Scituate School Committee Meeting - 07/19/2021

001mr long you are good to go awesome thank you sir uh good evening everybody i'd like to call the july 19 2021 citrus school committee meeting to order uh in response to governor baker's declaration of a public health emergency and the related emergency executive order dated march 12th 2020 uh tennessee republican meetings shall meet remotely until further notice this meeting will be recorded and will be posted following the meeting public comment will be made available through the zoom um the trap has functionality has been disabled and community members can also email me at femlongatsit.org and i know this isn't in that little blurb at the beginning but i do want to point out that any text received by the school committee or members of the administration related to school committee business during this meeting would

002be considered public record um i just want to make sure people are aware of that so do a roll call vote to begin the meeting uh brendolini yes uh okay yes hey yes yes and long yes all right uh so the first item on the agenda is the superintendent's evaluation so one of the major roles that the school committee has is not only hiring the superintendent but also giving him an annual review the superintendent is the only school employee that reports directly to the school committee and because everything we do has to be in a public meeting his review is done publicly um so on june 21st superintendent brookhead had provided his personal evaluation to the school committee via email we reviewed it each uh the template that he uses based on information that is

003a template that he received from the state uh so he follows that evaluation going through the different mark sections and rates himself based on the work he did throughout the year he then provides any backup that he has related to the to the review the school committee then uses the same template each member of the school committee provides their own individual evaluation of the superintendent and then one person typically the chair puts that information together and provides a cumulative review for the superintendent to um to receive and receive feedback on through the school committee tonight um so what i'm going to do is i'm going to share my screen in a moment and walk through the different sections of that evaluation um i'll stop after each section for the school committee to be able to

004weigh in or write any comments that i either didn't focus on or you know that they wanted to bring up each section and then we'll continue to go through uh can everybody see my screen yes yes perfect thank you uh so for each of the the progress goals um as you can see there are five options that we have to rate the superintendent did not meet some progress significant progress met and exceeded the three progress toward goals that we had for the superintendent were professional practice goals student learning and district improvement goals and all um you know all four were determined to have been met uh what i did for each of the rankings as we go through the evaluation is i took the each individual ranking that the school committee members had i put

005them together and most of them were five to zero or four to one if there was a case where it was three had one specific rating and two had a different i took the one that had the majority uh but overall things were pretty consistent across the school committee uh there were four standards that we uh also assessed the superintendent on based on unsatisfactory needs improvement proficient or exemplary um exemplary pretty much means that the school uh the superintendent had to go above and beyond to meet that ranking and even though it says proficient uh proficient actually means that he not only did the the job but did it well uh so it was kind of a misnomer that we've mentioned in the past the proficient is not just he met the goals but he

006he also uh exceeded them in some cases uh so the standards of instructional leadership management and operations and professional culture uh the superintendent was ranked as proficient and for family and community engagement he was ranked as exemplary the overall summative performance of the superintendent was ranked as proficient um what i did for each section as i go through the comments um i pretty much just copied and pasted the information from each school committee member i wanted to make sure that the voice of each school committee member was heard and it wasn't just me either assuming what was meant or um you know taking anything out of context so what you see in each section is really just the exact words coming out of the um each member of the school committee um some of the

007highlights i might not read every everything on the screen but uh superintendent brooke took on the challenge of leading our district right after cover 19 with confidence positivity open-minded open-mindedness collaboration and grit he's willing to take on the tough conversations with staff faculty school committee members parents and community members while also centering on what is best for all students um shortly after his formal hiring superintendent was gathering information asking questions forming relationships with the town of the district and getting to work on his priorities so clearly um defined throughout the interview process we saw that very early on when we would have four to five hundred people at a school committee meeting last summer um you know give me several q and a's that are that the superintendent did to discuss how we were moving

008forward um returning to school through covet um and those were obviously well received by the by the district one of the most important tasks and one of the primary reasons for hiring bill was that he could attract the most qualified and talented staff to our district uh this proved true as he began the process of building a world-class team through his first days on the job while having a hand in hiring uh pretty much our entire administration team the new business director special educator and two district principals bill's a man of his word and a leader that is a perfect fit for scituate's public schools um superintendent burkhead brought tough district leadership and medical personnel um brought together district leadership and medical personnel who ensure the safety of our students his work with the medical

009advisory council brought trust and support from the community uh he met with the community within his first several months of being in scituate to answer questions on our return to school last september um and always made decisions based on the best medical opinion and advice of the time and not based on emotion of staff in the community his approach allowed us to open in a hybrid model move to a full person approach ahead of the state deadline and keep our students and staff safe before i go into the next section with the performance goals is there anything that any members of the school committee want to add i'm all set mike i just want to make a comment um just to kind of reiterate all of those comments too just i can't imagine what it

010was like to start a new job at the beginning upper climb of a pandemic and one that involves children and safety and and just the sort of unknown factors and try to get an acclimate to a district and meet everybody without being able to be in person and only seeing people's eyes for a few months and and just trying to connect with people i think that was that bill really um i mean it couldn't have been better honestly like i admire all the hard work and um just he was it seemed like he did it with ease in a way just um his personability level was just um so high that it really was um kind of like if you i when i was reflecting on that i was just thinking about how just crazy

011it was to start a job like this in this kind of a position during a pandemic is just uh pretty amazing yeah mike i would um i would echo the same sentiment uh as nicole i think that um i mean even from a school perspective we interviewed bill and went through the whole process without meeting any of these candidates in person uh and to this day i infamously met bill for the first time at our town meeting and called them somebody else i didn't even know it was him um but just i think it's important as nicole said to you know in our reflections of this that we hired bill to be our superintendent we never i don't think well i did not anticipate that this pandemic was going to impact us in such a

012way through through our through you know through even now and maybe potentially into next year um so the fact that bill was able to navigate us through the pandemic as well as as he did uh by also focusing on you know the educational needs of of our kids i think that he did a phenomenal job and as i as i mentioned several times throughout my written evaluation i think that the district is very lucky to have bill as our superintendent all right what's up let's move on to the next page regarding the performance goals um this is a student learning goal to develop and execute effective plans procedures and operational systems to address the flooring of safe the health and emotional needs of students the professional practice goal to participate and complete year one of

013the math new superintendent induction program and then a district improvement goal to ensure the policies and practices enable staff members and students to interact effectively in a culturally diverse environment in which students backgrounds strengths and challenges are respected there are several focus indicators for each goal which are below that and for each of these goals the superintendent was ranked as a head of ranking of met meeting those goals in terms of instructional leadership so these are just some of the indicators below i'm not going to go through each section but it's based on curriculum instruction assessment evaluation data informed decision making and student learning and for the overall ranking of this instructional leadership standard the superintendent was not with the ranking of uh at a ranking of proficient uh some of the comments in this

014section uh superintendent burkett is committed to holding all staff to a standard of excellence that would only continue to enhance svs much effort was placed on how to execute lessons assessments and overall student learning through a remote or hybrid model some of the comments around curriculum did state that our district had significant work ahead in curriculum instruction rigor content structure engaging with students and assessing and measuring student growth needs to be a central focus moving forward i know we've you know the superintendent and i have talked about that a lot and we're planning on having a lot of curriculum uh discussion in our school committee meeting starting in august but that's some of the feedback received so far uh superintendent burke had used his first year to review the past and current practices of the

015district formulate plans and and formulate plans on how he wants to move the district forward uh from early on his mantra of being the best best district in the world has come through the presentations and the work he has shared with the staff the community and the school committee data is a key component of measuring all that our students and staff are doing in dealing with the pandemic data in regard to the number of cases and spread within the district in the community were first and foremost in all this decisions uh as a first year superintendent bill acknowledged the areas that need to improve such as mcas diversity equity and inclusion or overall district ratings um and then supernatural brokerage will continue to address concerns of handling uh teacher and student issues within our schools

016bill's work has shown progress in his first year but this will be ongoing in the future so before i move on to standard two any additional comments from the school committee i have a comment mike right um so i i wrestled with this this was the section that i wrestled the most with in terms of rating but um i decided to go on a more sort of stern approach so i did um in my my review put a lot of needs improvements in this section and um i did just want to go on the record to say and i know i said it in some of my comments stuff but um you know it feels a little unfair because a lot of this is you know bill coming into things that were already on the

017radar that needed improvement and then of course with cova 19 it was you can't really it all had to be not back burnered but not the main focus um obviously getting kids back in school was the main focus that's what you know we needed to do so i i felt a little bit harsh to a degree reporting needs improvement when it wasn't as if his performance was laughing in any way but i sort of did it in a way of doubling down on how important it is in my opinion that we strengthen those areas and i recognize that we're already on the road to that with the hiring of our new assistant superintendent and all the work that's going on in that area so i'm confident that um we have literally nowhere to go but

018up in this area but um i just wanted to i kind of did the harsh rating just to drive the point home but i don't really feel it's a full scope detailed assessment of bill's capabilities in that area at all so that's my clarification on my my rating for that area and mike if i may i'd just like to concur with nicole uh 100 that uh this is the one area of of the evaluation in my opinion that reflects more of the state of the school system than it does bill's performance in his first year and which i found was exemplary [Music] and uh we're very lucky to have him but i do agree that um these are things that bill can't fix or make an impact on in in nine months so and i'm

019sure this will be a place in the future where uh scituate will grow and and get better so because of his leadership so yeah uh mike i would could you just scroll up a little bit on the evaluation just to see the titling of this just so that um yeah so i think i would agree with what mike and nicole said um i think it's a little and mike you did say the intro of this i think it's important for those that are listening i know that the school committee understands but this is the this is the desi superintendent evaluation document that is generally used to to complete these evaluations and i think this instructional leadership category is a little bit a little bit unfair for the reasons that were previously stated but also i

020feel maybe fall a little bit under the assistant superintendents you know to some degree um so i also wanted to say that you know where i rated and needs improvement it was simply for exactly what nicole said um very i think it's very unfair um to hold uh build to this standard particularly in this in this year of the pandemic when you know focus was really on getting kids back into school and um i think that based upon all the criteria everything i was up against you know ultimately led me to that as well and also i think that um you know i think as a first year superintendent i know that we we had some training on how to complete an evaluation and i think it's it's oftentimes even rare to have a first-year

021superintendent receive proficient or exemplary in every category um again it's a first-year superintendent being graded against everybody um so even though needs improvement sounds like a not a very positive rating it actually is fairly in line with what you know probably a good percentage of the first year superintendents receive across so um again to echo what um mike and nicole said i struggled with this but i felt like this is the place that that if anything needed improvement this was the one error that we could you know focus on maybe in the coming years i think that those balls are already in place all right good point uh so standard two was related to management and operations uh the indicators here were related to environment human resources management development scheduling and management information systems law

022effective policies and fiscal systems so as you can see superintendent broke i've got exemplary for two of these proficient for three and then an overall rating of proficient uh for this standard and some of the comments uh there superintendent sarkad led with confidence transparency and the health safety and emotional well-being of all students and staff at the forefront of his decision making he was able to improve working conditions at our aging elementary schools in preparation of hybrid learning and covert mitigation he was committed to ensuring the safety of all staff and students and his standards for new hires as a two new staff in the district will continue his standards of excellence because we have a number of aging buildings in our districts if there was a paramount concern a superintendent burke had entered the

023district his work with the staff to use the funds received through the cares act uh and demonstrate the benefit to our school buildings helped garner the support required to return to school in a hybrid model superintendent burke has showed his determination to work through a problem to its conclusion and continue to review it even though it is completed so the past issues did not reoccur and then relative to managing the inherited budget in the midst of a pandemic superintendent burka did a great job he did make a bold move and asking the town to cover the expenses for cold state kindergarten which we received through to our meeting and as a typical bill he relies on his experts to provide feedback and advice on how best to proceed i think we saw this year coming

024out of the budget session in february there's a lot of strong feedback on the level of detail that was provided and the amount of information that we received i think that speaks well to what um you know superintendent burkhead's approach towards the budget as well as you know his hiring of dr dutch and helping run the budget and the finance piece of the district really uh showing an improvement in what we've seen in the past um and then obviously using the cares act money you know we used every penny and we went a little bit over but at the same time we you know really made it safe for our staff and students to come back to the school to school versus a um in a hybrid model then being able to be there full

025time with uh very few if any case covert cases coming from the schools themselves and our numbers being good for our staff and students throughout the year uh so before i move on are there any other additional comments in the school committee okay none here in that case i'll move on to standard three which is family and community engagement uh the indicators there were engagement sharing responsibility communication and family concerns uh for this uh sharing responsibility had a rating of proficient and everything else had a rating of exemplary which is why the overall rating was uh exemplary for this section some of the comments received uh superintendent burka's communication with the school community helped ease fears and educated parents and guardians on the constant changes by the cdc and dusty guidelines his third thursday thoughts

026newsletter kept the community up to date and informed community communication our district has never been better through the thursday thoughts memos that the school committee receives on fridays and then timely thoughtful responses to emails forums for community members and caregivers during the pandemic and local professionals this was an area of strength and positive culture building the superintendent had a great mentality of go slow to go fast and being safe and strong he was able to move the district to a full day kindergarten free fall day kindergarten for all students um [Music] and then because we had a number of asian buildings in our district uh he had a continual review of our buildings throughout the year and also provided the town and committee with the assurances of safety in our schools um he showed his

027determination to work through a problem to its conclusion and continue to review it um and then family and community engagement one of the most important aspects of successful working [Music] uh through the school year the school committee made it very clear to superintendent burkhead at his time of power the transparency and communication will remain priority we've seen that throughout the school year in the first school committee meeting where he answered hours of questions from the public to the ongoing engagement the district was well informed of all that was going on and then superintendent burkhead was constantly addressing family concerns in an effective manner we had evidence of this in his weekly school committee updates and it seemed as though we could not go more than a few days about someone expressing a concern they'll never

028let it just bother him and continue to stress his enthusiasm is free and contagious and then again the district is very fortunate that superintendent broke at the helm as his family community engagement second to them uh any other comments from the school committee on standard three almost yeah i don't know how i don't know how we could say how we can be more positive i think this was superintendent burkett really i mean again i i'm the one that says we're lucky to have him because i truly think we are um everything i go back to our peter i think we lost you and he did exactly what he said he did even better so just want to echo everything here and say this is a great great positive for the district all right uh peter

029you cut out after what your first sentence and then we only had the last two sentences all right well we're just i i would say that um what i said is that our priority or the school committee's priority is to hire a superintendent and throughout the process um we learned how great of a leader bill is and and i think in his interview process he explained how he's transparent how he communicates and that's one main reason that we did hire him um so he exemplified that and you know exceeded our our expectations in most cases and i think did a fantastic job okay so moving on to standard four professional culture so the indicators that he was ranked on were commitment to high standards cultural proficiency communication continuous learning shared vision uh managing conflict so

030uh for commitment to high standards he was he's exemplary and for the other standards indicators he received a rating of proficient for an overall rating proficient for standard four and then for the comments since superintendent brooke is hiring last year he has repeated his commitment to scituate being the best district in the world his membership in nsip allows continued learning and his commitment to his own professional growth he appears to be a fair compassionate and unwavering leader and will make difficult choices if it is in the best interest of the district uh superintendent burke has worked diligently to create a new professional culture doing so during a hybrid learning environment in unique years noteworthy um spokane members school committee members saw many positive changes happening in the public schools in terms of culture or renewed

031commitment focused on high standards for all students in a respectful environment where everyone's backgrounds strengths identities and challenges were respected using the assets of central public schools especially teachers and department heads superintendent of burkitt gave us to have confidence in the direction the district is moving forward in uh the emphasis on dei and the hiring of the dei coordinator makes cetera public schools a leader in moving forward to a more rational caring and equitable place equitable place to learn truth and the skills for a changing world actually works i'm sorry managing conflict was a regular occurrence throughout the year uh there's no way to receive consensus in a district of three hundred three thousand students uh but superintendent burke had found a way to treat each situation in the best possible manner again by collaborating

032with all parties involved as well as our legal councilman necessary for conflict resolution which was done constructively while navigating the district through the pandemic he's able to participate and contribute to this rigorous program and then superintendent burkhad walked into the district with confidence and strength strength to not waver from a strong moral compass he's worked collaboratively with the staff in the town of scituate to address the needs of our schools he's first give credit to the people he works with and quickly to take responsibility when things go poorly every aspect of the work is done is the best interest of our students and staff superintendent burkhead understands the amount of work that is required to keep the district stagnant and as a direction moving into the next year that will put in the additional effort

033they'll move our district towards being the best in the world any additional comments from the school grade on this section or anything overall with this evaluation um i would just so this is the end evaluation i would just say again mike um i just want to make it very clear from my perspective um and reader a couple things our job as a school committee our primary job and i'll take this from mr hayes is to hire a superintendent and um i think that we did a fantastic job so i want to congratulate all of us for that um i also want to thank superintendent burkin for all the work he's done again he put a tremendous interview packet together he did everything and more than he promised and again i don't think any of us

034expected that this pandemic was going to continue so i want to thank superintendent for all superintendent burkett for all that he's done thank the school committee for um voting to hire him and hope that we can uh navigate next year um as well as we did this year so thank you and and i'll just add on top of that peter that you know yes the school committee was the one that ultimately hired superintendent parkhead but there's a lot of positive feedback coming from his old district um as well as from our district our our families our staff that helped make that decision uh very easy to make last year and i'll add two i don't know which one of my school committee colleagues comments included the part about um how superintendent brookhead is the first

035to kind of give credit and then also to um you know double back and then you know take responsibility for things but i think that's one of the key um parts to success and in building a strong team and i think that's one of his top strengths so um you know that's what matters i think he's just um an all-around good person and he's uh you know setting a standard for the students to you know to see what good leadership looks like and i think that's what counts when it's the at the end of the day it's about the kids so um just modeling that for them is uh goes so far um i'd like to just just comment that i go back to the interview process when we had to interview we spoke to

036people from bill's old district and i just one thing that was said to us was um you're crazy if you don't hire him and um that it's really one of the best decisions we've ever made and also you know for um the community you know i had a parent thank me for hiring him because it's it's just been so great and the confidence that he he has especially this past year i think has helped everybody deal with this you know what everybody what we went through last year just his confidence with the decisions and the communication being key has helped so tremendously that was the easiest section of the whole evaluation the community engagement so thank you bill and i'll just say one more thing mike if i may and very quickly is we're lucky

037to have bill and uh we will keep getting better uh with him as our leader uh so superintendent burkhardt this is your formal public review do you have any comments you want to make before we uh just vote to accept it uh yes thank you and um first of all just to comment on miss uh lindelof's comment about the monomoy folks saying uh you're crazy if you don't hire him i think that was because they wanted to get rid of me but i'm glad i landed here and um kidding i i i thought um i want to thank you all uh personally for the feedback i know uh writing these evaluations myself over the years i know it takes a lot of time and effort thought and um i will take every word to heart

038it motivates me to improve and to be better so thank you you know miss brindlini brought up the needs improvement i think it's spot on i think it's an area that i can improve on and that we all can improve on and i think doing this publicly reflects on you know what we want to model for everybody that we can all be better and i certainly will uh strive to do that and again motivated tonight by your feedback also just want to bring up one of the points that was talked about that's you know scituate's lucky to have me and after being here for a year i'd like to just kind of reciprocate that and that um scituate's perfect for me after being here for a year i now know that that this is where

039i was destined to be and you know my heart's really you know here and um we went through a lot together and i know some of it became cliche that we're stronger together but after living it for a year and living those very challenging times we all went through it nobody had it harder than anyone else i don't think we all had extremely hard um but we pulled through and scituates just a really really great place to be i was really treated with a lot of uh respect open-mindedness um you know so i i really love being here so i want to thank the school committee for all your efforts and feedback and help through the year we couldn't have done it without you you don't get paid and you do this job and i

040don't think it's ever been hired for school committees so kudos to you for stepping up and having the courage to uh hold the position you do and to do so well and so it makes my job a lot better when you push and challenge me and hold me accountable um but also stand strong on your moral compasses so thank you i'd also like to um you nailed it in your evaluation that i'm just a reflection i believe this uh evaluation is a reflection of our district mostly the good parts all the good parts the administration team we have are second to none the teachers as advertised are the best in the state the students are just fabulous getting through a year having to wear masks and put up with the rules and the changes and

041i'll include the families as well no higher year on the families we can all discuss how tough it was for us as administrators and staff and teachers uh but i think it was really hard for the kids and for the families i personally want to thank all of you community members uh and families for accepting me and welcoming in this first year i'm no longer a rookie i can remember the days when uh chairman gates at the time would uh each meeting would say okay this is bill's uh 17th day 31st day and so now i lost count but it's into year two um i also want to thank the local town officials uh you know the town administrator the select board everybody in the community advisory committee all those folks have made uh you

042know life easier for me by being just good people and working together for the common goal of kids i think that's ultimately what we're here for is to do what's best for kids treat them like they were our own and that's what i think we did as a community i'll steal a phrase from my friend mr adams that it's we not me we use those terms very specifically in our conversations we use those pronouns of us and not i and we and not me on purpose because no one does this job themselves but it does start in our classrooms in the trenches with our staff and our teachers and our parents our bus drivers and custodians and it works all the way up through our administrative team uh who leads with their vision and i

043know they're working hard uh just know and i'll stop talking after this that we are already working hard this summer uh that to be the best district in the world uh like billy belichick once said there's no days off even though i did get a few days off it rained although my tin would reflect otherwise so um just conclude by saying i love it here i look forward to next year i'm extremely excited no matter what is thrown at us i think it couldn't be more challenging than it was this year although it's always tough it's always a hard job that we all have so again thank you and just know that the work is endless and be the best district in the world is our goal and i do think we took a giant

044step towards that this year we have a long way to go but it's going to be fun getting there so again thank you all right thank you superintendent brooke i think you hit it dead on you know we're getting rid of it you're getting right back to work you're ready to move forward and you know you're not going to rest on this you're going to continue to push yourself and your staff and we look forward to what's going to come out over the next the next year um and before we vote this just for the rest of the school committee so i know last year we met um with a representative from mask and we went over the goals for the this current year um you know as we go through we start looking at

045our goals for the next or the upcoming school year um if people want to we can do the same thing again this year i can reach out to mask find some dates we can try to have a working session again like we did last time and just set those goals for for the coming year both for the superintendent as well as for the school committee so this time i will entertain a motion to accept the uh evaluation make a motion to accept the uh superintendent evaluation for the school year uh 2021 and uh as presented a second okay uh it's a roll call vote uh long yes cakes yes limbo yes uh brendolini yes and hey yes uh so bill i have uh several copies of the evaluation and the cumulative so i'll bring those

046in and hand them into kim later this week thank you mr long okay uh so moving forward in the agenda the next item is the contract extension with murphy lemire and murphy pc uh so as mr gates pointed out in our one of our last meetings uh our contract with our legal console expired on june 30th obviously they have extended work with us so there's been no drop off of service but we do have so i'd reached out to the law firm they were able to provide um an updated agreement starting on july 1st going through june 30th of next year i won't go through the entire document which i do have up just for members of the committee to see um the only things that changed so the overall cost went up from 200

047an hour to 210 an hour that was you know the standard rate increase for all of their their clients um and then after talking to super tenant burkhead we had decided to do a one-year agreement to move forward and um you know re-evaluate next spring and then come up with you know confirm whether we extend the contract for one or multiple years or uh look elsewhere um i will say personally dealing with this law firm over the course of the past year they've been great to work with um assuming this is approved look forward to working them throughout this calendar year as well are there any questions from the committee and i will also add that i already talked to kim and there's a draft agenda for next may to uh include extending the contract

048again so we get it done before june 30th uh since there's no questions or comments i'll entertain a motion to accept the um agreement so move second uh roll call vote uh linglon yes hey yes was that hayes or gates yes uh brindley yes and long yes okay uh so next on the agenda we have an acceptance of a gift to heatherly school so i'll turn it over to uh principal award thank you very much um yes i wanted to just bring to your attention that we had a family step forward they have um donated 500 dollars to go towards the hathaway school the only um stipulation that they have asked is that we have the teachers that their children have had be part of the decision making on how to use that money this

049family had three students go through the hadley school and the last of them have just left to head off to gates they have asked though that it is an anonymous donation i did that the superintendent's office know who it is um but i would ask tonight that i am able to accept that on behalf of the hadley school and those teachers can work together to use that money wisely okay great thank you for presenting that principle award um if there are no questions is there a motion from the committee to accept with pleasure as presented wait a second okay thank you uh mr hayes yes uh gates yes uh long yes brandolini yes and uh yes okay great and thank you very much i'm sure that family might be watching so just in case i

050want to make sure i say to them that we although we can't say who you are we are extremely grateful thank you i'm sure it'll be put to good use by the teachers as well okay so at this time we have our first and only opportunity for public comment as part of this meeting if people want to raise their hands i can ask you to unmute to uh speak uh the one thing i am going to say because in other issues in one of our prior meetings um you know we expect kindness and respect as people go through and make their their comments to the school committee um and then topics for discussion should be limited to those within the school committee scope of authority which is the budget uh superintendent's performance and the educational

051goals and policies of the district if people do have questions outside of that they want to raise they can either email the administration directly or feel free to um email the school clinic uh so the first person is alexa houghton all right there we go um i just wanted to take a moment to thank superintendent barkley i'm sorry sorry alex did you mind just saying your name and address oh sorry uh alexa houghton 28 hatchet rock road um i just wanted to take a moment to thank superintendent burkhead for his continued commitment um to our students our families our teachers uh and admin and staff um personally over this year i've had a number of times that i've had to email him with questions um and he's con i'm continually blown away by not only

052how quickly he will get back to you but also um how thoughtful his responses are um i know it's been a really tough year on many levels and i just wanted to let you know superintendent burkhead um that your dedication your transparency and your leadership are very much appreciated um we are very grateful thank you great thank you uh the next person is miller k11 if you don't mind saying your name and address for the record hi my name is can you hear me oh great um my name's katie miller and my son will be at the gate school next year and so when i saw on the agenda that we were evaluating superintendent burkhead i wanted to make sure that i logged on and publicly gave my support and appreciation um to the superintendent

053so i think we've said it before but it was one of the most difficult years i would say in american history and for our public school system and he took the time and the effort and the thoughtfulness to bring together parents and students and include us on the safe and strong task force so that immediately said so much to me about his character so um superintendent burkhead i am so grateful that you were at the helm of our sps ship the sps community needed a captain and you were the perfect person for the role thank you and in the year ahead i am so looking forward to the improvements in academics and our curriculum and also all of the work being done for um diversity equity inclusion i am so proud that my son will

054be a part of those efforts under our new director so thank you and i'm looking forward to the years ahead great thank you uh next is gene shulman hi gene schiltneck 511 hathaway road i am the parent of a recent graduate and i'm very happy with where he is now but um i sort of wish he had been at such a public schools under the leadership of superintendent burkhead um thank you so much for your leadership leading a team from yeah central admin to school admin to faculty to support staff through an incredibly difficult year um just even though i don't have a child in the school system for your for your leadership and um thank you to the school committee for hiring him and for your leadership and everything that you've done this year

055it has not been an easy year for you either and thank you to to you know both the school administration and the school committee um for all of your leadership especially well clearly to get us through coven safely i know we're not through it yet a lot of hard work ahead of you i'm sure in terms of kovid but also the diversity equity inclusion and justice making our kids feel safe feel like they are represented and have a voice and have um have support it's really important and i really appreciate all the work that all of you have done in that area thanks great thank you okay uh seeing no other hands raised i'll move forward to the next item on the agenda which is the acceptance of minutes uh so we have two here's

056the minutes from the june 21st and june 23rd uh meeting so if there's no uh questions or comments on the minutes i'll take a motion first on the june 21st um minutes i'll move as presented but june 21st minutes okay is there a second all second thanks peter uh sir we'll call vote uh brandolini yes uh long yes gates yes lin blom yes and uh his yes okay thank you and then is there a motion on the june 23rd minutes i'm trying to remember mike is that the one i missed uh yes it was so i won't make that motion make a motion to approve the uh june 23rd june 23rd school committee minutes second all right so we'll call vote again uh brandolini yes uh long yes gates yes uh and limbo um i

057was not at that meeting either solid stain that's true i'm sorry and i'm saying yep okay uh so moving forward then uh there were two items of correspondence in the backup so one is the mask letter that we receive on a regular basis and there is a joint conference with mask in the in mass from november third to six so the details for that were provided to um that's in our backup uh and then for warrants i believe there's a warrant in the backup for dr dutch to describe good evening there there are actually five warrants uh so i'll go through those uh as quickly as possible the first is warren s two one zero six two eight signed by uh committee member gates uh the items that stick out in volume on that um

058there aren't any uh significant large large items there except for uh transportation six thousand six hundred and twenty three dollars for transporting uh the two students that are attending norfolk aggie the next warrant is s two one zero six three zero a total of five hundred and fifty one thousand four hundred and six dollars and twenty three cents um outside of our local uh funds we spent uh paid 273 dollars 200 273 294 dollars and 60 cents through our circuit breaker account in our lea account the significant expenditures private school tuition the amount of 158 966.63 uh contracted services electric 53 eighty 782 dollars and seventy five cents building administration supplies for furniture for the scituate high school library uh for situate high school excuse me three dollars 23 eighty five cents uh we purchased

059our supply of paper towels and toilet paper so out of custodial supplies and contracted services seventeen thousand eight hundred and twenty nine dollars and that's those are the significant items in that warrant uh warren s two one zero seven zero one also uh signed by committee member gates a total of thirty five thousand one hundred and twenty four dollars and eighty three cents uh one significant item central administration contract services 16 092.83 and that is for uh frontline our asap which is our staff portal for attendance and substitute teachers so that was the only large item there and then finally uh the last second to last warrant s210708 64 dollars and eighty cents again a large item there there were two uh central administration contracted services uh aspen and dude solution uh aspen is the

060student management system uh for keeping track of students scheduling um registration all of those items and then dude solution is a facilities and maintenance calendar scheduling then under curriculum contracted services thirteen thousand eighty one dollars as well and then finally the last warrant s210715 total of fifty four thousand nine hundred and thirty dollars again uh the uh one large item uh a curriculum contracted services 19 618 for a variety of software applications including atlas which is the curriculum tracking software and then smart pd which is a professional development uh platform sixteen thousand two hundred dollars for edge annuity which is our online virtual high school for those students taking courses that are not offered at the high school for cases where there isn't enough enrollment or it's difficult to find staff to teach that sort

061of a particular course so those are our uh large items uh over the last month since we last met certainly happy to answer any questions that you may have are there any questions from the rest of the committee no okay thank you dr dutch you're welcome uh so next on the agenda is other business is there anything uh that any members of the school committee wanted to bring up on tonight's meeting mike may i say one thing please sure i just wanted to say talk publicly um uh a very good friend of mine mark brady passed away this month and situated way too young after a battle with cancer uh mark is an incredible guy and it's done so much for the town of scituate but especially um uh this it it saddens the school

062department his wife erica works for the school department uh as the leader in our transportation and he was a devoted husband uh to erica and um to his children uh and his two sisters uh i just want to say publicly that uh we are all thinking about you and your erica you and your family and wish nothing but the best for you what's up um if there's no other business for future agenda items um i know last year uh mr gates had worked with the board of selectmen but with them on a regular basis um karen connolly had reached out to me so i think what we're going to be doing is starting to have uh monthly meetings on the first tuesday of every month um so obviously we'll provide an update on those meetings

063as they occur but um if anything comes up that we need to loop in members of the school committee for based on the liaison positions or the subcommittees that are they're on um i'll make sure that we do so um are there any future agenda items besides that that people wanted to bring up this time okay if not feel free to email the superintendent or i will make sure that they get added to the agenda um actually excuse me um i might have missed it but did you vote on the warrants uh we didn't need to because uh peter had gone and signed them thank you okay so if there's nothing else from the members of the school committee i will entertain a motion to adjourn at 7 00 pm so move next thank you

064all right sorol vote uh long yes hayes yes lin blum yes krandalini yes and gates yes all right uh thank you all for joining have a great rest of your night good job mike right on the button thank you