district in the world and if we can have a mutually beneficial partnership um then then it happens and what we would do for them is which i bet we really do already is you would allow observers in the school district have student teachers when appropriate um and that's that's that's about it great thank you and if anyone can uh can form that relationship or partnership i think it's i think it's bill and his team with you heidi so thank you and i'm i'm sure we'll hear positive news on that front in the coming months so thank you for
048those efforts nicole do you have a question at all yes thank you um just a follow-up question so and i don't even know if you have the answers yet maybe not since it's only been less than probably 60 days that you've been on the job but i'm just curious from a budgetary standpoint as a school committee and thinking ahead to planning if you can answer this yet is there any it was you know purchasing eureka math and everything for us was a big ticket item and training pd and all the pieces that went with it is there any area that you could speak to now about that your you and the team are like oh gosh we really need to invest like a significant chunk of change in this department this curriculum this piece that
049we need that's really kind of something we want to see rise up so i can't this minute um because we need the needs assessment in order to prioritize but i i can tell you that in a typical district that has a curriculum revision cycle which means a different department or content area um is revised about every six years to make sure you have up-to-date materials typically that can run anywhere um from 350 to 400 thousand dollars per year if you're doing k to 12 um so it is it is not a it's not cheap to do that um but this year we wouldn't be doing um a single um area we really are are starting from the ground up right now we're starting with the needs assessment we're going to prioritize and and that's where
050we go from there thanks just thinking about down the road where we should be thinking about money really and allocating so that makes sense okay any final questions or comments on the committee okay and superintendent burkett i'll turn it back over to you for the uh student handbook uh thank you chairman long so each year we work hard on reviewing our handbooks and each principal leads team to look them over and revise and improve our handbook so they reflect each new year and what we've learned from the previous year so um we those are kind of our guide in law book as we you as you i would put it for the school year so tonight we have each principal um coming in to share their executive summaries with you and updates on things that
051have changed or that are new for the handbook so that we can start the year and make sure that all families have access to them so the elementary schools are all going together they have the same handbook so i'll turn it over to the elementary school principles and let them start good evening i believe i i will be going through the list i think that you have a list um given to you from kim peters um who that has an outline of some of the updates that the elementary principles and i have made um donna rebecca and tracy and i all worked together with kathy kelly roach and michelle beaubart just to make sure that we had everything updated so i'm just going to go right through that list first the covert 19 guidance was
052an appendix in our yearbook in our handbook last year however because of the changes that are happening so quickly and you cannot make changes to the handbook we have decided to have that be a separate document the superintendent has referred to this document earlier tonight that more information will be coming out separately so that appendix is not in the handbook however the updated guidance from dph jesse and the superintendent's office will be coming out separately we also went through updated all the staff names and dates we added the dph and desi came out with an updated guidance on um screenings health screenings such as hearing vision so we added that piece into the handbook because what they're doing that what they're asking is that nurses prioritize the screenings so that will be in included we
053also added in the immunization requirements for ecc our early childhood program we updated um the first aid policy at the first aid information under the health services just stating that nurses do not provide initial treatment for injuries you know that little person that says oh i fell last night and mom said come on in and see the nurse those those really i should be handled at the doctor um nurses are there for the um any injuries or any occurrences that happen during the school day uh entrance uh immunization requirements um a link was added to the document so that if parents need additional information they will be able to just click right on that link about immunizations and get all the information that they may need under the communicable diseases we took out scabies as
054from the list that was listed under particular problems in the school age population happy to say that that is not one added um we added in the link to the bully prevention policy um it was not linked up so we made sure we added that we work closely with michelle beaubart so that we could update the special education laws as well as the terminology that was in each section we eliminates eliminated some confusing language that we had in our code of conduct for instance one of them said student understands that the teacher takes the place of the parent when parent is not there and this is we decided compute language like that is just not necessary um we continued we kept in the no recording policy although we're not remote classes this year and we're
055thankful for that in case we do conferences or anything at all online we wanted to make sure we did keep the no reporting policy in intact we removed the safe snack list there's just no way of sps having one list to disseminate to all parents that would take in the needs of all students um we did add a link in this to say snacksafety.com just to help parents if they're not sure what snacks are safe and what um knowing any allergies that they might have in the classrooms um again i said that we removed the covet 19 appendix that included the mask policy and the safety pledge that was included in there because that information will be included um at a later time through the superintendent um we also clarified some language under the around
056the religious exemption portion of the handbook um we wanted to make sure that that was clearly stated and anybody reading it would understand the exact um requirements for such a thing and that is what we have for elementary are any questions from the school committee regarding the uh proposed changes to the handbooks or for the elementary handbook i don't have any uh mike but is can is it okay if if i or one of us shares the screen just so that folks and attendance can also see the changes in our backup is that okay or should we not do that nope that's fine if you if you don't mind doing it if you haven't in your laptop i'm gonna try i'll share starting with the middle school okay and what i'm gonna do is i'm
057gonna have to go through all three handbooks and then we'll vote all three at the end okay okay uh thank you principal ward for um sharing that and for our four elementary principles for uh putting the changes together if there are no other questions on it i'll move forward to the uh the gates middle school handbook uh okay good evening so very similar to the elementary school handbook we've put together an executive summary listing the changes that we are proposing to this year's handbook at the middle school i will just go through and expand on some of them on page seven and eight we are just updating our staffing to reflect our current staff on page nine we're updating the dates for trimesters and report card publication similar to the elementary school on page nine
058we are removing the covid and remote learning protocols as those will be coming out in a separate document due to kind of the fluid nature of kovid uh page 12 we removed the cell phone policy and we replaced it under the electronic devices portion of our handbook which is on page 20 to redundancy page 12 we included the description for how we want students and faculty and parents to report incidents of bullying those that would like to report it anonymously we have added a form on our website that we will be sharing with students in order for them to have a place in addition to coming to an administrator or a counselor a place where they can report bullying right on our website on page 17 and 18 we reorganized our disciplinary offenses using a
059tiered system this is in line with what the high school handbook looks like and so we're using similar language such as tier one offenses tier two offenses to your three offenses on page 18 we used to just have a link to our harassment policy we have included uh in the description of that uh instances to include the protected classes and we worked with our school attorneys to ensure that that language meets kind of exactly what we wanted to meet on page 18 we also included the use of hate symbols hate speech or other actions or language intended to target another person or groups race color religion national origin sex gender identity sexual orientation or disability as a tier 3 offense this was in our handbook prior however we've made it explicit into what we are
060talking about when we're talking about things like this on page 18 we've also included as a tier 3 offense serious violations to the district acceptable use policy in terms of the acceptable use policy that all students and staff adhere to in the district it was not linked to our handbook previously so we worked with our school attorney to get guidance on where that falls uh falls into a tier three offense on page 21 we also included next to the definition of harassment exactly how to report it and who to report it to on page 22 similar to the elementary schools we updated the massachusetts school immunization requirements to reflect this year's requirements on page 23 we updated information on health screenings and those screenings that jesse is prioritizing this year because the middle school is
061a time where there are a lot of screenings in all grades six seven and eight and so we included this year's screenings there and finally on page 26 we included the mask and face coverings policy that we will be using this year so those are our updates our proposals for the gates middle school handbook for this year great thank you principal beatty any questions on the changes from the members of the school credit it's um two well one question is um mr i know that the the uh mass policies of course is i think that um uh principal elementary principals didn't put the mass policy in their handbook and i want to make sure they were consistent because this policy may or may not change throughout the year correct i'm assuming that the middle school
062is probably gonna if we stay with that 80 percent it's probably never going to get there but is it i just want to make sure that that policy can be changed or the handbook can be changed if our masking policy changes um so i believe the answer to that to that is yes um and i believe it's a consistent policy across uh across the elementary middle and the high school okay in the elementary handbook um when we did originally have it but then it was asked to take it out only because it could change and once something changes in the handbook it has to be voted on yeah so i just i just make sure it's consistent across all schools i would think okay thank you um and whatever the right way is and then
063um i always ask this mr b i'm sorry sometimes i asked dr mcguire or the high school principal um can you just explain a little bit about how parents and or students are advised of the handbook and how they authorize that they have completed it certainly so on the first day of school all gates students get a pre-kind of populated form that all parents fill out every single year with who is your child's emergency contact what medications are your child uh taking what bus is your child on also on there is the link to the student handbook and parents and students sign off they had that they have considered the handbook that they have read it that they understand it um and that it is also posted once it is approved right on our website
064um in terms of i think a lot of the things that you probably see in our updates deal with things like harassment and that is something you know as we are a middle school working on education and working on you know teaching children kind of what is right what is not right how to be an upstander a lot of that ties directly into our handbook so we reference it throughout the year it's not doesn't just come out when kids make mistakes or when you know students are in the office for different reasons these rules and guidelines help us um to maintain order and also to help us keep safe um and have you know the great school that we have so we do reference it uh frequently but it does go out um on that
065first day of school um and explains exactly where it is okay great thank you thanks and and peter i just pulled out the um handbrake while this uh principal beater was talking it just says that all students are required to reply with district policies and rules including citrus policy evcfa for face coverings so we should be good there in terms of not needing to um revoke the handbook if you know anything change to the quality got it so the policy itself isn't stated it just says yeah so i would agree with you i think that that's fine i would think that that's fine that way and most of our policies in the handbooks are a link so just you know it references the policy and takes it right to that um place on the school
066website so we should be good there he doesn't miss out every policy i think we used to do that and he said wait this is yeah it's crazy and we got away from that okay thank you any other questions for principal beating i have a question mike that actually would probably apply to all the schools um just a follow-up to peter's question and uh parents confirming that they have parents and guardians confirming that they have read the policy the handbooks um if they are you know some not all families are tech savvy are there hard copies available for for families if they ask yes in the main office at the middle middle school and i know at the high school as well and i would assume at the elementary school too that hard copies are
067available for everyone that needs one great thank you okay something other questions and we'll move on to the high school handbook with dr mcguire thank you i'm going to present the high school changes and then i'm going to pass it along to athletic director payne to present the athletic handbook as well at this time so we reviewed our handbook over the past couple of years and worked this past year with student leaders our school council and our teachers to reorganize and make this a a useful document that is um clear and that everyone is able to get to the information that they need so you'll see we've reorganized into seven sections a welcome general information and policy and procedures academic policies and regulations student supports attendance policy athletics and the shs athletic handbook and the
068code of conduct so those sections are are separated and delineated in the book and most information within them is is listed alphabetically we changed the name to student and family handbook on the cover added a working table of contents with links directly to the section within the book so that people don't have to search through page by page but can get to that section in page seven we added an introduction to to introduce the book and the rationale for our handbook uh policies and procedures updated personnel on page eight updated my welcome letter to students and families on page nine added the school committee anti-racism resolution that's something that our students felt very strongly that we should include in the handbook on page 10. after a review of our core values this year sale serve
069achieve invest and learn have stayed we have added the bullet learning about others allows us to be empathetic and inclusive as a result of that review we've added a link to the shs website so that students and families have increased access to that information there added a before and after school section to clarify our start times and approved locations for students to to visit when they come into the building before school starts added a section on bus conduct and privileges as well as disciplinary procedures to clarify the expectations for bus ridership in accordance with our current practice that was something that came up a couple times in the past year we really wanted to be able to point to that area in our corridor passes section on page 18 we added that we'll be using
070an ehall electronic pass under field trip we added a clause that teachers have asked us for the past couple years to to include for good standing and and the student makeup work responsibility for going on trips we absolutely support field trips we want to make sure that everyone is taking them responsibly and that their academic work and and standing uh does factor into the choice to take a trip we change the name of the library to the multimedia learning commons the harbor we want people to understand that that a library is more than just books that this is a place to collaborate innovate to work together so we really wanted to incorporate that multimedia learning comments in in the title uh unlike principal beatty who condensed his phone and technology we actually are calling out
071a section on personal phone calls because there is an upward trend with students in calls we want students and their families to be aware that no student should be accepting personal phone calls and the trend is unfortunately that they're typically from parents so during class time we'd like to limit those calls and and really draw attention to that we added re-entry procedures if a student is out due to hospitalization medical or some other long-term reason even suspension to show the the um the team that's going to work with the student and support that student upon the re-entry and and what that process looks like updated our school safety protocols as well just to reflect our current practice and then added a number of supports and descriptors to those our academic mentoring program for students who
072find themselves ineligible for clubs and athletics due to grades and being able to support that our harbor academy program for upperclassmen who may be lacking in credit or at risk of not graduating and how we can support them with some some innovative programming our nhs tutors who are here and available as a support for any student who needs academic support and our student support team along with the procedures for that support team process as a regular ed intervention for students we've added that uh in reporting in absence uh there's options for emailing or calling into voicemail like the rest of the schools in our district we have a dedicated voicemail box for those calls now the next two are destiny protocol for high schools and notifying families of student absence if they don't call us
073to to notify of the absence we have to call them we also have to investigate and record extended absences and there's protocol for notifying families meeting with them and helping to support a student who has been absent five or more times in a quarter so we have procedures to ensure that they're meeting with success and that we can help them in that process we added classroom communication to just highlight the chain of communication between students and families and staff when should i speak with a teacher when would i go to a department chair versus an assistant principal or a principal to help students and families get timely feedback that they're looking for on page 37 we added a gpa calculation worksheet for student self checks because that's uh something that students are very interested in
074in families especially upperclassmen and being able to go in and import your classes is something that can really help them along the way especially with regard to college planning process we added an internet safety section to just based on supporting student safety and some of the difficulties that we've seen our students um experience at the high school level we we wanted to address and acknowledge that uh link to the heist the athletic handbook which you'll hear a little more about shortly in our discipline code of conduct section we we added a statement on restorative practices to explain what that is and to reflect our current practice the tiered one through three infractions and consequences again is done in conjunction with gates middle school and is something that the we discussed last year in in a
075school committee meeting uh sharing and being more upfront of information and the levels of infractions and the types of consequences that that could uh result from certain behaviors and activities uh cell phones we just kind of clarified the consequences first offense second offense and the measures that we take to support students in responsible cell phone use and then our mask face covering addendum similar to to the middle school references the policy it is at the end of our handbook if something changes if school committee changes the policy that's something that we can very easily change i do have one uh missing on this list we have the updated school immunization requirements for 2021 uh 22 but they did not make it into the handbook and but it is the same as the middle school and
076we that would go uh right into page 24 under health services so i apologize for that error i'm going to pause for any questions before i turn it over to athletic director scott payne okay have any questions for dr maguire i have just one question dr mcguire about the extended absences of those um not including medical absences that's correct unexcused absences okay thank you i thought it was great at the beginning that you mentioned the student feedback that you've gotten on the handbook so i'm glad you're getting feedback from the students as you go through and build this out that's great to hear um and this might be more for superintendent burkhead but you know that classroom communication section might be something that's good that we look at as a district overall across all three
077uh school levels and put on our website somewhere just so it's easy for people to go and access if they do have a question on the best way to communicate out for any questions or concerns they have with their students certainly chairman long and i i want to follow up on your last point about the um putting up miss driscoll's presentation um we have been working on our website and look a new look and done a lot of great work last year uh miss emily matthews has been doing yeoman's work with kim peters and assisting us in doing that so i'm i'm happy to report that a lot of our community will be seeing changes in our website with more easy to access and user-friendly portals to gather all this information so the answer to
078that is yes we'll have certain segments and places people can go to get this information and we'll be sure to update this stuff from places where people can access this we do want the website to be our one-stop uh shop for everything and we want it to be user-friendly it's not there yet it's much improved from last year but it is a goal of us ours this year and i think you'll see um marked improvement um in in your ability to access all documents but in ease of understanding and navigation through the uh the website as well i i do have one question it's actually a great segway from dr mcguire to uh a.d pain um and i hope it's not a can of orange but do we know what our official logo is yeah
079because as i look at the um logo on the handbook uh it's the old school which i like uh how long i wanted to show it so this is the logo and that's the logo i was a 1990 graduate high school that was our logo i just don't know what our real logo is uh and i just you know point of i guess for discussion at some point in the future i don't know if this guy forget his name is our true logo or if we have a new logo just for something to discuss in the future that's the scituate sailor and he was there in 1987 too yeah but i don't ever see him anywhere else i don't think so i just again it doesn't really matter but i think that as a district
080we need to figure out who are you know not a can of worms but uh just be consistent in our logoing so from a marketing in an imaging and branding perspective you're absolutely right that um the scituate sailor is our logo and that's something that we are proud of and um and support um we have discussions every once in a while about whether the the sailor should be updated uh the kind of sailor to of today may look a little different than the traditional sailor but the the sailor is the high school logo um i believe that each school has their own logo within the district so that's um ours is the sailor okay great now again just something to mention because that i know that we see various ones across the district but he
081is a little difficult to embroider on uh some of our material some of our clothing materials but we do try to get him out in in print you mr gates if i can just follow up on that that was a question i asked too because i think each elementary has their own mascot if you will or logo uh the anchor was used last year in a lot of correspondence that i was familiar with the sailor is used so we we don't have a true uh one size fit all fits all at this point it did come up and has come up my response at the time was um when we're looking for that next controversial issue to tackle let's jump on that i think we have our hands full with those at during covid so
082we want to let that cool off before we get into that but it is on our radar and we are aware of it and you are 100 correct so at this point we don't want to rock the boat um no pun intended there and we're going to stick with what each school uses and people are comfortable with and at a later date that's certainly a conversation that we need to have to uh have a unified front on that and i think it would be a good opportunity for get the community involved as well but also respect tradition oh good i just happened to see it on the cover of the handbook and that's what made me think about it but no totally understand not a priority of any means thank you okay so doctor moriah
083do you want to turn over to uh i would like to do that yes thank you mr payne bottom left-hand corner there you go hi good evening everyone um just as a quick side note to um the logo conversation when i first got hired i went to rocklin athletics to get some um scituate apparel made and to have the uh sailor embroidered on my shirt versus the split scituate s was nine dollars more per shirt so i went with the split scituate s but i do understand that the uh the pirate is the logo of the high school um but in in a great scale that's a that's a mistake on my part i apologize i think mr payne forgot who's signing his checks now wide logo and i agree that that's something that you
084know maybe we can tackle down the road and have like a contest amongst the students to create a logo if we want to go away from the sailor but um so i i do understand that the sailor is the logo um at the high school um so regarding the the handbook i'll be completely honest with you um the handbook will be a a work in progress for me throughout the year uh i did make uh a few updates but they're they're minor it was more um names and email addresses and things like that i can look and go through page uh mr gates do you have that to bring it up to share i i i didn't sit yeah uh mr payne we didn't get the we did not get the um athletic handbook in
085our backup so if we need to vote that we have to do it on the 20th okay so i can do you want me to go through this there's only minor changes other than the fact that i removed the um covet 19 information that basically came from the miaa otherwise it was just basically um updating some links and changing uh the athletic director's name and email address but it is a document that i'm going to need to pay close attention to as we move through the year i already know that one major item that needs to be added to the handbook is how we proceed with adding teams and programs which i will work on that and that will be included in next year's handbook but other than that there were really no major changes
086and if i need to present it again at the next meeting that's fine okay yeah if you don't mind doing that i don't think that it's going to be really pressing between now and the 20th um if there is a superintendent can let us know and then i know uh was it last week you were approved by the board of selectmen as well for advertising at the fields um you might need something in the handbook on that as well just to make sure that that's clear for all the boosters i i i don't know that we will because that's just for this year or do you want it in this year's handbook is that industry 10 yeah okay all right that's fine you can always take it out next year if we need to but
087it should be clear in the handbook sure okay any other questions pertaining to that i would i just would like to note that um we're just under 400 fall athletes for the fall which uh i've been told i don't know for sure but um i've been told that maybe the highest number of fall athletes you've had in a very long time which is very promising to see that our kids are participating interactive and getting engaged yeah that's great to hear i'm glad students are able to get back into sports with uh through their schools i'm seeing no other questions from the rest of the committee i will um entertain a motion in order of how these were presented to approve the handbooks unless someone has any last questions or concerns so the first should be
088the elementary handbooks i'll uh make a motion to approve the uh situate elementary uh handbooks as i guess as presented it presented in our backup a second okay this is a roll call vote uh long yes lymphoma yes yes and brendolini yes we move on to the middle school handbook um make a motion to approve the uh gates middle school handbook 2021-2022 as presented in our backup a second all right we'll call vote again uh gates yes emblem yes uh long yes and brendolini yes okay and then finally the high school handbook i'll make a motion to approve the situate high school uh student handbook for year 2021 2022 as presented in our yes okay thank you um to all the principals for presenting tonight i'm sure there's a lot of hard work done by
089your stats as well so thank you for putting these together and um i'm glad you'll have them for the first facebook uh so moving on is the only opportunity for public comment uh from the uh people attending the meeting um if you want to use the reaction icon to raise their hand i will call on everyone in us and done mute and as always if you can speak state your name um in either address or school affiliation for the record so if you appreciate it uh the first person is m ramaphosa hi um first i wanted to welcome the uh new um um superintendent um i'm very excited to hear about your plans for improving the curriculum and you know you seem to have a clear plan and a vision which almost always ends up
090working out so i see that there's a good road ahead i just wanted to know i'm sorry before you keep going you might have cut out the beginning do you mind just saying your name and either address the school affiliation uh yeah it's michelle rama posha and i live on sedgwick i'm a heather lee jenkins gates scituate high school parent um i wanted to ask about um whether there is any plan to try to create a program like one that my oldest child had participated in which is where you high school seniors can attend their their senior year at a community college their classes are um you know they get college credit for those classes and usually the the college credit they receive can be used at state colleges um at least within the state
091so um that is one question the other question i have is whether there are any plans to create a virtual learning option um you know post-pandemic and also during pandemic um you know this is an option that worked really well for some students who have sensory issues and have trouble attending school have trouble with school refusal and this is a real issue for many students and and also obviously we may need to go remote and and so i wonder if there is some kind of plan in place or in case we do need to do that in case there are um you know there's this big spice spike in covid cases um so those are my two questions thank you uh we can definitely take that under um advice get back to you i right
092now i don't think the state is allowing a virtual learning option i think every school has to be in in person five days a week so that um at least during the pandemic i'm assuming the answer to that is no but we can we can talk about that and get your response all right the next person was laurie ricker hi thanks mike laurie with rose 62 and vinyl road i just wanted to also mention and give feedback on the first little presentation tonight on the curriculum i'm excited on what i heard tonight and sounds like miss driscoll is very data driven which i love so thank you very much for starting that conversation tonight and i really look forward to hearing more about that as the year goes on but that sounds great and i
093appreciate the work since you're only a month into this but i i can see that you're already working closely with mr burkhead and the other people on the staff so appreciate that curriculum focus that i think we we definitely need right now and i just want to say thank you [Music] great thank you and then the next person is kristin scott good evening kristen scott 93 lawson terrace i'll start off by saying i really appreciate miss driscoll's you know motivation that she expressed tonight i'm really encouraged by what sounds like a very strong commitment it's very refreshing to hear i also appreciate mr brookhead acknowledging you know somewhat of a lack of confidence parents are having in our curriculum today i have very high hopes of having that confidence restored as soon as possible i
094was doing some reading about our school system and how we compare to others the u.s news and world report ranked you know the public schools throughout the commonwealth in 2019 situat ranked 40th this year we we ranked 102. um you know sliding from a ranking of 40th in the state to 102 should resonate with with everybody on the call you know to add greater perspective this year norwell ranked 22nd cohasset 33 duxbury 41 hingham 55 and lastly hull ranking at 101 so again scituate ranks at 102 which is just below where hell is ranking at 101. you know i'm not particularly interested in an explanation how we slid from the ranking of 40 to 102 but i am entirely interested in i guess seeing those numbers reversed as quickly as possible i think our family
095like the majority of uh those on this call you know chose situate almost exclusively because of its school system and i've expressed some concern in the past about you know other focuses kind of taking away from the valuable academic time i'd like to see you know other focuses and academic excellence i guess achieved simultaneously but i am lacking faith and looking to have that faith restored again you know i'm really counting on mr skull and her leadership alongside the rest of you i feel like we're adding agendas and goals to the classroom but we're not adding time to the day so i'm trying to figure out how we accomplish all this at once um and i guess i would encourage all parents to pay attention to the performance of our schools you know and hold
096your standards where where they were i guess when you originally sought out so to it as a town for your family um you know these are our tax dollars and we are the ultimate stakeholders as parents nobody we have a great team you know leading our such a public schools but nobody's looking out for our children the way that we are so i would i would urge all of us to feel empowered by that and hold our system standards you know as high as they were the day that we moved to scituate thank you great uh thank you for your comments and i completely agree with your last point about making sure the parents hold the schools and the school committee accountable um you know we've heard a lot from parents and families over the
097past year especially when these meetings are more remote and it used to be we might have two people at a school committee meeting and no one paying attention so i completely read your last comment about reaching out especially if they either have any questions or concerns or concerns um on our district or what we sent thank you uh the next person was tom esch yeah hi there uh tom esch we have a rising third grader at cushing um i just want to say i thought uh ms driscoll did a great job in her presentation um and i'm i'm especially encouraged by the um the the acceleration academies i think that's hugely important uh with with an eye toward inclusivity in terms of bringing kids up to speed but also it sounds as though there may
098be some room for other kinds of opportunities for kids seeking additional uh additional opportunities above and beyond what they've seen and i think that's a tremendous development and um i applaud i applaud ms driscoll and all involved for uh for for including that i think it's great thanks great thank you uh and then the next person is paul scott um yes thank you uh chairman um i just wanted to follow up on i've got a uh going to be a fifth and third grader at uh cushing and you know i looked at the numbers that the kristen scott talked about about the ranking of scituate schools and i i dug a little deeper and i i think i echo everybody's opinion about uh assistant superintendent driscoll and her love of data and love with numbers
099um i think a lot of the terms that get thrown out there about systematic racism and critical race theory and dei and things like that can be you know subjective misinterpreted and so on but i think data and numbers really do tell a story in most cases so you know i looked at the 102 ranking that scituate has in and you know i'm looking at it and i see under math and reading performance rank and our our ranking is 239 and that's out of approximately 340 public schools in massachusetts um you know some of the the numbers graduation rate you know scituate typically relatively affluent community uh primarily two parent homes kids are gonna graduate you know we're not small towns out in western mass where kids may not graduate because they go to work
100or they they join their parents in a business so some of those things are demographics but seeing our ranking at 239 for math and reading performance in all honesty scares the heck out of me um so i i certainly hope that you know this this assessment that that superintendent driscoll talked about the needs assessment um sounds like a great idea because we clearly need either a needs assessment or a reassessment i'm somewhat have some questions about whether or not why this needs assessment hasn't been done the last couple of years but i guess better late than never i did have and i know this isn't question and answer but i was curious about i i've heard you know secondhand people talking at the coffee shop about some changes that were planned in the curriculum for
101this upcoming school year um and and i don't know if the super assistant superintendent driscoll wants to address this or not but were there some changes that were scheduled to be implemented that that now have been put on hold due to this needs assessment um and if so what what were those changes going to be and and i guess why why aren't they being implemented um but again i i realize it's not a question and answer but um again i appreciate learning a little bit about the curriculum tonight i look forward to more transparency and parents just at least being aware of what their kids are being taught how it's being taught so they can be really good discussions and at the end of the day we can all accomplish what we want which is
102to have the best school system possible have the greatest kids possible and so i appreciate the time tonight okay great thank you mr scott we can definitely take those questions away okay so seeing no other hands raised we'll move on in the agenda um the next item in the agenda is the acceptance of minutes we had minutes from the august 9th and august 16th meetings there's no questions or issues in the minute i'll entertain a motion on both of those i'll make a motion to accept the minutes of the august 9th 2021 school committee meeting second okay are you a roll call vote uh long yes gates yeah lim bond yes and yes okay then is your emotion to be august 16th sentence um i'll make a motion to accept the minutes of the august
10316 2021 school committee meeting second okay thank you uh uh gates yes uh brendoling yes and long yeah okay thank you um so in terms of correspondence i believe last thursday uh computer sent the four of us the backup to the um joint board of selectmen meeting to appoint a new school committee member um all three of you should have had that but um if you didn't let me know and i'll make sure kim gets it to you um it was the only correspondence that i saw so move on to warrants with dr dutch so you have one warrant in your packet this evening it's warren s210819 for a total amount of 191 557.78 those items of note outside of our local budget through in the revolving accounts through the school lunch account thousand three
104hundred and seventy five dollars for exhaust cleaning which is an annual uh process the idea grant the special ed grant four thousand one hundred and seventy dollars from the circuit breaker account 35 000 which is for tuition for student through the uh covid fund the coronavirus relief fund 19 214 dollars and five cents for wilson language um and then in our lea budget those uh accounts that had significant expenditures private school tuition sixty four thousand five hundred and seventy six dollars and sixty six cents uh one payment to cardinal payment to cardinal cushing and to the grove school uh to collaboratives the pilgrim collaborative specifically ten thousand one hundred and forty seven dollars and fifty cents social studies textbooks eleven thousand seven hundred ninety five dollars and sixty three cents those were for new textbooks
105specifically the ap psychology course [Music] and those are those are all your significant expenditures again happy to answer any questions if you have any any questions from the clinic thank you amen uh superintendent i see your androids you have a comment uh yes thank you truman long i just wanted to uh follow up on the public comment and one of our other focuses on being a great district is is communication and healthy communication so i think there's a lot of common ground in those public comments certainly agree with pretty much everything that was said um one thing i do want to just follow up on is is please reach out to us our emails are up on the website um if you're not sure who to go to the rule of thumb is if it's
106a classroom issue whether it's curriculum or things it goes to the teacher we haven't started school so that probably doesn't apply yet if it's something on the bigger scope of i know mr scott had mentioned he had heard some things about curriculum and things we can certainly answer those specific questions so there's now you know hearing it from the horse's mouth type of thing so they if people can reach out to me and i can direct them to the right person and whether it's miss driscoll or the principals um so we ask that um people just just contact us we'll be happy to give you the honest truth we've um we want to show our works and all and that's how you start to get to be great is to to brag about what you're
107really good at and continue to do that but also to be transparent about what needs fixing and how we're going to go about doing it without blaming people but just getting the right people in the right places and getting the right input so i think that's we're all about and it starts with good communication and honesty so for those folks that are listening tonight or we'll see this later please reach out directly to us um and if right now if it's a general question on curriculum that was a good topic tonight it will be ongoing and certainly something we're focusing on um you know reach out to myself or mrs driscoll and we'll direct you in the right spot to get those questions answered so you hear it from us and you're up to speed
108on exactly what's happening um within our district thank you great thank you for writing that okay now is there any other business that the school committee wanted to bring up tonight i just have a quick comment to also um mr long to kind of piggyback off what mr burkhead said i i think uh when heidi mr school just presented the explanation just those quick little uh you know here's the difference between standards curriculum and lessons and here's how it breaks down i think that's really helpful for parents and community members to hear you know education's different than you know a lot of different types of work i mean there's lots of different layers and i guess for lack of a better word red tape that and considerations that go into changes and budgets and yearly
109cycles on things and how things need to proceed and special education considerations and such a large machine to make changes in so i think um any time oh sorry everybody that anytime we can have those sort of explanations of what because it's like we drop our kids off at the door say goodbye have a good day and then you know it things like that kind of trickle out what you who not who really knows what you know goes on so to speak so i think it's nice to have explanations of you know how that kind of breaks down standards curriculum lessons so any time we can get a little education piece ourselves as parents and community members i i think is appreciated um on many levels and you know just going forward too i just
110want to make mention for our community just to keep in mind too here i mean we have we have a super a brand new superintendent going into year two a brand new assistant superintendent brand new director of dei brand new business and finance director brand new special education director and you know pretty fairly young now they're getting there they're all pretty settled uh principals and so i think we're in a really good place for some amazing changes for our district and i i think i i'm very excited as a parent and school committee member to see um how we kind of accelerate into the future so i think this is a really great time for first scituate i'm going to mute before leo comes on and crashes us again some great points thanks nicole i
111do want to thank miss brandolini the last time although it was included in the group i was called young it was it was a long time ago so uh thank you i was just i was going to echo what miss bernalillo said too i mean part of you know our main responsibilities as a school committee is to hire a superintendent and and to approve the budget and just to echo what nicole said we have a very new team to the district and that's part of our doing and this is you know our our reputations are on the line too so i would echo ms brinley i'm very excited about the future um the past is the past and now we're looking forward and we're going to be positive and i think we have the right
112people in in the in the right spot so as a parent as a school committee member i'm very excited um hopefully we can get this covered behind us and we can let our leaders really do what they do best and uh and have the best school district in the world so i want to mention that as well could i chime into mike i i think one of the um you know we've had a lot of questions about curriculum and what we're teaching and i think one of the most important links that mr school will have it put in the presentation is the link to desi and they um you know that's where it all starts and anybody has any questions about what we're teaching start at the desi website and if you can you know
113try to navigate that great and if you have questions you know everybody's happy to respond and we're hoping totally transparent of what what's going on in the classrooms and i think that transparency is key we're a public school committee school board representing a public school for the community so you know we want to be as transparent as open with everything going on inside the schools as possible whether that's doing email or through conversations in the street or whatever you know we want to make sure that gets out uh so in terms of future um agenda items so our next schedule meetings are actually september 8th and 9th where we will have the joint interviews of a replacement for mr hayes with the board of selectmen um on 9 15 we will appoint a new school
114committee member again with the board of selectmen unless i heard all five members of the board of selectmen planning on attending those interviews and appointment process which is great to hear um and then our next scheduled actual school committee meeting will be september 20th which will also include that new uh school committee member um using nothing else on the agenda and no other comments or questions from the school committee we do have an executive session plan tonight we will not be returning to open session after that and the reason we'll be moving into executive sessions for reason number three to discuss strategy with respect to reflective bargaining since an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining bargaining of the public body and i the chair declare that an executive session is necessary
115to protect the bargaining position of the body so this time i will entertain a motion to enter executive session without returning to um open meeting still move for a second a second okay uh children roll call vote uh long yes gates yes pilot limbo yes and brendolini yes uh thank you everyone for coming tonight we'll see you at our next meeting mike i asked uh dr dutch to join us uh join us if that's okay okay thank you i apologize the boys have football practice like every night as long as you kick them out for executive session okay we'll wait i'm sorry just let's wait here a second yep there we go