001I call to order the school committee meeting of October 6, 2025. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Roll call, please, Ms. Gensner. Amaral. Here. John Nunes. Yep. Chris Oliver. Here. Mary Beckwith. Here. Best coffee. Here. This meeting is being recorded. It will be rebroadcast on DCTV and can be streamed on their YouTube channel at any time. We now welcome public comment from the audience on any topic on this evening's agenda. We've allowed 10 minutes, and it doesn't appear we have public comment. So we move to approval of the minutes, which we all received via email. Were there any corrections? Motion to approve. Second. Motion by Mr. Nunes, second by Ms. Emerald. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? I'll abstain. Four carry it and one abstention. So next up, we have our student representative report,
002and we have a guest, sophomore Delilah Delicis. She will be here as a star role tonight, and then she will be replaced further in the season by seniors. Hi, I'm Delilah Delisese. I'm a former class of 2028 treasurer and now a proud member of the Student Advisory Council. I'm really excited to work with the administration and help make a positive impact here at Dartmouth High. This year has already started off strong with the new SmartPath system that has had a great change and it's made a noticeable difference with fewer students in the hallways and bathrooms. Our sports teams have been doing really strong with the amazing senior night by the girls soccer team. I'm looking forward to keeping that positive energy going and helping create more improvements around the school. Thank you for that report.
003And I'm glad to hear the hall passes are going well. I was curious about that. So as per usual, it is not required that you stay here for the entire meeting if you have other things on your agenda. But you're welcome to stay if you would like. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck tomorrow. Thank you. Next up is consent agenda from the Dartmouth Middle School PTO fundraising requests for 2025-2026, which we all received via email. Were there any questions or comments on that? Motion to approve. Second. Motion by Mr. Nunes, second by Ms. Amaral. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? It carries unanimously. And we move on to our presentations. Mr. Kiley, if you would like to. Announce those sure. Thank you. So we're excited to welcome mrs Katie paveo up to the
004podium the executive director of teaching and learning for the elementary level and She's going to describe our ongoing efforts to implement the core knowledge language arts otherwise known as CKLA curriculum to talk a little bit about core knowledge English Arts finally known as Language Arts finally known as CKLA, but I'm really going to talk more about the adoption process That we've gone through I'd like to first start by just saying thank you to all the folks that are listed on your screen These are the folks that have served on our curriculum team for ELA over the last three years and you'll see why in a moment I included three years worth of folks, but most of them are still with me today working on this important work. And so when we talk about any of
005the work that we're doing, we know that the strategic plan serves as our roadmap. It tells us where we want to go over the five-year plan, and we root our work and our actions in this plan. And this work is certainly no different. And you'll see that I think some of our work is clearly outlined in the teaching and learning focus area, specifically under initiatives one and two. And so this is an overview of the timeline of the work that's taken place. I'll go into a little bit more detail about most of the things on this slide, but you'll see that this work really did begin two years ago. And it's included many steps that have gotten us to where we are with our full implementation this year. and this also might be a familiar
006slide so this is the visual that we've used before when we talk about the importance of honoring the empty seat or more to the point ensuring that we provide an opportunity for all stakeholders to have their voice heard regardless of whether or not they serve on one of our curriculum teams so we began in the fall of 2023 by surveying all elementary educators to capture their voices about what was working with the curriculum that we were using at that time as well as what wasn't and what people felt were really essential components of a comprehensive literacy program. The literacy team analyzed that data and they used that feedback to create questionnaires that we used when we invited publishers into the district as well as to create a rubric that we used when it came time
007to decide on what we would be doing moving forward. So in the 23-24 school year, we had five different publishing companies come to Dartmouth and demo their product. For what I will say was a very discerning team. They really asked a lot of difficult questions. The folks that came really earned their paychecks the day that they were here. And they were committed to seeing, to moving forward and really finding a product that was right for Dartmouth, right for our students. And so... The difference between the main difference between the five programs that you see up here, Amplify, EL Learning, Wit and Wisdom are what we call knowledge-based programs. My View Literacy and Inter-Reading are more traditional BASEL series. And the team was pretty adamant about going forward with a knowledge-based program. I'm going to talk
008a little bit about what that looks like. In very simple terms, I mean I could really talk about this for like hours, but in very simple terms, what we know about skilled reading is that it's made up of two major components. Word recognition and language comprehension. So word recognition is what you probably think it is, right? It's phonics. It's phonological awareness It's being able to read the words that are on the page. This is work that we address through foundations and Hegarty we Brought those programs in to strengthen our foundational reading skills And CKLA and these knowledge-based programs really address this blue box, this language comprehension piece. And so this is where we're talking about acquiring background knowledge, building students' vocabulary, working on reading comprehension, and making meaning. And those two things come together to
009make skilled readers. And the same is true in writing. So transcription, again, is the being able to get the words on the page. It's the encoding piece. It's the writing piece. It's the handwriting piece. Composition are the words or the what, or what our students are writing, and making sure that we can get those words on the page. And both are equally important. If you don't have the background knowledge, if you don't have things that you know about to write about, the transcription, your handwriting can be beautiful, but you don't have really substantive things to write about. So I'm going to show you a very brief video that kind of sums up some of this for you in a really concise way. Yeah, just hit it. This idea that skills and strategies are more important
010than building kids' substantive knowledge in the elementary years. The assumption has been that this is the way to boost scores on reading tests. And so what you've got is a real marginalization of anything but reading and math from the curriculum. But if you look at what cognitive scientists know about how reading comprehension works, what's really crucial is how much relevant knowledge the reader has to the text. So it's not that you can never ask a student, what's the main idea of this passage? Or can you make an inference? It's a question of what's put in the foreground. There was a famous study called the baseball study, which took a bunch of seventh and eighth graders. And the idea was to see what is more important to reading comprehension. Is it general skill or is it
011knowledge of the topic? They divided these kids into four groups depending on how well they had done on a standardized reading comprehension test and how much they knew about baseball. They gave them a passage to read about baseball and tested their comprehension of that passage. And they discovered that what really made the difference was knowledge of baseball. And even the quote unquote poor readers who knew a lot about baseball scored significantly better than the quote unquote good readers who did not know about baseball. So knowledge is like Velcro. Kids who start out with more knowledge and vocabulary are in a better position to then absorb and retain even more knowledge and vocabulary because they have a context, they have that other half of the Velcro. And that enables them in turn to read more complex
012text. But the other kids are falling farther and farther behind every year. They're reading simpler text and they're also less likely to be able to retain it because they don't have that other half of the Velcro. So what happens is that these gaps grow larger as time goes by. Kids get to high school and suddenly they're expected to read a textbook on world history and they just don't have the background knowledge. And it's not that they can't learn those things, it's that they have never been taught those things in a way that's likely to stick and it puts them at a tremendous disadvantage. So if you can start narrowing that gap earlier, if you start building knowledge in elementary school, you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck. Thank you. Okay. Thanks.
013So one thing that's critical to the implementation of any new program is setting the stage for your teachers about why it's important. Change is hard. Asking people to do something new without context on why that change is happening can often make it harder and feel unnecessary. So to that end, elementary staff engaged in a year-long professional development series on the science of reading, on kind of why of that, the Velcro and why that background knowledge and why this is all so important. We partnered with Teaching Learning Alliance, who you might remember as the consulting firm who supported us through our strategic planning journey. And they did a train-the-trainer model with our literacy coaches and our assistant principals, rooted in the text Shifting the Balance, which has a K2 version and a 3.5 version. It was
014a conscious decision not to partner with any of the publishing companies who often offer similar trainings around the science of reading, but we didn't want it to be a... Program driving the science we wanted to find a resource that supported the science and have the science in the the science of reading and have the need for the for the Resource be at the heart of what we were doing not the product So at the same time that our whole staff was receiving that professional development around the science of reading We had some brave souls who took on the pilot and so the pilot process was in the fall of 2024 To we chose two of the knowledge base programs EL and CKLA because you know we liked the abbreviations so Witt and Wisdom was out
015I'm just kidding the teachers vetted through those three programs and really felt that the EL and CKLA rose to the top and so they did a six-week pilot of each program where they taught select units. We had training from those publishers with our teachers around those units. And then they implemented those specific units. They had office hours throughout the pilot season with folks from the publishing companies. We actually even went to Barrington, Rhode Island, to see EL in action in an elementary school. Barnstable had just brought CKLA in, and we had talked with them about going down to see it, and they didn't feel like they were ready, which I don't know. living in implementation 100 appreciate and so throughout the pilot process we were collecting data on those original survey components as well as
016our student achievements And so it came down to time to make a decision right before the holidays last year. And so we had two rubrics, which we were using to ground our decisions and data. We had the rubric that was created from the survey, right? So we took that survey. We heard what people said they needed. We created a rubric around those components. And then obviously we also use the Dartmouth Public Schools textbook adoption and instructional material plan rubric. And you'll see that. Really overwhelmingly CKLA came out as the choice that our teachers felt would be the best resource going forward. So what really does CKLA bring to our classrooms? It would really be impossible for me to encapsulate an entire curriculum in a brief presentation like this, but this is an overview of what
017CKLA does bring to our classrooms. The curriculum is organized into knowledge-rich domains. There are 10 in K-2, 9 in grades 3 to 5, and there are thematic-based units that are rooted in history, science, literature, and the arts, and that's where we build that background knowledge and academic knowledge. There's a daily read aloud of complex and content-rich related texts which are full of robust vocabulary and lead to multiple opportunities for structured discussion and oral language which builds our students' speaking and listening skills as well as their comprehension and critical thinking skills. There are opportunities for integrated literacy skills where our students are writing across lessons as I'll show you in some of our examples in a little bit. CKLA prides itself on equity and access, designing their tier one lessons to ensure that students are engaging
018with grade level text, regardless of whether or not they're able to reach that text independently. So for a long time, reading instruction was, I'm going to figure out where you are in the continuum of reading, and I'm going to instruct you where you are and move you along. The idea really with the science of reading is we're going to expose you to grade level text and scaffold you and scaffold the text and give you all the supports that you need to be able to continue to expose you to grade level text. If we don't get our students reading grade level text at the grade level they're at, we're never going to be able to close those gaps. We have to simultaneously go doing some backfill on the skills that they're missing while continuing to expose
019them to grade level text. And so what are those? amazing topics our kids are learning about this is a very big graph but you see our our units are rooted in as I said social studies and science and arts and literature and I will give you an opportunity you have this in your packet but you can come see any of these units in action we'll show you some pictures of them one of the things though that we're talking about is not just horizontal if I'm alignment in our grade levels but vertical alignment And if you see here, here's an example of how the physical sciences are woven through K to 5, right? So we have physical science standards that are built on year to year. It's true of even the first unit that folks just
020finished up. In kindergarten, it was nursery rhymes and fables. In first grade, it was fables and tales. Second grade was tall tales. Third grade was classic stories. Fourth and fifth grade got into writing personal narratives. So it's building on those skills year to year and growing not just within a grade level, but... continuously across the grade levels. So that's what our kids are doing, right? So how are we supporting our teachers in getting all this done? So we have some multi layers of support. In last spring, once we had made a decision on where we were going, we had four in-person early release day sessions with Amplify reps where they came to the district and we split up in K to two groups and three to five groups. Potter and Demello were together. Quinn was
021by themselves. So they had smaller groups for more targeted instruction. And they really front-loaded the background knowledge that you need for the program, right? Kind of like what we do with our students. So we were giving background knowledge around a knowledge-based program, around Amplify, and giving them some planning tools and helping them get ready for those first units. On August 26th, which was the day before the first day of school, we set up a virtual office hour for anyone who was like, oh, God, this is starting. This is really happening. I need a little last minute. you know coaching session so folks were able to connect with one of the amplify reps virtually and do some office hours right before the first the start of the school year in that initial launch already once in
022september next week and eight times after that we have folks that are coming to our common planning time virtually and so they're going to help support folks you know i think in our quality world we were going to be doing some forward planning and that the first one i gave a lot of credit to our fifth grade they were our first group of the day um we started talking about unit two and getting ready for unit two and someone said like i'm still drinking from a fire hose here like i need some support with with unit one and so we just pivoted and they really are receptive to giving folks what they need um we also did an early release day in september where our folks zoomed in and supported folks on the third edition
023so Third edition is a new edition. And so even our folks who piloted, there's a little bit of updating and a little bit of newness for them as well. So we did that. And finally, three times this year, nine times total, actually, three times per school. Actually, our first one is the first week in November. Our Amplify rep is coming to Dartmouth to spend a full day in each of our schools. So he will be on the ground and supporting teachers, supporting our admin on walkthroughs as well. So helping our principals and our assistant principals when you walk into a lesson here. are some things that you should be looking for here are some questions you can ask here are things you can ask with the kids here are things that you should see on
024the walls right so really supporting us on the ground and making sure that we have what we need So this is really what you want to see, right? This is CKLA in action. On this slide, we have some of our knowledge walls. So you see in that upper left, that fairy tales and tall tales, that's a second grade wall that has a lot of the vocab, a lot of the character settings, the story elements that they were learning about through the stories. The one on the bottom is a unit our first graders did last year on the human body. The picture up in the middle center is a fifth grade culminating activity where students were learning about the Mayas, Incas, and Aztecs, and they had to choose either to discuss farming. building structures or one
025other that's not coming to my mind at the moment but they had to do a research project around the Miasingas and Aztecs. These little guys down the bottom are second graders who are talking to you about life cycles and lots of you can see lots of robust vocabulary on their charts there as they're talking about it and that's a writing sample actually from second grade so it's a good volume of writing from second graders they were talking about Poseidon over on that. On that page this just came to me Last night from one of our second grade teachers who shared she was a pilot teacher last year So her friends in this are doing some ancient Chinese writing They were making deal lamps and made their own lamps In the bottom they did a Greek
026they did a whole unit on Greece and so they did Greek sculptures In the middle there. They are our Olympians and that's one of our second grade teachers deconstructing a wasp nest and talking about life cycles of a wasp and then up there in the corner is another piece of writing about again the Greek gods And so our kids have the opportunity not just to learn about things, but there are pausing points and there are days built into this curriculum to be able to do real hands-on learning and projects. And our teachers really have just risen to the occasion. And so my last slide is really about appreciations. And it is for our teachers and our staff who have really taken this on and made it their own. And, you know, like I said, something
027new is hard. It's a lot of work. But they really have just jumped in with two feet and done an amazing job. I will take any questions that you have about our literacy adoption. Anyone want to start? Sure. Mary. Just a question about... when a student is not reading at grade level. Can you talk a little bit about what that scaffolding looks like? What are some individual things you might do? Yeah, so we are doing read-alouds, right? And so one of the beauties of a read-aloud is that you don't have to be able to access that text on your own. So we're building our listening comprehension, but we might be doing things like adding visuals, or we might be adding a graphic organizer to support a student with their writing, or we might be giving
028them sentence frames to start the sentence of where they need to go to. We might be previewing the text before we get into it with them, so with additional sort of background knowledge that they might need to be able to access that text at a lower level. So really, it depends on the student and where their deficits are, But this is about building background knowledge, which is really new for most of them. And so we're still doing instructing of reading at a student's instructional level when we're talking about some of those foundational reading skills, especially in our lower grades. So we need our students to be reading on grade level on that foundational reading skills with those phonics and that phonological awareness and that ability to hear sounds and create sounds. So we're doing both.
029So we're scaffolding and trying to get kids. to build that background knowledge about grade level topics, but we're still instructing them at their instructional level, if that makes sense. OK. Thank you. Of course. Chris. Great job, Katie. Thanks. A couple of questions. One being, is this, at least in my recent time, the whole curriculum adoption process, is this really the first time that you've involved a lot of stakeholders in this? I mean, it's the first real full adoption I've done, certainly, since I've been here. I will say as a 24-year veteran of Dartmouth Public Schools, I've seen a few curriculums come and go. And we've certainly always had some say in it. I think we really wanted this to stick and to stick well. And there were some growing pains with the... you know, science
030of reading is not new by any stretch of the imagination. The science of reading and what we know about it is not new. But I think the pendulum, as it tends to do, has swung so really, I'm not even going to say the pendulum has swung. We really just shone a light on what best practice is at this point. And so we knew we needed a new resource and we knew we needed people to really buy into it, right? And so I think we tried to take some of what we had seen be successful with other adoptions and Build on that. Yeah, it just seems to be there was some more emphasis this time around on the adoption process Which I'm happy. I'm happy to see yeah, thanks certainly happy to see my next question
031is what are we doing? It's obviously a brand new curriculum across Goes up through five through grade five for our IEP students are who may be on in a la IEP our tier. What is tier two tier three instruction look like? That's a great That's a great question. And so our students that have identified goals Certainly, obviously their goals are coming first and foremost and we're making sure that we are addressing those you know, the goals are typically around certain skills and when we can When you have the marriage of those two things, that's the utopia for us, that we can use the skills and use the tool. A curriculum is simply a tool. It's a tool to get to what we want to, right? And so when we can use the skills and we
032can use the stories and we can use the resource in front of us to build the skills that our students need, we're always going to do that. I think the question there in the tier two and the tier three is also around we know we have work to do on our MTSS system. And the first step for us is to solidify a really strong tier one. And so the hope is we're starting to see some of the fruits of our investment in that foundational reading piece where our students, we have less and less students who are requiring tier two supports around the foundational skills because our tier one instruction is. stronger good practice is typically tier you know you should be seeing that in tier one yeah and so we're gonna use the data that
033we have we still have universal screeners that we're using with our students we're still doing dibbles we're still you know having our kids do star assessments and we're still giving intervention where students are needing it, right? We are very fortunate in this district that we have reading specialists in all of our buildings. Our reading specialists are working with our students primarily in a pull-out model where they're, that's where they're addressing some of those tier two and tier three skills and those deficits. Our students on IEPs, obviously, again, we are very fortunate to have the number of special education teachers that we have who are working with our students on those identified goals, on what the data is telling us our students who are not on an IEP but are needing intervention services are telling us
034that. need okay okay yeah that helps thank you very much thank you Mr. Nunes thank you madam chair Katie great job this is something you've been you've talked to us before about a little bit because I mean as you were I made a couple of notes. I know you've talked to us before on this because I think one of the questions I asked you way back when you had all the companies, and I think one of my questions to you was, well, what happens if we don't have two finalists? Right. That type of deal. So I'm glad to see that has worked. When do you expect to start? seeing results, the fruition that, and again, I realize. Yeah, no, that's a great question, right? It's a big investment and we want to know if it's
035working, right? And so I think the thing we have to be aware of is when you implement something new. there's a little bit of a growing pains, especially in our, and I'm going to be honest, especially in our upper grades, right? So our fifth grade and our fourth graders in particular are building on skills that the assumption is they had them in K-1, 2, 3, and they didn't use this program. And so there certainly are some growing pains in trying to get there. And so our ELA team we were meeting today, their focus, you know, we were talking about doing advanced planning with this group, and then we said, I think before, we're still going to be advanced planning, but it's going to be like really advanced as in like for myself next September. So
036rather than going forward to the next unit that they haven't taught yet, they spent today looking at unit one because they're all finished unit one and talked about what were some of the growing pains that we went through with unit one and what are some of the things that if it's not here because they. the program assumed that they learned it in fourth grade and I'm a fifth grade teacher. How can I add something or how can I make sure that we're addressing those skills in a way that the students can still be successful in the fifth grade curriculum even though they didn't have it in fourth grade? So the short answer, Mr. Nunes, is it takes a little bit of time. There's always usually an implementation dip and then you start to see it
037take off. And so my hope is always for a shorter period of time for that. But I think. What we're what we're trying to do is really build our students background knowledge about a lot of things and so that they can transfer those skills and read about things that they haven't read before and it's really yes, you know, we want them to want to see our kids do on MCAS we want to see our kids achieve well on standardized tests, but the ultimate goal is that they can get to high school and they can start reading about history and chemistry and biology and they have some of that velcro that we heard about and that they can really become lifelong learners that they can really build on their knowledge base. We're building a foundation. Very
038good. And just personal comment, just in all seriousness, a thank you to all the teachers and administrators that put in tools of ours to get this off the ground and running in your leadership. So thank you very much for that. Thank you. I'm good, Madam Chair. Great. I will just say it's exciting that two of my colleagues asked questions that were on my mind in terms of tiered supports for our most vulnerable learners. But I just really love that piece of this and that focus on the science of reading in terms of just gaining that knowledge, exposing to the information. So it increases the repertoire of what. current events and topics and literature and stories and so that there can be some interaction while you're building in those scaffolds while you're figuring out you know
039what is what meets the needs of that particular student it just speaks to the inclusivity of it and I would love to hear you speak for hours on this because it makes me want to go read a book but so I just yeah it was exciting that others sort of pinpointed that in terms of feedback and what they had to say. So that's all I have. Yeah, terrific. You all hit on things I had to say, but I was also interested in, I know, yeah, we won't know the results of this for some time, but within the classroom, do we see the kids reacting and engaging at a different level? Yes, yes. And that to me is the most exciting part. I will say, Probably my most favorite day over the last little bit of
040my career was last year when I was in the fifth grade class, one of the pilot classrooms, and they were learning about ancient civilizations. And one of the kids said to me, you know, I never would have picked up to read a book about this in a million years, but. it's so cool and I've learned so much right and so like that's the excitement and it really is engaging and it's things that they probably wouldn't have picked up on their own right a lot of this is probably stuff that kids might not have picked up on their own and that's the point of it right is we're trying to broaden their horizons we're trying to broaden their scope we're trying to broaden their academic and background knowledge on a lot of things just really it's
041just giving them more pieces of velcro so that as they grow and as we build they have things to stick to Great. Well, thank you, and thank you to your whole team. Thank you. And everyone who's helped implement this. I really hope it's a success. Me too. Thank you so much. Okay. So thank you, Mrs. Paveo, for your outstanding leadership with that implementation, and thank you to all our educators. So now I'd like to welcome Dr. Ross Thibault, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning for the Secondary Level, to the podium, who will talk about our Professional Learning Time Plan. Thank you, Mr. Galshaw. Thank you, Mr. Kiley. And thank you to members of the school committee for the opportunity to talk about our professional learning time plan and overview. I think you'll hear some similar
042themes to what we just heard from Mrs. Paveo. Starting with, it's exciting to me, you know, Katie had mentioned she's seen a few curriculums come and go. I've certainly seen some strategic plans come and go in different places and never have we really had a strategic plan that really drives the work the way we do now. And so I think the overview I'm going to provide tonight of the professional learning time plan really speaks to the fact that our strategic plan is driving the work that's going on in the Dartmouth public school system. And this is one of many updates I think that members of the leadership team will be providing to the committee and to the community to kind of show we are doing exactly what we said and planned to do. So in
043terms of our professional learning time plan, it's really aligned to focus area one, which is teaching and learning, and specifically it's addressing our strategic initiative around providing professional learning for a wide range of educators across our district. We, and I will speak more to this later, but we surveyed... educators from across our district in June of this past year and some of the feedback that we got from the survey as well as anecdotally from talking with folks oh in the district is that and from other surveys that we've conducted over the last year or two with Dr. Saber-McGuire's entry planning was that there's professional development that's offered but that it doesn't serve the wide range of educators that we have employed within the Dartmouth public school system. So it's really a focus of ours. I'm
044happy to share that we have convened a professional development committee and the committee has just under 30 educators from across the district to a part of it in a wide range of roles from building administrators to central office administrators, teachers, special educators, related service providers, ESPs. So it is a very comprehensive committee, which is excellent because they provide key insight into our... planning and decision making relative to our professional learning plan. Professional learning time is a bit of a rebrand. I think I should stop there. We often use the term professional development. That's probably a term that's much more familiar to folks. And we've shifted from professional development to professional learning purposefully because learning is something that's ongoing. It's something that takes place over time versus professional development. We tend to think of like workshops
045or you... you know you're developed and it's done and that's really not the intent of our professional learning it's really ongoing and some of the feedback we got both from the committee when we met a couple of times as well as from the survey that we conducted that i referenced is that folks across the district are really looking to leverage existing time within our uh you know work work days and and work schedule for professional learning purposes so We think of professional learning time, we think of there are three main ways that we can provide professional learning for our folks or engage in professional learning with our folks. And that's in after school meetings, which happen twice a month. It's on early release days, which there's a number of those throughout the school year. And
046then common planning time is another opportunity that happens at all three levels, elementary, middle, and high school, that can provide some time for professional learning to take place. place. In terms of making sure we're delivering high quality professional learning and a wide range of opportunities for our faculty and for our educators, we, Dartmouth Public Schools, partners with a number of different organizations. This slide is not comprehensive by any means, but you can see there's a number of different partnerships up on that slide. Some of them, like Mass Insight, we've partnered with for, I think, eight or nine years at this point. You know, Mass Insight provides high quality professional learning opportunities for our advanced placement teachers at the high school level. Also, they provide opportunities for students as well as part of that partnership. And
047then there are some other partnerships on here that are newer, like Lynch Leadership Academy, which we're fortunate enough to partner with. They provide and help facilitate professional learning for our district leadership team. Last year, we also opened that up to teachers who had the opportunity to conduct action research under the supervision of a leadership coach from Lynch Leadership. And again, Lynch Leadership, for folks who may be unaware, they operate out of the Lynch School of Education from Boston College. So that's just an example of one of our newer partnerships. The Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth is another. opportunity I'd like to highlight this is a new partnership just this year for Dartmouth Public Schools they offer asynchronous professional learning as well as synchronous virtual professional learning and in-person professional learning they offer a number of professional
048learning opportunities for our faculty and staff at no cost to our faculty or staff and the reason I want to highlight this is because one of the again pieces of feedback we got when we surveyed our faculty from across the district was the desire to have more asynchronous offerings similar to during the pandemic we partnered with master teacher i believe was the name of it um you know so this is an opportunity to bring back some of those asynchronous opportunities it's also an opportunity they offer what they call the paraprofessionals toolkit so again thinking about that wide range of educators that we employ the master's partnerships for youth offers us an opportunity to make sure that our ESPs who are crucial to the success of our students and to our school system also have an
049opportunity to engage in high quality professional learning. TLA is on this slide which Katie mentioned in terms of providing science of reading professional learning last year. This year they're continuing to partner with TLA. they will be partnering with our lead teacher team here at the high school to help build capacity around facilitating PLC's and again really think about strengthening the professional learning that can happen during common planning times TLA is a critical partner for us in that and then the final one I just want to mention and these excite me because there's they are tremendous opportunities for our faculty is the Wade Institute for science education specifically You might recall that the middle school is in the process of implementing Open SciEd, which is a science curriculum. Last year they piloted one unit of study
050for Open SciEd. This year they'll be adding additional units. Wade Institute is going to be coming out to our middle school and working with each of our science educators at the middle school. They'll also be providing some professional learning. the second half of the year for the high school around the science and engineering principles. So again, we're trying to build that vertical alignment piece into our professional learning as well so there's a continuum of services there. Part of our work of strengthening our professional learning time was around building systems and structures or rebuilding some systems and structures. One of them's or one of the key pieces of that is vector which is probably better known as teach point. That's where we house all of our evaluations and feedback and that's another critical piece of this
051is that we provide our faculty and staff an opportunity to provide feedback on each professional learning time session that they attend. That feedback is not only critical to us for planning, it's critical to the presenters obviously for their own self-reflection, but it also triggers professional development points which we offer to our staff, you know, based on the sessions that they attend. So this work here was the professional learning time at a glance Document was shared across the district again some of the feedback that we had received from faculty and staff was we'd like to know and be able to see the trajectory of our professional learning over the course of a school year where is it going um you know how are these things planned how do they align and so we re in the
052past we had a document that we used this one is reformatted and really outlines those three meeting times a month in terms of after school meeting one and two and then early release day and these were built in collaboration with our building leadership teams so each of the principals and their administrative teams really looked at their school improvement plan and mapped out the whole school year in terms of how will we leverage the time that exists within our schedule to make it meaningful and provide meaningful professional learning opportunities for our faculty and staff. And so you see that's, you know, it says type of PLT just gives you, you know, after school meeting one or ERD is our early release day, the date, the topic. And then that critical column is the third column there,
053which we ask them to really be explicit in connecting it back to our strategic plan at the district level and our school improvement plans across the buildings you know I put a screenshot up here because it's about 38 pages long because there's one of these for each school and also for each department for district-wide department for example our student services department has a plan that outlines their meetings for the year as does our wellness department our music our Arts Department so we're really proud of this document and I think it our PD committee was very Receptive and and hopeful that this would provide some clarity and really address some of the feedback and concerns that had been raised With respect to professional learning time across the district. All right, so the future of our professional
054learning time plan put back to the future up there because it really does have a little bit of a back to the future kind of feel to it. Because in the second half of the year, and we're very excited, and again, this came directly from the PD committee as well as from the survey that we conducted, but there was a strong desire to go back to what we refer to as the early release day strands model. It was a broad, you know, a strand is just an umbrella topic, if you will. So special education, for example, is one. And then underneath that, broader topic might be something like the last time we ran at the secondary level it focused on co-teaching models and how to implement those effectively in the Kotak classroom and so that's
055an example of one strand that we might offer but this provides our educators voice and choice in the professional learning process. They get to select a topic that meets their professional growth needs. But also we are strategic in making sure they align to the strategic plan as well. We haven't identified each strand that we'll be offering yet, but special education would be one, AI in the classroom would be another. And again, The strands are being informed by that survey we conducted. We asked educators to identify what topics they would like to see professional learning strands around come the second half of the year. So right now, Katie and I are in the process of identifying presenters, securing presenters. It's a balance of outside presenters and leveraging the talent and expertise that we have in-house as
056well. And so that work is ongoing and we're excited to be returning to that model for the second half of the year. We're also going to develop and offer voluntary professional learning time opportunities after school hours in the spring. Again, in response to some of the feedback that we got both from the PD committee as well as the survey that we conducted, folks would like some more offerings. Again, they wouldn't be required. They'd be voluntary. But it might be a number of sessions. We try and bundle our professional development points into bundles of 10, because that's what the Department of Ed looks for. But we'll be putting out a call to our in-house talent to ask if anyone would like to step up and take a leadership role and provide some professional learning opportunities in
057the spring. And so we fully anticipate that that will take place. Finally, the final piece here is the PD committee continues to explore additional potential partnerships. We have a PD committee meeting scheduled for October 15th, and we'll be having a demonstration from Rocket PD, which is another PD provider. They provide primarily virtual professional learning opportunities for school districts, and they have some of the best presenters in our profession. Peter Lelandall, who wrote the Building Thinking Classrooms for Mathematics, the author of that text. He's one of their presenters and runs sessions for Rocket PD. So we're excited to see that demonstration next week or two weeks from now, October 15th, whenever that is. All right, I would like to really thank all of the members of the PD committee because they were instrumental not only in
058providing direct feedback but also in helping us go through the survey data that we collected from the from the survey we conducted in the spring and it's a tremendous um commitment on their part we we meet uh at least quarterly if not a few more times than that and it's you know after school hours and and it's you know after the elementary schools have released so it's later in the afternoon um you know so we certainly rely on them to give us the feedback from their colleagues you know when we talked about the strategic plan we talked about the honoring the empty seat this PD committee is much of the same it's an opportunity for them to lend not only their voice but the voice of or the voices of their colleagues out in the
059schools with that I thank you and would be happy to answer any questions you might have thank you and does anyone want to start us off any questions I don't have a question I just really wanted to respond to how wonderful it is that the focus obviously to the strategic plan but also just being responsive to feedback so that our like fruit flies in here sorry that responsive to the educators so that the opportunities are you're constantly sort of thinking through what that is to make it better and more inclusive of the needs so I just really truly appreciate it and all of your work is fabulous I'll turn it to my colleagues Thank you Thank you Madam Chair Thank you Dr. Thiebaud a couple of quick more comments than than questions but it's always
060it's great to see the stakeholders you know stepping forward to uh you know to to to take an active role in this you know looking at you know who was again thank you to them uh for being you know willing to you know give of their time and energy and efforts to uh to put this all together but it's you know it looks great again everybody you're always trying to learn and just you know the way education is changing type of you know to move from one one subject to another so thank you for that much appreciated thank you sure I'll just echo what my colleagues have said. I think there was a lot of thoughtful conversations around this, and that's what certainly resonated with me, that you listened to feedback and you came out
061with a good process. So that's all I really have, so thank you. Thank you. Just one quick question and one comment. I'm a huge proponent for lifelong learning, especially for educators, so this is great to see. I just had a quick question about vector solutions, and can you explain a little bit more about what you use them for? I am familiar with vector solutions. I'm sorry. So it's really, we use it for two purposes. One is for educator evaluations. That's where our observations and evaluations live. But the other, specific to this, it's... collection it collects all of the PDP's that a professional accrues. It's where we it's how we track attendance at professional learning time sessions so you log into to teach point you click that you're there for the session You engage in the
062professional learning time session. At the end, you go back in and complete an evaluation. And then once that evaluation is complete, it automatically triggers the PDPs being awarded to the participant. And then from there, a transcript of professional development or professional learning activities is kept for the educator. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. It seems like it's much more robust than it used to be, and we have a lot more outside help. Maybe I'm wrong about that, or just that slide makes it seem like. I think it's one of those things where some of those partnerships have existed for a bit, but some of them are newer. You know, I think it's just a matter of, and that's not all, right? Like, that's just the ones that are most. I would say pertinent at the moment,
063but I'm sure I missed some that we have on there. But certainly, yes, we have tried to engage with partners who can provide high quality professional learning for our staff. Well, it's great and I love that you're following the strategic plan and that you're involving, yes, so many stakeholders. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Thibault. Thank you, Ms. Paveo, for your efforts on professional learning. It is intentional and strategic, the improvements that are being made. So it's great to see. So now Dr. Thibault will give us an overview of the new Department of Elementary and Secondary Education guidance on career and technical education. Exciting stuff. Yes. So back in May, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to approve some new policies specifically aimed at increasing or improving access to CTE for students.
064But before I jump in, I thought I'd just go over like what is CTE only because when I spoke to a colleague. schedule a meeting to speak to a colleague about CTE, they thought I was referencing the traumatic brain disease. And so, no, it's career and technical education, which is just educational programs that are aligned with industry standards, careers, that type of education. At the end of it, students earn an industry-recognized credential. So it's Greater New Bedford VOC. in our area and it's Bristol County Agricultural High School. Those are the two schools in our area that Dartmouth belongs to the regional PACs that provide CTE for our students. And so the vote took place in May and the Department of Ed released guidance in August requiring every district to produce a CTE exploration policy. And
065so according to that guidance, sending districts are required to offer CTE schools and programs opportunities to provide information about CTE programs and careers to students. It also required that we develop and maintain a district-wide middle school pathway exploration policy. The good news is that we're already doing most of what was required in the... the guidance so that's the positive news and I think you know you'll see that this guidance is directly is what directly informed the policy that you'll all be taking a first read of in a few minutes In terms of guidance where districts must also, when they develop that exploration policy, you have to explain how middle schools will collaborate with CTE schools and also provide middle school students an opportunity to tour CTE schools and programs during the regular middle school hours.
066So what that means for us is that Dartmouth Middle School We'll collaborate with New Bedford Vocational School as well as Bristol Aggie. Again, they already do this. We already have, you know, I met with Mr. Rossi and Mr. Hayes just to go over the guidance and to affirm, you know, what our practices are. And we already have a pretty strong collaborative relationship between our middle school and those two schools. So that's... the good news in terms of providing a tour the tours need to be open to students who are interested in going on them it has to they have to be available during the school day also transportation has to be provided if needed and the cost would be taken up by the CTE schools they would be responsible for the cost of the transportation
067One of the things that is stressed in the guidance is that these tours are not to be counted as excused absences for our students. They're to be unexcused. They would be unexcused absences. I'm sorry, I said that in reverse. They would be excused absences, not unexcused. My apologies. Also a key part of this and again this is a practice that we've long done because it's been in the regulation so it's not new but the the guidance emphasizes that names and addresses of our seventh and eighth grade students have to be shared with the CTE schools but beyond that we have to provide public notice that we are going to do this and give a reasonable amount of time for parents and families caregivers to opt out of that sharing of their child's information with the
068CTE schools so Mr. Rossi put out a letter recently to all seventh and eighth grade families making them aware that on October 15th that's the date by which we have to do this that we would be doing it on October 15th so You know that letter from Mr. Rossi identified Mrs. Amber Ashton as the point of contact in the guidance department at the middle school. That's who folks can email and or call if they wish to withhold their child's information from being shared with New Bedford VOC or Bristol Aggie. Some additional district requirements that are outlined in the guidance. We have to submit our middle school pathway exploration policy to the Department of Ed by November 1st. We have to sign an annual attestation form that the middle school pathway exploration policy is implemented and
069being followed. And we also have to publish that middle school pathway on the district website. and provide written copies to parents and students if requested. And so that's pretty much a quick summary of the guidance. Happy to answer any questions if you might have them. A couple of things, a couple of thoughts. So the field trips, are they open to both seventh and eighth graders? So yeah, so the guidance doesn't make that distinction. It specifically references seventh graders in terms of us sharing information. So I would assume that the intent is for seventh graders, if they want to, to be able to participate in the tours. So I guess, and obviously the state's going to do what the state's going to do, right? and I know that essentially what we're doing here is that we're
070you they're giving vocational schools the opportunity agricultural schools the opportunity to showcase to highlight their programs which I can certainly appreciate that but on the flip side of that I would just want to make sure and I know we do do some kind of open houses here at the high school but I think it's just as important for us to to do the same thing you know at least in the same scale if not greater during during the school day so I think you kind of get where I'm going with that I do and I just would share because you triggered I meant to mention this so the touring of obviously for this it's intended to as you said make students aware of the CTE programs that are available. We also have a shadow opportunity
071where our middle school students can come up to this high school and shadow for a day and get an experience to see all of the different programs that Dartmouth High offers. In addition to that I know Mr. Perotti with Mr. Shea and the lead teachers of planning last year they did business innovation and technology kind of showcase, like a mini showcase for all of our eighth graders last year. They're looking to expand that and do that at the middle school. Again, actually, I think it's October 22nd, if I'm not mistaken, but it's the same. It's during the daytime, so it will be all eighth grade middle school students will have access to it. Later that evening is the showcase evening here at Dartmouth High School from 6 to 7. where families are invited in and
072again we have that open to seventh and eighth grade students and their families And the field trip over there, and not to split hairs, that's a field trip. Is the cost for the transportation, it's my understanding it is on the vocational school to pay for the cost of transportation and not on Dartmouth. That's correct. It would be the CTE school. And the guidance does not say that. students have to go on like a feel like it's not the entire seventh and eighth grade class it's only students who might be interested and so you know it could be a handful of students who go on different days you know some of that will be up to New Bedford Boak and Bristol Aggie to determine how they're going to manage that piece of it but you're absolutely
073correct if there is a transportation cost it's to be taken by the receiving school So New Bedford-Voke, what Bristol like? Yeah, and, you know, it's certainly not my oldest. As many of you know, graduated, was a Dartmouth resident, graduated from New Bedford-Voke, had a good experience. However. The what's happening especially a new benefit vogue is a little frustrating that we're jumping through hoops here to do this and with the new lottery that they have in place that I would look I would actually love to hear from from Mike Shea and Cindy Marlin About how many Dartmouth students actually got seats there this year for the simple reason That is my understanding. It was just one big one big basket, I guess. And it wasn't, it's not like Dartmouth was guaranteed so many seats for Haven
074was guaranteed so many seats. New Bedford was guaranteed so many seats. I will say without a doubt, you don't have to be a rocket scientist that New Bedford clearly would have more applicants in, in that, in that basket. So I would love to hear about that application, about the selection process and how it went. So maybe something to consider for the future. But, yeah, no, thank you, Dr. Thiebaud. I appreciate the presentation. Mr. Nunes, I think you had a question. Yep, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dr. Thiebaud. Chris kind of. expounded on it a little bit type of deal but have they come up with and again I know this is brand new you know how often these tours are going to be you know how much notice are we going to get from
075and likewise do we also have to give them that says you know is there a limited number per day you know So as you can imagine, it's guidance from the Department of Ed, so it's really... Okay, enough said. They just tell us what we need to do and the details, they'll let the localities figure out. Figure them out, type of thing. Now, is it during a school day? In other words, are students going to, you know... Check in to Dartmouth Middle School at you know for 8 o'clock you know 730 type of deal and 8 o'clock a bus shows up and or a van and takes them over there type or again is that still being worked out? Those details are still being worked out but I will say that part of the guidance made
076very clear it was a point of emphasis I would say within the guidance that school middle schools are not able to restrict when those tours take place they have to be available during the regular middle school day yeah okay and then the last the last one that i made a note on uh when i was going through this is you know sharing the names and you talked about the fact that mr rossi has sent out a letter and i'm just wondering you know versus that if you know there was just something in the student handbook middle school student handbook about, you know, as of October 15th, if your child is seventh or eighth grade, here's what's going to happen. Almost kind of like the, you know, the pictures of your child on television, you can
077opt out. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a possibility. Again, the guidance basically just says that there has to be public notice and there has to be a reasonable, those are the words, a reasonable amount of time to opt out. I guess defining what reasonable is up to everyone's interpretation. In this case, we gave two weeks, right? In this case, we, you know, since this guidance was new, gave two weeks. And when I talked to Mr. Rossi, they had, you know, about a handful or a little bit less of people who had reached out to withhold information. Thank you, ma'am. You kind of just answered my question. I was going to say it was my understanding that the regs aren't usually clear about what reasonable time is. But my wondering, knowing that this really isn't
078new, and you might not, what? I want parents to know that they can opt out, especially because I'm just curious if you know first, like, what are those names? Like, they're collecting all of the names so that. So what it is, is you provide the seventh and eighth grade, the student names and addresses, so that New Bedford-Voke and Bristol-Laggie, if they choose, can then mail. Spam. Mass marketing. I was going to say promotional materials to make the students aware of the educational opportunities that are reported to them. Just feels. And so what you're saying is, I was going to ask what Dartmouth defines as, but it sounds like that two weeks is what you've sort of... That's what we went with right now if the community feels, you know. And that just went out? Yes,
079last week. And when is the deadline for that? So we still have some 13 I think 13 so I guess it's important to for the public any parents in the middle school who aren't aware that if you don't want your Marketing your your if you do not want to get some marketing promotional materials from New Bedford Vogue or Bristol Aggie It's important to opt out with Right, and that information was right in the, including the email address and contact number, was right in the letter that Mr. Rossi sent out. Yeah, because we are lucky that our Greater New Bedford VOC and our agricultural school, it's like the Dartmouth High School band. It really doesn't need much promotional advertising, and to the point where it's especially problematic when... a kiddo gets excited because his older brother
080is at Vogue and he wants to go because that's really the niche that will excite and bring on the future career for that child and then they don't get selected because the lottery system is so convoluted that Agreed. Agreed. Only a small percentage of our. Meanwhile, we're giving all of this information. So I just want parents to realize the importance that they do have the option to opt out of that information if their child is not interested in a career, a technical agricultural career. That's all. That's great. I think we're good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Who committee policies? Thank you, Mrs. Coughlin. So, school committee policies, section C tonight. So, first I'd like to thank our administrative team and our school committee subcommittee members,
081Mrs. Kathleen Amaral, Mrs. Mary Beckwith, who've all worked hard to bring this forward for a first read tonight. So, I will walk you through these, and we can tackle, please feel free to interrupt, we can tackle. Any questions you might have as we go through? First policy with the revision, proposed revision, would be policy CA, administration goals. So in CA, we propose the revision to align with the MASC model policy, which would require a change of his and her to their. I will just pause, and if there's any questions, feel free. Okay. Policy CB. School superintendent. Similarly, we are aligning with the MASC model, which would require a change of his and her to their and he, she, to they. Then CBD, superintendent's contract. We're proposing alignment with the MASC model, which changes the word
082election to appointment. Our old policy had the word elect a superintendent, which... It's not really what happens. And it also references now the change would reference negotiating a successor contract, which it didn't reference previously. Policy CBI is evaluation of the superintendent. We are proposing to change the word harmonious to productive. That's good. I like that. Policy CCB. Line and staff relations. We're proposing a revision by updating the org chart on CCB. So we didn't actually change the written portion at all. But the org chart is one that you've seen before that we've presented here and in our strategic planning process. Policy CE, administrative councils, cabinets, committees, were proposing revision to the MASC model, which would change his her to their, he she to they, and changes the word regulations to procedures. In what we do,
083when we hear regulations, we think of something promulgated by the Department of Ed and codified, and that's not what they're talking about here. They're talking about procedures. We're proposing that change. Policy CH, policy implementation. We're proposing a revision which changes, again, regulations to procedures. The MASC had a policy CHCA, which, not to make this too complicated, but had basically our, was, their CHCA was included in our old CH. So we removed it from our old CH and put it into CHCA, which is next, which is policy CHCA, approval of handbooks and directives. This is a new policy for us because, like I said, it was all lumped into CH before and it had similar language. And then two pretty big changes. are in section J. So the middle school pathway exploration policy, which Dr. Thibault
084gave us the background on tonight. So this new policy is to comply with the DESE guidance. We are required to attest, actually the superintendent is required to attest by November 1st that we have a policy in place. So our attempt is to bring that forward tonight as a first read and then hopefully have a vote at the next school committee meeting, which would allow us to comply with that. On that one? Yes. It just seemed a little redundant, the last paragraph and the last sentence of the... fourth to last paragraph where we say this is on I know there's no... J-F-A-B-Z from the bottom. So on the fourth from the last paragraph, last sentence is, students who tour a high school during a scheduled school day will be recorded as unexcused absence for the day
085in the student information system. And then the last paragraph is, Dartmouth Middle School will document student participation when taking tours of CTE and other high schools by recording the tour as an excused... absence in the student information system. I just don't think we need both of those things. But everything else is good. If the committee agrees with that suggestion, we could revise the policy for presented prior, you know, in your packet for a second read. Mr. Nunes, you don't see it? I don't. I apologize. You read the paragraph and that's the sentence I have. It says students who tour a high school during a scheduled school day will be recorded as an excused absence for the day in the student information system. Which is fine. Which is fine. And then it says Dartmouth Middle School
086will document student participation when taking tours of CTE and other high schools by recording the tour as an excused absence in the SIS. It just seems redundant to me. I mean I glaze over so the less I have to read the better it's the way I feel I have no problems with putting it in one place I think we just lose the last paragraph Yeah. Yeah. I'm good with that. Okay. And we don't have to vote on it because we're going to bring this up. Right. It's not to be voted tonight anyway. It's just a discussion. So we'll have a revised policy for your packet on the 27th. Any other thoughts on JFABZ before I go to the last policy? Okay. Policy JICFB is bullying prevention. So the old policy, there was a policy in
087place. We've replaced it in its entirety with a new proposed policy. So the old policy was approved in 2015. It was actually the DESE guidance that was promulgated in 2015. It was the only difference from the DESE guidance was that ours said adopted by the school committee on a date at the bottom. So we just took what they gave us, printed it out, and you voted it. But it was guidance. It wasn't really policy. So we've taken the time to go through and create an actual policy here. So that is before you for your consideration. It is more consistent with the MASC model. We have made a few minor changes, including words like social media. which don't appear anywhere in the MASC model. But in spirit, it's consistent with what the MASC recommends on bullying
088prevention. This is pretty all-encompassing, Mr. Kiley. It's detailed. It is. Very detailed. It is. It's not as detailed as the guidance, which was a little confusing. What would electromagnetic bullying be? Yeah, we brought that up also. How about facsimile communication bullying? What's that? Facsimile communication bullying. Does that mean like deep fake? I thought it was by facts. Oh, do we have those things? They still exist. Okay. Not to make light of it. It's a serious issue. No, I mean bullying in any format. Yeah, covers it. Of course. Yeah. Is not accepted. Not it. Mm-hmm. This covers everything. I love how it starts with our commitment. You know, our commitment to making schools safe and a caring place for all students. That's like really great. I love it. We will treat each other with respect. I
089didn't have any comments about it. No, this is great. It was very good. Yeah. Okay. Great. So we will make a revision. And to JFABZ. present that along with the rest of the packet for a second read at the next school committee meeting thank you everybody thank you very much you thank you thank you to the whole committee so next up MASC resolutions discussion You got them this time? I have them on here. Which, they're not as many as there were last year. And last year, I know we went and we read the whole thing. But I think we'll start with just what. The resolution is and if we need further discussion we can dig deeper So they only had one new resolution And that is removing BMI testing from schools So they are asking
090that MASC urges the removal of BMI screening requirements from all public schools and further urges to express banning of BMI screening in all public schools. So currently it's mandated that we do that and we do do that. We don't report to parents, families, caregivers, but it goes out as kind of, I guess, aggregate data. to MASC. Some schools may report it to homes or their in-health nurses may do something with that information. Our schools do not. So I think it's interesting to have data points personally to see where our community is versus other communities. I also understand that it is not the best assessment of health across different ages, different sexes, different races, or people of different backgrounds. So I don't know if there is a group, like if physicians in America report height, weight,
091something to the CDC. or not, I would hope that somewhere there's a group following the health of Americans of all ages. I've got to assume, pediatrics, if you're getting a physical every year, that that's part of the physical. I could be wrong. I really don't see, I personally have never understood the... the need for school to do BMI testing. It's my personal opinion. I am in favor of this resolution. Okay. I am also. Okay. Me too. I am too. All right. So we need no further discussion. I will vote yes. We can do formal votes, I guess. Do we want to do formal? I don't think it's necessary. All right. So we vote yes on that one. It's got to check. The following six are resolutions that we would be reauthorizing that were put forward
092three years ago and did not move forward in the state legislature. So it's whether we want to keep trying to have these things happen. So the first one is regarding sanctuary laws for transgender students. And that is that we want the Massachusetts Association of School Committees calls on the Great and General Court to join with other states in the passage of so-called sanctuary laws to ensure such children and their families have the power of enjoying in safety and tranquility their natural rights and the blessings of life as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Commonwealth. It's really just saying that if you're in this state, that you should have the rights and liberties that Massachusetts residents have, which I believe, since we did pass a law in 2011 for our own citizens to that end, that
093we should extend it to people who visit the state. Any thoughts on that in continuing it? I am in favor of this resolution. Okay. I am in favor. I'm in favor as well. I'm fine. No reservations. I will vote yes for the Dartmouth School Committee. Thank you. Thank you. Second one is increasing the maximum balance allowed by the Special Education Reserve Fund. Therefore, be it resolved that the Massachusetts Association of School Committees calls upon the Massachusetts legislature to amend Chapter 40, Section 13E by deleting 2% of the annual net school spending and by inserting the following 5% of the annual net school spending. And due to the increased cost of special education, I think it's high time that that did happen personally. Or that we pushed for it because 2% is not enough to have
094as a piggy bank for our special needs. Yeah. It does note that it allows the reserves to grow. Right. Yeah. No, I'm fine. I'm good with that as well. Anytime they're going to let us keep some money, I'm good. That's good. Membership on Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The Massachusetts Association of School Committees calls for the enactment of legislation to repeal the provision of Massachusetts law that prohibits practicing educators and... sitting board committee members from serving on the board of elementary and secondary education and also calls for legislation to reconstitute the board of elementary and secondary education by including members with expertise in license as licensed educators and members with expertise in public school governance which I approve That just makes too much sense It does like should already be this way yeah yes
095yes we're all good with that yes some license educators on that board somebody's in it somebody that has a clue preserving local governance of Massachusetts schools Calls on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to restore local governance and accountability for the Lawrence and Southbridge public schools no later than July 2026 Recognize that holy recognizing that Holyoke has been removed from receivership on July 1st 2025 And note that Southbridge and Lawrence have not improved under state Governance receivership so they are taking away the power and authority of the local school committees and they are not doing any better so it is we're asking them to give the power back to the local school committee And also to limit further state takeovers to terms of no more than three years. Right. Sorry. Shouldn't have said that. So looking ahead
096as well. Right. While I'm not a fan of getting involved in others' business, I am a fan of that three years of they shouldn't be involved. Back to local. But if they haven't made it better in three years, which is how long it's gone on now for those two particular communities. Right. And then when it's worded that way, they can put them back in receivership. Right. After some amount of time, if the locals cannot figure it out. Right. But to keep it under state receivership for more than three years and they're not succeeding. There's a bigger problem there. There's a bigger problem. I was just going to say there's a bigger problem. We're not we are not privy to that that's causing causing that discussion type of deal, right? So this does not directly affect
097us, but who knows maybe it will in the future. I certainly hope not We're far from that sounds like we're all yes on this I'm fine with that. Yeah Second to last, personal financial literacy education. asking we, the MASC, would file legislation that would have the effect of ensuring that all students have exposure to personal financial literacy curricula and ultimately graduate from high school with a lifelong knowledge of how to be fiscally responsible to avoid being deterred by financial woes. The legislation would ensure that the students at various levels would benefit from curriculum in Massachusetts public schools. would include content in personal financial literacy. So this I'm not sure about because it's asking to make it a law that we have to include it, but they don't include money with the law to enact it.
098And my understanding is here in the Dartmouth Public Schools, we do pepper our... math with examples of financial literacy. I'm just not sure how that works on state mandated for all schools. I mean, I am all for financial literacy. This is almost going to sound like this is going to be one of these unfunded mandates. Well, right. That's what the auditor is going to get all upset about and everything else and nothing's going to happen. In other words, if you want to have it. That's fine, but it's your nickel. The Commonwealth is not going to kick in. And so, I mean, this has been on the books for three years, as all these others other than the first one has been. So, you know, it's needed, but I just don't know if it needs to
099be a law. What's the cost? The curriculum cost? Where's the cost associated with developing this program? Well, you pass the law, and what exactly does it mean? Like, there's no test that says that. The kids have financial literacy. So it's kind of like a law without teeth. Yeah. And a law with no. And so, I don't know. I'm for financial literacy. I just don't know if that's written. I think it's desperately needed, but I don't know if this is the way. This is going to wait. This is not going to work. Okay. Not this one. I wonder if we could offer an amendment. Well, last year they didn't seem to be receptive to amendments. Is that correct? Yes, that is true. But I can try. I am going to attend the mask webinar on these
100resolutions. I think it's next Friday. So that's before the 27th. Yeah, and I can ask that question. Yeah, that would be great. So let's table this one and get a little more information on that. Does that sound good? All right. So the last one is the establishment of a regional school assessment reserve fund. And since we are not a regional school, I don't feel like it affects us greatly. So I don't know. Anyway, they want, they're calling upon the Massachusetts legislature to enact or amend legislation which permits municipalities to establish a regional school assessment reserve fund. I don't have a problem with it. Where are we going to get the money? Right. Madam Chair, we're going to, I mean, this does affect us per se because we have Greater New Bedford Regional VOC, okay, in
101Bristol Lake. But the problem becomes is, you know, what's going to be the funding source, okay? And then at that point, what does it take away from? So I think it comes from their funding. It doesn't come from the state. So I believe I believe the intent of this is to allow the town to create this stabilization fund so the town would have to be able to fund it through town meeting yeah yeah which I mean obviously I'm not I'm not sure there's a limited pool of funding available obviously so I'm not sure if that actually would benefit us since the money would be going to another school district potentially yeah and correct me if I'm wrong the vocational assessments are not part of Correct. Correct. Not our school budget. No, not part of our
102budget. But part of our town budget. They are part of the town budget, although the town has virtually no control over those assessments. Yeah. Other than their representation on the boards of those schools. Yeah. I'm not in favor. No. There's just my two cents. No. I mean, they already have more money than we do. Oh, good. Yes. They have more money than God. I'm sorry. So it sounds like I should vote no for us. Yes, ma'am. All right. Thank you. Okay. We're good. And that is the end of the resolution. So much simpler than last year. Oh, last year was big. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Good job. And we were there quite late last year. So I believe we are done with new business. Assistant Superintendent's update. Update? Okay. If you would like to. Yes,
103sure. I'd love to. Dr. Sabin-McGuire did just do an update last week. She did a great one, and I will be brief because she was very comprehensive. So first thing is a reminder that we have several capital improvement articles on the October 21st annual Fall Town Meeting Agenda. So they're very important requests. We hope our friends at town meeting will support them and appreciate your advocacy for those projects. I think so far we've gotten broad support for a number of those requests, so we're appreciative of that. Athletics, let's see. Last Wednesday, a field hockey team participated in supporting Morgan's message, which was helping to raise awareness about suicide prevention. Football's now 5-0. Golf had a very strong week. Delilah mentioned girls' soccer was won on senior day in a tough match against New Bedford. Unified
104Basketball had a great tip-off last week. It was the beginning of their season. And this week we have a bunch of senior celebrations coming up. So it's a busy time with athletics. The only other thing I just wanted to mention that I was appreciative of the town administration and the select board for. one of the better joint committee meetings that we've had in a long time. And I think that, you know, it was the dialogue was positive and appreciate their willingness to engage in that way with us. I agree. Very good. Thank you. And I concur. I thought that last week's joint meeting with the select board was very positive. Our committee's vision of One Dartmouth was well represented and I feel hopeful, very hopeful. I want to remind everybody that October 15th, we need
105to get our evaluation of the superintendent into the subcommittee. Thank you. Thank you. And. Also this week, as mentioned in the joint meeting with the Select Board, there's a budget advisory group that has been formed, and they want two members from the school committee. They will probably meet once a month between December and April or May, during budget season, really. So they sent a letter, and we didn't get it to you, so we'll send it out for the next meeting. But think about whether you think it should be the people who are already on the budget subcommittee or if there are people who are not on that committee, we'd really like to be participants. Give us all time to think about that before we charge of that committee the specific charge charges our communication and
106collaboration So that we are working as one town and not in our silos budget review and analysis discussing key budget drivers, trends, and assumptions. Also, transparency to the public, making sure the public is aware of what's going on and that we're not doing any backroom deals, strategic input and recommendations, and coordination between all the bodies, finance committees, select board, and school committee. I like it. Okay. So we will vote on who's going to go on to that subcommittee or committee, not subcommittee, next time we meet, which is the 27th. 27th. And... Just a reminder of the masks and mask conference on November 11th, 12th, and 13th. Anybody else, Mr. News, that has anything to add? Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of quick things. Band, believe it or not, had the exact same
107score as they had previous week. They had the same score this past Saturday night. What are the chances? Yeah. BMC, Durfee High School. Same score, same captions that they won type of deal. But they did an outstanding job. We're headed to Rentham Saturday night to King Phillip Regional type of deal. And again, our home show on the 25th. I know we started three with 18 bands. I'm not sure. With the time frames, if they're going to, because of the number of bands, if they're going to split it and, you know, have like the A class and awards and then get into the open class and have awards after. So I haven't seen that yet up until the time, you know, I looked at five o'clock on the U.S. band's website. There was nothing, nothing posted
108yet for time. So as soon as I get those, I will get them out to. everybody so because i'll be looking for trophy presenters thank you no problem that's all i have miss samuel I'm excited to share that the Dartmouth CPAC is thriving without me. I don't know what that has to say about me, but I just wanted to share that this Thursday, this Thursday, at Cushman School at 6 o'clock is a presentation on parent rights. It's titled Special Education 101, so I highly recommend anyone interested in learning, asking questions, and meeting others who are in it to win it, join the CPAC on Thursday, October 9th at 6 o'clock at Cushman School. Great. Everybody else good? I'm good. All right. Our next meeting, next regular meeting of the school committee is currently scheduled for
109Monday, October 27th, 2025 at 6 p.m. in the DHS Library Media Center. Motion to adjourn? Second. Motion by Mr. Nunes, second by Mr. Oliver. All in favor? Aye. None opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Whipping things around. Thank you all. Thank you.