School Committee Meeting 6-15-2021

001okay it seems like we're up and running right we are live on facebook and the webinar is up and running okay at 603 i'll call a meeting to order um welcome everyone to the tuesday june 15th 2021 meeting the questions um let's perhaps everyone mute so that we're not having interference i'm not sure who is where the interference is coming from but if everyone could just mute perfect as i'm sure most people are aware the governor's declaration of state of emergency ended as of 1201 am this morning and as such strictly speaking so did uh the ability of public bodies such as the coastal school committee to meet virtually however in anticipation of the cessation of the state of emergency governor baker had sought through legislation to extend certain measures covet 19 measures that had

002been previously enacted through executive order um the legislature although it was presumed that they would have resolved this issue by now have not resolved it in advance of the termination of the state of emergency therefore um because this was an important meeting where we are reorganizing setting the upcoming school committee meeting schedule and subcommittee assignments um i did not and we had posted this previously as being held in virtual format i made the decision that i thought it made more sense given that this just happened today um in order not to lose uh participation or viewership as i'm sure many folks at home were planning on uh still participating through our ordinary um channels and i did not want to risk not having a quorum because our members themselves were planning on attending virtually um

003i have made the decision to um have this meeting held virtually um given some of those considerations i just mentioned that said if the matter is not resolved by the time of our next regularly scheduled meeting then that meeting will be held in person as we will have the time to adapt um at that point if it is resolved by that time then we will react accordingly and we will uh host the meeting uh in whatever format we think is uh is appropriate given um whatever resolution is reached within the legislature so that is why we are still in virtual format with that said uh i'd ask that committee members that are present please indicate so and roll call mrs cleary president mr dial present mr kearney present mr saint onge present and i am

004president craig mcclellan at 605 pm let the record reflect that all members are present and we welcome our newly elected member lance dial uh thank you thank you thank you for willing to dedicate your time to the betterment of the school district for our community's children we look forward to working with you the very first order of business is the reorganization of the school committee at the outset of each year we reorganize and decide uh which members will hold which positions um the way we will do this is i will um we will start with the chair position move to the vice chairperson position and then we will move to the secretary i will um from our handbook read the description of the duties of each position um the chairperson is just a little bit

005longer but most of them are fairly brief then um individually we will take nominations for each position we can take as many nominations as people want to make uh each nomination will need to be seconded and then we will vote on them okay so like i said we will start with the chairperson and the duties of the chairperson are as follows the chairperson of the school committee has the same powers as any other member of the committee to vote upon all measures coming before it to offer resolutions and to discuss questions the chairperson will perform those duties that are consistent with their office and those required by law state regulations and this committee in carrying out these responsibilities the chairperson will sign the instruments acts and orders necessary to carry out state requirements and the

006will of the committee collaborate with the superintendent in the building of the committee's agendas confer with the superintendent on crucial matters that may occur between committee meetings appoint subcommittees call special meetings of the committee as is necessary act as the public spokesperson for the committee at all times as this responsibility is specifically delegated to others um conduct co-hosted school committee meetings in an orderly fashion as the presiding officer of at all meetings of the committee the chairperson will call the meeting to order at the appointed time announce the business to come before the committee in its proper order enforce the committee's policies relating to the order of business and the conduct of meetings reorganize excuse me recognize persons who desire to speak and protect the speaker who has the floor from disturbance or interference explain

007what the effect of a motion would be if this is not clear to members restrict discussion to the question when a motion is before the committee answer all parliament parliamentary uh inquiries and put motions to a vote stating definitively and clearly the vote and result thereof those are the duties of the chairperson of the school committee so at this time are there any nominations for chairperson for the 2021-2022 year i'd like to nominate you craig mcclellan okay are there any other nominations for anyone else other than me okay seeing none is there a second to mrs cleary's nomination of craig mcclellan for chairperson i'd like to second that seconded by mr kearney uh all in favor please vote in roll call mrs callery hi mr dial aye mr kearney hi mrs saint onge hi and

008i will abstain of course so that motion carries or that nomination carries by a vote of four eyes and one abstention um i will take it as a compliment though it could be an insult and uh i i will continue to do my best to to run effective meetings and i thank you all for your confidence in me i'll uh i'll go i'll give it one more year um next is the vice chairperson role the just the duties of the vice chairperson are as follows the vice chairperson of the committee will act in the absence of the chairperson as the presiding officer of the committee and will perform such other duties as may be delegated or assigned to them by the chair so at this point are there any nominations for vice chairperson for the

0092021-2022 year i will nominate ashley colieri okay are there any other nominations for any other member other than mrs cleary at this time seeing none is there a second for mrs st onge's nomination for mrs callery as vice chairperson of the school committee i will second the motion okay mr seconded by mr dial so all in favor of the nomination for ashley kaliri for vice chairperson of the cohasset school committee for the 2021-2022 year please indicate so enroll call mrs callery hi mr dial hi mr kearney aye mrs st onge aye aye craig mcclellan so um that nomination carries of course by a uh vote of four eyes one abstention i did not obscene i vote for myself just you did vote for yourself it was unanimous it was a unanimous nomination great yeah thank

010you all i'm sorry you're just more humble than i am mr chairman thank you i thought you were supposed to do it i don't know either way the nomination carries and uh you are the vice chairperson again mrs galeri um position of secretary the duties of secretary are as follows the secretary will keep or cause to be kept an accurate journal of all csc meetings will comply with state law and committee policy regarding notifications of meetings and will render such reports as may be required by the state or the town the cohasset school committee clerk fulfills this role at regular cohasset school committee meetings so are there any nominations for secretary at this time i'd like to nominate lydia st onge there is a nomination for lydia st orange are there any other nominations for

011any other members other than mrs st onge seeing none is there a second for mrs st on excuse me mrs kaliri's nomination of mrs st onge for secretary for the 2021-2022 year i'll second the motion that nomination is seconded by mr dial all in favor mrs cleary aye mr dial aye mr kearney hi mrs st onge aye aye craig mcclellan that nomination also unanimously carries and so mrs st onge will continue to be the secretary of the class of school committee for the upcoming year that is all the special positions that we need to vote on in terms of reorganization and so thank you very much for your cooperation there and um having done that we'll move into the sort of regular agenda items starting with public comment um public comment is reserved yes mrs

012st onge i'm sorry and perhaps i'm it's the wrong order but do we do um subcommittee reorganization too or is that later am i later oh okay sorry i was off off schedule no problem no problem um so uh we move into public comment and as i always state uh public comment is really reserved for um topics of discussion or comments related to items that are not on the agenda so if you have comment or discussion points as something on the agenda wait until we arrive at that point in the agenda otherwise please speak your piece now and i will give everyone a few moments to do so using the q a feature on zoom okay i don't see any public comments so we'll move on to the next uh regularly uh placed agenda item

013which is the superintendent's report and i will turn the meeting over at this point to our superintendent of schools dr patrick sullivan thank you chairman mcclellan and let me just begin by um welcoming mr dial to the school committee since i've been here in cohasset for four years now it's great to see someone like you uh stepping up because your family's been so involved with the schools um and that's i really admire that and it's just a pleasure to have you on the team i look forward to collaboration with you and the reorganized committee i don't have a very uh large agenda here to talk about i do want to talk about juneteenth which um as you know is uh commemorating what is recognized at the end as the end of the slavery uh in

014the united states um june 19th 1865 uh we have we're recognizing it this year in massachusetts i believe it's the first year it's an official holiday in the state uh it does fall on a saturday but we have some events happening in our district mainly on friday um in our school i should say in our schools and then um next year in 2022 it'll actually be a celebrated day off so we'll be celebrating juneteenth on a monday because it occurs on a sunday and that's in our calendar some of the things that we have happening in our district on friday is we have a group of high school students led by mrs crimmons who will be going and going to both osgoode and deer hill and presenting and doing activities with the kids around a

015very age appropriate for the individual schools for diversity self-identity and basically themes around freedom and justice and at the middle school they're actually making a freedom quilt with the symbols of justice freedom and equality and looking forward to that and i know when talking with uh chairman cleary we're not sharing with um school committee member cleary we are uh hoping maybe to do something with that uh as a community moving forward as well and then there'll be uh all sorts of activities in the um in the schools that will all be age-appropriate and obviously talking about the history of what juneteenth is about too so we're um we're really excited about that and ready to make that a regular celebration uh in our school year as we move forward um without further ado i'm going

016to turn it over to dr scollins and to mrs sarwanka who i think are going to kind of lead the rest of the superintendent update here because they have some important uh curriculum and other matters to discuss so i'll let i'll let dr scones and mr wonka take it over perfect thank you so as the year comes to a close it doesn't slow down it just did uh because there's still a lot happening even though we have just a little over a week left of school i just wanted to update you that the literacy committee is meeting tomorrow and that group is made up of teachers administrators and the parent and tomorrow we're just going to spend time getting to know each other it is virtual um hopefully next year we'll be meeting in person

017for most of the time and um but tomorrow we're going to introduce ourselves and we're just going to talk about what our current literacy is in in cohasset and some of the things that we are doing currently which i'm going to share with you and then we're going to look at our schedule and create our schedule for next year so i'm really excited to pull this group together many of these staff and administrators actually were part of the literacy uh committee several years ago and did a lot of work so i'm looking forward to really seeing them in action as a committee um in addition we're continuing to focus on elementary literacy and as i had spoken with you a while ago around the student opportunity act we had created a plan that would address

018the new guidance on dyslexia screening and really looking at our youngest population in the area of reading and literacy so we want to really make sure that we're catching our students as young as possible so if there's any kind of learning challenges happening we want to be able to address those so we are working closely with um soranka's office and really looking at how we're going to roll that out so um we are have um we'll be purchasing the shaywitz as a screener and then we're looking at some other opportunities of assessment for our younger students in addition to that we are collaborating with a consulting group teaching learning and alliance also known as tla and they came in and did an informal needs assessment of literacy at both osgood and deer hill a couple

019of weeks ago and that process included the consultant walking through the buildings looking around at what it looks like in our classrooms teachers were teaching literacy during those times so she could get a picture of what's happening and then she pulled together focus groups and really led them through a process of exploration and on her end to see what is happening what are their desires and what are their do they think their the needs are for themselves as educators and then for our students so um that was very um very well attended and very well received by the teachers there's a lot of excitement because they would like to see us move forward in looking at our literacy and so we're going to actually meet the principals at the elementary level myself with the consultants

020on friday and they're going to debrief us on what they observed and also give us some thoughts about what we can do next year and into the future as we look at our elementary literacy and role out the next plans one of the things we did talk about is the importance of offering opportunities to our teachers to learn more about teaching of reading all teachers are taught how to teach reading but when they're in their undergrad and their masters however there's um there's more out there so we want to make sure the teachers have that opportunity to to have that so that will be part of next year as we look forward to looking at what we have for literacy we have so many things that are wonderful that are happening but we really want

021to have a little more of a cohesive aligned program and we are taking a little bit of time one so that we can build um skills and strategies for our teachers and also give them time to implement the second year of our math program as you know we implemented bridges math program at the elementary level this year and it was a great success uh but at the same time it still need another year and a full year not a hybrid year to implement so it's important that we give that time to take hold also in addition uh we will be meeting with the reading and math specialists at the elementary levels along with the principles to review the end of the year assessment data um i will tell you that right now some preliminary k2

022reading data shows really solid student growth which we're really happy about so that was really some of those basic fundamental skills in particular in kindergarten we're very happy to see what um what successes the students had so that was really positive and um as i meet with the reading specialist and math specialists and principals i'll have a better understanding of all of the growth for our students and anywhere that we may need to shore up for next year um in addition we've pulled together a team of teachers and administrators to explore assessments to be used to monitor progress right now at the elementary level there is a series of literacy and reading assessments that we do three times a year we do it in the fall and then the middle of the year in january

023february and then at the end of the year and it gives us some ways to benchmark our students growth and needs so we are looking at some other assessment tools that we might be able to use that will be able to not only look at our k through five but potentially through eighth grade or even twelfth grade so we're meeting with a couple of vendors this week and next week and then we'll be making some decisions about what assessment will be putting in for that um mrs walker anything i should add about the literacy piece or do you think we got it all i think we've got it all it's just really exciting and it was really exciting to see how in you know this late point in the year how enthusiastic all of the

024elementary teachers were to see the representatives from tla and work on reading with them yeah it was very yeah i was i was amazed because they are tired and worked so hard this year and they were they overwhelmingly kept saying let's go we're ready so um that was really exciting so i agree barbara that was a nice a nice shout out um and then just around the starting summer learning program so excited to and i think i told you this the last meeting we didn't have to turn anyone away we were able to expand the program so all of that information has gone out to families that were interested and had applied for the program so that will start on july 12th which is very exciting and our staff is a mix of staff that

025are currently uh professionals in the coastal public schools and then a couple of people from outside of the um side of the district um so um just as a heads up to lisa farrell the principal at odds with she's actually the director of the summer program so her and i've been working closely so you'll be hearing um more from her as the time comes closer and then finally we met with the wellness committee last week and i know that mr kearney's gonna give you a little more information but we were offered the opportunity to participate in the departments of ed's wellness grant program again next year which will mean that we will continue our work with our health coaches provided by jesse and that's been very good she has a good grasp of obviously wellness

026and the policies that are in place and the programming and so she's been able to guide us and help us focus on um what we're going to do next so one thing we will be doing is adding um family and student representatives to our wellness committee so be watching for that that will come out in late august or um early september and we'll be looking for people who are interested in that um so that will be a really nice addition to our our program um and our committee and certainly something one of our first things that we can check off um of our um action plan for our wellness committee so that's my update questions any questions my only question is thank you very much for that update dr stalin my only question is um

027you mentioned that people should keep an eye out for the wellness committee um information that'll come out directly from the district at some point later and okay well yes i'll send out i'll probably send an email out in in you know august or september and then i'll probably have it in the navigator too so um yeah it'll be nice we really think it's important to have um the community and even if there's a community member who wants to be on the wellness committee also you don't have to be a you don't have to be a family that has a student enrolled right you may be someone else who wants to be part of it so um we really wanted to expand that because we think having as many people involved in the process will can

028not only um grow but only benefit our students right because there are so many resources out there i mean we already have a nice relationship with holly hill farm but it's important to grow that because wellness is the key um that's just their physical but their social emotional health right if our students are whole meaning healthy in all aspects they can't help but be successful in school so thank you very important thank you mr cleary mr doll do you have any questions for dr scollins or uh mr wonka uh none thank you for that uh folsom update mrs st onge any questions okay uh i don't have any questions either thank you both so much thank you for being i just want to mention one further thing and then i think my uh i can

029move on to my gallery i have a guest here and um we'll introduce him and why why he's here but um uh we are in full stride with our strategic planning and we met uh as a strategic planning steering team today uh was very successful um we're we're ready we believe we'll be ready to to present the results at least the content for approval um probably next meeting for the school committee to get your voice and approval before we move to sort of a finalized product remember this is a really important plan because it really it drives all the school improvement plans it drives our leadership plans and goals and then it drives all of our teachers goals all of our teacher goals will link to this plan so it really is a um you

030know a straight arrow keeping our district moving in a cohesive direction and you know i want to thank anybody who's watching who collaborated on the survey or uh who helped on the steering team and really it's been a wonderful effort very excited about the way it's going so uh we're we'll be excited to report out next meeting on that and then um that's it for my personal updates and uh obviously mr smarker and dr scollins but if i can move on chair mcclellan i'll introduce our guest unless you have any other items you want to discuss please do okay super so i'd like to introduce mr bob erlinson um you might know mr ernst is head of uh classic teachers association but of course he also is a science teacher at um at our middle

031school he also heads up our robotics efforts at the middle and high school and then you know he he also does this uh helps lead with others this wonderful trip to the grand canyon which i know he's uh here to talk about um and uh i will leave it to you mr erlinson i don't know if mrs jewell and mr fortin we're joining you or well mr fortin uh mrs jewell can't make it mr forden is actually on the uh on the call but he wasn't able to join the webinar so he's in and around uh so i apologize missing this and our grand classroom contact um mr ford is actually in the attendees excuse me he's actually an attendee so i don't know if you want to shall i promote him mr ellison you

032could that'd be great i will and who is what's the name of the gentleman or or a woman who is the um person but he won't be able to join us he has some parent meetings he was not able to switch those around with a change in the date okay i've talked to him extensively so i'm prepared to answer any questions on on on his end uh with with that so i think we'll be all fine but i do want to apologize i'm in my car right now we we are having our cta spring social as we speak so i just step out here but so if someone comes by and zoom bombs made us because they're just saying goodbye so dodge those out a little bit here but um no we we have been

033talking as a group the grand classroom group that has done two trips to grand canyon for the eighth grade uh and over the past month or two as things have improved more and more we realize we really want to give this a shot again for next year no obviously this is [Music] a tentative situation in a lot of ways but we're we're prepared to to put this forward um a very very similar trip to what we did uh in the years past with some obvious differences we do have uh a covid protocol that we're going to institute that is the glenn grand classrooms um kind of a protocol that they've put together uh and also we're considering uh maybe doing a high school trip for the ninth and tenth graders uh who were not able

034to do a trip in the eighth grade and we are in discussions with grand classroom for those students in eighth grade uh last year who who had their trip cancelled on them um i know it was with great regret that a lot of those parents and families weren't able to get a full refund uh we were in discussions with brand classroom we're getting a discount for those students um that that had the trip canceled out from underneath them uh so that they can maybe recoup some of their losses so so that's something we're hoping to do um the trips that we're planning a few were on the board uh two years ago when we first presented this uh we basically fly into las vegas we do a tour of the national parks zion bryce grand

035canyon we do a stop off in sedona um and just have it was a marvelous trip the first year we did it was just amazing the kids really um really took to it it was one of the first trips a lot of them had ever taken by themselves you know without their parents around so they really were their eyes were open uh to this new experience and and uh they really had a magical moment um the next year i was unable to go the next year but the same thing happened the year after we were hoping to have that happen for a third year when they got canceled from underneath it so so we'd like to to get back into the saddle so to speak uh with the trip hopefully have a good maybe 20

03625 kids that we can hopefully take out there is our goal in addition mr forten high school on the same time frame in april break we'd like to see if we can get these 9th and 10th graders if anyone there is interested in a similar trip they would probably fly out maybe even the same planes but then we'd diverge into our own trips not going to have the high school kids with eighth grade they would do some similar areas uh but on a different schedule different hotels and so on uh but just kind of give them the opportunity that they might have missed and then of course you know make it up to those kids uh current well next year's 10th graders uh that really were yeah suffered a bit because of the cancellation last

037year so that's our overall goal um and if you want to talk about the covet protocol what we're hoping to do we're not going to uh as a private group we're not going to require vaccinations from the students we're definitely going to encourage them and we do want to have kind of proof of that if the mr grand class what they've been doing is that if they have if you're a vaccinated student um then there's no issue if there's contact racing so on uh but if there's if you're not unvaccinated then there's a contact tracing or a a positive case what they've been doing is flying the parents out at their cost uh and putting the parent up with their child uh in hotel room they won't be able to continue the trip uh but

038that's what they've been instituting for the most part people have been having their kids vaccinated it's not an issue uh so that's the only kind of difference from the trip to the past and i'd be i'd welcome any questions you have in that regards uh i wish greg was here to kind of answer those but i feel pretty confident that i can kind of uh answer any of those if you have them but that's the overall goal so we're hoping to start promoting this even before the end of the school year um and the high school trip are still in the in the planning stages of what it actually would look like we might put the information out there for those ninth and tenth graders if they're interested in taking part um and hopefully get

039this going i'll take any questions if you guys have any okay thank you mr erlinson are there any questions from the committee mrs cleary i don't have any questions but i think this sounds like a really wonderful trip um i've been to a few of these places they're all really very interesting and full of learning opportunities so thank you for providing this opportunity to the students you're welcome thank you mr cleary mr dial any questions for mr erlinson regarding the canyon trip uh one one question and then one comment i'll do them in reverse order um i agree with miss cleary great idea uh some of my favorite memories from being in middle school were these trips that we would take when i when i was a kid it's just a great way for kids

040to socialize on different footings and build relationships and grow so i i fully support that um the question is on the coveted protocols is that written in stone at this point or is that something that can be reevaluated as time goes on because i imagine that the conditions uh in the world will change by the time we you know wheels up for this trip yeah um everything is fluid uh my big concern in terms of of any changes if all of a sudden there comes uh new variants or other issues where travel is restricted again uh one of the things we're going to insist upon this year is a much more rigorous insurance policy that will allow parents to get their entire uh refund back um when it comes to uh the travel in the

041states we are thinking that this is gonna especially with the vaccines and any uh boosters that they have they really is going to allow the freedom to to to keep travel going so that's why we thought it was a worthwhile um risk to to start promoting a trip like this uh so we'll see i mean it's definitely gonna be um you know we'll see how the world's looking then we feel pretty confident that it it'll be as open as it is right now uh is our hope thank you mm-hmm thank you mr dial miss saint and you have any questions for mr ehrlinson or mr forden um yeah i'm just curious i remember doing trips like this when i was a student at cohasset high and i remember very fondly that there were some kind

042of after school classes and meetings prior to the trip we're talking about like the kind of like the life science aspect of things the natural history of the areas we were going to study do you pair anything like that with the trip i know that so much learning happens when you're there i shouldn't know if there was a curriculum leading up to it the first year we actually did we actually had a lot of meetings leading up to it we actually built a three-dimensional map of one of the locations we went to uh currently we last year when they went uh they did not do as much of that we were thinking about putting in a a uh aspect where they're you know trying to find a middle school in the area maybe even on

043uh some of the reservations out there to maybe do some pen pal work uh possibly meet some students there with that uh that was something we talked about um last year uh but it didn't get instituted so um as a science teacher in eighth grade it you know it's it's it's always on my mind that we're bringing in the classroom as we as we can um we haven't had many discussions on what that would look like this year but we have done in the past we very well could do that in the future too yeah i just remember really valuing that as a student and just thinking like upon arrival realizing i had learned so much and then to be able to experience it was was really priceless um but it looks like an amazing

044trip and i i hope that you know conditions continue to improve and and everything goes off without a hitch because what an awesome opportunity for all of you and if you need any chat rounds let me know thanks thank you mr st orange um mr erlinson mr forten uh i'm i'm always in in support of these types of um learning experiences um i think they're they're extremely enriching i i also really appreciate your continued um interest in making sure this becomes a reality for the students especially um your thought about the um ninth and tenth graders who unfortunately had this stripped from them and it's uh sort of uh i'm sure considered a bit of a right of passage for eighth graders and i'm sure they eagerly anticipate being able to participate in this and

045i think it's great that we're gonna include them my um my questions with regards to any sort of traveling with our students always relate to safety and monitoring especially where it's a co-ed situation i know this is a well-established trip i'm sure you have some similarly well-established protocols in place but i like to know them so i'm wondering um it looks like it's it's you know it's it's not camping it's hotel accommodations for the sleeping accommodations so that's great um i um i wonder i noticed that it's about uh an eight to one student to chaperone ratio currently for the eighth grade and uh you don't have the numbers specifically um i don't think you guys know them yet for the for the ninth and tenth i'm wondering if you plan on having a similar

046ratio because i think that is a pretty good ratio in terms of chaperones yeah even lower about a six or seven to one uh so we're hoping for 25 students with four chaperones in the middle school great one similar in high school we're prepared to go as high as maybe 30 or 35 students but even more than that when you start losing that small group feel uh we want to keep it to one one tour bus as well i know in the past we've had a security person in the hallway uh overnight that the grand classroom pays for so so we do have uh monitoring going on uh while everyone's getting some deserved rest um so that and and uh i know for the eighth years especially uh we were concerned about that in the

047first few years but the nice thing about it is that they they really are on their best behavior because they're in out of their element and they they they really are kind of hesitant and so they're the minds are actually more open they're a little more able to follow directions uh because of the fact that they're just not in their comfort zone uh ninth and tenth graders now they may be a different story so that um i know mr ford and the chaperones will have their own experiences with that but i imagine we'll have the same procedure with uh shopping and and one thing to keep in mind the itinerary that students have on these trips um you know every day it's really jam-packed and there's there's a lot that's happening you know students will

048end the day with a discussion with you know the teachers and also you know the guides that lead the trip about like you know what they saw there may be some sort of like padlet you know style diary that they're able to reflect upon um you know they're given a little bit of free time and then you know they're they're they're they're exhausted and and they need that sleep so they're ready for the next day um now i will just mention that yeah i've done this trip the two times that we've run it um and it's been an absolutely amazing experience for students and i would even say life-changing just to be able to get out of the south shore and see the national parks of this country um but i always tell parents that

049you know being a chaperone this is something that we take you know very very seriously and it's a huge responsibility um and you know i always tell my students in the classroom you can't take the data out of me um and you know we are very protective of those students um and they are reminded on a regular basis that they do represent the town of cohasset um and we hold them to that standard um and they respond very very well to it excellent i mean are there regular sort of uh head count checks as you you know proceed through these products and such um yeah like for example one of the um one of the policies that we've been using is at the beginning of the trip every single student every single person on the

050trip is assigned a number and we just do the count off um and it's you know it's a visual thing it's auditory um you know we get in the rhythm and it happens every time we need to go ahead and get to a transition point we count off um you know the bus every single time we don't leave unless that count off is correct um you know it's it's it's it's religiously done okay and then with the hotel rooms when they are you know turning down uh are you ensuring that each student is going to their assigned room and and that you know um everyone's sort of uh bedded down for the night in the right place absolutely yep that's a check that we go through um you know one of the one of the

051policies that we have is that um you know once that you know uh lights out time is set whatever that may be the itinerary um all the rooms are taped um so that if the doors open um you know we would we would catch it if we were you know maybe on a different floor you know making the rounds um and as mr lansin mentioned um grand classroom does hire a security staff to um you know be out in the hallway in the middle of the night so that the adults can get the rest um something that we absolutely stay up to make sure that students are where they're supposed to be really reassuring responses great protocols thank you so much to both of you for doing this for our kids thanks a lot thank

052you very much thank you thank you gentlemen have a good night now i probably i believe they want a um do they want to go so i think yeah they want i think they require a vote so is there a motion to uh approve the proposed grand canyon trips as described uh by uh mr erlinson mr forten tonight so moved the motion is made by mrs st onge is there a second a second seconded by mr dial all in favor mrs coleri hi mr dial aye mr kearney is absent mrs st onge hi hi craig mcclellan uh that motion um carries by a vote of four eyes so thank you very much gentlemen thank you guys so much have a great night thanks have a great night thank you thank you so i think that

053concludes the superintendent's report i know thank you mrs wonker i think she's going to depart us now thank you for being here to support that part of the report and we'll see you next meeting okay thank you very much thank you mr maca thank you so much and i uh i do believe um leslie that that that's it right for our report okay wonderful okay i'll leave it over to you champ thank you dr sullivan so uh mrs owen that brings us to uh the finance report do you have a report for the committee tonight i certainly do can you can i share my screen yes i you're the you're a co-host you have the power i have the power it's not quite the same power of using craig's name when you log in but

054it's it's good it's not that is the power um i have i have sent out the packet with all the standard reports the school budget summary um you know i send it out several different ways tried to change it up a little bit so it's not so stagnant all the time so i put it in a memo form this time um this is for the month just for the month of may what what what our budget looks like to date so the information attached represents an updated update concerning current budget conditions um the the detail was attached in the packet so we got in the school budget which is the general fund expenses are proceeding is projected i mean there's some areas that are over budget there are some areas that are under budget but

055that's typical as long as our bottom number stays um above zero we're good sally's salaries have all been encumbered this time which is which is new i think to us um what i did do was i i calculated with that payroll person how many s how many payrolls we have left and i i put it on what i call a dummy purchase order just so that money is set aside so i know we have enough money to run payroll um so there's no areas of concern with salary when you look at the special education areas um those are some of the areas that we do look at um frequently that we do have concerns because they're usually unanticipated expert you know expenses to come through so i sped tuitions are higher than expected um they're

0561.3 million the original budget amount for the tuition to about 1 million um this is a difference about 258 000 it's a result of some unanticipated outplacements and or and or changes in our placements so either some of our some of our kiddos that were in in um in-house um have now been outplaced or some of our placements have gone on to different schools that the tuition's a little bit higher um not a surprise uh tuitions are a number that moves frequently um throughout the year and year to year so i'm not i'm not heavily concerned there also the special ed department the contracted service budget is a little bit higher than expected it's about 175 000 dollars with what we've expended so far and the original budget was 27 000. um there again there

057were several i believe there's three that i that i know of off the top of my head unanticipated legal settlements um that happened throughout this year um not not necessarily that happened during this year but we're settling this year so it could be over the course of the last year or two that these agreements have been going back and forth and we finally came to settlements on our own i should say mrs wonka gained settlements on him with the district um so um again special department is going to show that it's a little bit tipped into the red we also you know please note we do have the sped stabilization fund um which is established specifically to cover any unanticipated special education expenditures um in the event that we have no remaining funds at the

058end of the year so um that fund is there as a as a backup plan um hopefully just the year-end funding um we'll end with we usually end with some funding at the end of the year and that will be absorbed um just by covering the special education expenses and then we took a look at utilities because those are that's another key area that can really tip the budget so in the heating in the heating area we've spent 85 percent through may um the month of june's been encumbered and it's estimated that we might have a shortfall of about 7 600 not too bad um not really concerned there as well you get into the electric utility areas um we spent about 83 of the budget through may um again the remaining month of june

059has been encumbered and there's an estimated savings of about ninety seven hundred dollars so i mean overall the utility budget will break even with a small amount of savings about two thousand dollars so it's not again it's it balances out um it doesn't affect our bottom number and then circuit breaker which is a reimbursement that we get on some special education tuitions and services so total projected circuit breaker for the year um is expected to be about 648 thousand dollars we've it's based on a 75 reimbursement rate um today we've received three payments totaling 482 000. we expect one more payment prior to the close of the fiscal year um sometimes after the end of the fiscal year you get a fifth payment um depending on what has been reported so we won't know we

060know we will get the 648. we don't know about a fifth payment until after june 30th and then i want to touch base a little just on capital um remaining funds for all the years in capital i think it's really good to point out that we're trying um really hard to spend our money as we get it if we ask for it we should spend it so there's about sixty two thousand dollars left in our capital there's about 7 500 left from fy 18 from crow books um and then talking to the town accountant in the technology department um they're recommending to close it out return that amount to the town because we don't we're not going to utilize that money that they obviously will probably reallocate it to something else could be chromebooks for

061this year or next year um same thing with fy 20 that includes some sidewalk and steer improvements that have been already taken care of upgrades to the bell system at the middle in high school um in the purchase of aspen which is a student software um and again you know it's recommended that they're gonna close out that account the money will be returned to the town and probably reallocated and then this year um we have about forty four thousand dollars remaining um includes some ongoing projects one is you know the middle school entrance is complete so there's money left there um we have some money left in the special education wheelchair van we need to put lettering on that van and then the ac band room split um has completed and that that um invoice

062is going through or has gone through a warrant in the month of june um so that 44 000 will pretty much be almost down to zero um when we complete the year sue if i could just mention during the very hot days we had a couple weeks ago you'll all be happy to know that that band room and the two band rooms at the deer hill where that split was put in were like ice boxes so it was perfect it was really nice um where those were the hottest places in the town of cohasset in in the past so it was really nice to have those rooms uh sufficiently air sea air conditioned sorry well that's okay also including in that is um the deer hill courtyard doors um the money's been encumbered the pots

063are on order they're special made um we were promised they would be done in may we're into june my guess is it probably won't happen in the month of june it'll probably happen in july because i haven't heard anything from the facilities department that we've received the materials so um that's the final project for fy21 other than that we've pretty much exhausted and finished up most of our projects dear hill courtyard doors will be they'll probably the last one and then we get into the grant so not only you know do we have a school budget we also you know support our district through grants um today we have a total of 2.1 million um in grants compared to 1.4 million last year obviously the difference in the grant funds which is about thousand dollars

064most can be attributed to the receipt of the additional funding due to the covid pandemic so we've got you know multiple grants um forwarded to us to help the district you know um with the ppe in the in the in the setup and just all the proven precautions that we've had to take um so that's the difference in the grants the grants also fund approximately 4 14.7 ftes of staff so they do it does play a part um in our staffing next year obviously um my guesses will probably go back down to the 1.4 1.5 million um except for i believe we are getting an ester three next year um that will probably be the only covert grant unless things change um right now the covert you know barriers are being lifted we i can't

065predict what happens in the fall then we also you know subsidize our our district with revolving accounts um where you know we collect fees for different things so it should right now it's showing the remaining balance of about 1.1 million 119 000 of that are already deposits we've collected for next year um so we're already collecting kindergarten um preschool bus among other expenses these accounts cover salaries for about 12.9 ftes of personnel whose jobs are related to that account so it could be athletics it could be our transportation supervisors paid out of our transportation revolving um and so on so i mean in conclusion you know even though 21 has been a really fiscally challenging year um and we've had to change things up day to day week to week hour by hour based on

066what's been going on um we've been able to with close oversight you know continue to maintain a balanced budget um and we'll be closing out the year in good shape at this point i don't know what year-end remaining funds will be um if any i mean the if there are any they will be obviously absorbed by the special education overruns of their accounts um but until we finish out at the month of june first week of july when all the invoices come in i really won't know what's left so that concludes the budget presentation if there's any questions i'll be happy to answer them thank you miss elwin any questions mrs callery my only question thank you mrs owen i i want to say i do really like this cover page that sort of summarizes

067the highlights as you see them but i found that to be really helpful when reviewing this so thank you for that um my only question is related to the overages on special ed tuition um and as that relates to our fy 22 budget do you feel like we are in good shape for next year seeing i mean i i don't know i just i just want to know what your thoughts are whether you think we've allocated enough money for that in our fy 22 requests yes so mr swanker and i sat down and went through um what the what the actual um tuitions were for this year now remember when we budgeted the tuitions for this current year it happened last year you know september october november um so change has happened during that time

068so when we budgeted going into fy 22 they're based on this year so we should be fine thank you thank you mrs cleary mr dial any questions for miss owen at this time uh no thank you very much very very very uh detailed presentation um thank you mr dial i don't think mr kearney mr kearney do you have any questions for uh miss miss owen at this time regarding the budget monthly update just good presentation i appreciate it thank you mr kearney mr st onge um thank you mrs owen love this layout very very helpful to help my non-budget-oriented brain process this information i appreciate it um my question is regarding the um capital funds from fy18 and fy20 and there's the town recommendations to close out and return to the town i i recall

069voting on things like that in the past is that something that needs to be voted upon in the near future or discussed as a committee how do we how do we act on that so um good question i i myself um had conversations with the town accountant on um and i said the same thing i said in in past districts i as a school committee i would recommend to the school committee that we um vote to refund when i saw an accountant here he said that's not the process that they do here if we we're done utilizing the funds and they're sitting there they just take them back so i'm going based on the conversation i had with him um and like i said in past districts i've recommended giving it back and the scope

070of me has voted to give it back so um i did question that when i spoke yeah so we have in the past voted on um in a subcommittee and then uh approved by the by the whole school committee what amount we were going to be giving back to the town so that that is not our process uh or it hasn't been in the past okay um so i can definitely you know maybe in the next monthly update i'll touch base with town account again and say you know school committee's going to vote um to return back the money yeah i recommend maybe us meeting in our subcommittee and then you know talking about moving it to the to the whole um which is what we've done in the past okay sounds good okay is

071that all uh yeah yeah i was just uh curious about that protocol thank you thank you good question um i have no questions miss owen could you please um include the um this executive summary memorandum with every um monthly update from here on out if you could yes absolutely that that is why i put it out here um this time i mean initially when i first started i would i um was gonna take this type of style um it was suggested that at least for the to get my feet wet and get get on the ground running i should try to keep the reporting similar to what the past business manager um did which is so that's why i followed the same protocol but this is more of what i'm accustomed to doing because reading

072through these reports are kind of boring if you're not a financial person and you don't know what pops out at you um so i kind of in this memo put put on there pops out so it's certainly going forward if this is what you want it's great great summary not a criticism just uh it's it's praise it's just it's helpful and i think everyone uh recognized that so it'd be great to have that from here on thank you okay does that conclude the monthly update that concludes the monthly update so uh chair mcclellan our next item under um under finance wanted to give an update on our kindergarten tuition as everyone knows we've been working to try to provide refunds that are appropriate and also that are economically feasible for us to do um i

073want to thank chairman mcclelland for his collaboration with us to help us do this i know chairman colin you might want to just say some things about where we are right now with kindergarten tuition i'm sure uh i want to preface my remarks with the fact that um you know some families have made it known that uh the committee's uh process of deliberation on this topic to date uh has has been confusing or frustrating to them and if that was your family's experience i apologize i take that as a personal failure i think it's my job as chairperson to manage fluid meetings at which all concepts and topics are discussed and addressed with clarity and are addressed effectively and so um i will certainly endeavor to do better there i do apologize if that was

074your experience um just to summarize to date um the school committee at the outset of uh the past academic year um did um indicate to our director of finance and operations that the issue of kindergarten tuition reimbursement um was a priority to us um obviously an acknowledgement of the fact that the 2019-2020 families uh were offered a reimbursement we were interested in doing the same for this year's kindergarten families in recognition that they would have at some level an abbreviated year it was decided at that point the most fiscally responsible and well-informed approach would be to wait to the conclusion of the year so we could assess the status of our budget at that time and make a more informed decision uh relative to what kind of money we'd be able to offer uh in

075form of kindergarten tuition reimbursement we from there addressed families concerns that were brought to us indicating that they would like it addressed earlier than the end of the year uh we considered that and uh while initially refused to do so uh two meetings ago uh had voted to authorize up to five hundred dollars um to uh reimburse kindergarten families uh the 2020 2021 can garden families for a part of their tuition um that deliberation during that deliberation and as i corrected and as dr sullivan and miss owen corrected us last meeting the deliberation took took place um during which um some misinformation um was innocuously uh conveyed um first regarding um the amount of the reimbursement to the 2019-2020 families was was misstated by myself i was operating under um inaccurate or with inaccurate information

076and and said that the families were provided with a 500 reimbursement last year and as i corrected last meeting that was not accurate it was 980 in addition there was some confusion related to enrollment nut figures only because the enrollment changed for that class likely due to the pandemic and went down to 98 um although it was at one point uh i think um it was uh if i'm correct or about 112 miss owen 110 110 and that actually figure has come returned back up um now that we're sort of through the thick of things so to speak so that was again another innocuous error that was um was while innocent still uh could have impacted deliberations um and so uh for that reason i have placed it back on the agenda tonight for the

077final review of this issue this will be the last time the um 2020 2021 kindergarten reimbursement um or tuition reimbursement is going to be discussed or placed on the agenda but at the last meeting when we corrected it we couldn't deliberate on the issue because it hadn't been placed on the agenda i know it was important to many families so we had asked miss owen to look into whether or not any additional funds uh could be directed to that given the misstatement of the 500 versus 980 figure ms owen it's my understanding uh you have done that and may have some information to report to committee is that accurate yes it is so what have you what were your uh conclusions or findings um am i still able to share you are yes so i

078i went back um and looked at our ether2 um also was informed that we will be getting an s3 i couldn't utilize esther three because the funding won't come till after july one so i couldn't utilize any of that to help with the kindergarten reimbursement and just uh interrupt ms owen we didn't necessarily know that it wasn't coming until that that date we thought it was great initially correct correct um so i went back and looked and and i put together a spreadsheet just to kind of make it clear um of what you know what our original esr ii grant was um allotted allotted for so as you can see in the first comments that's original um the 183 927 is the total grant um initially we were going to use it for instructional technology

079we were going to use it for um custodial salaries for next year for for cleaning for high touch point cleaning we were going to use it for ppe typo ppe typo on my my spreadsheet didn't catch that sorry so ppe supplies materials um there's ten thousand dollars of that grant that has to be allocated psychological services so you can see that ten thousand um sanitizing wipe sprays about thirty six thousand desk chairs tents rentals we put air purifies about forty five thousand and then we did have um one student that still went to a remote school so that was how we originally wrote the grant and then when we went back i went back and looked at it um and i came up with what i thought would be uh an accurate refund was the

080500 refund so you can see um the 500 refund we took away instructional technology um talked with talked with the technology department we're pretty set between capital and what we purchased this year um so we could reallocate that money towards kindergarten a kindergarten teacher so basically what i had to do is rather than the kindergarten revolving account fund the teacher's salary the sr2 grant could fund the salary and i did get permission um in the okay from desti to do that i definitely wanted that in writing from them to say is is this something i can do because they didn't get the service or the product that they would typically get um could we not charge them less and they were fine with that um and again the custodial salaries when we found out we

081were going to have an sr3 grant um i immediately thought okay well we can we can shift the custodial salaries um to the following year's grant so you can see in the second column which says the 500 refund the instructional technology and custodial salaries is was fifty four thousand dollars just about covered um a five thousand dollar um if you look like down below it says kindergarten teacher sowing so i needed about fifty two thousand dollars to cover five hundred dollar refund per family um or per student for the 90 for the 98 enrollees and then when we got into you know can i go further so again um the covid um barriers were lifted we're not necessarily we're not in a state of emergency anymore um talked with our custodians talked you know talked

082with the admin team do we still need to set aside that much money for custodial supplies um and we decided that you know a school budget can um cover on normal day-to-day supplies materials for custodians it always has so again we i looked at that since um and the 26 000 then got reallocated to head towards the kindergarten salaries to bring up um 78 000 towards kindergarten salaries rather than being charged to the revolving fund and the 78 000 pretty much gives um just about an 800 it's an 800 refund to 98 approximately 98 parents um it's give or take a little bit just because some people haven't completed paying so rather than get an 800 refund they would get you know a small refund if they're still making payments um and you can see

083you know as you go down we did make some adjustments the ten thousand i couldn't touch ten thousand like i said um grant says we have to spend on mental health and psychological services um we did you know we do have some money put aside for sanitizing and sprays and nurse supplies it's 14 000. um you can see the dash chairs tend to tent rental air purifiers so that went from um 45 000 to 79 000 and that that number um wasn't necessarily a choice of a change it's after we submitted all of our invoices for all the things that we had to do to get everyone back full um we expended seventy nine thousand dollars so that that was spent um as soon as we started working on getting everybody back in full class

084um and then again the the one remote student for the thousand dollars so we we did shift things around you know i'm confident that at this point in time um we can we can definitely give an 800 refund um just by reallocating our expenditures here and you know we are like i said we also have an sr3 coming in we have not applied for it yet um we have until i think the first week of october to apply so as a team we're trying to you know figure out what what should we spend what's how would that be best spent um and again there are some stipulations for that grant as well there's more speculation you know more mental health um more closing the learning gaps um so there are certain stipulations for that grant

085but at this point i think um the 800 the 800 per student um is definitely doable if you know so that's my recommendation if that's you know if that's what the direction you want to go thank you miss owen uh questions or deliberation uh because we will be voting on authorizing uh in uh 800 reimbursement mrs cleary nothing for me thank you mr dial i apologies if this is a question that's that's been rehashed but i'm new so i get to do these things was there a was there a target amount i'd see let's see we're able to circle around 800. uh was there a target amount that we were looking for or that that parents were requesting how does this fit with with parent expectations well that's a good question the the answer is

086um that i guess the best way to uh arrive at or quantify that figure is to um is to figure out what the per diem value so to speak for kindergarten would be given the total amount of tuition so you figure out how many days um the students were not physically in person because you know as you remember you know the beginning of the year they were there two days a week then it was uh you know three alternating days and then as of march one we were back full time so you figure out how many uh non-in-person days there were remote days excuse me and you um and then um or excuse me you figure out how much given how many school days you divide the total number of tuition by number school days

087figure out how much a day of school is worth and then multiply that figure by the number of uh remote days and you arrive it's uh i've done the calculation it's around 910 um for for 2020 2021. um this uh what we've asked miss owen to do is um arrive at a figure that she thinks is the uh sort of uh optimally responsible figure to offer and um and it looks like you know we fall about a hundred dollars short of what maybe parents can uh you know uh expect as a maximum reimbursement given the solution or product that was offered to them uh in exchange in consideration for their tuition dollars and so um but that said um i think miss owen has detailed um how she came across the money and and uh

088you know we don't i without completely depleting every resource uh you know it's it's i guess she's saying that eight hundred dollars is is that figure miss owen do you feel that that's the sort of um you know the most fiscally responsible figure at this point in terms of the maximum payment to parents yes yes because because i mean we i don't know what's going to happen in the fall um i don't want to reallocate too much money and not have enough to cover if we have to go back to remote or distancing or high-touch cleaning i mean i i need to leave us some leeway in case we head back in that direction um because the school budget certainly cannot afford um to absorb that yeah so3 is really a safety net for a

089lot of things which which includes you know working on learning gaps which we have to dedicate some of it to but it really is a situation where you know they're giving they're going to hopefully give us this money and we don't know if we'll receive any other funding and we have to have it because of you know we don't know what's coming and i mean we did go back and forth through you know the refund last year of 980 versus a refund of 800 this year and and the parents of families last year um they they got a little less service than what the parents did get this year um because you remember back it was march 16th last year we just probably basically stopped um and didn't have a didn't have a well set

090plan to how to give kindergarten remote learning from march to june last year so we did sit i mean pat um craig and i sat and we basically counted out days to see you know was an equal amount of days and the parents last year did receive less um not that that makes you know it any bet any better um when you when you go into the per diem what the actual amounts are um but the parents last year also did not get what the actual amount of a refund should have been based on per diem so i think this is probably the most i can do um at this point and i don't think i can go back and i'm not sure that jesse will let me go back and re-re-amend the grant again

091for the third time that that that's very helpful thank you and this is a this is a thorough analysis in in my opinion so thank you for the work here you're welcome thank you mr dial mr kearney mr kearney you're breaking up a little bit are you can you hear us [Music] can you hear me um no did you hear that last break can you hear me right yeah yeah okay okay yeah it's it's a tough situation it's because you know the teachers have paid and he had to pay him and the money's got to come from somewhere and um unfortunately one of the districts and i'll say it again 14 percent then we're we're happy about um i think a lot of us need um trying to make kindergarten free and that would be

092something in the future i'm just i'm just grateful that we were able to come to some kind of a conclusion on this and i want to thank everybody for working uh hard on this you know this has been something you gotta go back and forth with as well but uh the good news is that we won't have to really deal with this other than coming up with some good solutions as a community that we can offer through that that's a conversation that i'm willing to talk about you know paul during our you know our budget um preparations for next year you know we that is a priority and we did you know allocate i think 20 at least 25 000 to help reduce tuitions for the upcoming school year so it is definitely a direction

093we're heading in okay thank you mr kearney mr st onge yes thank you um sue i just have a quick question during your overview you said something like it comes out to roughly 800 because you know not all not all people have paid so are people who have kids who are full-time kindergarten and oh full tuition i understand that different families have different situations has everyone paid what they owe no we're still we're still collect we have i mean we've collected the majority we probably have a handful of people that are on a payment plan okay and they have to have it they were supposed to have it paid by june 30th so you know for instance you know someone offered they owed a thousand dollars um and we're gonna make a money order for

094a thousand dollars i said could you just hold off until we have this conversation tonight so we're not you know refunding that person back some of that money um now you know based on the vote tonight that person can make their final payment and it will be two hundred dollars if we go with the eight hundred dollars so it's you know we have like that okay so not every single family's getting the full 800 unless they've paid info okay and so everyone who owes is in communication with you and has a payment plan yes okay i guess i just wanted to make sure in like a scroogey kind of way that we're not offering refunds before payments are made absolutely not no i said it's approximately um just because we have those families that are

095still making payments so obviously they'll either get a posh they'll get a postural refund or no refund based on what they owe okay thank you for that clarification um i think that yeah that answers the other note that i had made to myself thank you you're welcome thank you miss saint orange to me there's just a few considerations going on here you know there's acknowledgement of family concern there's acknowledgement of an abbreviated learning product that was offered in exchange for the same amount of tuition than perhaps the 2018-2019 families paid um there is um concerns of equity um equity not only between 2019 2020 families but 20 and 2020 and 2021 families but also equity in terms of these are district-wide grant funds that are being applied to uh reimburse um you know less than

09610 of the district so you have to consider that as well um and then there's a consideration of how we um address this overall concern um in the future which mr kearney touched on and which we are endeavoring to do by uh looking to uh build a little bit more of the kindergarten program into our annual budget and slowly we will chip away at that 3 500 price tag and eventually the idea is to offer free kindergarten here in cohasset as i personally believe it should be but nothing happens overnight this was certainly a large effort and this involved this is a great example of a lot of family involvement people felt very passionate about this they came to us and while they still may not be satisfied i feel that we have adequately addressed

097their concern and um at this point i would ask for a motion to approve uh chairman callum if i may just ask one other question of miss owen uh miss owen you you alluded to a point that i think is is compelling you alluded to that the the per diem rate that the last year families i'm not gonna do the numbers but the last year families may actually be lower than the per diem rate that people are getting in this reimbursement did i hear that correctly you said that again i'm not sure i'll i'll answer i know what he's asking um the answer the question mr dial is so what miss owen was saying was that uh 20 20 excuse me 2019 2020 families uh were if you calculate that sort of strict literal um

098uh per diem figure they also received a reimbursement that was uh less than that exact calculation would come out to and in fact it was somewhere around it was uh 1 125 i believe it was somewhere just over 1100 um they were providing with a 980 reimbursement so whereas this year's kindergarten families might suggest that 910 dollars is what the exact amount of reimbursement for the remote uh days were um similarly they're they're they're receiving a little bit less than that figure so i think that miss owen was just trying to illustrate that there's some equity uh on that level or to that effect that that's what i thought i heard and wanted to make sure that that was clear to to everyone that it does seem like the last year families and this year

099families are are on a substantially similar footing in that regard yes so unless there are any further comments um i would seek a motion at this time to approve the 800 kindergarten tuition reimbursement as articulated by our director of finance and operations so moved the motion is made by mr kearney is there a second second lydia cenange seconded by mrs st onge um all in favor mrs cleary hi mr dial aye mr kearney hi mrs st onge aye aye craig mcclellan that motion unanimously carries and so miss owen we would ask you to please uh issue those 800 refurbishment reimbursements to our uh kindergarten families thank you my pleasure we we're just we were just waiting to see you know what the vote was going to be and we're going to work on the warrant

100probably starting tomorrow okay so we we consider that matter closed with finality at this point and we will not be discussing the kindergarten tuition reimbursement any further um are there any other uh are there any other matters in the um finance portion of the agenda ms owen no thank you mrs st orange did i see you just raise your hand oh yeah i just wanted to kind of say to families um it takes a little while to get those checks out because that's a lot to process so just be reassured the money's on its way it just takes a little bit of time especially if you're at the end of the alphabet to get that check from personal experience just so you know thank you okay thank you miss owen for your report uh we

101turn now to the next agenda item which is the school committee section and as miss saint orange has been eagerly anticipating we will be soon um doing our subcommittee and liaison assignment in fact we'll be doing them right now so um this can sometimes get a little uh belabored but hopefully you were able to review the current subcommittee and liaison assignments that were in your packet that item number was f1 did everyone have a chance to look at those mr dial you've familiarized yourself with those okay um obviously mrs mars assignments will need to be will all need to be changed and then some folks may be happy with the current constitution and some may want to switch um i know that mr dial has expressed an interest in being involved in the collective bargaining

102process um and mrs callery has i think expressed at some point an interest in or a willingness to uh concede that position so that may be an example of where individuals can replace one another um so i guess we'll just start at the top of the list and uh and go from there and hopefully we can do this uh quickly and effectively um the policy and standards subcommittee uh generally deals with our um policy revisions as we've seen mrs st onge and mrs cleary have done a great amount of work with this this year um and they've been revitalizing and revamping our policies um so that they're not sort of stale and they've been doing a great job i don't know if both of you are willing to continue that work or or what i

103mean you've been working i would like to continue that work and i would really like to continue working with mrs cena if she's willing to do it i think we make a really good team and dr scollins is super helpful and willing to attend our meetings and it seems like that combination has been really working to produce some good productivity in our policy areas well unless anyone feels strongly i think that it makes sense to keep that intact especially where you guys have familiarized with yourself with the policies so much more than maybe others yeah i feel like we have great momentum right now i'm more than happy to continue okay um that is easy if anyone has any objection to anything or wants to jump in just jump in because that's the easiest way

104to do this um so also mr dial do you know that um any the subcommittee's need to be only two members of the committee you you probably know this already okay thank you no but thank you please don't assume i know anything because uh that's always the safe assumption next is the superintendent evaluation uh subcommittee and um mr kearney and i were on this committee um in the past i am happy just to remain on it i'm also happy to concede my role uh if someone else would like to serve on this mr kearney what's your position on this um my pleasure to serve with you as well unless someone else wants to okay so um both of us are willing to concede our roles if anyone wants to do this um let us know

105basically you are meeting with dr sullivan um it's like two to three times uh a year throughout the year to go over his goals and help develop those um and uh evaluate those and obviously you know superintendent evaluation this this um culminates with the um annual evaluation of all cool committee members but this committee helps uh dr sullivan you know form goals keep on track and there's uh you know at the beginning of the year there's mid-year and then there's a final review so if anyone has any interest in doing this speak now otherwise uh mr kearney myself will remain on that okay we'll keep that intact collective bargaining um this is going to be an important year for this committee the subcommittee the we we did agree to as as we've announced previously a

106one-year rollover to the ctas [Music] contract in light of all that's been going on it was a difficult thing to obviously amidst all the pandemic response engage in collective bargaining um so um we rolled over the contract for one year which means we'll need to start uh we need to commence with uh bargaining for the upcoming contract cycle within in the fall and this is a major major undertaking it's a very important undertaking impacts that's extremely impactful and has uh far-reaching uh impact uh you know effects on on the district and so it required it also requires a lot of time um it's time consuming the uh meetings are you know often times in the middle of the day there sometimes uh they take several hours and there are multiple bargaining sessions so i um

107i know that mr dial has expressed interest in doing that and where mrs cleary has you know willingness to express the willingness to consider role mr dial um i think we should consider you on that um i i would also like to remain on this um or excuse me i wouldn't be remaining on it uh mr kearney uh you're on it i don't know if you're willing to concede your role or if you want to stay on it um i i the reason to articulate to you why i want to get on it is because i spent so much time in the impact bargaining this year um and i'm familiar with the the players and uh much more familiar with the process and um i would like to stick with it if it's okay with

108you but i'm certainly not going to push you out if you feel strongly remaining on it i i think it's great to let some some other folks have a chance um and and i would have no problem conceding my role okay well then uh mr dial and myself will uh we'll we'll take that responsibility up okay style sound good thanks sounds good all right finance and facilities um mrs maher and mr kearney were formerly the two uh subcommittee members um obviously mrs maher needs to be replaced finance and facilities is a fairly aptly named subcommittee so it's kind of clear what it addresses um budget and the facilities um and you know needs for capital improvements minor improvements with the facilities um and and you know obviously they go hand in hand with the budget

109so um it's an important subcommittee and i know mr kearney was very involved in that um last year mr kearney would you like to remain on this um yes uh it would be my pleasure to serve it definitely is an important committee and and these are i think the most important um that i've been seeing out of this committee is when we all do meet together i think um we're able to go i know it's a sub committee but it it is an important subcommittee so i would just ask everybody to you know uh if they could make any kind of meetings for this because we're going to need a lot of help because um we're going to need some answers to a lot of questions that alan already knew um so i did have

110some subcommittee um descriptions too that i i probably should have i meant to um read them as i did with the reorganization and um i feel like uh it's never too late to start doing this this the finance and facilities committee was formerly known as the budget and finance subcommittee i'll just read the description the budget and finance subcommittee is one of the most active subcommittees scope of response but includes working with the superintendent director of finance and operations on capital budget requests budget objectives and messaging fiscal budget current year spending fees and we should add you know evaluation uh and or improvement of facilities so um paul we are mr kearney we can leave you on there uh is there anyone willing to replace ellen on this commit on the subcommittee i i'm happy

111to volunteer okay um mr dyle we'll put you in there thank you lastly is the security subcommittee this was formerly mrs maher and myself the security subcommittee primarily works with the cohasset police department and school resource officer to periodically suggest updates to operating protocols and procedures regarding the safety and security of our students and staff in addition the subcommittee will vet and provide input to the budget and finance subcommittee the superintendent and the director of finance and operations suggested capital expenditures to install enhance or upgrade new or existing security measures on our campuses the subcommittee most typically meets an executive session under exemption number four which is uh safety and security of course so uh does anyone want to volunteer to uh serve on the subcommittee i'd do that lydia okay you're in would anyone

112like would anyone else like to serve on the subcommittee do you want to do it weren't you on it i i i was but you know what i i've decided after doing the chair position for a year that i'm i'm good with shedding as many subcommittee roles as possible it's a it's a lot of work um that what do you feel like this committee asked of you as far as the time commitment um it's funny um not much because there was so much other um there are so many other like safety meetings that we were having like town wide because of the of the pandemic response that i don't know that there was a really need for a district specific because it was all dr sullivan and i were constantly meeting with town officials regarding

113um safety and security um weekly yes so i don't and that wasn't the subcommittee so i i i don't know um but i would imagine that this would be like uh probably a quarterly review or a quarterly meeting you know um i don't have in some of these subcommittee descriptions it says how much the subcommittee meets uh this one does not give a particular amount of times but um i'd be happy to sit on that also um okay and i would just remind you that we also have a communications subcommittee um you said lastly that's the only reason i know you know that but you just said lastly yep and i even have a note here communications and still said that so thanks um we just for a question and maybe this is not um

114it's not for this this this point but um is there an evaluation of you know whether we have the right subcommittees like for example if this one is just meeting quarterly could its function be handled through regular full committee meetings uh and that way we relieve ourselves of one subcommittee well it's funny you mentioned that because there's also the safe schools committee which um which which also reviews among many other things similar so there's a lot of overlap there um i i think it's probably necessary still to have a subcommittee related to security um because in some instances it is logistically appropriate or beneficial or advantageous to have some conversations at the subcommittee level within the idea of making formal formal recommendations to the whole committee um and again you know remember that a lot

115of these meetings take place in executive session because of the obvious confidential um nature of the uh subject matter so i think would be difficult to because then we'd constantly having to be moving into executive session during the regularly scheduled meetings but listen any suggestion that you ever have to streamline these meetings or in any way always make them um because uh it's something that we didn't constantly pay attention to because i really do think that we can move these things faster um so uh communications subcommittee i know uh so that was newly um established um thank you to um mrs cleary um miss cleary serves on it i imagine miss st onge does with her but i don't know i don't have that information okay so are you are you two i think that

116everyone would probably be comfortable with keeping you as that's a new commit subcommittee it makes sense to again keep you in that role um are you both comfortable with that yes all right so um let's keep that the same uh for this year um and we'll reassess at the end of this year this upcoming year um okay that does it for the subcommittee assignments uh representative liaison assignments um first are the um the school councils i was uh formerly the osgoode school council that's i'm fine remaining that unless anyone else has any i i'm willing to concede it i just you know principal farrell knows that i'm on it i think that she's just probably used to including me in the chain but if someone wants to do it feel free i'm all i'm all

117i'm totally willing not to not to do it yeah i'd like to keep the high school too if everyone's alright yeah i'm sure mr kearney wants to keep the middle school um although are you or where what age is your kids now i forget mr kearney no no no it's fine middle school is great um yeah that's great hey mrs st orange what do you think about deer hill or do you want to do you want to i'm happy to go either way i know that mr dial has one child who's at who will be at dear hill right next year um so i'm happy to if you would like to um be on the school council you may and if you do not want to i will happily stay so mr dial the school

118council is this is a as a liaison you don't have like a voting role it's really a liaison sort of a communication based um role sort of to keep the committee uh aware of the goings-on of the um of that uh school council and obviously to create that link between the school council and the committee and bring you know the committee's updates to the to the school council um so it's more of a representative role it's not overly time consuming in my experience um if you'd like to serve on that you may um but it's up to you entirely i mean you've i will say this by virtue of your of your interest in the collective bargaining subcommit subcommittee you have signed on to an extremely time-consuming endeavor so you may want to factor that

119into the overall calculus of these volunteering opportunities right and and that was kind of in my uh in my head so i have no i don't have a brain desire uh miss allenge if you if you want to step away i'm happy to fill the role but uh if you're willing to stay on i'm i'm uh happy to focus my efforts uh on other things okay so i'll leave that uh as is um pso i'm happy to still be the one of the liaisons mr kearney you were the other liaison uh are you happy remaining in that position okay and by the way at the beginning of the meeting mr cuny i neglected to i i recognized mr dials um uh uh election to the school committee um i guess i was just so excited

120about the the the new personality here that we have i i neglected to congratulate you on your reelection and uh and thank you for your willingness to continue serving um i think you're a really important um part of this committee and you bring a lot of value and i've really enjoyed working with you for the last three years and i was really happy that you um that you agreed to do this again i i think i think a lot of parents view you as a very accessible member and and i think you bring a lot of uh relevant family concern to to the mat so thank you for for staying on with us i look forward to the next uh to the next year at least working with you we'll see what happens to me

121well i i echo those sentiments um thank you thank you thank you yeah thank you all that's so nice and uh i just got to tell you guys how excited i am for this new team and just it's it's exciting the district's excited and lance again uh congratulations and and uh yeah well i'm ready i'm ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work too i think this is going to be a great year for all of us and you know to see each other the other day was fantastic too so again it's going to be nice to see all you guys too all right and you got a short sleeve uh shirt on so you're already uh the only point i'll just make is that i will note for the record that that

122both of us um received more votes than blank space so uh thank you everyone uh it's going to be a great year well uh well par part of part of it is is the willingness to to serve it takes a lot of time and you know yes i mean you know obviously if if you guys weren't both doing it you know there'd be a concern that we wouldn't have five members so it's really important so i'm just glad that you do are willing to do it um uh i know mr kearney you seem to enjoy the elder affairs do you want to keep on doing that yeah you know i that and anybody can help out too if you want to um i'd like to bring back the silver snake that's a silver sneaker why

123do i say that because i'm in the business of that but uh this i think it's called the skipper pass where uh folks that are seniors get to watch some of the sporting events that we have in town so you know that's something that you know i would need a little help trying to promote that so if anybody's interested in serving with me um you know that's that's all up because um you know it is a you know it is something that we'd like to do again um with the seniors reading to the kids that's something my kids got to do and they'll never forget it and that's something i'd like to bring back um i think that the senior population is a huge asset to this town and i'd like to you know if

124somebody would like to work with me to try to um you know just try to get a better experience because you know we need those folks and then we need them in in our lives they're part of the community all right well if anyone wants i think paul maybe one suggestion is that we might work closely as a communications subcommittee with you and figure out ways to help promote the initiatives that you want to implement awesome yeah yeah that'd be another yeah that'd be great i'd love to do that thank you thank you mr your willingness to stay on there um special ed uh pac are uh commonly known as a cpac um that was uh formerly mr kearney um mrs callery did express an interest in her willingness to do this uh mr kearney

125do you feel strongly one way or the other about staying on this uh well i'd like to have if if we could have two members on it um if that's okay because yeah i i again i this is one of the most uh important committees that are out there um uh the the committee that um it look you know looks out for uh our kids that needs special attention and it's been my pleasure to serve and you know especially during these times of um you know there's a lot of been a lot of regression uh uh you know going backwards for these kids and uh you know i i i'd like to be a strong advocate for them and if somebody could join me i know some of the meetings are at 10 um they're

126um it's it's not easy for some folks um i i tend to make those ten o'clocks if i can um so if anybody would like to join me on that committee i'd appreciate it okay um so i'll just put um ash uh mrs kaliri and mr kearney there for that um media um mrs marr was formerly the point of contact i'll replace mrs marr on that i think that makes sense uh for me to do that as chair legislative liaison um mrs cleary i think you usually you you enjoy that you have some established relationships you and mrs mr kearney were formerly uh the legislative liaisons um i know mr kearney has interest there too would you two be willing to stay on there it could be my pleasure okay um safe harbor coalition i

127almost don't even need to ask mrs galerie if she's willing to stay with that but um uh does anyone want to jam i just want to thank you for that's a great committee and it's a great organization and uh i can't be i'm so thrilled about the whole safe harbor a lot of these i'll attend when i can but i don't want to just lock myself in so we'll just leave mrs cleary for now on that um cef mr kearney um are you comfortable staying on there okay great emergency management um this uh was uh mrs marr um we we had a lot of these meetings that i attended with dr sullivan um i i i'll replace mrs marr um on that um hall of fame i i don't remember hearing anything about this for

128the last two years that i've been on the committee um so i don't even know if it's still sort of a thing or or what would dr sullivan do anything about this yeah it is a thing i i don't think that we had a class last year now that i think about it but it is every it's on the books is every year we have a hall of fame class or might be every couple of years but it is a um i know that ellen in the past had stood on that committee i think as long as i've been here so i i don't i don't know i don't know if it's a reserve spot for a school committee member or not but it is an existing thing okay does anyone have any particular you

129know specific interest in this um i i i i can't imagine it's it's too time consuming i'll put myself down i can or mr mcclellan chairman of mcqueen i can i could do that i feel like as a as a as a skipper you know might as well jump in there right race completely into it that's great okay moving on skipper always a skipper warrant review uh that i think is appropriate to leave me there as chair um post employment benefits subcommittee um this was formerly mrs maher mrs cleary mrs maher needs to be replaced uh i'm happy to uh to join that i'd be happy to let mr dial tackle that one without my help i'm sure i won't be useful at all okay so we'll we'll have mr dyle i i don't yeah

130i don't think mrs clary you were taking an active role in it anyways it was really one-person show so mr dialer that's helpful thank you sir i didn't know i was gonna be alone when i volunteered but i guess i'll i guess i'm stuck now so what happens when you're capable in in turn well i'll i'll i'll always assist you if there's any need for it mr dial don't don't don't feel uh don't feel left out in the cold um internal scholarship um this was formerly mrs maher uh is there anyone willing to um deal with the internal scholarship group represent the school committee what is that exactly it's a group that gets together with um other educators mainly at the high school but to just determine recipients of scholarships uh that are local scholarships

131that are donated locally i'll do that for graduating seniors okay kind of fun mrs st onge is in it all right awesome congratulations aec um uh mrs as we all know mrs st onge was our uh prior um liaison uh missing orange i don't know if it makes sense for you to just keep doing that or if it was too much i know it was kind of involved for you so what are you uh normal like monthly aec meetings are fine it's because mrs owen and i did that um extra solar study thing so i'm fine just being the liaison to the aec um and then if things ramp up with solar again we can i mean i already know what's going on okay good great thank you um long-range planning group um ellen was

132formerly the the liaison here and obviously she needs to be replaced so um is there anyone willing to do this what is the long-range planning group i am not certain i am hoping that uh dr sullivan may have some input here or insight but i i don't know i i almost thought that when i saw this i was thinking of the strategic planning that we're on because long-range planning as to the town maybe so there's like uh i i don't know if that's like i think it's a town connected committee um for a town's long-range fiscal plan possibly um i may have to call ellen on that one just to make sure i it's not the strategic planning group i i wouldn't think no i know that it just made me think of that sort

133of thing but um i don't remember updates from that committee ever to be honest with you like you know i've been here in cohasset so this sounds like my kind of committee um long-range planning where you just pontificate and you can you can give no updates that i'm all in i i mean i just i mean i may have blocked them all out i don't know but it i just looked it up it says the long-range planning group was formed to provide guidance and insight to elected officials it will comprise two members each from the board of selectmen school committee capital budget committee and advisory committee okay all right i mean i can i can raise my my hand for that and i think that dovetails nicely with financing facilities all right so i'll i'll

134i'll do that with you mr dial unless paul given that there might be a nexus i don't know the meeting times but there might be a nexus with the finance and facilities subcommittee work we're doing um no it's let's that's fine let's just leave it let's just leave it there you and i mr dial and then safe schools committee um i i would like to concede my role here because i'm going to be doing a lot of other things and it's it's this is a great committee um this focuses on all elements of um safety not just like physical plant like physical facilities you know security but uh social emotional well-being um you know uh substance abuse peer pressure bullying um uh all kind it's a really great group really engaged group um big group

135it it didn't meet last year during the pandemic um it will it will again um you know it's a committee that is it's a standing committee so it's always there if we have a particular need but this coming year i'd like to keep it going a little bit particularly in relation to our strategic plan and some of the the compass points on that as they have to do with safety and then it's just a great committee for community involvement to listen to them and to make sure that we structure our schools to be as safe and we really have a broad definition of safety it's not just physical safety or school safety in terms of security it's also social emotional safety um anti-bullying uh making sure that you know we're we're tying into safe harbors

136to help students avoid abusive drugs and alcohol so it's a it's a pretty wide ranging committee that really moves on community voice so i will get that going again next year um so mr kearney you're currently on it do you want to stay on it uh yeah it'd be my pleasure all right uh we need one other person this is a great committee also because it's a there's a student laden community committee the school what's that i'd like to do it right okay um so we'll put you down and then um the diversity committee i do not need to ask mrs cleary if she wants to remain on that i don't know if um um i don't know if anyone wants to join miss cleary i will from time to time probably join in but

137um i think mrs cleary probably handled this well on her own but if anyone wants to join in just let me know anyone okay so we'll leave that as is um that is great and thank you for missing on just told me that the long range planning committee last met in 2018 so that is why um that that i did not know what it was because that makes me feel better a little bit um thank you for that and um okay uh so everyone happy with those before we move on everyone's satisfied with the subcommittee and liaison positions as we just articulated i agree okay let's move on to our meetings sorry correct so sorry um there is the uh wellness committee which uh uh i'm a part of and um we've done some really

138good work uh with dr collins um that i'd like to stay on if everybody's good with that sure that's that's kind of your jam and what i've done is i've compiled a little and uh list of all the people that are a part of it and and what the wellness wellness policy is so i'll be sending that to each and every one of you if that's okay so that you guys all know um what we're doing over there because and we'll talk about it later in the meeting but there's some exciting stuff going on and it really makes sense because the wellness committee and safe schools committee really dovetail and even diversity committee so it's nice that in on the safe schools it sounds like we're going to have paul and ashley and those those

139committees that you're representative of really dovetail into that larger grouping so that that's that's totally appropriate in my book thank you okay so let's keep on moving guys because uh we have a little more to get through and this meeting should not take us too too long so um the next item is the um is the meeting schedule so turn to agenda item f2 the calendar that was included and we just need to i don't what is the next schedule the school committee meeting we i don't think we have one yeah we don't have one from the books this this is what we're planning craig i don't know if it'll help but i could put the calendar on the screen if that would be helpful to everyone us it in front of you do you

140have the uh yeah no just leave it dr sullivan will do um okay so we're meeting tonight and then we didn't have one um for the rest of june well it's either we meet on june 30th or july 7th where do we want to start it july 7th i i actually i can't do july 7th it's the only sorry okay um well we can sometimes deviate from wednesdays if we need to uh now though you could potentially have a meeting without me i guess but what about for that week uh thursday july 8th can people do that no okay are you on vacation that week yes okay i i feel like i'm i'm playing a game like that that was like battleship yeah exactly but you think it's okay to go out to the 14th

141during the summer sorry here's uh are you at the cube yeah i guess i want to make sure we have a special ed meeting in the summertime and then i also want to make sure we have enough time to like august is when we're sort of really talking about like you know there's a lot of operational issues we're looking forward to starting the year there's things come up so i feel like we have to do handbooks handbook has to be done well i guess we could do two me yeah i guess july 14th and july 28th could be the two july meetings and then august 11th and august 25th does that sound okay to people but you can do a meeting without me i mean we can't we don't we yeah we can we can

142it's more important i'm just wondering um if maybe the fourth and the 18th and then we're not going back-to-back as school and like teachers are coming back and all of that it just gets very busy that last week of august um and the fourth and eighteenth might help us to have things done before people are back in school mode do you want to do back-to-back meetings so july 14 started there and then do july 28th and then another meeting on july on august 4th and then one on august 18th i mean it's going to be back to back somewhere in there no matter what right so perfect i'm fine with it i do want to make sure we have uh that many meetings in the summer will they be at the same time will be

143earlier in the day uh we're going to do them at uh 6 a.m isn't that when you see your horses i'm up at five so i'll be ready for six all right good that could be a challenge for me um uh yeah uh ashley would be executing your vice chairperson role as presiding over the meetings frequently if we start them at um 6am the west coast all right so let's just do this let's do let's do uh july 14th july 28th august 4th august 18th is that good yeah excellent all right all right september um so september 1st is our all teachers opening day remember september 8th is our opening of school day so you have that could be appropriate to have one that day i think september 8th might make sense all right let's

144jump to september 8th september 22nd everyone good everyone with us so we're changing both september dates yeah now remember september 8th does have uh some rosh hashanah um yeah i think yeah i think we should we're because we're not in school that day no we're not at school but remember rosh hashanah goes i believe the seventh and the eighth it does i conversed with the with the rabbi on this issue and it was noted that uh the um i think they were described as uh liberal practicing jews only observe the first day and not the second day so it shouldn't interfere with that um so so yeah i guess we'd be changing both dates and then we'd be going back to the same dates in october what would be the dates in october craig i'm

145sorry well so september we'd be changing both days i really like the idea of having a meeting on the first day of school that's the 8th so yeah so then we go 22nd and then we do october 6th we're back on track with the previously noted or how we did it on the calendar here because the six is underlined in bold october 6. then october 20th is this all right with people yes okay uh november 3rd november 17th no december 1st december 15th january 5th january 19th groundhog day in february 16th march 2nd march 16th then there was a back-to-back situation in april previously but we could actually do march 30th and march 13th then we'd be shifting a lot more march 30th and april 13th there's already a meeting on april 13th no i

146know but you said march 30th and march 13th march uh march 30th and april 13th yeah so we could do that or we could just do the back to back and yeah for what it's worth i like the idea of keeping the every other week cadence um so march 30th fits better under that okay i agree i feel like it's nice to have the rhythm all right march 30th uh april 13th that brings us to april 27th instead of may 4th and may 11th instead of may 18th um may 25th instead of uh june 1st and then june 8th instead of june 15th and uh maybe we can just schedule the 22nd now we should be in good shape when we're doing this next year those all sound good to everyone that's great okay so

147is there a motion to approve the uh meeting schedule for 2021 2022 as we just discussed so moved motion made by mr dial is there a second i'll second second bye mr kearney um mrs cleary hi mr dial hi mr kearney hi missing onge hi hi craig mcclellan that motion unanimously carries and that is the set meeting schedule for the 2021-2020 year moving on i believe we are moving to the policy revisions as presented by our policy subcommittee that is f3 um though i think actually miss kaliri um submitted those to us via email is that correct that's how i got them that's correct correct okay all right so did everyone get those and print them out yes okay so um mrs kaliri and mrs st onge i turn it to you to sort of

148give your uh your summary and uh highlight anything that needs special attention so i think um dr scollins feel free to jump in here if you like um but we met um at our last policy subcommittee meeting with dr scollins and uh mrs sarwanka and it was in order to ensure that the policies that are relative to tiered focus monitoring are up to date mrs sarwanka has to file paperwork with dr scollins help me that desi and the state yes um and received some feedback about some of our policies in our binder and so requested that we review that feedback and consider altering our policies according to it and so that's what we did so those proposed changes um are in this policy binder we did um this non-discrimination clause that has been added to

149a number of policies is the same non-discrimination clause that is currently on our district website um so that's not a new policy i mean clause um it's one that was provided to us by council um the second well i guess first does anyone have any questions about the first section of policy recommendations i i do and i'm going to apologize in advance because this is like one of my wheelhouse things um it looks like just using file ac non-discrimination policy as an example we're changing the policy language that came from council i have no objection to it as an outset but i guess is there a material difference between the language that's being replaced uh or the languages being deleted and the language is being put in when i read them they seemed fairly substantively

150equivalent so i'm just wondering is this just a language exercise or is there a substantive edit that i'm missing homelessness was missing so homelessness we had to add in okay perfect that was the advice correct the correct yeah and i think what's happened is as um the the policies themselves not always was it updated when the non-discrimination clause was updated so that's where you'll find some places where we had to add homelessness because um that had not been added in or some things around gender identity some of those pieces so that's what you'll so that's really the majority of what we needed to do um we also plan as a subcommittee to revisit these policies in a little more detail um i felt like i felt badly giving them to everyone yesterday i apologize i

151just wanted to make sure because it was um [Music] mrs cerwanka's approval process was hanging in the balance we just didn't want to um delay anything um too significantly but we do want to revisit these policies because we do believe they're really obviously very consequential to the district and to the students and families that we serve but for now these are the um the revisions that we suggest based on the feedback that mrs sirwonka got so we didn't want you in the weeds with everything right in order for us to be compliant so it doesn't necessarily mean that it's that there isn't more to do on the policy like ms clary said but um but there were pieces that were missing and that they were identified that we needed to update okay can i make

152a suggestion because i think these are um these are all obviously extremely important policies um and if you're saying scalary and st orange that we are going to revisit them and um and yourselves and dr scollins just articulated that um we're essentially bringing them up to compliance with the um along with collaboration with council why don't i feel like unless i mean i feel like this has been reviewed by several folks already and i'm i'm just these are just these are if i'm if i'm correct these are compliance oriented edits and not necessarily substance at this point but we do intend and correct me if i'm wrong it seems like we intend to revisit the actual substance as well correct okay so why don't we um why don't we vote on them as a whole

153in terms of the current edits um if anyone saw anything because i i did notice that it was essentially compliance oriented and i don't think there's anything i'm going to have any suggestions on but i was caught up in the in the fact that i i feel like i want to review all of these in substance of them so why don't we just vote on the um the compliance edits at this point with the intention of revisiting the substance at a later date can i can i ask one specific question one specific edit um on the student the student harassment policy which obviously very important um was there any discussion about the or what was the discussion about the inclusion of via electronic or social media and where the school has uh jurisdiction to require

154people to submit to their policies or not i just am curious if that was a discussion that was made because obviously important and i want it subject to this policy but i want to make sure it's it's you know been discussed so i someone correct me if i'm wrong but as far as policy we outline our expectations of the district and the handbooks are where the discipline is laid out so our expectation as a committee is that our leadership will consider our policy when creating disciplinary procedures for students if the need to do so arises and so the inclusion of electronic or social media in this policy is not necessarily because we want the district to police um social media or electronic media it is just a fact that in 2022 sometimes this bullying happens

155via that medium yeah and lance just for your um information the the handbooks are set actually by the school councils so it's the leadership plus family members and uh and staff members and leadership and staff and family members balance so it really is a it's an effort that the school councils do school councils to do that and they also do the school improvement plan but one of the things that we are going to be assuredly doing is making sure that we put the same policies in every handbook and of course there are other policies not every policy is put in the handbook but we reference you can find other policies here but there are certain key policies that each handbook will have that are common and we're almost there now but this year's round will

156definitely get there and uh the handbook and the school improvement plans are presented to the school committee as well when they're uh that's right and they're voted in by the school committee handbooks will be done before the start of school but this year because just so lance you know we're because we're in a cycle of uh doing our new strategic plan we'll actually wait until november so that the teams can get up and running with their new councils to present those school improvement plans great thank you you're welcome lance this is also a very appropriate time if you have suggestions for maybe stating something differently based on your experience we're all very open to hearing that it's completely appropriate that's what obviously this conversation is for so don't feel like uh you can't make suggestions

157for um amendments to what was presented oh but i appreciate that and uh i have no suggestions um either because i i like the language as it is um or uh you know don't yet have the background um so uh i'm happy with with these as presented but i'll i'll formally say that and i imagine just a few moments thank you as these are sheer compliance related um adjustments to the language i i think you know it makes sense to maybe take a motion um to approve these um with the intention that we will be revisiting well i just want to be clear sorry chairman i just want to be clear that electronic like there are that electronic media edition is not specifically because of feedback mrs cerwonka got like right i just want to

158make that clear before we move forward i i guess that's one that's one example i didn't see many others though um there aren't and and yeah so that that so that's one example of a substantive um revision but again if we're reviewing the policy again i mean we don't in other words what i'm trying to avoid is a comprehensive discussion right now about when everyone received these just i think yesterday um about the substance of these i don't want the decisions made now they're really important policies um but obviously as they they need to be compliant it's important that as you stated we don't delay the improvement approval of that too long but we can always go back um and look at the the substance of these so i i that's really what i'm trying

159to do but i appreciate you saying that because it's not like all every single but that was the only substantive change so um i i think it makes sense to vote on this group of of this round of compliance-oriented uh changes and then with the intention of revisiting the substance at a time where all the members have had a chance to completely review the substance and content of these policies does that make sense to everyone it does okay i just wanna also ask are we gonna approve the first group and then the policy related to uh finances or are we gonna approve the whole binder i just don't i wanna make sure we address that okay i i was intending to approve the entire binder but if you think there's a reason why we shouldn't

160do that nope i just wanted to i just wanted to highlight that um those in the first group were made by mrs sarwonka based on recommend well you know the majority of them based on um feedback that she received but the second um there's like a little delineation between sections here on the cover sheets policy jjf is because the middle school and high school when they were separated they had a joint activity account and so that we need to by policy separate them and so the town accountant and mrs owen have both asked us to do that have weighed in on this decision and the highlighted part of that policy is the recommendation that would change so it changes from having the middle high school account have a certain limit to the limits that are

161separated by line item in the revision okay all right does everyone understand that okay is there a motion to approve um this binder as presented by the policy subcommittee um dated june 15 2021. am i allowed to make that motion yes so moved motion made by mrs st onge is there a second second standing by mr kearney all in favor mrs cleary aye mr dial aye mr kearney hi this is saint orange hi hi craig mcclellan that motion unanimously carries so those revisions will be adopted uh thank you uh ladies for your work on that um it's much appreciated so let's certainly revisit that though um when we that's important although those are very important policies so let's do that um moving on uh i i don't have uh a oh excuse me i'm sorry

162we're moving on to the uh i'm skipping an agenda item the um the fy 21 goals um mrs coleri i think you indicated that you might be able to take the lead on this discussion yes i just now have to find the document that i was working on as it relates to that would you like to be me to make you a co-host to share no i just need to find the documents i made some notes thank you dr sullivan i just want to okay here we are okay got it okay so we were green lit on many of our goals mr dale um you may not be this is i think based on our work over the last year and we welcome your thoughts on how we've done on these goals um so so

163please feel like your input is appreciated here um but there are a few that may not directly relate to your time on the committee so um what we're doing here is reviewing our goals in the near future we'll have uh some workshop or two um to form our upcoming year's goals you'll obviously be a part of that process and um this is basically what we you know uh seek to accomplish as a committee from year to year mrs cleary is going to present right now um the outcome of our uh sort of the annual review of the goals that we came up with at the beginning of last year how we did and what goals maybe remain what goes are works in progress what goals we accomplish so mrs cleary start of the interruption so

164actually i stand corrected because i was just thinking as i was reading through this one more time i just did my review yesterday and it didn't occur to me the one um that we had a yellow on under human capital is each school committee member attending or participating in an activity that demonstrates our collective commitment to diversity equity and inclusion within the district and i think as evidenced by our very enthusiastic picture celebrating pride together we can give that a green okay great um so the one that says negotiate and ratify the cta contract through fy24 school year i'll just leave that yellow because we did a lot of negotiating and a lot of rap like you know contractual we made a lot of contractual progress but we didn't specifically get that done through fy24

165because we decided not to um we have green goals in communication and collaboration safety and security in finance we had one yellow but that was continuing school improvements via capital budget process review and reassess long-term capital plan developed by the district in 2018. anyone have any thoughts on that well we did make a lot of uh headway and some capital improvements um but in terms of the review of what you were talking about i don't know how much the review of the process i'm like what was that part again uh review and reassess long-term capital plan developed by the district in 2018. it's that long-term planning thing coming up rearing its head again um oh wait it's now we've come back from no meetings to 2018 and we've already got work now that i'm on

166it thank god you're here this is not in the finance and facilities subcommittee where we look at our capital needs projected out we we we've been doing that along the along the way and as you remember this year we received the unprecedented amount of funding from the town capital committee so i've just given you that information in terms of our our planning around that okay sounds like you're giving us a green light i know i was wondering about that because since town meeting all of that was approved like everything that was on our list was was approved right yeah we almost have to um we still have no that well there were some matters that weren't for instance the the paving of the sidewalk and the cracks there are some but the items have definitely

167shrunk because we had an unprecedented amount approved so uh we're definitely going to have to that i would imagine would be one of the first things we do in the new budget and finance committee is really look at our capital needs and reassess them afresh based on the fact that we have received so much funding this year which is a great problem to have by the way but i think just leave it yellow so it carries over mrs clare i mean we i think we made a lot of headway on it but it sounds like there's some more work to be done and that's that's fine okay um under student achievement we had a goal to have spotlights and reports from guidance nursing and adjustment counselors on the social emotional wellness of the students during

168the pandemic and we had a red on that and i think we got to keep a red on that right and that's okay okay i'm wondering if i'm wondering if on some of our summer um agendas we could we could have some of those groups check in with us because we will have experienced a full year and they can give us some reflection on that you know like in the moment it's harder to have hard data but they can tell us about it after does that make sense i think i've been silent i mean it makes sense i mean i understand what you're saying i mean i it's kind of a weird can you read that i don't have it in front of me mrs clear can you just read it again spotlight yep through

169spotlights hear reports from guidance nursing and adjustment counseling on the social emotional wellness of our students during the pandemic so that implies to me i think through spotlights that we would invite them to come into well yeah i mean over the summer some some of those folks don't must necessarily um work right i also here's a question we plan go ahead go ahead i i like those those particular individuals like they were i don't know that would have been welcomed for them to have to do that i mean i think that we in indirectly accomplish this through um through our work with the leadership team i mean they're they're getting that feedback and we're responding to those things throughout the year um you know especially this year you know given all the concerns with you

170know social emotional wellness um i mean there's constant checking in with the nursing staff counseling staff um i don't know there was a red light it was just not there wasn't a direct uh direct uh sort of spotlight and and and um you know report from them at school committee meetings but frankly i think that's probably better they were really um they were i think they felt very overwhelmed with everything this year and i don't know that that would have been that welcome to have to report to the school committee i think that that was done indirectly through dr sullivan and dr scollins and we did have workshops for families around social emotional wellness we had dr barbudo and dr plummer come in we also had right our district um doctor and town nurses working

171with them and we had um at every level we had uh some sort of situation where we had guidance counselors working with parents and students and it was highlighted in most of my newsletters too but we did not just in full transparency we did not do a spotlight on that so it wasn't one of our student spotlights um remember we also did you know miss mrs wonka is also involved um regularly at the meetings now that's something that was a shift from previous years um and so student services as we all know doesn't just embrace special education it also um the whole point is is it also services student needs surrounding social emotional well-being and student wellness so um i think by virtue of our enhanced involvement with the director of student services we also

172indirectly you know addressed this whether we accomplish the goal or not i don't know but um so i'm not going to say we got a green light on this for sure but i i don't know that we didn't do anything i think that given the circumstances we we probably did the best we could i don't know that those folks would have wanted to prepare for a presentation with the school committee um i think a lot of the information was flowing to us anyway but um we can we can we can i mean we can we can why don't we just leave it um why don't we leave it yellow mrs cleary and we'll consider that as we formulate our next goals next year how we might better um we might better wordsmith that goal to

173reflect something that's a little bit more attainable but still satisfies the same objectives now one thing we might consider is early in the year doing some sort of a spotlight where we have some of our counselors talking about how they've been preparing for students you know coming back uh in after obviously the summer and we're going to yeah we're already doing that we're already planning on it we're doing this we're doing the special education like student services meeting so i mean that'll be part of it for sure i think very true so um you know i think that'll that'll do it so let's just leave it yellow larry and and and i think that we'll be accomplishing that in the fairly you know not too distant future okay the other thing that we had yellow

174was a student-led roundtable conversation and i remember when we talked about this last you dr sullivan told us we should feel free to move forward but we just haven't yet no green green light because i participated in the student this we have we dr sullivan established that um student uh you know superintendent's advisor i don't know the name of it superintendent you got it it's the superintendent's advisory council it's actually the school committee advisory council right so so we establi that's been established and i i set in on that that is that is exactly what that is yes so that's a green light and we need to continue to do that and it shouldn't just be me all the time it's an awesome uh uh mr kearney would absolutely love that and it's your committee

175you're welcome to come anytime and i'll i'll be more um communicative about when those meetings happen next year yeah i'd be interested in joining one of those yeah yeah you'd love it too yeah you guys would all love it you're doing this because you have a passion for the kids so you it's really fun to hear it's like it's like um it's just the best it's great it's like makes you remember why you're doing this i think one thing that we talked about when we were uh discussing that goal was even broadening making it a bigger table i guess um and that's such a great committee to ha like group to have but i i remember mrs colery bringing up and a few of us talking about like different i don't know bringing in just

176a broader representation of kids at some point as well which i think we can strive for but it's so nice to have that group of kids who is organized who can share ideas is an amazing resource and a great source of student voice but i do think it's nice to also broaden that conversation at some point in some way and perhaps that will become easier as we can meet in person well i also know yeah i also think that might be a nice role for the safe schools committee to to to gather more voice regarding um how students are feeling within the the you know the schools and how they're doing and maybe that can kind of move into um to school committee as well but if you're looking to talk and hear the voice

177of more students that we can certainly arrange that in in some format within the um student advisory committee so um so i think that's a green light mr scalia i i mean i want to just don't forget guys all we're doing here because we're going to have the workshops on formulating the new goals and what we want to do in the coming year so let's just all we're doing is quickly reviewing the the goals what we accomplished and what we need to still transfer over to the coming year i mean i i we will have plenty of discussion about upcoming goals and how we work those and some of them will relate to the yellow lights but um i think we're just trying to uh sort of ascertain how many green lights we have here

178and what we need to still focus on so um keep going mrs scalary the last one is continue public recognition of student achievement we had a yellow for that i i think i think we should keep it yellow i think there's other ways we can probably figure out to do that a better job of that i mean this was a difficult year for that but uh so let's keep it yellow because it's a wonderful thing to focus on and so that we'll transfer that over to our other goals yeah the spotlights i believe need to be very student-centered and very much uh centered around some of that but we can always bring kids in who and we did this not so much this year this past year but a little bit a little bit the

179first year we did a little bit more of it where we talked about um some students who had done some achievements academically and of course acknowledging some of our sports teams who have done great and um we can definitely expand that and make the spotlights much more student-centered than they've been that's sort of a goal as we move forward i would imagine with the committee you'd certainly want to mine okay so is that it mrs cleary it is all right perfect thank you for doing that if you can if you wouldn't mind uh finalizing that and just like sending it around to the committee in the next week or so whenever you choose thank you so much for doing that that was that was really really helpful thank you um okay moving on uh school

180facilities committee no update uh from my understanding we're going to be meeting uh next month in july so um the select board and town moderator have a lot of there's like a flood of an influx of applications here um and uh all of a sudden there's there's additional interest so that's great and i think we're gonna have a you know a fully manned committee um next month when it meets have more substantive updates next month when we meet in july um i don't know if there any reports right are there any reports mrs cleary reports from liaison committees or excuse me liaison assignments or subcommittees any reports yes i would like to report that we showed the loving movie on saturday night at alumni field thank you cohasset public schools for hosting that event that

181the diversity committee and safe harbor collaborated on thank you mr kearney and mrs sanange for being there thank you all committee members for being there at the photograph to celebrate pride month um i just feel like so grateful that we are really celebrating our differences in june in cohasset so thank you all okay thank you mrs cleary mr dial you do not have any reports um mr kearney do you have any reports sir uh yes we uh the we talked about earlier about the wellness committee i'm so excited about um and dr scones if you want to kind of chime in a little bit here um we were um able to get a second grant for the second year um there's 12 members of the board we're going to be adding honor families and we're

182going to be adding on some um some more of the community uh and dr scones if you could touch on that a little bit i think i think she did earlier in their report uh oh okay yep because you just dropped and she had invited your input but uh but that was just during the time the time where you weren't here mr kearney okay so i just wanted to um reiterate how happy i was to to serve on that and i'm looking forward to the next meeting okay perfect thank you mr kearney uh mrs st onge yes um yep we um met this week with the communications committee met with lisa raden this week we're in ongoing discussion of um website updates and um dr sullivan had sent out a survey in the navigator and

183then it was re-sent out directly via email today and already the response rate has been way up so we're just getting that feedback from from from leadership from teachers and from families so that we can take all of that data along with anecdotal data and start to look at how our district website can be updated and best serve our our school community so good progress awesome thank you for that update mr st orange i well i do have an update superintendent evaluations um i have not gotten the evaluations so send me the evaluations so that we can evaluate our superintendent do it all right doctors make a request on that can i make a request on that sorry dr sullivan can you just do you have a document that you can send us easily that

184just has your goals in it it's me you're big tool yes i have um i i do i can send you my rubric and my goals i have um some large binders that actually lance asked a good question if i was able to put them in a digital format i can sort of work on that too if you want to see all the evidence i don't want to see all the evidence i just want to know what because i've been digging through my email for days and days and days and like you know a search for sullivan and goals obviously produces a lot of results i will i have a i have a concise uh version of like basically just a rundown of my go basically i presented most of this at the formative remember

185my formative was a little later than the average formula i appreciated you guys allowing me that little wiggle room but i will i added to that and i will resend that what it does is it lists my goals and all my achievements with the goals and then it lists actually the rubric that you're be using to evaluate and i've listed those things there too putting that at the top of my inbox will get that to craig like i'll send it to all of you i mean it doesn't tell the full story that some of the evidence does but it it hits the highlights thank you i appreciate it and i apologize for the delay remember my deadline was a little bit earlier than last year so we're still not too far off track so so

186okay um approval of minutes mississippi ranch i don't think there were any yeah this okay so nothing to do there no topics that weren't reasonably anticipated by myself within 48 hours uh in advance of the meeting there is a reason to move into executive session that's reason number three which is a strategy related to collective bargaining so i sent you all a separate zoom link and the subject was something like executive session zoom link i just sent it this afternoon right before the meeting so what we're going to do is uh either dr sullivan or dr scones or both can you just remain on this meeting yes um and um then using your personal device or something like that utilize that link that i sent you so you can join the executive session and just

187make sure everything is muted on this and all the school community members can log off and just log on to the other zoom and then um but before we do that we need to make a motion to move into executive session for uh reason number three or purpose number three for a strategy related to collective bargaining is there a motion so motion made by mr dial is their second second seconded by missing ones all in favor uh mrs scalia aye mr dial hi guaranty hi i'm on hi hi craig mcclellan motion university carries we're moving to executive session so um i'll see you guys in a second okay give it like one minute and i'm not even 30 seconds just to let me open it up because i got to start it bye dr scones

188uh um i'll stay on executive session have a good night all right thank you that's a shame uh okay let's let's go here follow me lydia there's mrs yeah we're getting much better at this guys just as they're taking it away just in time that was very smooth uh duck salmon is dr scotland she's she's gone for the night doctor scotland see how she had to go okay perfect uh we are we've resumed regular session at 8 45. um we have reached the end of the agenda unless there are any other items uh is there a motion to adjourn at this time so moved by ms kaliri i'll take mr dial simultaneous concurrent motion as a second seconded by mr dial all in favor mrs cleary hi mr dial hi mr kearney hi mrs st

189orange it's a muted eye stop it missus sorry that motion usually carries and mr dale has successfully completed his first school committee congratulations okay thank you for your patience thank you so much thank you it was it was good it was good good start all right good night everybody thank you thanks everyone good night wonderful night thank you