001is that they don't need to be overwhelmed by um and even you know the the 2% that attempted suicide that's that would be a tragedy for our community. So, you know, although our percentages are great when you look at metrics, I think there's street data uh as opposed to, you know, macro data that that really shows that we need to reach every kid. And the reason that I came to a small school and enjoy working in a small school is I think we can know who those kids are. Uh if we provide the outlets for them to to have a confidant in an adult space that they can talk to and and work through some of the challenges. I I really do think that 99% of the problems that students have even though they might
002be out of their control are solvable uh when it comes to their mental health. So um so that's you know first statistic you want to continue on. Sorry. So the people at home can't hear us. Oh, so >> the microphones are moving when you're talking. So it's like something's >> currently neither on Zoom nor on Facebook. >> I ask a question just to here. In looking at this, were is a survey set up so that you can select all four of those areas or are you being asked to choose just one? So an individual can choose I I've had depressive um symptoms and I've considered suicide and I've attempted and I plan or that they can only choose one. >> No, I think there's about 150 questions and then the aggregate data >> combines the
003student answers to come up with a profile. >> Okay. Okay. if they can hear you now. Thank you. >> Um, so I guess we skipped the the really important part, but this good news. >> Yeah, I think we should. >> We're going to go back. >> You just present that slide again. >> So, you know, as I was saying, I think, you know, our mental health statistics have really improved over time. Uh, this is the slide that that kind of concerns me the most because as I was saying, we're a very small school. with about 100 kids in a in a class and every percentage that you see there is a student. So when we see that 13% of of kids have depressive symptoms that's at the lunch table that I'm looking at every day
004uh in in the senior calf and um you know those those numbers have improved which is fantastic but I I think that we can do some more. I think that the strategic decisions that we've made have improved that and I think that the more we can build authentic relationships and outlets for kids who are struggling with mental health both for circumstances that are under their control and circumstances that aren't uh are things that we can address. I think we have the staffing to do that. I think the staffing uh changes that we've made have greatly improved that and I think uh we're trending in the right direction but you know as I mentioned before 2% of students attempting suicide even though that's you know 2% against 19% of the national average that's two kids that
005would be a tragedy for our community and I don't want to see us go in that direction so uh I think you know the more we can continue to press this and make informed decisions using this data uh is important. So sleep and stress I think you'll see a correlation between an increase in sleep. Obviously CO disrupted a lot of sleep patterns but I think uh since we've come out of CO and and have been more regulated the stress level at school has gone down equated with the sleep uh among students has gone up which is I think an important correlation. The next couple of slides are kind of self-destructive behavior. So eating and weight loss um you know we're we're trending in the right direction but at the same time the numbers are very
006low. So I I think those are things that as I mentioned you know when we're talking about 5% 2% 3% we're talking about the difference between one and two kids um per grade level. So I, you know, I think those are things that if if we know what's going on, we have the resources to put them in our care, put them in medical care. And I think the addition of our bright program and particularly the addition of Bobby Collins as a social worker in that program has made a tremendous impact on kids who have been in in eating disorder programs and have been able to transition back to school in a much healthier place. The next one, >> vaping. As I said, we see a little bit of spike um this year. I think the
007data shows that a lot of kids are vaping flavors. There was a really high percentage in 2019. That dipped a little bit in COVID, dipped right afterwards, and has risen a little bit, but not substantially. Um and I think, you know, we'll one of the patterns that we'll see is that our female substance abuse is a little bit higher than our male substance abuse. And our female stress level is a little bit higher than our stress level. And we're we were John and I actually met today uh and we met with Safe Harbor a couple of weeks ago to try to un unpack what that is. If it's a feeling of per perfectionism, if it's um you know some other factors that are going into and really come up with ways to try to understand
008why our female population in particular uh is suffering more than our male population. Not that either are unimportant or more one is more important than the other. Alcohol has has gone down over time. One of the things that we noticed in our early surveys was that drinking really started as sophomores. And I think that was due to a couple of things. I think it was our size. I think that it's the mix of our kids. I think it's our sports teams and some of the drinking that goes on in some of the team building activities. And you know, we have sophomores that are on varsity and a lot of schools don't. Most sophomores are on JB. They're in with a different crowd. Now our sophomores are mixing with seniors. One, one of the things we
009did strategically was move our sophom Well, two things really. We expanded our freshman wellness class and really did a a a good job there of explaining drug use and and the effects on performance and the effects on your psyche. The second thing was we tried to move our sophomore health class into first semester so that we targeted that class earlier. I think that is a direct correlation with what we're seeing in improvements. Correlating that, we moved our senior health class second semester which was more of a transition into college. So, it's healthy relationships. It's um you know, what do you do if you're at a party? What are your options? You know, we've had some stories over the years of kids who are drinking in houses and a tragedy happens and they don't know what
010to do because they think they're going to be in trouble. You know, giving them those strategies and outlets to, you know, call 911. You, no amount of trouble can affect a, you know, be the same as a person's life. Um, but you need to do something. And we've seen we've seen some actual examples of that happening, which is great. Marijuana over time has been really steadily on the decline, which is fantastic. Um, you know, we're about half of the national average. Some of that is in vaping, some of it isn't, but the amount of times we I mean, I can't even think of the last time we cut a kid in school. Um, but you know, marijuana usage has been dramatically decreased. So we continue on >> and you know I think a couple of
011things the next two slides will kind of show it. The graphics are a little bit tough to see but I think the split of the middle and the high schools administratively has been huge. I think it gave the middle school and I was here before it happened. Um its own identity, its own resources. Um, adding a half guidance counselor at the high school allows for more authentic conversations with kids. Uh, reconfiguring our guidance department to have a dedicated half school psychologist and a 1.5 adjustment counselor. The psychologist splits between those roles and hiring uh, Bobby and Bright uh, has been a godsend. And what you'll see and my I need kind of my glasses but what you'll see be on the slides below is the results of our pair survey and the pair survey is
012individual to kids and it identify kids who are in our tier one which is most kids tier two which is needs some support tier three which is needs a lot of support and it pinpoints those kids and we can reach out to families ahead of time. So, what we've seen over time is an increase in kids who are in tier one, which is what we want, a decrease in tier 2, and a pretty significant decrease in tier three. You know, 2% or 3% is is not a lot of kids, uh, when you're talking about 372 kids at the high school. So um that correlates with a an increase in their strengths which is above and a decrease in their challenges which is their own kind of preventative measures like resilience and advocacy you know self-
013advocacy and those types of things. So all of those things together and if you just want to go to the next one um you know I think I don't think this is by accident. I think having the data from the pair survey, I think redesigning the sophomore and senior health classes, creating that ninth grade wellness class which replaced a traditional gym class. Uh expanding our relationship with Safe Harbor, I cannot say enough about them. The level of student interest and student participation in Safe Harbor. When students drive substance abuse use, it makes an enormous difference because we can tell them all day as parents, we can tell them all day as teachers, but to have the kids advocating for themselves, uh, and not just kids who are, you know, Little House in the Prairie Recreat,
014right? But who actually believe it and who are involved in a lot of other things, I think makes an enormous difference. We've incorporated a substance abuse awareness club. that group is down to Katka right now or some of that group is down in Katka right now with safe harbor. I think the the ability to expand our offerings down to the middle school down to the elementary schools and teach those kids they really receive that message. I think um you know working up the chain with the senior center is going to be another thing that can really help us and I think doing things like challenge day and the JPA uh retreat center which we've done um largely grant funded uh the last couple of years uh this year we were able to pay for it
015ourselves but you know collaborating with those groups and then collaborating with challenge success which people are going to hear about pretty soon has been an enormous help in helping us pinpoint point what the achievement pressure and the um the different pressures that kids have are and and and and really getting good curriculum in place to address it and people in place to address it. you know, there's there's just no substitute. And I think we found this out from co for someone that your kid trusts. And and you know, if they're going through something and they know that they might not want to say it at home, but they can tell somebody at school, it's I mean, I really think this is life or death and and I think all of this is the foundation for
016good learning, which is what we're supposed to be doing. Um, but I'm I'm really happy with with the way this has all um kind of come together. And like I said, I couldn't say more about safe harbor. We started with kind of a rag tag. You can continue. We started kind of with a rag tag group of of students, six or seven, and we're up to 50 plus. Um, in a school of 370, that's that's a pretty substantial amount of students who are advocating for healthy behaviors. I don't know if you have anything to add, but >> yeah, as the wellness department director and talk of the wellness class, professional wellness class since we started and created it, I just want to like emphasize how important this data is because it's driven every curriculum decision
017we've ever made. Um, the reason why we created freshman wellness was the biggest problem we had at that time and safe harbor helped us identify it. The survey helped us identify it. The first time the kids were using was between freshman and sophomore year. It was a huge jump. It went from single digits to like 25 30%. Um that kids were using. So by the time they were sophomores, you know, the critical mass of kids up to eventually 40% of kids in the high school were using substances. And we were able to pl to jump into that gap where there was no health education our program and create a course that addresses gateway use. So the kids are introduced to all three of these substances we're talking about and prescription drug use at this critical
018time. We address mental health. Uh we do a whole unit on mental health and it begins our not just talking about mental wellness, but we we talk about serious topics like suicide prevention. We really get into uh it be that's the foundation of our program. We built some other things that set up our kids like a diversity unit and bullying prevention, cyber bullying, things like that that set our kids up for success uh in the four years and it's changed the culture and it's not just what we've done in school. Brian talks about safe harbor. They've been an amazing partnership and they come into my Nicole comes to my classes and meets with the kids. Officer Taylor, we partner with the police. He comes in and takes questions from the kids. Um, we've just had
019these like not just partnerships, but authentic partnerships with the community that have helped, you know, made a huge impact. You know, and what Brian was saying was was absolutely true. It was scary in 2019. You know, 40% of our kids were using, 40% of our kids were vaping. Um, it was as bad as I'd seen it in my 35 years here. And then you look at it now, our numbers are are dropped drastically. And I just think that um having the survey and our ability to respond to it and we're doing the same thing right now with senior health, we're seeing that there's a jump between junior and senior year now a little bit. So we're adjusting senior health and sophomore health to adjust to that and we're seeing trends like Zen being a new
020popular product and we're already on top of that and we're we're introducing that in the freshman levels and sophomore and senior levels and we're so we can react in time to trends. That's the best part of service. >> Yeah. And that's that's what I and really it's it's preventative maintenance. You know, it's not you know, everybody says, "Well, what you know, what are the punishments for alcohol? What are the punishments for vaping? What are the punishments for marijuana?" And there's a place for that for sure. Preventative is more important. U if you never get to that place in the in the first place and you can prevent that use, you have a group of happier kids who are ready to do what they're supposed to do. Uh which is really where we want to be.
021All right. Y very good. Hi folks. So if I had to summarize what you're about to see, um I would say small numbers, few concerns, but still definitive action in response to those concerns that we have. Um as you can see, the report focus is very similar to what the high school had. If you please go to the next slide, you'll see that uh in terms of the percentage rate, the response rate is very similar. High school had 86, we had 81%. I do want to call people's attention to the fact that um only seventh and eighth graders took this last year. Sixth graders were not asked to take that. Um that was a decision made by the prior um administration that um some of these topics for sixth graders just felt a little bridge
022too far. Um just not literally not even understanding what some of the questions might be might be asking. So uh we're focusing just on seventh and eighth graders for these data. Um as you can see we had 154 surveys. Um if we go to the next slide, we can start getting into some of the breakdowns. Um now, one of the things that's important to recognize as we get into this graph as well as a lot of the other graphs, as I said, the the numbers are small, but mental health, uh similar for the high school, this is the area that is the biggest concern for the middle school data. Um I do want to call out uh one of the similarities as Brian mentioned is um mental health specifically of our female students. that is
023the that is the larger concern um when we look at the demographic breakdown and as Brian alluded to we're already brainstorming some ideas to try to specifically address that um please stay tuned actually a few of you might get some invites to some of the ideas that um that we're putting together for that um but that as I said as far as I'm concerned that's that is the the biggest one that came out of these data was the uh mental health specifically of our female students and if we go to the next slide um this is really important to understand. Um, it looks like there was a gigantic spike in 2023 with vaping. It went, however, from 1% to 2% and then down to 0%. So, the the the way that these have been visualized,
024it's just a little condensed and telescoped. Um, someone just taking a casual look might what was happening. However, again, as I said, small numbers, right? when we look at this here for the results from last time uh for vaping just not a concern um in terms of in terms of that there if we go to the next slide um for alcohol use again seems to be a giant spike um but ultimately numbers trending um down um for for many of our students there this is something that I'll I'll address in one of the the later issues um which has to do with the perception the excuse me the risk perception Concerning alcohol, they'll mention that and that may contribute to the factors that you see there. Marijuana again looks like what was happening in 2023.
025Who knows? But again, it was from 0% to 1%. Right? And back down to 0%. For that uh this is the risk perception, excuse me, risk perception that I I mentioned before where students were able to select an answer of um they felt that this was a great risk or a moderate risk to engage in certain behaviors. Um so for example for the alcohol and uh for binging alcohol on a weekly basis the percentage levels were roughly in the 80% 80% there. Now, it's an interesting question, right? Like, is that a good number? Is it not a good number? And I think that's something as a community that is worth us digging into. Um, and I know certainly, you know, to continue, excuse me, off of what Ron was saying, it's something that um is
026worth is worth noting. Um, and and when I talk about some of the interventions and some of the the things that we put into place, in a lot of ways, this is something for us to monitor. I wouldn't necessarily say that these numbers are bad or concerning, but I would be curious what they're going to look like as we continue to move forward. We want to make sure that students do understand the risks that are involved with binge drinking um with some of you know daily al tobacco use for example. If we go to the next slide, um this is where I'll get into some of the the major conclusions um that were drawn here. As you saw, those numbers are low when it comes to substance abuse for sure. Uh mental health concerns are
027the biggest concerns. Um as I mentioned, especially among female students and especially those uh who are in eighth grade. Um and as I mentioned, just continuing to monitor and support the the education around the risks involved with tobacco, prescription drugs, binge drinking. So those are things that the the curriculum already addresses and it's a matter of continuing that. And again, let's see where the data le leads us. Uh if it is necessary to have ramp that up in some way, that's certainly something that we can do. And when we talk about the next steps for the for the middle school, um we've already looked at ways to get counselors um into grade 8 wellness classes um to appropriately address the topic of suicide. That was again with the depressive symptoms. I'm also happy to share
028that we have uh partnered with the Samaritans organization and we're going to be able to bring them in just to the eighth grade at this point. Um but they are an organization that has a tremendous amount of experience of discussing suicide um in a way that is age appropriate. And one of the biggest myths that they bust is that the idea that um talking about suicide leads kids to think about it. Um and they have the research and the data to back that is not the case. Um, and so that's an important element. And having said that, as as a parent myself, I certainly can understand that there might be some fear around that idea, but this is an organization that has been doing this for a tremendous amount of time. Um, and we're going
029to see how it goes with the eighth grade this year, right? We're certainly going to have um our own uh in-house personnel there to monitor and to help support as these things happen. And if it is something that's worth continuing, we can continue it. if it is something that is worth expanding. Certainly there can be discussions about that. So that's one concrete action that we're taking from the data again about the depressive symptoms with the mental health there. Um our our school council I want to shout them out. they've been involved actively with um with talking about the these results and uh one of the things as as you can see there is that we're looking at ways to customize the surveys so that we continue this great record of longitudinal data right so that
030we can continue and build on this this 30-year um history and trends that we can look at but also framing it in a way that is more appropriate for seventh and eighth graders and so that's something that we'll be able to look at as might have been mentioned, the survey happens every two years. So, we have plenty of time to be able to to go through that. And uh again, this is one of the values of being in a small district is that we are able to uh take the time and we have the personnel, we have community members who are able to do that work. So, so we're uh that's what ultimately where we're at, what we're looking forward to doing. >> Thank you. >> Well, thank you all. Um we'll start with um
031committee members have any questions or comments for any of our fantastic um school leaders? Mr. D. >> So um that that I mean it goes without saying but I'll say it anyway because I'd like to talk that uh that those numbers are tremendous. Uh it shows um identification of of an issue. It shows concerted action. It shows response to that action. Uh and certainly correlation if not causation. Uh so I I mean it's it this is an excellent kind of presentation to receive. It's excellent news as a parent. It's excellent news as a school committee member. So uh thank you for that. One question I have and I just want to make sure that we are appropriately lauding the efforts that we're doing. We talked about one of the ideas is that we discovered in
032the data that the sophomore year seems to be a year that that um that that kids get into substance abuse and then we said so one of the things we did was move the move the class and the wellness class so that people thought that um and I guess one of the things I've kind of always thought just hearkening from my own experience is that hearing about you know the dangers of alcohol abuse hearing about the dangers of smoking hearing about the d has is brings holler >> and so I think that that there's Definitely a correlation there, but I think that you guys are either directly or indirectly doing more and in having the class there plus safe harbor plus other things is creating a message to the client to the clients to the
033kids. Yeah. >> That it's okay not to be involved in the these things. And and I want to I just wanted to float that out as as as a thought because as I was looking at this like it feels like there's more to the story and and and in how we've dealt with this with the >> 100%. And and you know, if I didn't get it across, it's it's not just what Ron's done and Melissa's done and Deb and Mike in the middle school curricularly. It's the involvement of the students in safe harbor. It's involvement of it's it's the coordination of their structure, the involvement of the police, the involvement of our counselors, and the various different supports, whether it's the nurse or somebody else. It's having multiple touch points to students who are struggling
034with anything um has has made an enormous difference. Having the sports teams on the same page uh having parent organizations realize and you know if we didn't mention it before that has shifted from sophomore year into junior year which is a little bit more appropriate. So, we have seen a delay and and maybe a little bit of a bubble, but it's one of those areas where community prevention and community organization really makes an enormous difference. It's not just the schools. Um, it's the parents, it's it's the consistent messaging and it's kids realizing that they're not in the minority if they don't do it, you know. Um, and I've had, you know, I'll give you an anecdote. I had a student come to my uh office when I was the assistant principal and he said I
035got a problem and I said what's your problem and he said half my table wants to drink and half my table wants to go and watch ESPN and and you know eat pizza and I said I've met with three other kids on the side of the table that you're talking about and they all have the same concern so you're not alone you know you're all actually of the same mindset you just think this is what you're supposed to do. Um, and so, you know, when you when you breed those more authentic conversations and can have kids talking to each other about like this is what we really want to do, that that is far more important than what you teach in a curriculum. And I to touch on that, the perception of every kid coming
036to high school, even us as adults, everybody drinks, right? large and in 2019 it was close to a majority 43 44%. Right now I I I'll even do things like live polls where I'll say to kids I come in and say first day of doing alcohol how many people think the majority of kids drink and 90% of them say the majority of kids drink and then you say okay right now the actual numbers 25% so I get a quarter of them stand up go to one side of the room I leave the other 75%. But that's the actual number. You think it's the majority, everybody tells you the majority, but it's not. You know, if you want to be in a larger peer group, don't drink. >> Yeah. >> You know, and it's when they
037and they realize that it took a lot of pressure. >> And when our kids were in St. Arbor and started a substance abuse club on their own, it took like someone released the pressure valve for kids to say, "Hey, I don't have to be." >> Yeah. I'm with the I'm with the cool kids now. Yeah. >> And I guess that's what I wanted to kind of kind of bear it out is that it's not just all the things that you talked about doing are are critical importance to it. But but they all kind of result in one foundational change and that's that's culture change. >> Yeah. >> And and I think that's really what I wanted to make sure we highlight here is that this is it's >> it's all this stuff but and you're
038also doing it in a way that changes the culture at the school. It changes the culture at the community. Um you know I think I growing up it was a different experience for me. you know, there was always the cool family whose parents would leave alcohol in the basement and like that's, you know, and I don't I don't think that's as um welcomed anymore. You know, you don't even even among adults. You don't find that that cool family anymore who's going to do that. So, I think that the dialogue has changed, the culture has changed, and and I think it's large part because of the efforts that you guys have put forward. So, thank you for for doing this. Thank you for the presentation, and these are awesome, awesome. >> Mr. Brandon's >> I'm glad
039you guys brought up the perception versus actual. That was one thing I planned because really good data, but even to this day we see in those surveys that there is still a gap >> and one of the reasons we do these surveys is not just for us parents and for administrators to whatever but to not expose really unveil that the truth is different than what people think. Yeah. >> And there's a that that the pressure to do something may just be one that is that is that is not that is a cloud more than than anything else. Um and that's why we do it. But I also want to say that I think part of the reason it works is the survey itself itself has such good legitimacy because safe harbor is now in its
040ninth year of being a organization that's not punitive face it's prevention face it's educ education face these surveys are confidential and we have enough data over nine years or eight years how long we've been doing them now that we can see trends we can believe the data a lot of times we get criticism oh our kids are flying no this is a survey that kids will see multiple times they know how the data is going to come out and we we see both trends but also in the differences between perception and actual. There's real honesty in those responses. Um I'm glad that one thing I want to point out though is we're at the ninth year. Safe Harbor was originally launched with a nice private grant as well as a federal program. That federal program
041expires on year 10. So we're in year 9. Um so the safe harbor director and the assistant director are funded right now through a program that's going to sunset. And as we're going through, it's not part of the school budget, right? It's part of the town budget. Uh but as we're going into these challenging budget discussions, um that's something to remember that this is these are this position that does it's not on our budget side, but does affect us and really helps us. >> Um so as we're looking at what's important, this is important. Um and I wanted to just point that out because we can't lose sight of where all the different values are. So thank you guys. >> Mr. Evans, Mr. Squadrido. So, this was really impressive overall and definitely as I've looked
042at this, it's made me reflect and really appreciated your comment about the idea of a tipping point in 2019 >> because that was something as you mentioned that I felt as well. Um, and it was real and co really did cause a complete reset and gave the entire school an opportunity to change course in that moment and it was really powerful and I just wanted to vouch for what you said about that change like that was very real. Um, and the other thing just, you know, the first time I looked at this, the first thing I thought about was vaping. And like you said, the idea that everybody else was doing it and observing the precipitous decline in vaping from the time I was at I was a little house on the prayer, as you
043said, like I never I've never baked, let alone in the building. But just just throw that out there. But I noticed it. There was a time when you couldn't really go to the bathroom without being the vape room >> and then suddenly that just kind of went away. So these are the kinds of things that make huge differences for students that are really important and it's these are hard things to do. You know, funding these programs, you know, I think a lot of us value them, but for some people it can be hard to see the value in these and understand the impact. But I just wanted to establish that they are extremely important and extremely impactful and there was a ma a major change in the district after co and as we implemented more
044of these programs. Um you know I don't want to jump the gun onto the budget agenda item for later but these are really important things that we really really do not want to risk losing because they make huge differences. you know, >> we can, you know, look at test scores, we can look at college admissions, but I think this is will probably be the most important data points that I've looked at in my time here. Um, so overall, I just wanted to emphasize that. And also the last thing I'll say about safe harbor definitely also made a huge difference. I had friends who were in safe harbor and you know it it's amazing how safe harbor wasn't like a not cool thing to do like it was something that people really enjoyed and you know
045the fact that like 20% of students in the district are engaged in it somehow like that is that's like remarkable that you could get that amount of people to do something and it safe harbor as well absolutely made a difference in a culture school so overall just very important and a very real presentation. Thanks for >> Thank you, Mr. Mlullen. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh yeah, um youth risk survey, super important data, always useful for us. Great presentation. Thank you guys for all you do. And I think overall, um data is very encouraging. Um I think as Scott pointed out, some of the most concerning data was around the um you know, self harm. on the next slide because each percentage point is a person. So, um I think you articulated that well and
046it's something that obviously you're taking seriously. Um so just two takeaways. Um one is for me the biggest takeaway from this is the disparity between male and female uh students. So and I again have supreme confidence in uh in our staff and all three of you and leadership to to I mean you've identified that as an issue that you're going to dig down on. be interested in hearing once you've had some time to fully bake that and sort of figure out what you think some of the um contributing factors are. I think some people can, you know, we can speculate about what what some things are just as human beings and sometimes social media can be I think more impactful for women um or in this case girls um and um you know obviously speaking
047out turn a little bit I was never an adolescent girl so you know I'm just but but um and also you know I I think that we need to acknowledge that there's a lot of um male um I don't know emphasized aspects of our community and that could lead to um a feeling of sort of disempowerment amongst our daughters um and sisters. So maybe that could be something and and it's not to I'm not you know passing any judgments. I'm just saying that that that you know that is something that could be a contributing factor and it is I think an objective fact about Cohassid, you know, sort of more of a traditional community in a lot of ways. Um so just um I'm happy to hear that that that's a big takeaway for you
048as well. I think that's a m I've always felt that about goet that um this sort of disparity between the genders is something that we need to always keep a magnifying glass on. um with regard to the drinking. So 25% right as Mr. Ford was articulating is is a much um more comforting figure than what people probably perceive. That said, it's still um a fairly significant number of high schoolers and obviously everyone's working to combat that. Um I think that I just want to say it because Mr. Guy had alluded to the culture and I I think I I share a different sentiment. With all due respect, I I think that um I I think that a lot of that culture comes from the parents and the families and what the kids are seeing or
049seeing, you know, and trying to replicate or seeing as being endorsed by families. I I think that it is probably we've seen the pledge where you know you're not you pledge to I think safe harbor does this pledge you're not going you pledge not to not to host you know parties and have alcohol at your house for minors. Um and this isn't I'm not saying this to like villainize anyone. I mean, people can can make decisions about how to raise their kids themselves, but I just I do think that it is more prevalent than perhaps people think um about the the adults in the community maybe providing an outlet for that sort of behavior. Um you know, I'm not saying it's like rampant. I'm just saying that it's it's I think it's I think I
050think people would probably be somewhat surprised by it. Yeah. Um, and so it's just something to throw out there and consider that, you know, that is certainly a contributing factor. If you see your caretaker or your mother or your father and they are sort of endorsing this behavior, that's that's that's going to that's going to I think be absorbed by the child. >> So, um, you just just want to put it out there and and you know, again, people are free to make whatever decision they they want, but I think that they should factor these things into consideration. Um and uh I just had a I had a sort of um competing view or opposing view was to what you were saying. So I just wanted to voice it. But thanks for everything and I
051appreciate the time. >> What you identify as the number one risk protective factor relationship with the parents question. >> Yeah. Cra that we crack 100%. Well, I will add my thanks um to the three of you for not only the presentation but the way in which you you spoke to it and acknowledged that even within small numbers there are areas for growth. Um and um Mr. Scott, when you talked about like, you know, each of these percentage points in in our district is a child. Um, it it drove home for me that um substance abuse education is a safety a health and safety issue for our children. It's not just sort of a socially like, oh, don't drink cuz you're going to get kicked off your team and you're going to be in trouble. It
052really is a health and safety issue, as is emotional um and mental health. But it also made me think about um and that it's more of a question about personal health and safety um in relationships. I'm thinking in intimate relationships and how sometimes there's an intersection between substance abuse um and being at risk for um being in unsafe situations um uh regarding personal safety and where that fits into the curriculum, if it does yet, if not. And and are there any surveys about um how children experience their personal safety within um within the community and as they grow up >> about sexual health and that type of >> relationship? I think about sexual health. Yeah. Yeah. And and sexual assault, sexual abuse. >> Yeah. A lot of Well, I'll let you speak specifically to it,
053but we partnered with One Love, which is an organization and and [ __ ] can talk a little bit about what that looks like. Um, and there's kind of two levels of focus. One is in sophomore year about relationships, but the other is senior year and what your relationships look like when you're out alone >> uh and you're on your own and you're at a party and you're um, you know, witnessing certain behaviors. So, if you want to go into more specifics. So, it starts in freshman year. We talk about what inappropriate messaging is. Text messaging messages that are sent in relationships. In our bullying prevention unit expands into sophomore year, we really dig into relationships and what's a healthy relationship, what's an unhealthy relationship, what that looks like. That's all part of the sexual health program
054that's in 10th grade. And then with senior health, like Mr. Scott says, we have that transition to the to the next next step for them. And so not only do we talk about one love, we provide RAD defense training for for our female students here in conjunction with Colassa police. So we do a lot of around relationships as it builds through the high school. And again, our data shows that that you know the relationship piece becomes bigger their sophomore, junior, senior year than it is their freshman year where it's not as much of an issue for our freshman. So we we've crafted our curriculum along those lines and we and if if any if our data shows that that would change, we could adjust our curriculum in that way. So that's the that's the best
055part of having respected data is that you can really build your curriculum around where where the issues are. >> I hugely appreciate that flexibility to giving students exactly what they need and what's current and relevant to them. Yeah. >> Um, I will also say that whatever is going on in the elementary schools, I know that at home I've heard lots of things about how terrible vaping was when my children were in second, third, fourth, fifth grade. Um, and really work to like scare the living daylights out of them in a lot of ways. Um, which and and some of the that messaging still continue it continues on. um which maybe I'm naive now as the parent of two teenagers, but um I I think to that connective piece um in an age appropriate way throughout
056their years in the district, I think is is hugely helpful. Um and as a parent, I'm hugely grateful that it's not just the parents saying these things about substance abuse, about taking care of your bodies, about taking care of mental health, um about being a good and kind person, but that we have partners like the wonderful educators here um doing that work with us. And to Lance's point, you know, it is there's a certain evolution of it. You know, there's the scare tactics for the kids who are super young. You know, you're not going to do that. >> Or else, you know, whatever. But then there's the reality of it. Here are the situations you're going to be in. What do you do? >> What are the strategies? And and a lot of what we
057do with kids as they get older is teach strategies not just to, you know, study for a test, but to, you know, be in a situation where you're at a party and, you know, maybe you're drinking, maybe you're not drinking, something happens, what do you do? Do you call 911? Do you reach out to a parent? Are you too afraid that the cops are going to come and get you in trouble and you're not going to, you know, be able to play in the next two games? Who cares? Right? So creating some perspective for kids around like you're going to be in real life situations and and these are the things that you need to do um to be a good friend >> and thinking through that before um proactively rather than reactively or trying
058to make up your mind in the moment um I think is such a gift. Um so thank you um very much. We >> have no public comment at the moment. Um >> oh I'm I'm so sorry I have a blind spot. Um so I'm going to apologize for that. hand up. Okay. Um, if you could please introduce yourself, Miss Saunders, and proceed with your question. >> Times traffic terrace. This is amazing. Thank you guys so much. Um, just two quick things and I know you have a busy agenda. Um, I did >> want to make sure the bright program is highlighted. There's been a lot of talk amongst parents of school refusal, school avoidance, >> and like Bobby is >> fantastic. I think even just like the skills he can teach some kids and the
059skills that some of Michael's other um staff can teach, if there's a way to kind of spread that on a wider level to like bring that to parents, that would be really great. I think there's I'm hearing a lot about that as a parent. >> Um, >> you know, a lot of our transition kids, some are concussions, some are, you know, physical injuries, a lot of it is mental health, some of it is substance abuse. And if you've never met Bobby, he's never had a bad day in his life. and and to put your kid in front of him who has the skills to be empathetic and to counsel them and just to liven them up is just a gift. I I don't know what we would do without >> Yeah, I think and I
060know he's you know he's spread it as but I think that particular topic would be like so important for a lot of parents. >> It is important to know >> that that program has been enormous >> that that Mr. problems works at the middle high school, but school refusal extends into elementary levels as well. And that's on my radar. So, I think I appreciate Stephanie bringing that up as we plan for the future too, and make sure that we can address issues early on. Early intervention is key when it comes to school. >> Yeah. And I think even just that like parents like understanding what that is because there I think there was like a social media post where I hope you didn't see it, but it was like force that child to school, you
061know, it's just kind of like that's not what that is. Um, so I appreciate that. And then I think just also that's kind of what I the other point I was going to say is just like this is so amazing and as a as someone who's about to have two kids at Deer Hill like I would be interested in how like the Deer Hill curriculum kind of flows into this at some point because I do think unfortunately like especially postcoid a lot of this is happening earlier and and we're seeing some of these um issues come up especially around mental health and females I think in particular here again just subjectively hearing a lot of that from parents. So thank you. >> Thank you Miss Saunders and um thank you Mr. Scotty Mr. Scott Mr.
062Ford um and thank you for be giving up so much of your evening um to us for this wonderful presentation and for the wonderful work you're doing supporting all of our students. So thank you very much. >> Um we will move on to block D the superintendent for report with Dr. Sarah Shannon. All right. Well, thank you. Um, so I'd like to start off by just taking a moment to thank the DPW, the Cohasset Police and Fire and Emergency Management, the facilities department, and our school custodians for their support and work to get us ready to open school after the snowstorm. As most people have seen on the news, the last storm ended up ranking in the top 10 snowstorms in Massachusetts history. So, it was a lot to tackle. Um, and we're very grateful
063for the work that they did to allow us to get safely back to school when we were able to get back. And we hoped very much that the rest of the winter is snowfree. Um, recently school committee members, you've all received an email from Jennifer Seretus inviting you to the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent Legislative Breakfast on Thursday, March 5th at 8:30 a.m. This breakfast is an important event and opportunity for superintendent from all over the Southshore, which actually extends into what I'm going to say is non- Southshore towns, but they're wonderful districts and superintendent. Um, and so we invite them in and we invite all of our local representatives and senators as well and they're there in the audience to hear the district's concerns so they can learn more about how they can support
064us. And so school funding will be a key issue that is up for discussion at that breakfast. I would encourage all of you to attend as you're able. I know it's it's during a work time. Um, and just let Jennifer know if you'd like to join and she can RSVP key for you. >> Can we stop them from eating until they give us more than 2%. >> I don't know that you can do that, but I think you can try whatever strategy works. >> Um, this week I also shared an email with the community about the hiring process that we're engaging in for a search for a new assistant superintendent. Our search committee will begin our work next week actually and I am still looking for two parent or caregivers to participate in the process.
065Anyone interested should email me direct me directly. I'm grateful that chairless will be the school committee rep on that committee to represent this body and I think it's important to have our families represented as well. In an ideal world, we would have an elementary and a secondary parent or caregiver, but I'm open to whatever combination that looks like. Um, the deadline for emails of interest is this Friday at the end of the day, so I can let folks know by Monday what that committee will look like. Um, and finally, as crazy as it is, I would like to remind all families that February vacation is coming up and that school will be closed February 16th to the 20th with school resuming on Monday, February 23rd. Um, so before I jump into calendar conversation, are there
066any questions about the updates? Any members go ahead and fire or ask at will. >> We don't meet until the 25th then. >> Correct. Okay, thank you. >> Um, so we are looking to do a second read of the potential 2026 2027 school calendars. Um, we looked at both the first draft and the second draft last meeting. I do want to address a couple of questions that came up at that time and um provide a small update as well um and then take any questions before we get back to or come back at the end of February for a third read and vote hopefully. So, at the last meeting, the question came up about last year's data around Good Friday. Um, because we did do a survey of all staff and families around preference around
067that day, whether it be a full day of school, a half day of school, which does not impact the last day, or no school. And at that time we commented that the data was really interesting that um 25.7% of responses said they would like a full day of school on this day. 27% almost 298% said they would like no school on that day and 46% wanted a half day. And so that data I think helped drive the decision that was made that this year we would have a half day. We have never done that before. So this is the first time it's happening. So I can't and I can't report on it because it hasn't happened yet. Um so that makes this a little bit tricky in thinking about what that decision should be. Um
068I will tell you that right now the number of staff who have put in for that day is similar to last year even though last year was a full day of school. Um so that is um one data point that we have. We just don't know what the student attendance might look like for that day. Um so hopefully that will help. There was also a question that came up about the Friday before Labor Day. It is written into the contract that if we start school for students before Labor Day that that Friday would be a make a holiday date. Um, in talking with someone from the CTA, they also shared that at the time that that was decided upon that there was a feeling that um that may have also been driven by parent requests
069um and that that helped the school committee make that make a decision and make that um part of the contract as well. Um the person I I was speaking with also said, you know, not sure where that conversation would go, but always happy to have the conversation if we wanted to look at, you know, if that Friday was a day of school or not. Um so that is the information that I can bring back to you here. The other thing I had shared at the last meeting was that the early release days weren't on the calendar yet, but that the part of the reason was the professional learning council was trying to gather data from staff. We are still waiting for some of the data to come in, but we actually met this past Monday.
070And with the results that have come in, it looks like we are leaning towards having remaining keeping um early release release days on Fridays. Um and so once the data is fully settled in, we'll make decisions about what those days are. And I probably will be able to share with you the next time we meet what those early release dates would be. But like we've said that those dates don't change the start day, the end day, last day of school, or any of the vacations. And so what you're wrestling with right now is the meat of the calendar decisions. So um questions. >> Um I think my perspective has changed somewhat since we've now had we have two school snow days now. So, I'm now looking more at that last week as not a uh
071a what if if more of a when just because of a recency bias here. But the question I had is if we if we have Good Friday closed and our the last day for middle school and high school is the 21st and it is a half day. >> If we have snow days, does that make 20 this one does that mean the 21st stays a half day and we have a full day on the 22nd or do we still have the flexibility to make the 21st? the fir the 21st would be a full day. >> So >> the the whatever becomes the last day of school is an early release half day. >> Okay. So that's that's the only day on this calendar that's a function of the 180th day, not the day on the
072calendar. >> Correct. >> Okay, great. That's that's a that's very helpful. Yes. >> There any other comments or questions from the committee? And not can I just say one thing and not I don't want to confuse things but um I will be coming to you at some point for you to vote on a new last day of school for this year but I'm holding on that until maybe we get a little bit further through the winter >> be out that >> so that makes sense. >> Yeah. Um are there any other questions or any need for information at this point from committee members? um that you would like to sort of have from Dr. Shannon um before our next meeting um and and making a vote next meeting. >> Okay, fantastic. Thank you, Dr. Shannon.
073Um we are moving into teaching and learning and academic initiatives with Leslie Solins. Great. Thank you so much. So, um families know that we had a half day last Friday. It was our professional development afternoon and it's always a great time for the teachers to have opportunity to collaborate work on things together. So, uh, dear Hill and Osgood, they had created working groups this year and so they were collaborating on a variety of topics that include things like belonging, homework, and MTSS. So, that was um very successful afternoon. the middle high school faculty um they were focused on their department work and um it's always good for them to have kind of a little extra chunk of time to be together. Last night Deer Hill had their second homeg grading parent caregiver evening. We had
074three parents and um and caregivers and nine teachers uh came in and shared their thoughts. I will say that the earlier in the year there was an event a fall discussion and that group was very well attended by by uh parents and caregivers. So um hopefully maybe it was cold weather, who knows? But it's really nice when we can get our parents and caregivers into um events such as this to give their feedback. It's really important. Um tomorrow is the second annual collab eration day and that is an event that happens um across the grade level. So elementary up through high school and they create an art project and some of you might remember them and they're still around the buildings and it's a really wonderful day. The children come up from the elementary school
075and they spend their whole day working together. It's a really um wonderful day for them and we have local art students that are coming in to participate the event tomorrow and so they will be here at our next meeting to present their project. So um that's a wonderful wonderful day and it's such a nice tradition that has started and then um just finally we continue our curriculum work. some of the visual performing arts curriculum review will be working on Friday afternoon. Just kind of that midpoint check-in, look at the action plan and collaborate on some of the goals that we're working. >> Great. Thank you very much. Any questions for Dr. Stins? >> Right. Thank you, Dr. Solins. I the piece of art um or the two pieces two or three pieces of art that
076were um created last year, I feel like maybe one of them is in the central office right now. I was reminded of what a a special um program that is and I can't wait to see what they um create this time around. >> There's one hanging in every building. >> Y >> Mr. Stapleton, some student services update and Miss Saunders, if you want to join us as a CPAC rep, you're welcome to do so. >> Hi everyone. Good evening. Um I'm here with three updates today. So, I'll jump right in and share my screen and move through. Um, so the first update is my typical um data sharing. I'm not going to spend too much time here today just because I do have a little bit more of a substantial update um in other areas,
077but the month of January was very busy for the Office of Student Services and Special Education. There were 44 total meetings um across the district. Um so that data is reflected within here. And really the focus of my update today is in response to the school committee's request um for our student services perspective on Dr. Collins most recent um spring 25 2025 data report. Um so I'll go through some slides that I prepared um from my perspective as the director of student services um really as it connects to data um tied to um districtwide assessments really the statewide assessment of MCCAST is a is a major focus here but really how that connects to students with disabilities. Um you know Dr. Stins shared an overview and Dr. jump in at any point um you know
078through this presentation tonight um shared some of the overarching data that has been compiled from you know from MCCAST from I Ready in her December meeting um in an area that I wanted to highlight from my perspective both as a former special education teacher team chair and then director of student services is really highlighting um you know student development and growth percentiles as it connects specifically to MCCAST but then also how we measure student progress over time. I wanted to start tonight by saying um you know students with disabilities who may be receiving special education services for students eligible um through section 504 for accommodation plans um you know develop academic skills potentially over long and this looks different for all students and all you know individuals um but develop academic skills over longer and
079less linear timelines typically and sometimes UD to your gains may look different um compared to like typically developing peers or students that do not have disabilities um but it's important for us to consider you know multiple data points in that and how we're constantly monitoring student progress, how they're performing on a mult, you know, multiple measures. Um, but you know, when we look at some specific scores tied to MCCAST, um, there may be some conversation about like why did my student have the score and what does this look like, you know, moving forward with that goal of, you know, proficiency by the time they reach 10th grade. Um so like I just indicated progress is monitored using multiple data points ranging from classroom assessment classroom performance progress towards IEP goals objectives um you know that's
080reviewed annually or more frequently depending on student progress and or lack of progress um looking at standardized measures such as you know I ready and then also um you know statewide measures such as MCCAST um but really I think it's important for families in the community to recognize that we should always be focusing on individual growth rather than just single year performance or single year or you know you know data points such as MCCAST while it's an important factor there's a lot that goes into um you know how a student makes progress over time how they're accessing the curriculum and then also feeling confident about themselves as a learner and as they grow um so MCCAST you know defines student growth percentiles and I included a chart here from the MCCAST handbook um you know
081a typical growth percentile will be within the 50 um you know 41 to 60 but really looking at 50 as typical growth um you know a high student growth percentile indicates strong progress over time, you know, as indicated by the chart. Um, and then this helps us distinguish a lack of progress from study growth along different developmental paths. So, keeping in mind that this may look different from year to year for students, but this is an important measure, not just like that final score of not meeting expectations, partially meeting or exceeding. Um, so an example that I gave here is that a student may have partially met MCCAST's um, you know, ELMCASS within that standard score range. However, they had a student growth percentile of 62, which is high growth for the student, which would
082be great to see, you know, from year to year or just even one single year. And my kind of main point here is that for students with disabilities, growth over time, um, not just proficiency on standardized assessments, you know, is the most accurate indicator of affecting effective student learning and progress. And we really want to see, you know, all kids develop differently, all kids acquire skills at different times. Um so really thinking globally over time how students make progress is a really important perspective to take um and you know one that you know I hope you know we do take here in Cohasset for our students. Um so I broke down an example here of how we could use this measure in addition to just the score from a standardized assessment. So in this example
083a fifth grade student with a specific learning disability scores not meeting expectations on MCCAST in fourth and fifth grade. At a first glance you know that's definitely something and again still something that we want to keep a close eye on and monitor. Um but when we dig into more data points and we consider the student more holistically and we take a closer look, we might see the following. For example, um the student's scale score increased from one year to the next showing that they maybe did gain some proficiency in some skills. Uh this student again I use the example of a growth percentile of 62, meaning that they grew more than 60% of students statewide with similar prior scores. As an IEP team meeting, we might come together and say this student has a reading
084comprehension goal or a reading decoding and fluency goal. And if they, you know, are receiving specialized instruction in reading, they may have mastered those specific um, you know, lens or, for example, like some of that specialized reading work. They may have mastered their IP goals and moved on sequentially through like a multi, you know, multi sensory, you know, reading program. Um, the general education teacher might share that, you know, the student is actually really able to access the grade level curriculum. They participate in class discussions. They're able to, you know, work well with peers either with disabilities or without. um that they have some meaningful contributions to group you know the group work that takes place. Um families might give input that you know while yes this score might not be meeting expectations right now
085we're seeing them apply their reading skills at home with independent reading. Um we see some generalization of skills happening not just within the classroom but out you know whether they're reading with their friends or parents. Um and then also more importantly too like students may be feeling happy and confident about coming to school. They feel like they're making progress. we're seeing it in different measures and I think that's you know always been something that I've champions too is that you know we want students to feel well about how they're performing and you know there could be a variety of performance how they perform in different things um but it all tells one story and um I think that it's important that we consider like multiple data points as we move them forward and support them
086um and again what this example could tell us is that they might not have reached grade level proficiency according to MCCAST standards but they are making strong meaningful academic progress relative to their own strengths and their own disabilities and then their own kind of on their own developmental path when we think about how we support special education students. And this slide really kind of pulls together a few different things here. Um, as I've mentioned before, students um receiving special ed services have clearly outlined individualized education programs or IEPs. Contents of those IEPs include, you know, specific goals and objectives that students are working towards that's driven through data as students are found eligible. students receive specialized instructions. So something that's you know different than the general education curriculum tied to the service delivery and um
087and those specific goals and those are provided by you know licensed qualified special education teachers um you know related service providers such as occupational therapist or speech language pathologists and you know IEPS do indicate appropriate accommodations and modifications that are necessary um for students to access the grade level curriculum and those accommodations are provided throughout their school day towards you know whether taking Ready and then also on statewide assessments such the Damcast. A lot of the work that I did last year, you know, thanks to the community and just different stakeholders, um, focused on the sped strategies task force, which I linked that final presentation in here, um, highlighted in pink. Um, and so last year we started to look at why is there a proficiency gap for our students with disabilities on statewide assessments.
088And so that work's been continuing on as well. And I just think it's important to highlight that the district does provide, you know, a high level of specialized targeted support in reading, writing, math, and executive functioning. We're working on aligning those supports, you know, across the district to make sure that services, um, you know, are in a good continuum. Um, and so again, that task force work that we've done is still continuing on this year. Um, and really looks at closing that proficiency gap um for students with disabilities and, you know, in addition to thinking about the progress that they may individualize um, with their SGP. each um time that an IEP team meeting needs for an annual review team meeting. Um teams carefully consider and determine appropriate testing accommodations. Um these accommodations like I
089just mentioned are directly align with what students need routinely in order to make progress and to access the curriculum. Um and I've linked in here too the MCCAST accommodation information um just as a resource for families to be aware of. If you have an upcoming IEP meeting, it's always helpful to review that. Um there's some pretty strict criteria for certain accommodations with MCCAST, but that's something that all of our teams are able to discuss with families on if it's an appropriate accommodation or not for their student um when the IEP team is together. And then additionally, specialed teachers um you know, we work to analyze student performance on MCCAST on I Ready that helps drive um you know, our instructional practices in areas of you know, weakness or an area that needs to be targeted.
090You know, I use the example of, you know, if we look back and we notice that a student, um, whether it's on I ready or MCCAST really struggle with informational texts, especially a teacher might work that into their lessons with the student. So, there's more practice and repetition of the skills related to reading comprehension and writing specific to different areas that the student has shown to have weaknesses with. So, these are just, you know, some areas, the main areas of how we support students, um, special education students related to assessments. um you know not meeting expectations on MCCAST obviously is you know jarring for families and we recognize that. Um so I did an analysis of some of the or of the data from the 2025 school year that Dr. Solen shared before. Um and
091a small number of students in each grade level scored within the not meeting expectation range. So that's a scaled score between 440 and 469. Um some positive news in my opinion is that through that analysis of the data um for ELA you know all students who did not meet this range are either identified special education students or high need students or in a third bracket of students receiving support by specialists whether that's reading or for reading specifically for ELA and that are being monitored through our student response teams or the MTSS process. So I think that's important to highlight because you know when Dr. as well and share that report like we are taking the time to look to see what students aren't meeting expectations and supports and services are put into place for those
092students and again um you know we've talked a lot tonight through different presentations about like the size of cohasset I think that's one of our great strengths is that we are able to really work individually with students in small groups with students to make sure that students get what they need you know in order to access the curriculum and make effective progress and similarly for math um you know here all students are either identified special education students or high need students um with comprehensive IEPs I would say we know moderate to significant levels of service tied to specific goals for math. So again, I think we're catching and supporting those students and you know like to tie back to the original slide of they might not be meeting in meeting that proficiency level every year
093but we are seeing growth with them and we're also identifying the right areas to target and provide highly specialized support for. I also wanted to highlight that families play an important role in working with schoolbased teams. You know, I think our special leaison and you know, Stephanie, any input here is welcome to really work with families to hear how students are doing, you know, students that are receiving services, how we can adapt and adjust goals, service delivery, accommodations, um, to make effective progress. And so, we do welcome that family input. Um, especially when you get a score report and you might need help like unpacking what that looks like or they might perform well on the first eye ready and the second I already you see a dip. Like there's always time to have those
094dialogues about why that could be. you know, sometimes kids having a bad day and like that could be a part of it. Other times, maybe we need to do a little bit more digging in. So, I just wanted to highlight emphasize that our goal specific to MCCAST is always to get students to reach that competency level, which is no longer a requirement for graduation, you know, due to how um people across the Commonwealth voted for that. Um but, you know, we still have our own competency determination um here through Coast High School and by the school committee. Um but our goal is all like that one measure was always the goal and we really have worked hard to get kids there and in my time here it might have required some retakes but students have
095always reached that level um connected to MCAPS. I also linked in some information too for students with very significant cognitive disabilities and this really should be less than 1% of the population um are eligible take to take the MCTACS alternative assessment which is a portfolio assessment. um as a former severe special education teacher, this really is looking at like the grade level standards and then spiraling back to entry points and the teacher is the one responsible for putting together an MCCAST portfolio for individual students. Again, at this time we don't currently have any students within um you know the current public school that have the MCAST alt. We have in the past typically those students would be in a partial inclusion or substantially separate program. Typically this falls for students who are in out of
096district placements and those special education teachers and teams are responsible for putting the portfolio together. And then I grabbed three student examples just to use here. Um two students you can see are in upper level grades. Um so it shows their ELA scores you know from 5 through 10. Um you know it doesn't isn't taken in grade nine which is why no data is shown there. And then student C is a younger student. And so in these two stories, again, these are positive stories to be completely transparent, but you see that it can vary from year to year. Um, you know, this student had a 42% SGP here and then that dropped down. By the end though, their scores went up significantly from partially meeting um in fifth grade to a score of 525, which
097is solidly within the meeting range and again seen great growth over time. Um, again, not to give away obviously this confidential student information, but knowing this the student and like that's again our great strength is that we can champion this student and to know who they are and to see that growth over time is one of our great strengths. Um, same thing here with student B again like huge unbelievable growth over time and then solidly landing within the proficiency range. And student C is a student, you know, highly um who receives a high level of service, um to see like 75 here uh in this year is like unbelievable knowing them, knowing the work that they did. Um and it just connects to that like while this is quantitative data, like I think our teams
098and our parents like we know our students so well and it's also the qualitative data of how they progress each year that is so important. Um and so again, these are just three examples, but I thought it was a nice snapshot to kind of connect to the overall idea that it does look different for all students, especially with students with disabilities. It's not always linear. We'll see ups, we'll see downs. Um, but, you know, fortunately, we have a lot of great services and supports in place to help our students, you know, hopefully reach that goal by 10th grade. Um, and then see some even greater things to, you know, as they go into their junior and their senior year. Um, so that is my first section. I guess I'll go through the second or the
099third part here before questions that make sense. Um so the my sec third update tonight is um the findings from our English language learner integrated monitoring review. As I mentioned this is our major compliance year. Um so after the circuit breaker audit this was number two. Um so I wanted to highlight a little bit more about our e program as well. So class public schools um currently employs a halftime FTE um staff member Mora Burke who is our English as a second language um learner teacher. Um Mora was a huge resource to me during this process of the integrated monitoring review. She was instrumental in how I updated our own process guide um you know conducted the interviews and really just used her expertise um to help get all this information collected. Um I did
100want to note that Mora is assigned to all four buildings. So Osgood, Deer Hill, the middle school and the high school for this current school year. Kassa High School is the only school with three active ELLL students. Um and there are also three former English language learners. So those are students who have reached um you know a level of competency and then are monitored for four years after they've determined to no longer be an active student. Um and so I did want to highlight that this can be very tricky when we have a student in Osgood and then you know two students at the high school when we think about logistically like juggling schedules making sure she's available because she is only part-time. Um but again Mora does really great work um and has really
101done a nice job to support the current students and the former EL students. Um the type of program that capacit has is a sheltered English immersion program. So I listed the definition in here but again English language acquisition process um happens um you know within the classroom setting and instruction and materials are in English um but there are supplements that are provided. So students who receive ESL support work with Mora. She helps scaffold their assignments. She provides, you know, direct instruction for them and she works closely with the general education teachers to adapt and modify materials um as necessary with the goal of the English language um instruction occurring. I've linked up here some resources through Desi. Um again, I've learned a lot through this process of integrated monitoring review isn't my background necessarily an
102area of expertise. Um but this was a great process for me to just think about the district as a whole and how we move this program forward. Um because you know in other districts they have a much higher number of English learner students. We're unique in that sense but you never know if a family was to move in with you know four students that are all eligible that really could impact our numbers and the work that does on the day-to-day for the integrated monitoring review findings. Um we were found to be you know fully implemented a number of the EL standards. Um however we partially implemented um the following standards here. So these four standards. So our next step um is to develop a continuous improvement and monitoring plan that's due um for review to
103DESIE by February 27th. So I'm working on finalizing that right now and I've really kind of indicated the key findings and then our next action steps. >> Mr. St. What do you know off hand what those specific standards are. >> So I I yes there's a process guide for that. Um you'll see here like the four findings that we were cited for Yep. are are listed within the chart. Um so the first finding um which to me is the most important way to move forward um is that we found that we are in the we have a we're in the process of revising procedures to identifying English learners who do not meet English proficiency benchmarks. Um so that's through the access testing that takes place each year. Um and so we really need to polish
104our procedure for how we support these students who are indicated to not be making progress. um I you know had been left by the prior director like the process guide for the ELE program. So over the course of last year I was working to polish that. Um so we do have a new one on our website but now we're kind of refining that even further tied to some of these specific standards. Um and so our goal moving forward will be to um following the access testing of 2026. Um anyone who is indicated to not make progress we'll be reconvening those teams. Um, language acquisition teams include current teachers, building principal, administration, myself and Mora. Um, really to review assessment data. Um, not just access but also classroom performance data. Um, we do, you know, monitor
105these some of these students through MTSS. Um, and then we're going to track and document their progress moving forward. So, thinking of it almost as like a special education like I team perspective, having some more concrete protocols and expectations for how we convene these teams and how we work with families. Um the second um indicator that um we reflect for partially meeting is follow-up support. Like I mentioned, we do have three former English language learners and we have a responsibility as a district to monitor those students as well. Um David Parker who conducted the audit from DESIE indicated that like we have informal procedures to be doing this and that came through through the interview process with both myself with Mora um how we document student progress um but we really need to refine this
106process for former English language learners um and then set a more standardized schedule for review. Again, I can contribute this a little bit to Mora, you know, is a part-time staff. So, when she's here, she's very on the ground working with students um you know, tracking that, but um her and I will be setting some time to do a little bit more like periodic review of these students um and more formalized and also be um documenting that process as well. Um the third finding was lensure requirements. So, SEI teachers are required to be SEI endorsed. Um and that data found that most or core academic teachers um that are assigned to provide this instruction hold the SEI teacher endorsement but not all. So Dr. Scholins, building principles and I um you know we'll be doing
107audit of staff to ensure that they do have the proper endorsement um in order um to provide the SEI uh instruction to students. And then the final finding um was another administrative finding. A review of documents requested um from the district indicated that the district does not consistently keep all required documents in students e records. you know, as the director of student services, I house all the special education records for um special education records. I'm going to adopt the EL records as well into my office and work with MORA um to use the Desi template for um the program folder checklist um to make sure that we're in full compliance with how we um record keep for our students um and make those documents available need be to families. Um so that was the fourth
108finding. Um so again um I learned a lot through this process. Mora was really helpful to help move through this process. Uh and then we have these four areas to refine and move forward. So the corrective action plan will be submitted by the end of February. Um and David Parker shared that you know um based on like the nature of these findings it's like that we can easily course correct um to be fully implemented um within a short period of time. >> Stapleton um do we have any actually Miss Saunders if you have anything to share from um CPAC um and then we'll we'll do um committee questions. >> Yeah. Thank you for your present, your thoughtful presentation as always. Um I think it's a little bit of a relief as a um parent of
109a child with some um learning disabilities to not focus on MCATs. Um I really like what you said about the importance of children being happy and confident. Um and that I think from what I've heard from other parents, the kind of stress around that and the talk about how important it it can be um can be really really challenging. Um it's like obviously wonderful that our district does so well on MCCAST, but if you're in the the people that don't do well, that can be that can be um a challenging place to be. So looking at other ways to measure measure success is always really I think wonderful um individually for families, but I look if there's if there's ways to celebrate that more as a community, um I was think I appreciate that personally
110as well. Um, and I do want to say my daughter was the one in the in the um sequin bomber jacket doing the pledge of allegiance two weeks ago. >> So, she has grown a lot and I thank you and your >> That's all I have. >> Thank you. >> She was adorable. >> Happy and confident. >> Yes. >> I was We were away so I watched it and I was like, "What is she doing?" >> She was owning She was She owned the stage. >> I was about to offer up the chair. I mean, She would take it. Yeah. >> Wonderful. Thank you. Um, do we have committee questions or comments for Mr. Stapleton, Mr. Evans? >> Thank you very much as always. Um, I don't know. I'm not involved in your world, but
111the the clarity, the passion, and I guess the progress I think how you laid this out, and I it's a it's a I'm proud of our district, what you guys do. So, thank >> Mr. Dial. Um, nothing for me other than to say that um, you know, obviously we've got the data. Uh, there's a lot to digest on the uh, on the MCCAST results and the way you you analyze that and I really appreciate the lens through which you uh, you you view that data. Uh, and it really does help me digest it a little bit better as a community. So, thank you for that. And then lastly on the the audit, I can understand that be given that wasn't your background that could be challenging. I I very much appreciate that you took it
112as a learning opportunity and you did exactly what we we should do. We found efficiencies and we are taking action to move forward. So um that presentation left me with high confidence in what you're doing and what our programs are. Thank you very much. >> There's so much information here. So there's not much more I could add. Um but I just want to what Saunders brought up. Um, you know, we focus a lot on MCCAST, but you know, I really liked this metric of the student growth percentile because obviously it's a different way of looking at the raw score, but as you kind of pointed out, you take a student perspective at it and you can say, you know, look at these three students and I know they're growing. It's it's just really it's really
113powerful. It makes a big difference. So, just wanted to as you did, >> Mr. Mullen. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Mr. Stapleton, I've said it before. I mean, your um, you know, your professional data driven approach inspires confidence. You built a really strong team around you. Uh, you demonstrate genuine empathy and connection to our students, which makes our student services division department very strong and obviously you collaborate very effectively with all of our classroom teachers who also uh, play a major role in ensuring that our students grow. So, thanks for all you do. I will just continue to load your work. Um, thank you. Um, I I think in particular I just sort of want to pick up a on a thread that Mr. Dial said that seeing this opportunity when you go through
114an audit um to grow as a person just to sort of understand that field a little bit better, but also to say here are some areas where we can improve and we're going to do that and doing so in such a clear and transparent way like perfection. So, thank you. That's all I'm going to say. Thank you very much. Um, any other comments or questions regarding this presentation? Thank you very much. We'll continue to move on. All right, I'm going to share my screen. So, um, as we go into the budget presentation for FY27 this week, I want to start by sort of setting a stage for how the budget presentations will go moving forward. Um, every presentation that I have is going to build upon the lasts and so at the start of each
115presentation will be all of the new information that I have to share with you on a given evening and then everything else I have shared in the past is still there for reference for the community and for yourselves. um in conversation with with chair and vice chair. I'm not going to be repeating the entire presentation. It is readily available online on Facebook liveream or cohasset liveream and on our website. Um but what I would invite is that anybody who watches it or has questions to call me to come in and meet with me. I am happy to go through questions that people have or different points that have been highlighted in prior presentations. Um, and you know, tonight's presentation is designed to highlight both where we are in this current moment, literally as of today
116in my conversation with Michelle Liry, who's our interim town manager. It's also designed to highlight the work that has been done amongst the leadership team between the last meeting and this meeting and it continues to answer some questions that have come my way already um around the budget and some other thoughts around how do we continue to fund the school um and so I will share that information and then again happy to answer any questions. So, since our last meeting, the governor's budget has come in. It came in at a 2.03% increase over last year, and that comes in for the entire municipalities of the town. Um, you know, that's >> not an increase. >> It's it's not great news for any of us. It doesn't matter if we're talking about the town, the school,
117the police, the fire department, the DPW. 2% increase does not give the town a lot more money to actually work with. Um, and when you listen to the governor's budget in which she shared about it and she talks about two things. She talked about this great increase for chapter 70 and she talks about fully funding the student opportunity act. First and foremost, it's important to note that Cohasset actually gets zero dollars from the Student Opportunity Act. So, while it's great that it's fully funded for the districts that it funds, it does not support us in any way. The increase in chapter 70 always helpful. In actual dollars, that's an increase of $104,000 to cohass it. When you're talking about a budget the size of a budget we're we're looking for, that is helpful, but doesn't
118move the needle. So, it it wasn't super helpful what came in from the governor's budget. Um, in collaborations with the in collaboration with the interim town manager, we are now expecting close to a 4% increase. Um, as I've been saying all along, she has been looking to try to get us to 6%. We really think that 4ish% is the most realistic that we can get. Um, and that is with the town finding ways to support us in ways they have never supported us before or haven't in recent history. Um, and with them taking a share of the load as well. There is not enough money to fund I'm going to say town and schools in general. Um, and so we're we're trying to share the um the increases, but we're also trying to share the
119parts of the budget that are hard. Um, so I appreciate the collaboration in that way. So a 4% increase for us does mean an additional $993,233 for next year, but it also leaves us from that initial 11.8% 8% increase with a deficit of almost $2 million 1.9 um from level service plus what we need. So this presentation will offer initial recommendations for closing this financial gap. It does not go into specifics because there are still a lot of moving parts. Um and it's hard to say that but there's a reality to that. Um, you know, we are still the governor's budget could still be shifted a little bit. It may come in with a few extra dollars in its final stages. You'll see a line item that we're going to look at with regard to
120retirement. If more retirements come in, it helps us. So there are so many moving pieces to this and it's hard at this point this early to be super specific about what exact positions will have to be reduced but um we are looking at that. One thing I did want to note it was interesting um a little bit of of history that needed to be changed here in 2020 to 21. And I think that part of why it didn't come out at first glance was because people had blocked out >> the early COVID stages of life. Um they actually in the middle of the year brought in a sixth fourth grade teacher. Um and so while they started grade four with five teachers and average class sizes of 23 midway through the year brought in a
121sixth brought the class sizes down to 19. That sixth section moved to fifth grade for 2122. So there were six sections of fifth grade that year with an average class size of 19. And then the following year in 2020 to 23 that extra section was eliminated because of the decrease in class sizes. So I just wanted to correct that now that we know better. Um and so just share that slide forformational purposes. I also wanted to just share this slide because I think it's helpful for people to see exactly what a percent looks like, whether percent allocated or percent of um reduction that we're looking to get. You'll see that 4% over and above our FY26 numbers is highlighted in red because that is what we are looking at for FY26. Those numbers are the
122same that I I just mentioned on the first slide. And so this is draft because this is still very much in flux. Um but these are the areas where we are looking to save. Um some of these reductions are reductions that um you know when we use the data specifically class size data makes some sense. When we look at data in terms of money spent over the course of time, it makes sense. And so that's how we're driving our decisions because we don't want to um reduce in areas that will have a higher impact than others. And so some things that are presented in the initial budget that we are looking to take out are fully funding full day kindergarten. We have met with instructional technology and have a meeting scheduled for Friday with facilities.
123We think we can save approximately 50,000 25 to $50,000 there. Um, every principal, every department, Leslie and I, Miss Owens have looked at all of our supplies and materials, all of our professional development, all curriculum and instruction resources. And while it is not ideal and we will go without and we will not be able to do many of the things that are outlined in our strate strategic plan the way we thought we would. We think we can reduce about $200,000 from that combination of lines. Um, as we get into the next phase of this, we'll be able to tell you more specifically exactly what those things are. Um, because I've been keeping a list. But I think, you know, one of the things about schools that is wonderful and yet challenging in a process like
124this is that every educator does this because they love their jobs, because they love their students, and they really support one another. And there is nobody better at making do and doing without than teachers. And so part of my fear with some of these reductions is actually that while the impact will be there, not everybody will really see it because our teachers are amazing and they're going to make do. But that doesn't mean we didn't need something or that we don't need it going forward. And I just want that to be something that the community really understands because while it says $200,000 there, that isn't those aren't decisions that are made lightly and it means somebody is going without something, but that they're willing to make do for a year to get what we need
125to do and to maintain as many staff as we can. >> Dr. Shan, yes. Do you mind expanding as well on professional development? From a parent perspective, a PD day is a day that we have to take care of our kids, but >> it is so important in how our education happens. Could you just expand on what PD is and why it is important? >> Yeah. So >> we're talking about >> um so we have a brand new strategic plan and we have a strategic plan that is ambitious and it helps us become one of the you know leading districts in the state if not beyond. Some of that work is around rethinking homework and grading. A lot of that work is around um project based and deeper learning. A lot of that work is
126around understanding um what's good for kids and helping them, you know, going back to the youth risk behavior survey, helping them be healthy, happy so that they can do their best academically. Um, our goal outlined in the strategic plan is that we were going to start and our project-based learning steering committee has been working on a rollout plan for the next three to five years to build the capacity of staff to be able to do more project-based learning with students. Having worked for a company that did that work with districts, I can tell you that is that is a that is a commitment. It's a financial commitment. It's a time commitment. And we use those professional days to do work just like that. And so when we look at trying to move the district forward
127with regard to project-based learning, that work is going to happen more slowly and may have to be paused until we have the financial resources to do that. Same with bringing you know supporting the district and the teachers in doing um rethinking grading work because you we use those days to do that work and it's not just professional development where we bring people in to teach the teachers. Some of that time is actually time that the teachers need to work together to redesign curriculum, to redesign processes, to be thoughtful with one another about what does grading look like in grade seven or across the English department. How do we come up with a philosophy? you the biggest difference between professional learning in school settings and I think in the corporate world is that our jobs 90%
128of the time we have students in front of us. So the only time we have to do this other work that has to be done in order to move the district forward is days where our students aren't here but we are here and so that's where we will be losing out in terms of professional development. now will still have professional development. We'll rely on each other. I will be looking for outside grants. They're just far and few between for districts like us. And I say like us, it goes back to like the student opportunity act. We don't often qualify for much of the funding that is out there, but we will use every resource we have. We did a professional development day on the 22nd that was led by our educators. It was outstanding. there
129was some amazing learning that happened amongst the staff from the staff um and we will continue to build on that um without additional funding. So um again that retirement savings line is is in flux. We don't know where that will land, but for every teacher that retires, there is a potential savings um because teachers who have been here for a long time make a higher salary than a potentially brand new 23 24 year old teacher would. And so there's a there's an inherent savings in there. We're also looking at all of our stipens, clubs, and athletics to try and come up with approximately $125,000 or a little over $100,000 savings there. But beyond that, if you think back to the last presentation where 80% of our our budget is staffing, you'll see that a majority
130of the work that we have to do to get to that almost $2 million is staff. And so we are looking at FTEES across the whole district. So that's classrooms, it's offices, it's across the district, it's it's everywhere um in in folks in all different types of roles. And so we think that that could be between 15 and 20 FTE um which is stands for full-time equivalency, but that does not necessarily mean it's that exact number of people. Um you we have part-time teachers, we have um you know folks who teach 04.8 out of the 1.0. And so all of that matters when we look at this and because of because of um different levels of where staff are. No one staff member is the same amount of savings as another. And so um and
131I don't want to talk about a staff member in terms of savings because that is not how we feel about people. Um but when we are looking to factor amounts of getting us to this this closing of this gap, we do look at those salary numbers. And so that that makes a difference. And so trying to figure out exactly what that looks like is is taking us a little bit more time and we're trying to be really cautious. So that's what we think right now. Um we are continuing to look at everything above the staffing number to see if we can save more in those areas so that we can save less in the staffing number. Um, and so that's why it's still in draft form and why hopefully when we come back after February
132vacation, we'll have a more firm grasp of this to share with you. Um, you know, as we've been presenting this and having conversations with people, there have been a lot of questions around overrides. And so I just want to share a little bit with the community around overrides. And you know, starting with the idea that there are two different types of overrides. There's a Proposition 2 and a half override and then there's actually something called a debt exclusion override. So the Proposition 2 and a half override was actually something that was created in a way to sustain schools and towns and town departments. Um if you the Mass Municipal Association actually put out a report recently about why that structure is not working. Um, and it's because people aren't using the override um, structure to
133do what it was intended to do, which is to to provide ongoing increases in funding to schools and towns. And so you'll see a lot of communities around us and across the state who are going for Proposition 2 and a half overrides because what it does is it allows Cohassid to raise taxes above the 2.5% limit because the law currently limits annual property tax increase to 2.5% plus new growth. That's the new growth number that's embedded within the town's budget. In order to go above that, we need to do a proposition two and a half override. Is a one ter one-time vote first. Well, it's a one-time vote, but it happens twice. First, it has to be voted upon at annual town meet town meeting, and then if it passes at town meeting, it goes
134to the ballot. So, you have to vote twice as a community. And that vote equals a permanent increase to the tax base which then goes to whatever we are saying needs to be funded whether it's school in town, school and police, however it ends up looking like. Um, but it only happens with voter approval and it's really to fund essential services when there isn't enough money to fund the essential needs of whatever department we're looking at. And so while technically there is time to look for an override for FY27, we are facing a bigger issue. It's a long-term concern that we have because if we solve the problem for FY27, we're going to have the exact same problem for FY28, FY29, and beyond. And the town is in the same boat as us. If people
135are watching select board meetings, the interim town manager is talking about the exact same things we are talking about. There's there's not enough of an increase available on their side and they are going to have to make reductions and hard have hard decisions as well. So this is a this is a community concern and in order to even move a Proposition 2 and a half override forward, you need consensus between the school committee, the select board and the advisory committee. And we need to have a sustainable plan. We need to know what it would look like to sustain the schools for the next x number of years, ideally three to five years. And we need to know those numbers so that we aren't coming back to the community and saying each year we need more
136money. We want to say to the community upfront we need x amount of dollars to support everybody and then we will probably be coming back to you at the end of that time period because the town will be in that same position again. And so you know the thinking is rather than right now trying to fix in the short term and have immediate gratification how do we play the long game? How do we solve this problem for the next three to five years for the schools so that we are more financially soluble. So that's the thinking right now. Um, and we are trying to balance that with this idea of a debt exclusion override, which is actually different than a proposition 2 and a half override. A debt exclusion override is a temporary impact on
137people's taxes. It is for a defined period of time, typically for as long as the debt exists. Um, and it is designed to support very specific capital projects such as school buildings, renovations, major infrastructure. Um, and the cost of the debt exclusion override does go on your taxes, but for only the life of that debt. It is in some ways similar to the Prop 2 and a half override because it must pass a vote at town meeting and then has to pass a ballot vote as well. So, you know, the question has come up given the school building projects, will we be looking for both kinds of overrides? And the answer is is yes. We need to be talking about both overrides, both a operational Proposition 2 and a half override to support the operations
138of the school and then the schools will be seeking a debt exclusion override likely in the spring to support the feasibility study now that we've been accepted into the MSBA core process. And then again, and again, this is still unknown because it depends on where we are in the process. um either winter of 2027, spring of 27 or winter of 28 for the full building project. And I I used the figure based on the last feasibility study we did. We don't know what the actual cost would be. Um but it would be in the millions, hundreds of millions of dollars likely to do any middle school high school project. And we know that the MSBA reimbursement rate is a little over 30%. And so we would be seeking potentially two debt exclusion overrides in the
139near future as well. And so this slide just sort of captures again the you know the comparison between the two types of overrides. And in full transparency, there is a good chance that the schools will be needing to seek both types of overrides over the next few years for very different purposes and one cannot be used for the other purpose. So, a proposition two and a half override cannot be used to fund the school project work and a debt exclusion override cannot be used to fund the operational aspects of a school. And so our next steps as a in this work of doing the FY27 budget is that the leadership team will continue identifying final recommendations for closing the gap for FY27. Next Tuesday, February 10th, will be a joint school committee select board and
140advisory meeting where we will present the FY27 budget and we will continue to update the community at every school committee meeting from now through the middle of March. We will hold a public school committee budget hearing on March 18th at 5:00 pm prior to the regular school committee meeting here in this room and online. And then the school committee will vote on a proposed FY27 budget on March 3. And so at this point, I will take any questions on where we are now with the work on the FY27 budget. >> Thank you, Dr. Shan. Dial, do you want to kick us off with any questions or comments you might have? >> I I'm characterized that we actually have no questions or comments. That's I mean to the the picture of what it is. I know
141from our other discussions how hard you were working to find things. Um it is a difficult situation. So um hopefully we will find some relief but continue working on it. >> Mr. Evans, >> I'm going to try to not comment at all about the debt exclusion part of that because I I I feel like we have a we have an immediate problem and a long-term problem. Um, so I'm going to try to focus on on the immediate problem. Um, I spent a lot of time, too much time watching a lot of the override campaigns from other towns. Uh, one of the towns that's not close, you not far from us had a failed override. I've mentioned them before and it was really catastrophic. And I looked at how they went around, how they talked about
142it, and they used a lot of kind of emergency language like this is going to be catastrophic if we don't do it. And I looked at other towns that had the same way. it. I to me the pattern seems like um towns that present overrides that are presented as a plan forward rather than an emergency stop gap have a better chance of success. So what I want to float here is if we just putting a dot on the calendar, we plan for an FY28 override in the fall a little bit early because the more time we have to adjust up or down after that or maybe do a revision, whatever it is, we need to have more time. So this is I don't want us to wait for an override, two and a half override
143for operating until next spring. And I don't think that's really the plan, but I want to put that out there that it's going to be probably at special town meeting because that's going to give us a lot of time. Another one of the districts that that that is close to us did successfully pass an override a few years back or maybe last year, but part of the agreement of that override was a cap to how much they could increase every year. And now they're in this position where they're cutting even though they passed an override and they can't do anything about it. Uh so that's an example of planning but also not not really properly executing. Um that's why I'm not naming any names. I think we can learn from those two experiences. Right? So
144our plan is going to be this is what this is what we've done for this year to make everything we do valuable. We have found all the savings. We have asked everybody to sacrifice that we can. This is our five-year plan and this will get us there. And I think that's the message going into the fall. Um, and I agree the town side is difficult. Uh, and every district is going through this right now. We're not alone. Um, but I think if we do it, if we do it that way, we'll have a better chance of success. Also, if we collaborate, right, we need to collaborate with the teachers to get communications out there. We need to collaborate with the the unions throughout throughout the town. It's going to take the whole village. uh we
145gota you know and again all the enthusiasm we need to to get this through. Um so that's that's the plan that I I kind of see in front of us. On the debt side I think there's a lot of I'd like to delay making any decisions on all that as much as possible. I know we're kind of on the rails here but I don't want us to be a position where we lose what we need today because we've we've there's some confusion about what's around the corner. I don't know how to do that. But I'm just cautioning us to to try to be clear about what we need today versus what we need tomorrow. Um I had something else but I forgot about it. But thank you again for for for another great presentation. >>
146Thank you Mr. Evans. Mr. Squatrio. >> Um I did have a quick question. So as we've kind of narrowed the range of increase, I know we've kind of knocked out the 5 to 6% range. Does that mean we've also maybe knocked out the 1 to 2% range? >> Yes. Okay. >> Yeah. >> So, >> disappointing but also somewhat encouraging if that's possible. >> Yes. >> Um, so I don't I mean I don't know this is repetitive but it is it is a challenge in a lot of ways. Um on the note of professional development being something that is important this the weekend the Saturday before the storm I went to charting the course and it was it was free and we got free food which was great but I learned a lot even just from
147sitting there for 6 to 8 hours and you know just as you mentioned being in front of students 90% of the time that is not something that teachers have the opportunity to do even just to collaborate with other teachers for the whole year. You might never have the same free period as another teacher. So, you know, those those opportunities really do matter. And ultimately, the large point is, you know, I don't, as Mr. Evans pointed out, I don't want to be catastrophic, but as we look at these cuts, the phrase that came to mind was we are not playing games anymore. And I went and I looked at the FY 26 presentation and looked at a very similar slide listing how we're going to come up with the number here is 1.2 million. And we
148were pulling the le the levers of athletic athletic fees, parking fees, moving the buses into the student parking lot. And we're not talking about the same thing anymore. We're talking about making substantial changes to the district and I've seen the message you put out in the newsletter and you know I think there is some awareness of this in the community but I'm not sure that the gravity of it is fully understood. Um and and it's I I don't know what adjective to use it. It's really it's really difficult and it's really scary as I said last time but you know putting the number 15 to 20 FTEES as you've said multiple times that's not 15 to 20 individuals that's more than 15 to 20 individuals and you know we're at a point and I know
149we said this last meeting where this is going to have a substantial impact. It just is. And perhaps I am naive, but I don't think that is something that the community wants. And I don't think that's where we are. Um, like the number at the last meeting that came up from Miss Chu, you know, the gap was, you know, around $400 per household. Again, maybe I'm naive and as somebody who does not pay property taxes and go acid, I would proceed with extreme cautious caution on this. But from a high level perspective, it's hard for me to say that that is not something that I feel that this community is against or that we could get them behind. And you know, as Mr. Evans pointed out, I looked at overrides and challenges other districts are
150facing. I think if it's something we were to move forward with whether now or in the fall, coming up with something that is extremely targeted, limited to three bullet points on the on the impact of it and what it's asking for would be really powerful like three full day kindergarten prevent staff cuts and a third thing, you know, um which you know just be really important but it's hard because we need to keep this district regardless of building projects in the future maintaining what it's doing and we've seen the presentation from Mr. Scott and Mr. Ford and Mr. Scalleti earlier seeing what a great trajectory we're on and the real impact we are having on the district and the culture that is changing that I started to witness as I was leaving the district that
151things are changing things are on the uptrend and that is about to change and we have to make a decision so you know I understand the caution around an override and I don't think it is something everybody should immediately jump to any time that there are challenges. It's not something we jumped to last well I was not me but it's not something the committee jumped to last year when there were challenges and we weren't going to meet the increases. We addressed issues we cut around the edges but we're we're at a point where that's not possible anymore. So I just want to point out again the what I see as the significant impact that this will have while also emphasizing that I believe there potentially are options that need to be looked at or at
152the very least discussed like I feel we have discussions about these but I think perhaps we're at a point where those need to be expanded. >> Thank you. Mr. Mlen, >> Madam Chair, um I I I want to like I guess uh in last meeting obviously I made it clear how concerned I am about the circumstance. I I my one of my major concerns is uh the elimination or reduction of any um student facing positions. Um, I'm very protective of of the um, you know, the talent that we we have here at this at the district and, you know, maybe left in a situation where we have no choice but to um, reduce some positions that otherwise we would never never reduce. That said, I I I think that um there there are some like
153slight silver linings to these situations because it does force us to um to very very closely evaluate where some savings do make sense. And also people should understand that sometimes, you know, naturally occurring vacancies, maybe a staff member is retiring or something and then another staff member that um is in a position to fill that vacancy. And so we're actually we're we're reducing without losing anyone. Um so there are those situations and and the superintendent is um and our super assistant superintendent and all building leaders are all collaborating on those sort of situations that we can minimize the amount of actual reductions like hard reductions like loss of assets that we have. Um also also you have to look at it in terms of FTEES not just people which I think superintendent Shannon has pointed
154out in the past right. So, like, you know, there could be someone that's full-time and that's a 1.0 FTD. There could be someone that maybe is a, you know, 1.0 FTE right now, but maybe could be a point8 FE or something when we reevaluate the need um as to what they're doing. So, there's and there's savings there, you know, for each tenth of a point. So, it forces us. I mean, that's a healthy thing to do. Um, however, I I um I agree with everything Mr. just said. I think that maybe we should collaborate on ways beyond the school committee meeting and beyond the superintendent's newsletter to just basically um broadcast you know how serious our situation is and and you know just maybe brainstorm ideas that maybe you know people are I I will
155note that Miss Chu's calculation that you had noted that I mean I I applauded last time because I was you know I'm excited at the prospect of you know sort of it takes a village to you know contribute to this and I I just obviously ly I've spent countless hours towards our school district and I feel very strongly about it. Um I think it's a very I think it's the epicenter of our community but not everyone necessarily feels that way. That figure is based on I think like the entire community not just the school community who may feel even more you know they may feel strongly strongest out of anyone about the the the operational budget of the schools. So obviously that the ask would be much bigger from that number of households that are
156actually directly impacted by the by the schools which is I don't know if we have 1400 students and you think you know maybe an average of two and a half kids per household you know I don't know maybe it's just like you know 500 households or something like that so the number would be much larger I think to to get a much smaller overall figure but it's something that you know maybe you know we figure out and collaborate on once we get the hard numbers as to what we're you know what we're looking at productions and you know um what what the amount is we might be able to see from families and and maybe there's no appetite for it from folks and it's a public school district right this isn't a private school so
157you know people might not have any appetite to you know to to contribute any additional funds to it um but as Mr. Scrio pointed out, as I said last time, it will absolutely impact um you know what we're able to deliver. Um as Superintendent Shannon pointed out, we're going to do everything we can to make sure that we're still delivering the uh quality education that we current deliver currently deliver, but you know, there are there will be limits if we're having to make reductions. I mean, you're going to have less resources. So, um that's that's all I would like to add at this at this phase. I think there's a lot more to look at and I think the next presentation will be a fairly difficult one to to dig into. >> Thank you. Um
158and I will lots of thoughts. Um, but I think it too I'm thinking about um there there is impact and I'm I'm thinking about the communications right now and um the earlier calls for people to um the general public to be engaged and aware and educated on this. Um and I I think that your beautiful work Dr. Shannon has been broadcast. Um, but the time for public engagement and problem solving is right now. It is right now. It is not when we're taking the vote on the budget um in March. Um, it is right now. Um it is being engaged whether you're here, whether you're online right now or watch this um as you're going to bed tonight or tomorrow morning while you're folding laundry um or listen to it in the car um is
159or read um through the presentations that are available um to everyone in this community to really understand and better understand because I think um the um the administration has done a lot of work to um answer questions that we've heard um from the community about how we might solve these problems, how we are going through our process. Um, and we are trying to be as transparent as possible and the the time for the for questions, engagement and ideas is really right now. So I encourage everyone to sort of take this as a as a sense of urgency um to engage uh in this moment. Um, and then I will also continue to draw that connection between our earlier presentation around the role in which schools and specifically the grown-ups who work in schools can save
160children's lives by being the wonderful people that they are. And that is not hyperbole. That is the truth. um that they're our teachers, our educators, our our our our custodial staff, our bus drivers, our secretarial staff um interact with our community's children every single day. And know it or not, they sometimes are that link for that child that allows them to get through the next day, to get through the day after that, to continue to learn, to continue to be a productive um and and loved member of our community. Um and and so that in and of itself has no value at all. It is priceless. Um or it is um without being able to put a number on it, but that's what we're talking about. And um I I think it is serious. It
161is urgent and and requires public engagement. So, I hope that any of you who are listening um pass on those words um to your friends at the bus stop um when you meet for coffee at Seabird um or wherever you're um doing yoga and stretching um to say, "Hey, tune into this um and that we can start spreading that word." And can I just add, you know, if this time isn't convenient for people, I do there are people who have been calling, emailing, coming to meet with me. That's part of my job. I encourage people if you have ideas or you have questions, please come talk to me because I think that is enormously valuable. Um if this time doesn't work for folks. >> Thank you. And and I know you mean it too. And
162I think I will speak as a parent that um sometimes I am reluctant to bother very busy people um who have things but that we really do want all of us collectively I think and I'll speak for school committee members as well. Please reach out to us um as well as the administration. We want to hear from you and engage in in collaborative problem solving. >> Thank you. Any other comments, questions? Yes, Miss Latanzi. >> Latani 125 D Street. Um, I want to thank you guys for all your comments and thoughts. >> Coming up just so the mic sometimes doesn't it drops people off like >> I throw things at everybody. >> My apologies. >> I can't see the screen so I don't really staring at my my presentation. So, um I I don't even
163know where to start, but I think in summary, I I want to start with saying I don't know if um people have children at Ozgood, but um Principal Gardet sent out the school's report card today. Um and it's a tool for everyone to utilize to look at how we're doing as a school. Um not only student achievement, but teacher qualifications and student learning opportunities. And that got me to a place that I love to go to is the Desi website. And based on those metrics that we showed in this report card, um, I thought I'd look at how Cohasset compares to others in the district. And I think this comes back to the spending. And I just want to point this out because I think it it hits home. I know there's conversation here about,
164you know, not everybody in our town has kids in public school here. So, you know, do they care? Um, but these numbers I I mean it speaks to what Prince uh Superintendent Shannon was saying is that teachers make do with not a lot and we are doing an amazing job. So I'll just leave these these rankings with you. So Cohazet ranks 129 out of 397 districts in spending per people. So I mean we're we're not spending crazy but we're you know not at the bottom either. Um, and we're 130th out of 397 in average teacher pay. And we're 274th out of 397 in number of teachers per student. So with 397 being the low end, I mean, we're already at a lower number of teachers per student in that ratio. Yet, we still continue to
165outperform academically. Um we're ranked uh third in the district in 10th grade English, 46th in math. So even with our under funding right now today, we are a unique school district and that's a testament to our community and something that I think everyone in our community, whether you have a kid in our school system, should be cognizant of and proud of. Um, and I know we're kind of tiptoeing around this whole conversation about an override and it's urgency. I totally agree. It's super urgent, but what do we do with that? Like even if we do get the community to come here and say, "Tell me more, Superintendent Shane. I want to talk to you. What does this mean?" We can talk about it, but what is our tactical next step? Can we push for an
166override? Can we push out annual town meeting and do something collaboratively with the town? Because I think if we get the town who's also in dire straits a place for an override within that in a strategic way with longevity a smart plan for the future as Mr. Evans thinks we need which I 100% agree with. How do we do that now so we don't lay off 25 FTE whether they're, you know, back the back end of of our of our strong um personnel in schools or if they're if they're student facing? Why why would why should we lose them this year only to to bring them back next year? Maybe. Can we'll be gone? They'll get to go to someplace else. And those are the people that make Ohio school system what it is. those
167numbers, they mean something. So, is there any skin in the game in that spirit of urgency to do something for this upcoming fiscal year in a meaningful way? And I'd love to guys's thought on it. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Procedurally, there's nothing this committee can vote on to make that happen. can't do it at that meeting. is a carveout in in the law which says only the select board can put this on but citizens can do a lot of things but an override vote can only be done by the select like so that is literally we can jump and scream my response is is still I'm looking at the long term of all this and and my feeling is we can't fail like that that's my number one thing is if we fail
168we fail forever if we succeed we succeed, you know, for the next 5 years and we fight again. Um, so for me, I think right now I like what we're doing. I still think we're playing small small ball. They're going to hurt, but it also gives us narrative. It gives us ammunition to say we've done this already. It gives us us time to at town meeting say we are doing everything we can and now it is time for us to step up. And one number which I wanted to mention is we have 3,000 households. So if you want to do your $300,000 divide by just use your 3,000 3100 and obviously you got median house size whatever but it's 3,000. So you can just guess you know if we need you know $3 million right
169just do the math right that's per household that's what we're asking for. Um, and I think that starting last week, starting today, with the enthusiasm brought from from from parents, I think that's how we get the critical mass to get something big. I'd rather go for something that is big and and gets us five years than I'd rather spend time developing a plan than especially if we don't have all we have all select advisory. You know, obviously I take every dollar we can get. Um I'm just I'm just thinking of politics here. I've been doing politics in this town for a long time. Uh so I'm looking at the political landscape and how to get this done. Uh and I think we're on the right track now. Um I like I'm confident that we can
170get it done staying focused the way we are. That's my response. And Latia, I'll I'll just add my personal perspective. Um, you ask is their skin of the game and will get it done. It we did this last year. I mean, I I hated the fee increases. I hate the I hate the idea of cutting into the bone even more. I have looked at these budget numbers a lot. I'm working with the um superintendent. We're talking to various stakeholders. I mean, the the the hard issue is it's math and and it's income. It's expense. We've had a lot of expenses that have increased that were outside of our control. Transportation, special education, um, and you have you have to have those. Um, so we are trying to figure out if you if you do the
171the math right there that the staffing is 80% of our expenses. I think the proposal, if I did the math quickly, we're only going to try and get cuts if 50 to 60% of the um of the reductions will come from staff as opposed to it could be 80. It was correct. So, we're we're we're pushing down on that. And it pains me to think there are people who have entrusted us with their career that we can't continue to to um keep. So, the question is, can we do something now? And there's there's There's a a part of me that says, "Yeah, we should absolutely just we should rush and get something done." But what we risk there is getting something that is a half measure that doesn't fully address our district's concerns and even
172if we get it, we come back in three years for more or with less trust from the community. Um, a better approach in my view given where we we are is to look at where we're doing figure out what we learn from this as Mr. McCullen suggested and figure out what an actual five seven 10 year needs plan is and solve this problem permanently. And we've been saying that um that we've been trying to do. We've been identifying budget issues. We identified them last year. We're identifying them now. We've pulled all the tricks that we can out of the out of the out of the hat. And so we now know we can go confidently to the town and say here's our plan. Here's our needs. We have done everything we could do. This is
173this is the if you want to have performing schools, this is what we need. And I think that gives us the highest chance of permanent success because I don't want I don't want partial success. I don't want halfunded success and then we just extend people's you kick the can down the road and then have to do uh reductions in three years instead of instead of now. That's not a that's not so that that's what I'm that's what I'm worried about. That's why I don't that's why I say we don't do it now. We figure out exactly what we need. We take the time to get it right. >> Can I ask a clarifying question on that? So you say we need the time to get it right. What will we know next year that we
174don't know now for our needs? >> Number of retirements. We know changes in demographics on our teachers. Um there's a lot of uh floating variables in the current budget that we don't know yet. So we don't even have a full um full accurate number of what the what the deficit is. We have not done uh to my knowledge at least at the school committee level um a impact analysis of where we can comfortably reduce and where we can't. Uh we don't know what our strategic service offering plan should be in light of a in light of a further budget. There's lots of questions that that we haven't even solved for this budget, much less a fiveyear projection. So, we solve this budget, then we work on a five-year projection a little before the fall where
175we have uh then a very cogent and clear proposal for the select board and the town >> beyond staffing, right? I just want to clarify other it's not just the staffing post piece of it. You just mentioned retirement. I was just clarify I'm thinking the budget as a whole. >> Okay. We also haven't had we're in a currently negotiating with teachers for their contract and that again 80% of the budget. So how that goes and again every I mentioned before like this is a puzzle and um everyone is going to have to put a piece in and um the teachers have a big say in that right because they are 80% of things and as we saw a half percent or 1% is lots of people. uh so you know if there are small numbers
176that end up to big FTEES so how that outcome happens uh and again that's a large conversation also determines our our trajectory and we're not going to have that you know that that's going to have to be built into whatever override we have and we don't have that yet um we just don't know how much it is >> m I just want to be responsive because I think Mr. Sandy posed part of the question was um that she posed was you know would we consider pushing out annual town meetings so that gives us more time to sort of fully bake these ideas. Um the issue is I don't know exactly when town meeting is. >> If they already said it >> that that's fine even if they already said it, right? Because it hasn't happened
177yet. So you can always but the issue is is it la like last last year it's mid it's usually mid May like right. So >> but at that meeting we got to pass the budget. >> We do. >> So it and you're only the bud and the fiscal year ends and begins you know the end of June have to do this. >> So it doesn't give you a tremendous amount of time. you don't really have too much of a cushion there anyway in terms of passing the budget for the next fiscal year. So it's I don't there's not really much room to work with. Um and then there's the question of you know well can we and I think Mr. Dial pretty much addressed this. Um but I just add this one additional thought is
178that it's not only to me if we're going to do an override right there there's there's an override where just the schools would be asking for that. We're like, hey, you know, we'd like an override of of such, you know, so much money for the schools. And there will be people that are opposed to that because they don't want to just give money to the schools because it's just it's just impacting one subset. And you may really make a really compelling case for the community to coales behind the schools because of the data you shared and our success that we're having in the district. I do however feel that a lot of departments have come to a head as superintendent Shannon pointed out during her presentation at the same time and we stand in a
179much greater uh likelihood of success by allowing every department to to put together a uh comprehensive package in terms in terms of their ask and combine that into a global override that that then every citizen should pretty much support because whether they're a big fan of public safety or they're a big fan of water and sewer or whatever their, you know, whatever their energy is dedicated towards, right? Or schools, right? Then everyone has a dog in that fight, so to speak. So, I think we have stand a greater chance to to to get that pass. And I don't see that happening in, you know, uh, whatever it would be, 10 weeks or something that we have until, you know, town meeting or 12 weeks or whatever. So, I think it it's it it stands to
180reason that that we would have to wait till till next year to do, I think, a well-conceived override in my opinion. Um, even though I am usually a really impatient person and just want to get to the solve and I get frustrated about how slow municipal government moves, I just think that that's probably the w the prudent approach um as as Mr. Dial put it. But, um, but we're also not not waiting till next year. We're waiting till this fall, >> right, >> for FY28. So it's like when we say next year and the vote is not >> I mean next cycle right next year >> but we're already short time >> and that's exactly but that's that's what I'm talking about and and um and so that's why I suggest maybe there are some
181acute solutions where we sort of I I don't know how what this would look like and I I I hesitate to even say anything but like you know we we look to the actual school community itself or you know maybe some sort of contributions in some way to avoid you know I mean I don't think we're going to be able to find you uh $1.2 million from the school families, but we may find enough to to reduce like we did last year, minimize the actual student facing um reductions, which you know, and again, I'm this has not been discussed. This is just some some crazy idea I have, which my wife says I have too many of. So, um but I'm just that's sort of where I think we stand the best chance of finding
182some sort of like additional tax base um this this cycle. Um, but I just I just wanted to address because you you talked about the timing of it and I just wanted to address or give my my personal thoughts on it because you asked a response to that. So, >> and and outside of Jake, um, we all have kids, right? So, like I look at at reductions in future years. I've got a son and a daughter that are going to be in those years, right? So, I mean, my skin in the game is literally the the number of the teachers that my kids are going to see. So I don't want anyone I am somebody who is very analytical um and very cerebral but I don't want that to take away from uh the fact
183that I am passionate and it this does impact me directly. Uh it impacts my kids directly and um I don't take it lightly. So so I hope that everyone listens. When I say things that are mathematical it it's not because I don't feel emotions that that's how my brain works. But that that's my skin. My skin is that I have kids in this district and I live here and that will always be the case. >> To everyone, we do not have um any comments online. Do we have any additional thoughts or comments? >> Just say very quickly, Stephanie Saunders, Penn Stratford. I think this is all great. I think what it kind of felt like last year just in this uh Groundhog's Day again is that this kind of big catastrophic thing happens right and
184you know life really has to go on. We have to figure things out. It kind of falls off then it comes up again. So I think for me it's like how do we keep the momentum going very strategically and clear and like not just at these school committee meetings. I don't know how many people are online, but I know it's not all the people that need to know this. So, if there's thoughts from you guys about how to like actually do that community engagement in some way that um isn't just the one-off conversations and I really like I really appreciate all the messaging from Dr. Shannon, but I feel like that needs to be like all around like a very strategic plan with that into the fall. Like >> otherwise, it's you know there there
185is so many priorities. I mean, let's we're not going to get we're not going to open up the public safety can of worms here, but like there's a lot of other priorities going on. So, how do we keep this at the core in people's minds? And the conversations I have with people of all ages really truly, I will support what Victoria said, people really do want to see the school succeed all around. I've worked with the elderly in town. They're very proud of their kids going here. They want to see that going. Um, so I I I think there's there is a really good amount of support behind it that like communication strategy would be really important. Thanks. >> Thank you. Education is the perpetuation of democracy as well. Um, so I always like to
186remind everyone of that. Um, it democracy does not exist without an educated populace. So um let's move on to community relations and communications. Um at this point if there are any reports from school committees, subcommittees or liaison um please report. >> This isn't really a report but I don't know where else it fits in. >> Sure. >> Um we conducted our first office hours upon respect request from families today. Uh, so I just want to remind everyone we didn't do a great job messaging that ahead of time because it wasn't until it wasn't >> we we we discussed it and voted on it before the winter recess. So it would have been I think a better idea. I just got too busy and forgot to ask superintendent Shannon to do that. We are starting to
187do that where before every meeting we will um meet um we will someone will be here an hour before the meeting for you to come in if you want to share your thoughts with the exception of that March 18th meeting which is already an hour >> extra. >> Yes. Thank you Mr. Mlelin. >> Also for if if it's okay with the communication subcommittee I wouldn't mind to to Sandre's point sitting down and just looking at how we send our emails out. I I do think that as we are sending out uh like the link to the comm the committee to the next school committee meeting which is a link that's not very engaging >> right so if we say like the school is going to the school committee is going to discuss the budget shortfall
188for next year like like that's what the email is we'll get a lot of people right I mean we have to start I think that we lose a lot of people it's it's like old newspapers below the fold if something's after a click you have to you have to sell people on that click so we have to start making uh what we're selling people more attractive to click on and I think we can there's a lot of places we can >> that's okay with this >> I think I am on that committee and I think actually you might be on that committee as well potentially so let's set a meeting um with and get >> I'm going to ask Jennifer to review who's on the >> subcommittee and we'll set something up and >> yeah
189build a plan exactly >> excellent um any other comments on that in that Great. Um, there are no topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair this evening. We have no minutes to approve and no reason to go into executive session. Um, so at this point I will ask for a motion to adjurnn. So >> a second. >> Second. >> Um, roll call vote. Mr. D. >> I. >> Mr. Evans. >> Hi. >> Mr. Hi. >> Mr. McCullen. Hi. >> Jamie. I. The meeting is adjourned. Um, thank you to our in-person um, participants, our online participants. Again, this is a good time. Please continue to join us. Thank you.