001Good evening everyone. Um and welcome to the June 18th regular meeting of the Kasset School Committee. Will all members who are present please indicate so in roll call. Mr. Dial present. Mr. Virtually yes Corey Evans virtually present as well. Miss Hannah is not present. Mr. Mlen is also not present but Miss Leki Miss Leki is present. So, we do have a quorum of three members. So, we'll call the meeting to order. Will those who are present and able please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Um well, thank you everyone. Um, this is my first meeting of chair as chair of the cohasset school committee
002and I can only guarantee you one thing and that is no other meetings will start as late as this one. So there we go. It's a low bar to to aim for it to start with, but that's where we'll go. Um, I wanted to congratulate all of our students on their graduation. Um, from their current grades moving forward to our preschoolers out there who will become um, kindergarteners soon um, and those students who will be entering our preschool soon. Um, summer is an exciting time for students. Um, it's a exciting time for teachers and administrators as well. Um, even those who are working through the summer. Um, it's a quieter time to to sort of reflect um, and to get ready for the year ahead. Um and so thank you to all of you who
003made this a wonderful year and um congratulations on a uh welldeserved summer. Um we will um move on to the public comment section. Um and a reminder that this portion of the meeting is reserved for topics not otherwise on the agenda. If you would like to comment on a topic that is on the agenda, please wait until that part of the meeting. Of course, please state your full name and address before addressing the committee. If you are watching the meeting from home, you can participate using the Q&A feature on Zoom and you can access this meeting using the Zoom link that was shared with the agenda for the meeting. You can also find us streamed live on Cohasset43TV and on Facebook Live via Cohasset Live streaming. So, I'll give that a second for any public
004comment and it's also a very quiet time. More bike traffic than car traffic has it today. Um so seeing no public comment we will move on to the invited guest section of the meeting. We have um Mr. Brian Scott who has a high school principal who will be introducing our new high school assistant principal and we will also be reviewing the topic of cell phone usage at the high school and voting on policy for school year 2526. Mr. Scott, would you please join us? So thank you. Uh I am thrilled to introduce Kate Darling. Um she has been a middle school and high school teacher mostly at Boston's collegiate in Gochester. Uh she won the Santang Prize for urban education. Um she has a ton of experience in things that we are about to embark
005on with the new strategic plan in terms of project based learning teacher evaluation and mentorship uh coaching and um so we we could not have Jack. So I'm very happy that she's with us. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Um, will you be starting July 1st? Yes. Oh, very. It's right around the corner. Thank goodness. Wonderful. And do you have any questions for the committee? We are here to support you and um help you get settled in as well. So, anytime you need anything or have questions for us or want to say anything to the community at large right now, you're welcome to do so. Great. No, I'm just I'm really excited to be here. Um, spent, you know, a few days here now already meeting staff and students and everyone's so amazing and the team
006seems really great. um got to look at the you know strategic plan and the report that um Brian had sent me and I'm really excited to dive into some of those like areas of improvement. Um I've spent a lot of my time at Boston Collegiate working with teachers to incorporate more deeper learning in their classrooms and to get students to take more ownership and um so I'm really excited to bring some of that experience here. Um I also have a lot of experience with restorative justice which I know is an area that we're looking to incorporate more of. Um, so I'm excited and everyone seems really amazing and thank you everyone for welcoming me. Thank you. Uh, Corey or Lance, if you have anything you would like to say, um, please do so at will.
007No, I I'll I'll just jump in since I'm I guess we're both remote. So, thank you very much and welcome to uh to the school. Sorry I couldn't be there in person uh to to greet you. Um, but uh very excited to have you and uh looking forward to uh the impact that you're going to have with us. So, thank you. And I'll echo what Lance just said and again apologies for uh not having more people there to meet you and greet you in person. We will make up for that. Thank you. Um Mr. Scott, I think we can then just sort of move right into um the cell phone um usage in the high school. Um, and if you would just sort of very very briefly sort of give us a a quick overview
008and what you're looking for from the school committee today and then we will move forward with motion. Sure. So, um, we on the heels of, um, reading the X generation in the fall, we developed a committee probably of close to 25 or 30 people involved parents, teachers, students, administrators, school committee rep, and kind of went through what we were looking to to do to help address some of the issues that were presented in the book. Um we conducted a pilot program for about a term um one quarter I should say for the third quarter and we got some pretty good feedback. We saw a lot of benefits. We saw some practical challenges that the students pointed out. Uh and there was a little bit of divide in the committee as to whether or not we
009wanted to only ban phones or restrict phones in classrooms or if we wanted to extend that uh through lunch and through break. And so the committee was a little bit split on it. We brought it to school council and they weighed in a little more. We had some more student input there um as well as some parent input. And really the the voice of both committees said, "Well, this is really a community issue. Let's throw back to the community and see what the general public thinks." So really I guess what the two proposals are is to allow break or allow phones during break and or lunch or uh and passing time or to have phones restricted for the entirety of the day. Would another way of saying that be a full restriction of phones during
010the school day or just a restriction during class time? Yeah. Is that correct? I think that then we're talking about two ways in which they're restricted class. Um we'll start with um the school committee um comments and um anyone in the public who is watching and would like to make a comment now would actually be a good time to type your question um in um so that we can get to those as well if they exist. Um so Mr. Dial, would you like to start? Yeah. So I know I know thank you very much and this is obviously really important and I think it's important for our school to our school system to be thinking about these issues because technology is changing and I often tell people that in my view the childhood experience that
011our kids are facing today is one of a unique set of facts that is so far different than what we had as kids that takes a lot of of thinking to figure out what we should do next. So, I think that um we've had this pilot program. I guess uh Principal Scott, uh it it wouldn't hurt if for me if you could just refresh for us and for the public kind of the um not necessarily the program itself. I think we got that, but just your findings from an administrative standpoint and any feedback that you've had from kids and then, you know, I don't want to go as far as to say a recommendation, but just what are your thoughts of the results of the pilot just so we can have that fresh in our
012mind as we're as we're deliberating tonight. Yeah, I think you know in general it was wellreceived. I think there was a little bit of a learning curve on the part of students and on the part of parents. Uh but I think a lot of the practical challenges that we faced um in terms of communication particularly with home can be remedied. The way we communicate with students uh whether it's sports teams or clubs um or even classrooms I think uh can be amended in order to fit that in. I think A couple of things that the students brought up in some of their survey data was replicated in the European study that we shared as well where some of the online phone activity stopped during the day but transferred to after school hours. So the total
013use of cell phones didn't quite go away in terms of social media. it was just shifted to more of the evening when they were catching up on uh the snaps or Instagram posts or whatever it was that they would typically have in school. Uh there was some concern about um some concern about safety, although I don't really think that's an issue from my perspective. I actually think less is more in those situations because the teachers will have phones and would be able to communicate with me directly. Um so I don't see that as a particular challenge. There was some issues with what they saw was an overinforcement of the cell phone policy from teachers that they might not have known who were then on them if they saw them in the halls. They didn't like
014the way that relationship would kind of develop. So, we need to do some work on that. Uh, and I think the practical issue of being able to enforce it in the hallways and um during break is going to be challenging because we don't have the staff to really man that um effectively. So, as long as we go into it with our eyes open, if that's the direction we want to go, we just need to know that it's going to be a slow um curve in terms of discipline. You know, it's not an approach that I want to take that I'm going to immediately assign the students attention. you know, it's going to be more of a conversation first and then we'll build up from there if students and repeat offender. Um, you know, I think
015the biggest one of the biggest things was that it really needs to be if we're really looking to change the impact the phones have and social media in particular, it's really not the texting um or the communication piece. It is social media itself and that's going to need to be complemented by some efforts at home. Mr. Evans Yeah. So a few weeks ago I I referenced that on a macro level I do think that the discussion about uh technology and how children learn is one that we are going to have to have again kind of in reverse. Uh and I'm a big fan of that conversation and um a big fan of uh the full restriction here. I've had some great conversations with parents uh especially of of uh you know I have a a
016My two are still before Deer Hill, but the the parent groups that we talked to um or I talked to, they all expressed eagerness to have their kids in in a in a class in a school that wasn't full of of these distractions. They saw that as a good way to reinforce some behaviors that they had at home as well. So, uh, and the last thing which I which, um, the principal mentioned, uh, three weeks ago that really stuck in my head was the fact that this pilot program expired and that behaviors didn't immediately go back to how they were before the pilot program. And I think once you it's hard to understand what's a need versus just what's a habit, something habitual. And once we broke the habit, it seemed like things were good.
017And the fact that it didn't come back immediately means that there wasn't some sort of latent need that we were ignoring. And I do think that there's uh I'm only uh feel more strongly about what I what I expressed three weeks ago about supporting the full restriction in this case. uh and we will I agree uh and I also expressed at the time but I agree that enforcement will be challenging but I do think you set standards and you set expectations and then you let everything flow through that based on and we let administration uh figure out the best way to deploy it. So that's what I got. Thank you. Um, and I will just say I I feel very similarly in terms of phones being away, giving students and teachers that opportunity to really
018just engage. Um, those little goodbyes out the door, the hell's in the hallway, I think they're more likely to happen when the phones are away and also aren't then in the back of your mind, oh, I can't wait to get out of class because I want to check X, Y, and Z. Um the lunchroom for me is like absolutely like I love that that could be a tech-free place um for our students. I think it's a great opportunity for them to really learn some social skills or to build on their social skills. They're all very apt socially um but to sort of continue to build that and and I also think that other schools are doing this successfully as well that there are models for it um for this sort of it's a way for
019the day you don't need it. Let's move on. Um, so I appreciate one your willingness to explore and to also give it such a great process that allowed for input um from all stakeholders because I think that you got some buy in. It sounds like there were some habits to break but nobody was pounding down your door I don't think saying this is absolutely unfair. I can't live with this pilot program. Yeah, I don't think I didn't see any of that. I saw a couple of um students who were fairly addicted to whatever it is they're looking at. Yeah. um I didn't have any real rebellion and I think as I do in most things that students act on their best interests at the end of the day they might yell and screen but they
020know what's best for them and they may have some gratitude at the end too. Um we do not have any public comment. Um, so at this point I would be seeking a motion from the committee um either to approve a full restrictions on cell phones in the high school during the school day um or to limit that to uh phones being restricted just during class time. I will move that we u adopt a full restriction policy for the class middle high school. Do we have a second? I I if if I could make just a comment before we go to the second uh just to preview I am in favor of a of a full adoption but before we before we do given the community attention on this and some questions I've had from community
021members I guess uh and this may be another question for Mr. Scott um is the I guess could you just give us your thoughts on the effectiveness of a of a classroom only versus a full full restriction? Do you do you see any advantages disadvantages to one versus the other? Just for the for the record and for the uh for the viewers at home, I suppose. Yeah, I I don't know that I would phrase it as advantages or disadvantages. I think the challenges that we're going to have with phones is going to be outside of the classroom anyway. Um so the challenges I see are communications from home, um communications from things like work. And I do think that there's a difference between a ninth grader and a 12th grader with a phone and what
022they are expected uh to be able to do with it in the real world. But I I wouldn't necessarily say that there's an advantage or disadvantage each. You have a view as to which as to whether we should have a full ban or a a part a classroom only policy. I think the I think as long as we understand that the enforcement in those other areas is going to be difficult, I don't have a problem with the full Yeah, I don't have a problem with either one of them really. Um I can see both sides of the argument, you know, and I'm willing to go in in either direction. If I could add, I think that there's very likely going to be a decision at some point. I would be really surprised if it doesn't
023happen either for the next school year or during the next school year by the state to say that all schools through the high school level must be completely phone free. So I I they have been setting the stage for that. I think it's just a matter of time. I don't think it's an if, it's a when. Yeah. I think the real issues are in the details of how it's um structured. I'm not a fan. So, so I guess um with the recognition that there might be some enforcement challenges and with with understanding and you and Mr. and Principal Scott, you would not turn our school into a uh into a enforcement battleground. I I know you would be u reasonable and and judicious in the exercise of enforcement. Uh and with that understanding, I will
024I second uh Mr. uh Evans's motion to implement a full uh cell phone BAM for the uh for the for the schools. So then at this point we can take a vote and we'll do that via roll call. Mr. Dial I. Mr. Evans Cory Evans I uh Miss Leky I. So the M motion passes three to zero with no abstensions. Thank you Mr. Scott. Thank you Miss Darling. Um, thank you for all that you do to make CHS so special. Um, and I look forward to seeing you working as a team together um, in three short months. Great. Livestock and watches. Going to need them now. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, we are going to move on to block D, our superintendence report. Um, from Mrs. Sarah Shannon. Um, okay. Well, I can't
025believe I'm saying this, but welcome to summer. Um, as you all know, yesterday was our last day of school for the 2024 2025 school year. Was a great end to the school year all around. There were celebrations, recognitions, and some tears as students said farewell to their teachers and vice versa. Um, overall it was a great year where we made a lot of academic and district progress. I'm proud of what we accomplished this year. And though I'm grateful for the short break, I am looking forward to what's ahead for us next year. Um, all of that said, I want to just thank everybody who was a part of our our school year from our teachers to our students to our support staff to families. Um, we can't do it with all of you, without all
026of you. Um, and since our last meeting where I recognized a lot of our sports teams, I want to follow up and let folks know that our boys and girls tennis team made it to the final four, which was a huge accomplishment. And both our boys and girls lacrosse teams made it to the state championship. Unfortunately, I did have to share texts with the superintendent in Norwell congratulating him on both of those games. Um, but both teams played their hearts out. We played incredibly well and the hope is that they're back there next year. Um, and finally, as most people know, we are saying farewell to Principal John Mills at the end of this month. Um, Principal Mills has accepted a job of assistant superintendent for the Carver public schools. Um I've had the good
027fortune to work with him twice now and so we will be sad to see him go and but we are wishing him all the best in his new role. He deserves it and um is ready for that next professional step. We have posted the position of middle school principal on school spring. Um that position is will be posted through next week. Um we've gathered feedback from staff and families around what we're looking for with regard to qualities and skills for the next principal. Um we have a search committee ready to go um and we'll be meeting for the first time next week to talk about process um with the intent of scheduling interviews for the week of July 8th. The plan is to have finalists named for the week of July 21st with forums for
028families and staff and students to come meet the candidates and a final decision for a new principal hopefully by July 25th. Um we'll continue to keep the community updated as we move through the process, but we are um very hopeful that we will have uh someone who can fill Mr. Mills's big shoes that he's leaving behind. It's a hard transition, an important transition, but I feel confident that we will find a great candidate to move our middle school into the next phase. Those are all the updates I really have. Thank you very much. Um, Mr. Dial, do you have any comments or questions for Superintendent Shannon? None here. Thank you very much for the update. It's a happy happy end of the school. Mr. Evans, any comments or questions? Same thing, nothing to add. Thanks
029for the update and uh look forward to uh hearing more about the uh the new search. I'd say thank you for the update and thank you for a great school year. Um I you know I'm we will miss Mr. Mills. Um but I'm glad that we have some time to to find a replacement for him for the middle schoolers. Um all right, moving right along to teaching and learning report with Drs. Collins. Um, not too much to say. The end of the year was wonderful and it was great to go around the schools. Um, Superintendent Shan and I ran around yesterday saying goodbye to everyone and classes were still writing. We were a couple of times they were still working. Um, but it was wonderful. It was a great year. Just so families know that
030progress reports are already posted in Aspen for those in elementary and for the middle and high school. Report cards will be posted on the 25th next week. And the student reports for any kind of benchmark assessments that happened K through 8, those are also already in Aspen. So you can assess your students. That's it. Just looking forward to um doing some nice work over the summer to get ready for the fall. Thank you. Um, again, Mr. Dial, do you have any comments or questions? Thank you. All right, Mr. Evans, do you have any comments or questions? Good to hear. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Skellins. Can't wait to see what you uh come up with um this summer. Um and so we'll turn to Miss Susan Owen, our director of finance
031and operations with with her monthly update. And um and I can guess I could get to uh what you do and I be very I will be very brief. Um I know we've been following closely um the deficit for the FY25 school year. Um it is as a result of at this point the shortfall has um increased slightly. It's gone from 704,986 to 713,86 through the end of May um due to help from the town and some shuffling between funding. Right now our deficit is looking at about $149,000 um big difference um than what it was the end of May. So by the end of June um first week of July that obviously that that budget will be balanced um and we'll be in a zero um zero balance. Um we still have one more
032payroll, one partial payroll to go and we still have one or two more warrants which includes paying invoices and things and such and any last minute things that come through um probably have you know do had to do with graduation and things like that. So um we're at a much better place right now. um more to come the next report um it will definitely be zero or ahead of the game um but it definitely will not be a deficit and other than that um there isn't a whole lot to report I just I did want to share few things if I could stand in my report um the ebus we have come to terms with the company and come to agreement that we are going to terminate our um agreement with the the electric bus.
033Um so we gained, you know, valuable insights throughout the process. It just didn't meet the expected outcomes for either party. Um partly because one party um went bankrupt and another business and they're trying to support best they can um through another through another division. Um but it just hasn't worked for us. So as such um we will see that ebus go away. Um you also notice that all of our buses are parked here back at the high school again, which is part of our plan for next next year's um budget savings to have them parked um in a place where we can call home and we don't have to pay pay a fee for them. Um the other thing that I wanted to share that I thought thought was really nice is our our food
034service director um Vinnie Kado Kadon um last year and this year um did a senior barbecue. So I just wanted to share some good things. So, you know, here's the food service. Senior barbecue. They had grilled steak tips. They had Caribbean barbecue chicken. They had pickled cucumber salad. They had Argentinian potato salad with cherry. Um, you can see here that the seniors in line feasting. We had it outside behind the cafeteria. Um, we had fresh watermelon. And again, you know, this is our fabulous food service staff here at the high school. We definitely have fabulous food service staff at all of our schools. Um, but they this is the crew that actually br the barbecue for seniors. So, I want, you know, to congratulate them for doing such a great job. The kids loved it.
035Um, we loved it. It was it was nice. The kids were very excited. So good. It was outstanding. It was just it's, you know, and what a great send off it was, you know. So, congratulations to seniors. As we approach the end of school year, which we have, um, every effort is being made to close the budget in a fiscally manner. And I sincerely want to thank all the administrators and staff for their continued effort, support to help reduce that growing deficit. I know it was painful at times. Um, and they were very patient and it's been a very challenging year and hopefully we have a better a better year next year. Um, the commitment and cooperation was greatly appreciated from all stakeholders. Um it really, you know, it really came together and it took
036all of us to try to figure out what we needed to do. So, thank you. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Um Mr. Dial, do you have any questions or comments uh for Miss Owen? Um first, Miss Owen, thank you very much for all your efforts over the over the school year. This has been a very challenging budget um scenario and very much appreciate you keeping us apprised of it. Um, one question is we we still showing the negative 716 I think it is now of the increase of eight. What's the plan to close that and by when does that need to be closed? So, we're working closely with the town hall. We still have one payroll left. Um, so the big payroll went through today and the town had transferred the money that
037they had um granted us a town meeting. So right now we're at negative49,000. We still have to do some transfers from our revolving accounts. Um for for example food service um every year helps us with our utilities. So there'll be a transfer onetime transfer of some um funding from food service going towards utilities, food service um going towards a partial custodian. So you know our facilities rentals will offset some of it. So, um, we're in a good place right now with the the minus 149. The last payroll should not be more than4 to $50,000 is what we're projecting. Um, it's basically it's a split payroll. So, because of the the weekending dates, it will be that last pay will be mostly people that are on pay slips. um and what days they work during 25
038will be charged to 25 and then split whatever they work in 26 will be charged off to 26. So um over the next few weeks we'll know exactly what um what we'll be left with and and um almost guaranteeing it's going to be a zero it's going to be a zero balance. There won't be a deficit. Um we can't end the school year in a deficit so there won't be a deficit. Well and and you anticipated where I was going. So, it sounds like we've got a plan to get to a uh to get to a zero. Uh and many times in a school context, you're not aiming for a zero, but here in school budget, we we are. So, uh thank you for your uh thank you for your help and uh definitely keep
039us posted as it develops. Thank you, Mr. Evans. That's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Dial. Mr. Evans, do you have any questions, comments for Miss Owen? I would I would re reframe uh Mr. dials comments to say we should aim for 100 and not over 100. 100% of everything spent is a good place to be. I do have a lot of questions u but you know one member taking up a whole school committee time is this is not productive. So, I would like to poke the committee on getting the uh subcommittees tasked because uh having the uh finance subcommittee formed will then hopefully I'd love to be on that uh you know be a better use of time to have have conversations between two people than just one. So, I'm going to hold my
040questions. I have a list of them. Uh, and I've got a lot of documentation I've been going through, but uh, I don't want to spend the time tonight on it, but I do want us to start moving forward on it. So, um, folk delivered, right? And Mr. Evans, you can at any time um, call me and come in and we can sit down oneonone and go over all the questions you have. I appreciate that. Uh, but I also don't want I don't think it's I think it's better use of of the committee's time and your time if if we do it in the in the proper format. um having individuals kind of you know going on side projects I've always found being slightly counterproductive. I don't want to contribute to that. So I prefer us
041figure out what you know uh who's doing what and uh as the committee and then we can I think more efficiently interact with you all. So um that's not a comment on on on administration. It's purely a comment on how we govern ourselves. Great. That's you know appreciate I appreciate that. Thank you. And uh Mr. For what it's worth, I'd be delighted to serve on that finance committee with you. I'd like to change my No, I'm kidding. Yeah, that sounds there. [Music] And then I believe you. We do have a gift. Um, you bring that up. So, it's from the PSO. They have sent us a check for $4,50 for spring grants. Um, all the requests came from Ozgood. So you can see here 2500 was for poster maker, 750 was for kindergarten scholastic and
042800 was for readers workshop. Um I want to thank them very much for the generous gift and all their support over the years. Um they continue to support us in any way they can. So thank you and I just I need approval and acceptance of the gift. Um so if either uh Mr. Evans or Mr. dial would like to um make a motion to approve this gift to accept this gift that would be lovely. And if the other of you would like to second it, that would be great, too. So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor? I I got a roll call. Got it. Okay. All right. Mr. Dial. Um I Mr. Dial. Mr. Evans. Corey Evans. I Jesus. Please accept that gift. And I'd like to add my thanks to the PSO as well.
043Um they do so much for our district to enrich um the life of teachers and students from speakers to fun events like that little eighth grade dance was just absolutely adorable. Snapper sneaker day um parent education programming enhancing the PSO um the CHMS library. Um so thank you all of you who do the um that work on the PSI. I know. Oh, I know. It's a huge group of people and you all deserve our thanks. All right. So, that um we're now at block G, community relations and communications. Um so, if anyone um if either Mr. Dial or Mr. Lance, Mr. Dial or Mr. Evans has um any reports from um liaison reports and that actually would be just you, Mr. Dial. Uh no reports from from from me. I think uh things quieted down
044with the end of the year. Um but uh looking forward to the reassignments and uh re-engaging with the community for next year. Okay. Um I have no comments either. So we'll uh or reports. I will move we will move on. We are now at that point um in the agenda about um school committee liaison and subcommittee assignments. Um Mr. Evans, I just heard what you had to say and I think I have come up with a decent compromise here. We have two volunteers who would like to be on the finance committee. I would like to say let's go ahead and form our finance committee, but let's hold until we have a full um slate of board me members present to fill the other committee and liaison positions. Does that sound agreeable? I don't love that
045we're doing it. I mean, yes, it's agreeable and it's completely reasonable. A stickler for policy though. there's five of us and I do feel like that, you know, there's a bunch of other stuff. We have to as a committee kind of get our stuff together here and show up as a five member board and get this done. Um because I, you know, I kind of feel like us if we kind of pick and choose stuff, we'll just lose track of it. So, um, I'm happy to if if there's an understanding that Lance and myself can unofficially do this, we can just go ahead and if we have and then if other members, uh, you know, want to revisit the the issue later on, uh, when we do official official assignments, that'd be fine. Um, you
046know, but I wouldn't I wouldn't assign us on with a 30 vote. I'd rather have a 5. That way, everyone's got a chance. So we can start the business of that particular committee because it is an important one particularly as before we get even into the next um school year and this and we're at the start of a new fiscal year. Um and I will sort of take note that um that this is unofficial. We'll have a full slate conversation about that at which point um it sounds like both you and Mr. Dial agree that there may be some changes. Um I'm not sure that there will be. That's fine, too. Yeah, absolutely. We're all on the same page, so uh that's just fine. Yeah. No, that's perfect. Thank you. Um we do also have
047the business of the superintendent's evaluation um tonight. Um so let me just pull up a few things right here. Um and so evaluating the superintendent is one of the roles of the school committee. Um and it's done collaboratively with input um solicited from all committee members. Um and it evaluates our superintendent against specific measures and goals. Um we are absolutely so fortunate to have Miss Sarah Shannon join our district almost a year ago uh today as our superintendent. The transition has been incredibly smooth. In fact, I would use the word seamless as Miss Shannon has gotten to know all of the inner workings of our district, the amazing educators and administrators on her team, and laid the groundwork for a new strategic plan and vision for the district. It should be noted that Miss Shannon
048received ratings of proficient and exemplary across measures, earning an overall rating of proficient. I will read now this uh summitive section of the evaluation into the record. Ms. Shannon had a successful and productive inaugural year as the superintendent of Cohasset public schools. She masterfully confronted a daunting budget shortfall, quickly educating herself around Cohasset's unique systems and processes in order to conceive a creative, responsible, and professional solution that should serve the district well as we head into the coming academic year. While navigating difficult fiscal circumstances, Machinan simultaneously led the development of the district's new strategic plan, a process that took several months and required input from numerous stakeholders. In addition to the development of the strategic plan, Miss Shannon fully embraced, supported, and strengthened the district's efforts to explore improvements to the secondary campus and buildings.
049In doing so, Miss Shannon single-handedly reddrafted the district's statement of interest into uh to the Massachusetts School Building Authority Authorities core program. Miss Shannon has approached her new role with enthusiasm, professionalism, and humility, demonstrating a genuine desire to better understand the needs of dis all district staff. This empathetic approach has improved relations between district leadership and many staff groups, which will yield great long-term value as the district implements its new strategic plan. Miss Shannon also seems attentive to the need for uniform hiring processes for incoming staff, especially the leadership staff, a fact that is evidenced by several hiring processes that took place over the course of the 2425 academic year. Throughout the 2425 academic year, Miss Shannon placed student needs above all considerations and ensured that student perspectives were incorporated into every major operational decision.
050We are grateful for Miss Shannon's hard work uh throughout the 2425 academic year and are excited to see what the future holds as we move forward under her competent leadership as the new superintendent. Yeah, there we go. Thank you. So, congratulations, Miss Shannon. You have done an absolutely spectacular job uh leading our district um from the get-go. I'd like to borrow one of your own terms, which is onward. Um so excited for um the next year um and many more years um to come. I will take any comments um from committee members if there are any. Mr. U m uh Miss Shannon, I wanted to express my sincere thanks and I want to just give a recognition that uh I don't think one could have designed a more challenging entry to a superintendent position than
051what you were facing this year. Uh we talked about the budget shortfall that was very ser that was a very obvious example, but we also had uh uh teacher contract negotiations. We also had uh developing new and better rules with our teachers. Uh you have done everything you've needed to do. You've hit your stride and you've made the district a great district already. You've made it better. I think that you have phenomenal job. Uh and I wanted to give you my uh thanks and gratitude for for what you've done. And and as someone who was on the hiring committee for uh for bringing you in, I can say that I am very pleased with the work of the committee. So, I'm going to take credit for all of your fine work. Uh, and and of
052course, I'm kidding on that point, but uh, but thank you for what you've done and I look forward to the coming years. Thank you very much, Mr. Evans. Yeah, just want to echo obviously um, congratulations on a very challenging but successful transition year. And, uh, now that the transition year is over, time to get to work. So, I'm excited to see uh with you fully aware of all the challenges, how this works. I'm I think we've got a really interesting and exciting year ahead. So, uh eager eager to start year two. So, thank you. Um finally, we have um the approval of minutes, but we are unable to do so because we do not have a quorum. Um only Mr. Evans and I were attending and attending now at the meeting on um 521. Um
053so we are unable to approve those minutes and we will move those to the next meeting. Um we do also have a reason to move into executive session but I think that's challenging given our virtual format. Um so superintendent Shannon if it's possible to move that to a later date. That's fine. Okay. So we will also be moving um our executive uh session to our next meeting. Um, so Cohasset, thank you. That was my first meeting as chair of the Cohasset School Committee. Hooray. It might not be the one that started the latest and will end the earliest. Do not expect the same um going forward. Um, so thank you all. Good night and enjoy your summer. Thank you. Thank you. I will make a motion to adjourn. Otherwise, we'll be here for See, I
054still need my handheld. Um, could I have a motion to adjurnn, please? Cy just did. Okay. Second, I will. Yep. I heard Lance say second. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, we have a paper. Mr. Mr. Dial, you say that. Okay. Mr. Evans. Courtney Evans. I Okay. Jen Lelesky. I We are now tonight. Great job. Excellent. Go.