Concord Carlisle Joint School Committee Meeting June 4, 2024

001in to order the conquered school committee tonight the first order of business is to elect its officers and make other necessary appointments just vibrating a little be back yeah let him play with that for thank you yeah this goes on all night with the sound it's all good so how we do I think we're good hello so I will request that a conquered School Committee Member make move the motion to seat the conquered school committee members by name which you've already done so you don't need to do that following this a request will be made for nominations for chair the conqur school committee once the election of the conquer school committee chair is conducted that individual or designity will ask for nominations for a vice chair there nominations for chair sure I'll nominate Carrie Rankin

002to be the chair of the Congress school committee second okay any discussion you want to make the motion to elect Carrie Ranken chair of the conquered school committee all in favor thanks I all right Carrie it's all yours you'll do better than I just did I I'll perfect it on the regional side yeah [Music] oh my goodness oh what now it's you in charge now you do the vice chair I thought we moved on try to Reen okay um so I will accept uh nominations for um Vice chair and am I allowed to make one nope no okay I will accept nominations for vice chair I would like to nominate Andrew her for vice chair of the conquer school committee second all in favor is there any discussion we should have rehearsed is there any

003discussion no no all those in favor I congratulations Andrew and now I will um discussion you need the secretary we do we accept a nominations or do I just make you're just going to appoint you need a motion to appoint Aaron Higgins okay so I will accept a motion um I will entertain a motion to name Aaron Higgins the secretary so I moved second any discussion all those in favorin yeah thank you Erin oh all those in favor I okay okay all right I am going to call to order the conquered carile Regional school committee first order of business is to seat the new con car school committee to elect its officers and make other necessary appointments I will request that the chair of the conquered I guess this is correct chair of the conquered

004school committee call for the seating do you hear this part Carrie yeah conquered school committee call for the seating of the conquer carile school committee and for the election of officers for the conquer car school committee other appointments can be made at that time if committees have worked out assignments which isn't on your agenda tonight besides the ones that are listed the appointments that require a vote in addition to the chair are the appointment of the treasur an assistant treasurer for the region so do I read the motion read that motion okay so um I will accept a motion no just move it oh okay I move um that later in the year to recognize Alexa Anderson Andrew herek Tracy Morano Cynthia Rainey car and Carrie Ranken as conquered members and Julie Viola and Brian

005Waton as Caro members of the conquer Carl school committee so second any discussion all those in favor I now do I do b or do you do B you should do all of it I think okay so the chair's name so um now we need to elect a chair um I will accept nominations for a chair of the conquered Carlile school committee I will nominate Julie Viola to be said chair second oh I can't second oh but plenty of other people did you can second you can you just can't move it um any discussion thanks Julie welcome to the region welcome thank you congratulations congratulations thank you all those in favor I all right move it okay all right congratulations thanks my you come back your snack important know I can get a little hangry

006okay okay all right so now we need to nominate a vice chair of the conquer carile school committee I nominate Alexa Anderson second uh any discussion thank you thank you all right I a vote all in favor I I vot okay all right and then we need to also make an appointment uh of the school committee recording secretary motion to appoint Aaron Higgins as recording secretary second somebody needs to make the motion somebody needs to make a motion before we second a I have a second second you any discussion thanks Aaron just keep saying thanks Aaron all in favor I I I okay an appointment of a Treasurer I make a motion to appoint Allison break as treasur of the conquer Carl Regional School District moved um Alis ly is her current name just um

007thank you so why don't I make a motion to appoint Allison Ley thank you for that um as treasur of the conquer Carlile Regional School District moved have a second all in favor I great thanks Alison thank you Sor just trying to get back to the agenda now before we move on to the agenda could I just make a statement yeah it would be great um I just want to offer a very um heartfelt thank you to Tracy and Alexa um over the last two years you guys have stepped in and made some tremendous changes and um created an opportunity for growth from this committee um you have implemented systems that have allowed us to be more efficient you've set up up um ways to make our meetings um I think U more productive um

008a good use of time we've heard these gone from um getting just really really long ongoing reports to like really um to the point reports and I've been able to have have really good conversations about what's happening across the district from PK to 22 um you've also I think the biggest thing that I can say about you two is that you've advocated for this school district for um this school committee and then also for this community endlessly um always with the principle of um what's best for kids is what's is what we are we stand for and I think I will carry that principle forward as I step into this position um that we are here for children we are here for students and um you've really instilled that in me and I'm just grateful

009for your leadership um I think I speak on behalf of Julie that um we have very big shoes to fill and we're aware of that and we're just grateful that you're still at the table so we can continue to learn from you and seek your counsel so thank thank you very much thank you second did thank you um do you want to read the statement yes so we also have a statement um from the conquered school committee um and the superintendent of schools that we wanted to read regarding an incident that happened um at last at our last meeting May 21st um and I'm just going to read it as it was issued um in the conquered Public Schools we Foster an environment of vibrant debate and discourse where all opinions and viewpoints must be

010valued further we expect and demand that our students and staff treat each other with dignity and respect regardless of those opinions and viewpoints establishing a safe space for debate and discourse is an essential part of creating the Curious lifelong Learners that are essential to the success of our 5-year strategic plan the expectations of our students and staff are high intentionally the school committee believes in those expectations and we hold ourselves to the same standard when we invite the public to our meetings we expect them to meet those same expectations as well unfortunately in a meeting on Tuesday May 21st 2024 the public did not live up to our expectations following a discussion of the name of the new school one of our metco Representatives was called a racial slur by a member of the public

011after she advocated for keeping the name of the Middle School the conquered Middle School excuse me in her words she was quote intimidated hurt humiliated the school committee will not talk toate incidents of disrespect in our members in in any shape or form we support the rights of our members to voice their opinions and advocate for their positions without fear of intimidation and harassment the school committee will not tolerate disrespectful speech of any kind at our meetings thank you thanks Carrie um in the spirit of uh putting kids first and uh supporting our teachers um we know that there's some uh personal needs uh coming up so we' like to make a change in the agenda so I will entertain a motion to move the school Improvement plans to the top of the agenda so

012we can cover that next so our principes can get to family they have their own children events we would like to get them too moved seconded second any discussion no okay with that being said we'd like to start with uh Justin from the conquered middle school should we have everyone does everyone come up usually they usually come it's one at a time I think okay we're going to have does the middle school go first right it's always Elementary or High School we're going to have all five go just to give you an idea we're gonna have Justin then Naomi Katie and Brian I think the elementaries are going to come together they said okay great awesome it's a work we just want to make sure you can get to where you need to go awesome

013three chairs for three buildings so before you start let me just because we have brand new members at the table um the way usually bring the school Improvement plans these are the Draft plans for 2425 after a lot of iterations of how to do this effectively we've actually gotten to the point where they don't bring you slides they don't do a dog and pony show they are here to talk with you on highlights of the plans have a conversation assume you've read them they're available to the public to read at their Leisure um and really have you hear the through lines um you'll hear strategic plan dialogue all throughout which is always part of my energy in the day um and hearing that from them um and just hear where their priorities are for the

014coming school year so it's a dialogue and pretty informal wonderful yeah hi Mr Cameron hello evening nice to see all of you thank you for having us are coming of course so I'll just give kind of an overview of um so our school council um our school advisory council is comprised of five students uh 6 through 8 five parents five teachers and a community rep as well U we're pretty proud of the fact that we have students a part of our school advisory Council um that is something that the state mandates for the high school level um it's only recommended for Middle School um but since um I've come into the middle school we've been very fortunate to have a lot of students from our student council um who was interested in being a part

015of our school council so that body um brought together some highlights of changes of our school Improvement plan for the 2425 school year our main focus of course is supporting uh two groups that are overseeing the transition of all of our families our faculty and staff to the brand new um building uh Ellen Garrison building of conquered middle school and that transition is being supported by a faculty staff transition team and it's being supported by a building student building committee um that had that was brought together about a year and a half ago uh a year and a half ago or about a year ago was fourth fifth and sixth graders right now they're fifth sixth and seventh graders and next year when we move in on February 25th they will be sixth seventh and

016eighth graders um Dr Hunter and I met with the student building Committee just yesterday um and we are meeting with the faculty and staff uh new building transition team next Monday so the school Improvement plan that you have in front of you is comprised of the plan objectives which is multiple plans to success well-being and mental health inclusive culture and Innovative environment and those two groups um really are asked to have a compass on those four objectives and when asked where's our focus in opening the new building um our focus is on those objectives so the first four underneath School Improvement plan initiatives you will find Foster voice and agency of the faculty and staff new building transition team and the students on the new building committee um in those four areas so while opening

017a new building is exciting um we also need sort of a North star and the school improve Improvement plan um really allows us to have that Northstar of you know when we open the new building is it going to be filled with student centered work um is it going to have our faculty and staff and students and families feel a sense of belonging you know we're going to be taking words from the school Improvement plan and we're going to make sure that we're not just waiting for the first summer of us being in the new building and waiting for that September um our goal is when we open that new building on February 25th the school Improvement plan will be um really alive um and focused on those four areas the other areas that we

018sort of double down on as a school council is in the area wellbeing and mental health uh the district piloted Panorama a survey that was given to faculty and staff given to students and and given to families as well uh school council really had active conversations it was really the students in school council that were interested in seeing the questions beforehand um they found out through me that Panorama allows you to choose questions and they really wanted more agency in the questions that were chosen the questions that they felt were important that their peers and their fellow students were asked um and the faculty and staff they really leaned into that um area of discussion by the stud students and said you know we would like to have some voice in agency in that as

019well so we're really interested in doubling down and focusing on the Panorama surveys uh that will be quietly in year two but kind of off of a pilot year the second uh area that was Lively in its discussion for the school Improvement plan um again coming from the student perspective is while the other schools in the district um are implementing the bias incident form um we're proud as a middle school to be the school that led the district in the bias incident form um having um brought it together and presented at an all school assembly in Spring of 2022 so you see in our school Improvement plan that we're actually as a middle school going into year three um as a school that has the bias incident reporting form available to our students um to

020our faculty and staff um and it really parallels and has a great Synergy with the work that we do with the Playbook and then the third under Innovation um is supporting our after school program um and it being an extension of the school Improvement plan we're very proud to have a very robust after school program at the conquered Middle School where each one of these um School Improvement plan objectives is really its own bucket um we have um after school activities clubs um that can fall into Innovation can fall into well-being can fall into inclusive culture and multiple paths to success as well um again most of these were really um brought forward and put into the school Improvement plan um from the voices of the students on the school advisory council at concal school

021thank you is there any questions or comments what year of the instant bias reform is it is it the second or third year so are we going the third y going into the third um it wasn't in place the whole 2223 school year um it was a pilot in um the spring of 23 okay Justin one of the things you that I like um in your plan you didn't highlight it but I'm just curious if um you have any more detail on it I see um a piece here about partnering with parents and community members to identify and engage with best practices for student technology including social media use um I know that that is like massively something on the minds of parents you know I think parents have a really challenging time navigating in

022their households um and I know um the high school has had some success with some of their plans so um just because I'm back next year what what does that look like for like the Partnerships with parents like are there are some tangible things that you have on the radar that you're thinking of implementing what is it what will that look like yep yep so it's it's really the action behind this entire plan and again you know the school advisory council at the middle school um somewhere around here you see um Equity walks you know not only is this a body of five students five parents and five faculty and staff who are overseeing making sure it's happening they're the ones that did the equity walks those five students five faculty five staff I mentioned

023that because in the area of Technology it was school council School advisory Council that put forward um the practice of all Middle School laptops shutting down at night and not being available to students at all during the overnight hours so it was our school council that looked at the school Improvement plan in the fall and said okay these are all great what do they look like for an action um and school council went to it um here in the district and said that you know it's an Apple device uh we're very familiar um with um the screen time a screen time app that can allow a parent to shut down a device of their child's or even on their own device um can we do that with our student laptops and the answer to that

024was yes um and we implemented that um on January 3rd um and we shared with all Middle School families that um at the 11:00 hour we started at 11: um and we're interested in actually bringing that back you know to around 10 or so um the question was mostly from the students we heard from a couple parents you know what if in the middle of a student doing homework at 11:00 if the laptop just shuts off um then our answer was then it's working because no student should be doing homework at 11:00 um so we heard great feedback um and the laptop is not available for student use um until I believe 5:00 a.m. um students are really good at the middle school age and letting us know if they found back doors a way

025around said policies um I lean into my home base my advisory um every single morning especially that first month that this was in place um we also had a very successful um parent student speaker series at the middle school the past year uh it was called who brought who um and it was a speaker series um inspired by um bringing together the parents the Guardians grandparents uncles and aunts with their middle schooler um and it was an audience of middle schoolers and an adult next to them it was an intergenerational speaker series um and I believe around January when we put forward the um technology policy that all student laptops were shutting down at night and not being available to the kids um we brought in two authors from um a Boston Globe article which

026was entitled I believe Tik Tok Instagram the endless Scroll of un happiness um and those experts um spoke in front of about 150 students with their adult next to them um and it was the only time that we saw the audience be divided when towards the end of um the speakers talking they shared that all parents should be always taking the technology and going through internet history and all of that so the kids and the parents and the grandparents and the uncles and aunts they were United up until that very moment see that U the audience just kind of split in the middle there um it was probably good that it was towards the end of the evening uh so those are two areas uh to answer your question Alexa of focus on technology that

027we have in here but we're proud to say we put action towards them great was that event on Zoom or was it in person just CU in person it's great to get that many people that's cool we had a holocaust Survivor the first one and I believe November uh we had 440 um and then for the technology speakers the Boston Globe um authors I think read about 320 are these held in the evening up they held in the evening wow all in the evening during the week or yep like a Wednesday night or so incred really successful series we had a yeah we had um a speaker come in about a month ago to cap off the The Playbook work um and um her Focus was how uh parents Guardians uncles aunts coaches should be

028talking to students of middle school age or younger um about discrimination bias um all of that and there was a lot of turn and talk a lot of Engagement that was happening in the audience um a lot of these speakers usually speak to one or both separately so I have to give it give credit to the speakers that they were able to kind of pivot and say we want this is great what you're doing as you know as a middle school and we'll talk to both at the same time and it really allowed the student or the parent to not lose momentum um in the important topics because too often we Inspire our parents at night and then they jump in their car and they get home and their kids are hopefully in bed you

029know and then the busy morning you kind of lose that momentum and when you inspire a student during an assembly you want them to go home and bump into those adults and sometimes that's lost so we heard from a lot of parents from the speaker series um when they arrived home that that important conversation of whatever the topic was of that evening happened in the car on the way back that's great that's really great I think one thing I I've noticed and this is like across the board but I really like is how the school Improvement plans are so closely tied to the Strategic plan and I know that's intentional but um I just think that really speaks to the intentionality of like how we're all working towards the same goals and values but thanks

030I think that's really great does anyone else have any questions or comments how how do you prior like there's a lot of stuff in here so I'm just wondering how how do you prioritize and track and make sure you're hitting kind of everything CU I thinking if you do four of these in a year like that's a good year right but you got a lot y um so I'm just curious how you think about that yeah we have we have a lot of different groups though that just very or organically even if they don't have the school Improvement plan in front of them we just have so many groups I mentioned after school groups earlier that weren't form or weren't born from the school Improvement plan so what the school advisory Council does is we

031look at this um for our first few meetings and we really get a sense of okay who's doing what um and that's why again the students being a part of that group is so essential because they're sharing ing uh things that are being done in different clubs different activities even some classes um we sometimes forget about the role that the curriculum plays in a school Improvement plan you know um when you look at you know um how well we're doing when you do an audit you know how well we're doing with anti-racism um you know we have to first look at our curriculum and what's been established gosh in a district like ours a decade ago so we have our students um and our faculty and staff really share what's happening and then we look

032at the areas especially of action very tangible action and by October um and again this happened with the two Equity walks that um all schools um according to the school uh the district um initiative you know we looked at each other as a body and said doesn't look like anyone's taking that on shall we just call some meetings um in the two buildings the two work very well for us because we have two buildings um and I'm excited to say that you know the school council that might roll over to next year is already talking about getting into the new building and doing an equity walk of the new building that answer your question yeah yeah thank you of course thank you thanks very welcome than you have a good night yeah appreciate you guys

033letting us out Al will be thrilled you let him go hopefully get here a great band concert oh yeah definitely get out there um Lori where are we headed Elementary or is that all right my Comm is shorter so I think all right High School come on up Brian Miller and Katie stall are your co-principal with the high school what's up we can share share a lot we'll coic it how that sound it okay hi everyone Hi good how are you hey everybody Welcome uh so yeah we're going to talk about four different uh major areas of our school Improvement plan so similar uh to some other schools we started with our leadership team and reviewed what we had done this year what has gone well what was complete what we wanted to keep going

034were the things that we didn't do that we want to just let go of um and then we also talk spoke with our student advisory Council we did um once in a while we do like LT brings a student buddy to one of our leadership team meetings so we spent a we got good feedback from I don't know there must have been 35 40 kids there looking at uh different areas and then certainly feedback from staff and and they love to give the they love to give feedback yeah and just so you know our leadership team is made up of all of our department chairs our Wellness coordinator and um our admin team um so we're just going to talk through some of the highlights and some of the new things that we want to

035build on um and continue for next year um so for multiple paths to success um we were able to do a lot of work around curriculum and instruction this year which was really great um we worked with deeper learning and CH continued our work with challenge success um and for next year we're really hoping to have all of our faculty and staff um trained in udl um Universal Design for Learning to really help push um to create those authentic creative deeper thinking learning opportunities for all students and to really um you know provide entry points for all students and meet them where they're at so that's um one of our goals for next year um and we've also been doing a lot of work with both of our English and math departments um and so

036next year we're really going to continue to push the work around um looking at the curriculum in both English and math and um looking at the vertical alignment but also the horizontal alignment among grade levels and making sure that um you know we are talking about common practices more and um looking at common assessments um and really continuing to build on that work that we started this year um yeah um so then two other pieces in this first um bucket is we're really looking forward to bringing back Q5 uh this is do we know what should I do I know exp um I sent them a link to the web page this afternoon you might want to a quick Q stands for quarter five it's the last four days of the academic year after finals

037are yeah over um and then faculty offer a course um and something that's sort of they're passionate in could be beekeeping Wilderness survival kayaking poetry slam bread making all sorts of fun things Amazing Race Amazing Race yeah so we're really excited to bring that back um and then we're also going to start working on our um portrait of a graduate which is a Nas requirement but it's also a piece that I it is a it's a nice change that Nas has gone through so a portrait of a graduate is a set of skills and attributes that you want as a school district for your kids to have when they cross a graduation stage um so I I think that work will really help there's some things by nias that maybe aren't my favorite this is

038actually something I'm looking forward to to doing so it's a cchs graduate not like a proverbial correct graduate the us as a graduate of conquer carile what is it that what attributes or skills should you have when you walk across the stage in what form does it like is it a it's so in different districts it takes different you can write a narrative you can make a poster seen poster yeah like there can be visuals um it could be really nice and that it can inform a lot of what you're doing I like your instruction right if we're going to say that kids are going to be really good at collaboration well then how are we going to make sure they give getting opportunities to collaborate how are we going to teach collaboration and how

039are we going to assess it and who like engages in that work beyond the staff do kids engage with you usually a very so to be if you look closely we're looking at like developing the plan to make okay the portrait of a graduate it is doing it next year it's not quite strategic plan like but it's in a way that you're you're going to be pulling from every group like just community members kids parents interesting we want to get a head start actually do it so Nas isn't coming for a few years so we're going to depending on how it goes first semester we're going to really work first semester to make our plan and if we feel like we're maybe start we'll see me ask is the accreditation folks that we're up thankfully

040they postponed it um supposed to be 10 years I think we'll be at 12 12ish by the time they actually come so this is the early work to that 2028 right B yeah so this will be the early planning so I I've went on the nask website so why why why do we partner with they don't seem to be like a division of the Department of Ed or anything so like you want an accredited high school so the colleges will know you're it's than Prestige at the high school it's nice to have a K8 it's necessary to have at a high school they're the accrediting board it's not desie you're right and we can we can give you more background no no I don't need it I was just thinking like what's the what's yeah

041you want to have an accredited high school so there's some really good examples I'm sure you nice um that superintendent is now I forget where uh she was been leading that work she is now um so yeah we're thinking it we tie tie in nicely with our work with challenge success as well when we've talked talking about skills so yeah okay um so under the next pillar um well-being and mental health we're going to continue to re uh review and look at our guidance and counseling department practice uh practices so this year with the addition of flex block it was really great um for the guidance counselors because they were able to run their seminars um with students more frequently all together which gave them way more opportunities to meet with students in larger groups

042and just more often so that was great um and we also are going to we love to seek feedback from our students so we will continue to seek feedback from them around how those seminars are going what information they find helpful what types of topics they may want to see included in their guidance seminars um and we're going to talk about circles in a little bit but that was another thing um our guidance counselors ran Community Building circles with their nth graders this year which I think just um was a great pairing for the guidance seminars in terms of having those groups really get to know each other better and the counselors get to know larger groups of kids better um in one in one class period when you do surveys do you get a

043big sampling yes we do we do go ahead we we grab a captive audience we do it like we don't like say like oh here's a survey fill this out in the next 3 weeks we're like hey can we take 5 minutes at the start F can we take five minutes at the start of for those surveys and then we do like more you know inperson ones that we call like listening tours or round tables where we'll pull kids into Flex blocks so we'll bring them into LT or you know and they love that too okay so they're statistically significant yes teenagers like to tell us what they [Laughter] think um and then the other one I'd highlight here is we've if you've been paying attention we've been focusing on transitions between schools for a

044long time and I think we've we've come to a really good place with 9th grade and nth grade academy but we still think we have room to grow for kids that are coming at sort of maybe non-traditional points like not at 9th grade but coming later we have so few that come that we think that we can be really individualized and you know okay so Tracy's coming and she's really into radio and soccer but we could find an oper classman who's into radio and soccer and who has Tracy's lunch and so that and maybe during Flex they could be together at least in the beginning so we have students that do it now but we just think that it's something that we can definitely improve upon for those students so that they can feel more

045connected quicker yeah than they have great can I ask a question on are you moving on for mental health yeah before you move on on the when you Adit the survey to students on um guidance seminars Beyond like do you ever I know there have been a lot of changes to offering um mental health services within the school day um over the last year in particular I think do you do you get feedback on how that is going or um how you might change that as you look to next year or the year is going yeah I mean so we so we signed on to cartwheel which is it's working I don't know what to say Beyond like thank you for finding the money and it's working kid us like we meet with them you

046know we just signed two kids we just signed two kids up today and it's like it's a great summer Pro way that they're still working in the summer and our school counselors aren't and so we can have that's can you just give a one minute description of carp will for a new M so basically students are guaranteed um within 7 to 10 days of being referred to have an intake meeting with the clinician and to start counseling right away with an outside counselor virtually and they can do it during the school day on the weekends after school whatever that you know and then like a many languages many languages um you know they have diverse candidates or clinicians excuse me and and um it's just worked because of the they get it immediately immediately meaning

047they're not on weight list for months and months and months like and um we have a whole data dashboard so we can see like how many you know how many kids are using it and you know what's gone on they also work with families and parents so it's been a great addition and the um the people are using it and the feedback on like the quality has been good yes that's great that's really great yeah thank okay inclusive culture so talk just um building more on the um implementation of restorative practices so this year all of our ninth graders um so all students engaged all students in the school engaged in a community building Circle in their English class our ninth graders have had them in English class in science and in guidance so they've

048had a lot but so our goal for next year um is for all students to engage in a circle um once a quarter and I'm in the right one right yes and then the other piece that we're really excited about is um hopefully training some of our coaches and athletes in community building circles because again like we've this model has worked really well for high school students um it kind of gives them a place to have to talk to each other and share about themselves and it's just it's worked um and so we saw a need for it or some or we saw an opportunity I would say for it in um in some of the sports teams where we feel like you know there's great leaders on the team and there's some students who

049may need you know some more confidence building so we thought that this would be a great way to kind of incorporate circles into our athletic programs and we have some um training that we're going to offer over the summer for coaches who are interested great and the last piece I'd highlight there is I'm sort of creating this greater sense of responsibility for everybody in the building to be to own it right to clean up your mess and to throw things away and it's not just on our custodians and our building service folks so um we are going to next year require all students for one of their Flex blocks they have 50 something over the year that every kid has to do one where they're giving back community service that's on campus in the building

050in the building love that that y so they can work with you know the Food Services or the custodians or just do a beautification project of something or you know something where they're really putting their care into our physical Community into the space um and taking pride in it awesome that's awesome I love it yeah we're really excited about that and then um the last piece is under the that we'd highlight is under the ninth grade academy we did a lot of work with um Adam hickey from Landmark he really came on as part of a lab consultant but we we also have looked at what are some common instructional practices that we think should be evident in all n9th grade classes maybe we'll look at scaling them later but the idea is that so

051some of the instructional practices are if you come to my my class and Katie's class kids are not having to spend so much mental space just trying to figure out what to expect in each class um and that they're more a there's more space left over them for them learning so we're also talking about some instructional practices such as their s simple but they're really effective like um reverbing information queuing the midpoint I think we have some folks who say you know our ninth graders they just stink at taking notes well did we ever teach them to take notes right like when was when was like like maybe Justin could tell me even if they learned in in fifth grade or sixth grade like right that's not the same as trying to do it in

052high school so and if everybody's doing the same method it helps with the cognitive load of them from shifting from one class to the next knowing like okay I know what method is going to be from science to math to social studies to English so those are what we those our highlights that we wanted to share with you maybe just um hi I'm Julie I haven't met you yet nice to meet you um maybe just first of all maybe a comment is that was really impressive thank you for for doing that a lot of really great stuff um just a couple questions I know that there's a lot of focus nationally on these middle skill jobs so more than High School less than college and I love what you had to say about alternative success

053have you put any thought into that and you don't have to answer tonight just maybe food for thought and then I think the second one and actually Carrie and I were talking about this earlier is anything around AI natural language processing machine learning the job obviously landscape is change Brian and I have spent a lot of time in in Carlile talking about technology looking at different grants that are out there um just because the the needs of obviously of the next high school graduate is going to be very different than even 3 years ago um so anything around that would would love to hear more about it not like I said not necessarily tonight but well for the alternate path we we had two alumni panels during the course of this year that we will

054absolutely continue where I think that most high school kids expect their path to just be this perfectly straight line where right I'm going to go here and I'm going to go here and I'm going to here and nothing's going to go wrong and we brought like I said two different panels back where um you know students experience setbacks and struggles and they offer their experience and how did that and they all sort of ended up in a great place and they were happy and they were doing different things and it probably wasn't what they were thinking they were going to do maybe when they left CC um so I will continue to build on those um and we've also started to bring back some more um so we did College fairs in person again after

055Co but we also we've done armed services we're going to do trades again next year as well huge yeah we had um the reality Fair recently um we student do you want to talk about that or did you know what it was you like I well I saw it I think you just say what it was yeah you should tell they'll enjoy so I mean so Bas it was for seniors and students had different opportunities to like learn how to budget this or like they would meet with Verizon and learn about different things around you know Horizon because we couldn't get a Verizon we had to get a fake kind of like having them start to think about like the real world and like what life is going to look like through a varies uh

056through different activities during a flux BL and then there was the wheel of Misfortune like sometimes like some it's been in oh your dog had to have surgery like where are you fitting that, or whatever and then lastly on that one I'll just say um like I think tomorrow yeah today's Wednesday um job core is so job core is one that you know for some students that's a path that you know that fits their goals best which is great and they are starting a new dual enrollment program that they're having an info session on tomorrow so we're sending like two counselors and a teacher um to just learn about it so that we can still make sure that we are like addressing you know all the different areas and making sure that there's a path

057for every kid because not every kid is going to go to four nor should they there's so many opportunities out there um so just making sure that we're staying in the know about those and bringing them into school and yes to AI but we don't know the answer I think we're learning like us know if you find out the answer really empowering I think to have kids embrace it as a tool right and not as a as a as an answer and as a crutch you know because I think that's the best lens to have for it so absolutely that's great thank you yeah I have a question um when you were discussing English and math department curriculum you talked about vertical alignment and horizontal alignment for the lay folk what what can you explain

058to me what a vertical alignment in curriculum might look like um you know as if I'm 10 and um similarly to the horizontal alignment and do these lines ever intersect like what does that mean um so like vertical alignment would mean that we don't teach you addition seven times and you never learn subtraction like that would be like in if I'm really being simple like that we're are we teaching all the standards and are we covering them all in appropriate and are and are we building on the skills 9th to 10th to 11th and 12 are they increasing in rigor are we expecting more from you know the writing process and yeah and the English standards are interesting because they're actually not by grade their English stands are 9 10 and 11 12 so it's

059sort of making sure that who's going to teach which n which grade n which one are you going to do which grade or 10 going to do and um and I think we're also looking about opportunities for movement in levels that that you're able to if just because you ENT entered the high school at one level like you should be able to get to all math classes so we're looking at that and then for horizontal alignment just you know an example is just having you know 10th grade English teachers like what are we all doing the same what all students are getting you know having similar experiences no matter what teacher you know we may teach with autonomy for certain things but these are the books we're reading these are the skills these are the

060practices across grade levels and I imagine there's more latitude in e than math or is they comparable I mean you I haven't seen like teachers can choose for example like the the books they read to some extent I know people are reading different books in different sections but would what would that look like in math if you're all taking enriched geometry it would be hard that no one ever taught right if we're both teaching mythics we have to teach integrals right if we're doing calculus that we have to get there but that's where like common assessments right like might come in so that you know we're looking at how we're assessing all kids in that math class um and seeing how they're all performing on the same on the same problem and we're looking to

061have more common Assessments in English that we I think that we have work to do on really clearly we want to clearly identify the skills that we want every kid to have at the end of n9th grade at the end of 10th grade in English the standards are tricky like you talk about like argumentative writing for 9 years so so what what does that look like how does that grow from third grade till 12th grade and like if if you have three sections of like enriched geometry that are taught by three different people can they can so you've got n not 90 kids you've got 60 kids over three sections could each of those kids take different tests at each the conclusion no I mean that's the idea that we want to be a assessments

062because then you can look at like the questions in the skills and then run it through and see like where are we what are we doing well what are could like what areas do we need to go back retach and maybe it's different from one class to the next but they all have you know they're all being assessed on the same things and why did my students do why did Katie's kids do so great on standard 2.5 and my kids struggled a bit like so what how did you teach that Katie and what could I do okay to fill in the holes for my students well thank you I I I really like the extension into Athletics I think a large a large portion of students do athletics and I know like for me at

063CC was a huge part of my experience I I like that and probably opportunities to do more going forward that's one of my most exciting things like yeah I mean it's less less formal than classroom setting right and you have um different you know coaches it's great and it's still such a huge piece of their school experience totally it's a lot of time the most it's why they it's that's their draw and unrelated I I don't have any kids at cchs or or family but I got like five tech that it was an awesome graduation we worked really hard on the weather so that helped great thank you my fourth grade chorus concert son sing singing son will be very happy that I can make it tonight so yeah thank you thank you good night

064good night I think the elementaries are going to come up together and talk on what they do that's in common and what is individual teach building this is a Varsity Sports okay yep the teams as we go here so na C's principal at Alcott Justin Sparks is principal at theow and Matt Lucy's principal at Willard yeah can share we're good thank you thanks for the invit that's loud than thanks for the invitation tonight congratulations to the new chairs and new members thank you Tracy and um Alexa for all your service Justin was a school committee member for years know he means thank you for your service I think it was um last year right around this time where I was coming to meet all most of you yeah and it one year I gone by

065fast Cynthia Jing his first year with us for those it's been a really positive experience a testament to the collaboration I think in large part with my colleagues here Matt and Naomi and the larger leadership team and under Dr Hunter's leadership especially it's been really positive year so um thank you so you'll notice that our school Improvement plan is um is Unified uh and that's again intentional um you know for alignment sake but there'll also be some um some differences as well based on our school needs and I feel really low right now in this chair I no you have to a low chair um so I'll just uh go through a couple here and then um Naomi and Matt so um the first uh uh strategic objective is mult multiple Pathways to success you

066if you remember last time we were here we were here with our reading and Ela Specialists talking about the new um updated K3 literacy plan which we're all really excited about some uh fantastic new programs that're going to go a long way and meeting the needs of our all of our students at a tier one level in terms of their foundational skills integrity and geod and Foundations Etc um Dibbles as well as our assessment system so we always say you have to inspect what you expect um so Dibbles is one um measure that allows us to do that seeing where our readers are the mtss process and getting them the support they need through intervention um so one of our goals this year is to make sure all of our um teachers K through three

067um and support staff as well have a deep understanding of how to administer the test how to interpret the results and then how to act how to plan small group and whole group instruction around the needs of our kids um so that's something we're all focused on next year it's a unified goal um strategic objective two is well-being and mental health um and kind of TI into that we have a really robust uh mtss system for identifying struggling readers um and mathematicians as well but for um social emotional learning it tends to be more of um in the moment and anecdotal right so for our counselors and our mental health teams um it's a teacher referral sometimes or a parent referral or teacher a student dropping by during office hours which is fine and great

068and goes a long way but we want to be a little bit more strategic about that so it's about aligning and integrating the umal work with some of the academic work we're doing for our mtss model and then um for thorough a little bit more specific um something we we started this year is uh we've been having uh regular monthly all school meetings Dr Hunter's been a part of uh many if not all of them which have been great it's at the Spirit of your um classroom morning meeting so a greeting a share activity and some news and announcements um so we do this with 400 plus kids in the cafeteria which and and all staff which is tough and even some parents so it's it's tight the last one we had was about 100°

069um and and tight um but it's it's a way to celebrate successes um you know we we integrate themes we celebrate um diversity uh you know and and you know based on what's going on in the classroom each grade level has a chance to share out uh some of the things that they're working on so it's been really positive so we're looking to double down on that next year um and even hopefully uh involved the parents in the larger Community a little bit more um I should say I've been getting a little bit more adventurous with these and um I shared with with Lori uh for our activity last time I had a great categories activity that involved a beach ball so if you can imagine a very large beach ball being tossed around by

070400 um kindergart through fifth graders it didn't go it didn't go well but um you live and learn and then probably the most exciting for me uh connected to strategic objective for Innovative um environment is um we just went through a feasibility study and Cha came here and presented their initial findings and recommendations um so that's everything from safety and Logistics to um enhanced Green Space um and play space for kids so um we have the opportunity now to um start on a playground project um which is I think every principal's dream um so we have a really uh uh carile inspired I'll shout out to the two new folks I'm not sure we'll get avilable to you you looks familiar yeah Zoom they breed that for a couple years Brian has been really helpful

071he took us through um his process start to finish the team's process start to finish and really gave us a lot of a lot of great ideas so we're off and running it's a it's a great team um we're looking to um uh hopefully bring a school committee rep on if anyone's interested um in order to to to calibrate um and make sure you're all in the loop um on this but really exciting um it's going to be uh we've talked about priorities so far so we're looking at making it accessible for all um it's sort of set back in the woods a little bit near the um near the river so a little bit more naturalistic um in the spirit of Henry David um himself so it's um yeah in the works and I

072look forward to coming back and giving you an update on that and that's all I have uh I have the privilege of talking about all things responsive classroom um and so you'll see that responsive classroom is something that shows up uh sort of splattered about objective two and three around well-being mental health and inclusive culture um and so responsive classroom if you do not know is something that we started piloting last year um and it's really it's an approach to Leading a classroom um that sort of prioritizes building connections um building community in your classroom um being really responsive to student needs and sort of letting your knowledge of the individual child guide the decisions that you're making um in terms of classroom management in terms of instruction um and so we've been doing that

073for a year um last and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the things that are common in our plans and then I'll talk a little bit about a couple of things that are specific to alcot um so last year we had said that for the first year we were doing it um we were going to aim to get 15% of our staff trained in responsive classroom um the training is pretty intense it's a full full four full days out of the classroom um and we ended up um doing much better than that I think people who we we had about 30 or 40% of of Staff who got trained um last year um so we are hoping to have 60% of our staff trained

074in the upcoming year um something else that you'll see in common is that we plan to use PD time or faculty meeting time to go deeper with the training so to to um look at things like teacher language like how how do we um redirect students how do we reinforce how do we remind um and then uh we have every school has uh teacher leaders so responsive classroom teacher leaders um and so they are going to be leading they're going to be leading a lot of this work with the building principles um but they are going to be leading some book clubs next year um responsive classroom has a has a has a lot of books um and we've identified a couple that we want to drive our work um and then something else that's

075common between the three schools is that we have um a committee looking this summer to map out um the first six weeks of responsive classroom for for teachers so we were sort of looking at it's you know our goal is to get everyone trained but it takes time we can't just send the entire school to a 4-day training all at once um and so we we've been trying to figure out how do we move forward and get certain things in place in all classrooms even though we know that it's going to take us several years to get everyone trained and so this work that um our responsive classroom teacher leaders are doing this summer to to map out some supports that we can give to teachers um and even just some lesson plans for how

076they can run their morning meetings um to get a couple of things in place in all classrooms regardless of whether people have had that training yet so making sure that we're giving them the resources that they need to be able to do it successfully um while also recognizing that it will just take some time to get everyone trained um so those are some things that are in common across the three buildings um a few things that are Alcott specific so one thing that we're doing um is really focusing on sort of our tier one so so we're sort of doing a we're going back to our school values we sort of forgot what our values were over Co um but so we're we're really um looking at our school values and mapping out um what

077our expectations are for the for for shared spaces um it was actually listening to the high school talk about what they're doing it sounded really similar um our focus is on the bathrooms a little bit like please do not flush things down the toilet and um you know what what I joke um but not really uh so our what what we're trying to do is come up with some consistent shared expectations um for common spaces for sort of what it means to be an Alcott student um and then really explicitly teaching those um which is very aligned with responsive classroom um and uh so that's one thing that we're doing um something else that we're doing um is we are working with uh the district's consultant to um develop some vertical alignment for oural program

078so we have the branch program at alcot um it's a relatively new program as far as programs go we've only had it for 5 years um and so part of the work is looking at um the structures that we've put in place and improving them but the other part is making sure that there's consistency um K to 12 so we know what we're doing at alcot but this is letting us learn about what the Middle School's doing and what the high school's doing and making sure that we're providing a Continuum of services um K to [Music] um I have so many arrows drawn on my notes that I am let's see uh oh well this is this is um not related to Branch but the one other thing we're doing in terms of um schoolwide

079expectations we have a a group that's doing some summer work around that as well um pulling sort of lesson plans that teachers can use to to very clearly teach students like what I keep using the bathroom example because we just spent a lot of time recently with with cleaning up the bathrooms um but like what does it look like if you're leaving the bathroom better than than when you came into it what does it look like and um resources that teachers can use in their classrooms to really help very similar to what the high school was saying but to really help kids develop a shared sense of responsibility for their Community good I'll stop there good that's really close we intentionally made M last because nobody wants to follow that's true go after M no

080no so um I was thinking as uh we were listening to the middle school the high school and now Naomi um and Justin and those of you who've been around for a while and been in schools for a while there's the idea of mediocrity excellence and unconscious and conscious and what we're fortunate here is that we're thoughtful and we're consciously doing work that will achieve Excellence so what you've heard today is um each of us doing our own work I'm going to take a just a minute to talk a little bit about how the work we're doing parallels each other and in some ways um one will go ahead and be a pilot in in an area and While others are working in separate areas so the beauty of having three parallel elementary schools is

081although we're not lock step uh there's a similar experience in each building and we're building off the Excellence of our colleagues so um um Naomi mentioned uh the work um uh and Justin as well with our mtss um work or multi-tiered um systems of support each building is doing it and doing it well but we recognize because we we'll always stay humble and never get complacent there are things that we can learn from each other that can improve our practice so we're going to be investing in that this summer across all three buildings um in each of our buildings Naomi mentioned in the first six weeks we're all doing that work and then sharing that work because we're all invested deeply into responsive classroom um another that is just simply extraordinary um is through your

082um um funding of the schools we're able to train this summer 32 staff members in the Wilson Reading system right wow in other districts right you may have three right we're going to have 32 now why is that important because that's the first step to being certified um as a Wilson uh teacher um that's the um that's the means of making a difference in a child's life through a systematic approach to reading instruction right so not only is it important at Willard where we've got the lab program but it's also just as important in our two other schools and then going up through ladder we've got we sent out the the the call we've got people coming from the high school to take the Wilson training this summer all those people who take the training

083are then eligible to take a practicum anytime with the next five years and be Wilson certified so while the rest of U the country is rest wrestling with those students who have not been identified and if identified what to do we here at conquer are putting our um your your proverbial wallet where it counts right and our staff are anxious to do the work so thank you for all of that and W with that in mind I gota say to Bob conry who's always um one phone call away when we're looking for funding and we have some friends from the conquered fund tonight who I'm going to be referencing just second the the willingness to U um resolve a problem uh with collaboration uh with some flexibility Lor's connection to those decision makers in the

084state who have been supporting the work of our newcomers at at Willard is extraordinary so um all work being done the the heavy lifting is all being done by our staff we get to um sit on their shoulders and help and and sing their praises but again it goes back to all of you who do the work to come here regularly and support us so we're all grateful um so speaking of our different programs as as I mentioned we have a lab program um and to ensure that um again not to sit back and uh become complacent we recognize that there are multitudes of learning styles and multiple needs so not all students who have a language-based disability would fit within a traditional uh model so what we've done is is working with um you

085heard um um Adam hickey's name come up earlier Adam is a tremendous resource he's been working with in multiple districts he's now working with us and um we have uh developed a lab B program which will be for particular uh profile of student and that um program starts this year the number of students that we're supporting in our lab program has grown fourfold since uh it started so we're doing good work and the the um proof is in the pudding these students we know because of our progress monitoring because of our um benchmarking are becoming readers and for all parents and all students there isn't a better goal um secondly um through grant funding again thank you Bob thank you Lori from the state we're hiring um an additional adjustment counselor um and the add

086additional uh adjustment counselor is going to help us um primarily support and Implement uh trauma based informed practices right um many of our newcomers come to us with um a great deal of trauma and um it's our responsibility it's our passion um to take care of them and that's what we're going to do uh we also have um tell you this job is the best and that you always are learning right you all probably have great jobs that you do right I think uh ours is a job which um to live live a life of consequence this is what you do is you provide us with opportunity to live a life of consequence so when uh Lori turned to me a while back and turn to some of the others who have had students come

087from uh the emergency shelter um that was our opportunity to rise right so you we've learned so much and we've stayed humble what we're now adopting is um you did rise to be clear well we're doing our very best right every day it's another new challenge and we're happy to have it so um the sheltered English immersion program what that enables us to do and we've hired a teacher we'll be hiring a teacher for that um we need to have the same high expectations for all our Learners right and there may be variables that we don't usually encounter with u some of our U students who we have with us presently um what we need to do is be more creative and have more horsepower and a sheltered English immersion teacher will enable that so

088for example if uh my friend um Justin is new and he's a newcomer um and I'm teaching him in class um I'm giving him the curriculum for that grade level in English what he needs is probably a good double dip of that right so we're not dumbing it down right we're not making excuses we're not thinking he's disabled we're not doing anything other than providing him the best opportunity to meet his um his goals as a learner so that person will work with our um our elll teachers and still have access to our mtss programming and we have a um a wonderful person um who who uh is on staff already who's going to be coming over to support us who is a wealth of knowledge and of um we talked about the cinas three

089prong test so within the SEI um world you know is it Educational Theory that's sound is it effective instruction and are the students uh showing growth and so that will be our lipus test for this program um you heard from um uh Naomi also about the the responsive classroom book clubs thanks to my friends at the Ed fund uh they have been they funded some additional literary resources for us recognizing that 15% of our students in some manner have a disability academic disability or otherwise and they often don't see themselves represented in the literature this will be an opportunity for our teachers to do the good work of identifying the texts uh reading them understanding them uh finding uh where they might best lie then sharing it as a pilot first at Willard and then

090out to the other buildings so thank you to the CF for supporting that and that'll be some work that'll be done this summer and then I'm going to end with um uh the alignment with the High School uh as U some people here in the room know there are fifth graders do service projects at uh Willard as part of the fifth year um of the sixth year fifth grade year at Willard and um what we're going to do is we're going to pil it and then share the information with the two other schools about having it be a continual community service project throughout the year every single month they will have an opportunity that'll be tied to the Frameworks in which they will be providing um service that uh addresses human and Community needs so

091it won't be just a oneoff but rather a continual investment and we think that it will be important for their own well-being and the well-being in the community on the day that we were going to do the community service uh events the other day it rained right and the question was what do we do and the answer was service doesn't wait for a sunny day right so they went out and did they have a great time they had ponchos and I mean like hon it's it's extraordinary that it was like it's been their favorite part of fifth grade celebration so far I'm sure it will they get better but yeah it's extraordinary they are so excited and and um I forget um but you gave them agency so there were many um many projects to

092choose each a little different so for more physical kids they were you know at gaining ground or on the rail trail um artistic kids were able to do bulletin board projects the Council on Aging I think or um so I mean even that is thoughtful yeah right even what we are allowing these kids to choose they see themselves and pick what makes them feel comfortable and empowered so and again you would see that in every single one of the elementary schools and again how fortunate we are that we have three parallel schools we get to learn from each other and support each other do you have questions for us wow take a nap now you know you guys are amazing and uh I wish I had kids in the elementary school but I don't um

093C you need a microphone um but uh you know each school is different but I like the fact that you recognize the differences and collaborate um to try to make some things similar enough so that uh kids sort of speak the same language when they leave you in fifth grade yeah um yeah so thank you I had a question about responsive classroom so is there a teacher teachers training teachers type of model or do they have to go to an offsite to do the four days do you do any training in a house of like with the teacher leaders that you referenced so right now the the initial training is offsite um or on site we bring a trainer here TR to here um what the teacher leaders are doing is helping with implementation so

094like they they were trained uh two years ago and have sort of done the Advanced Training and so what they might do is offer to go and like co-lead a morning meeting with you or um to problem solve with you or to plan professional development that goes deeper on specific topics but right now it's it's an offsite okay okay and then Wilson I mean I I can't Echo enough I mean I am a Wilson teacher and I haven't done it in a long time but I think that like people don't realize having 32 teachers that are actually going to get training is exceptional uh I mean I worked in a school with similar sizes to your schools and I was the only Wilson train teacher and then two more came along but that was it

095there was no more funding for that um so the fact that we're putting those programs in place to really close those gaps for those kids that need the Wilson is really um just exceptional and then I guess lastly I'll just say you know Matt you said something about building off of Excellence at the three schools it has not always been the case that our three elementary schools have been aligned and I feel like I'm like the old lady of you know the school committee here that I remember they were all very different so your kids had very different experiences at all three schools you could move across town and really have the same experience in any one of the schools so that I think is just a huge positive for conquer and I think you

096know this is my actually my favorite night of the year seeing all the principles here and seeing all of you together and what you do at the elementary school then how that transitions to the high school and the middle school and then the high school is just really impressive so thank you for all you do I know that June is a tough time please pass on our thanks to Brian Katie and Justin because I do think that you know it is hard to come here in June it is the worst time of the year for teachers and administrators and for families it's hard for families it's hard for families but you know you have the the same energy in June that you had in September so thank you for that I have a couple question

097questions but does anyone else have any questions can we let Naomi go so she might go yeah I had just a couple questions one was on um to Echo what Alexa was asking in the Middle School the technology use there was um I feel like even in my five years in elementary school the amount of Technology not even used in the classroom but like that's brought into schools um has has changed um whereas like you don't even in my I never even thought about kids having cell phones in elementary school but seems to be like apple watches or cell phones are finding their way into schools um so in this I notice on all three of yours that you have um training parents and families on the use of Technology um I'm curious if you

098talk about that or how you talk about that um with families and and with kids also we had a u recently we were fortunate enough to have Miss Greer come in and talk to our kids about um Internet Security and safety and that went along way with our our Upper Elementary it's it's it's more problematic on a day-to-day basis than you might think yeah um uh so with the smart watches and with the phones we do have a policy where they they're allowed to bring them in for after school plans obviously but they put them in their backpacks afterwards um we address these things and um you know grade level meetings and um assemblies as well so uh for parents I think there's still more work to be done um next year on on on

099educating our our families in in terms of speakers but um yeah we we notice a that it is um it's something to consider um my other comment is more of a comment but um I feel like across the board um from like prek or we didn't know too much about prek but K to 12 at least tonight there's this um commitment to community and I feel like I I I just think that's so important I love the the this notion of community service and the pilot that you're implementing um and I I'd love to see that like I mean I think it would be so amazing if like was just part of your entire K to 12 education was community service was not an option but an expectation um and then um connection like with

100responsive classroom with um the community service pilot I just feel like everything is about building not just um smart kids but like good people and I think that really shines in in all of these um School Improvement plans so um the thoughtfulness on all of that I'm um just really excited about inspired by um and grateful for so thank you thanks Carrie so I'll end what that idea goes back to responsive classroom about and in our model at our school meetings it's um how to you take care of yourself you take care of your neighbor and then you take care of the world and then we build on that throughout the year so again we have that thread that binds all three schools of using responsive classroom and that same theme and yeah the activism

101of you know community-based you know um investment in each other and the kids the kids rally to it so it's not we saw it I mean when when when they came and did that demonstration here it was so like everyone you could there wasn't like everyone was smiling and laughing and having a good time learning about other people you know it was just really you can feel it great thank you have a great night thank you thank you guys so much enjoy the summer yeah Lori before we move to the next item anything closing comments from you I mean I just sit here every year when they come through and take it all in at a not kind of a rare opportunity to just listen and um I think they speak for themselves on who

102they are as Leaders what the staff is focused on we're all in the same direction here and um as you can hear the vertical threads as they come up through and um you know it it's all going really well and we're doing a lot of really great things for kids and I think this group I hope spends the you're talking more about kids than you have been lately um and we can bring you more of some of what they've referenced at a deeper level cuz that was that was a high level view obviously um but there's some really fantastic work going on both academically emotionally innovatively and uh I think the sky's the limit like they come to me with all these new ideas I'm like sure of course when they want money we have

103to juggle that a little bit but um we do and try to reallocate and usually they know they have to give something up if they want something uh just a really strong team and I'm glad they I think spoke so well on behalf of all their schools and all the folks working so hard absolutely how often do the principles get together like formally yeah we meet weekly as a leadership team two hours every Tuesday Morning um and we worked really hard to go deeper than do a lot of logistical stuff uh so we tend to do that and that's the spoke that keeps us glued together um I mean I guess I sort of do it in between meetings but that's the spoke that meeting is so important to us as a team um so

104that we can talk on all the things you heard I mean and I don't know I as someone who has had kids in the school before your tenure and after your tenure you spoke a little bit about this what has been an interesting experience even as a parent and obviously my level of involvement with the schools has increased over time so I do have a you know sharper lens on this but you can see that you can see I believe the tangible results of two hours a week with that LE leadership team it is it is truly different um and to your point you know if you had a child move from thorough to alcot 10 years ago they might as well have been moving to Siberia I mean I bought a house based on

105that I literally was switching houses and I'm like well I can't leave Alcott like that's it I remember I remember uh transitioning from Nursery School to um Elementary School when thorough school was sort of in this phase of chaos this was only a few years before you arrive and people would say oh my God you're you know your child's going to kindergarten are you looking for a house and I would say what do you mean well you're going you're you're you're in the thorough District are you guys moving I'm like oh my God like what a bizarre question so you know now no one knows where to move they're all exceptional there's there's none of that my mother's a realtor you know she used to say you know years ago people would have a preference

106there isn't really any of that anymore that's great to hear it trickles down that bar that's a big deal it is intentional and the good you know the collaboration feeds itself right so they're all everyone's benefiting from it and getting K to five teachers in the room together across all three schools we have to acknowledge they in different places on some things and how do we all get to some common common things that we're all going to expect there aren't many left of us that have been around for both a long time that's great thank you all right we are going to move to um public comment um so just like we've been doing for before my time here um public comment period will be a period of 20 minutes um and as a reminder

107this is a meeting in the public and not with the public to so the school committee will not be responding to any comments if you are in the room and you would like to speak you can submit a blue form to me and you'll be called to speak if you are on Zoom you can use the rais hand feature when called to speak please state your name and address before you speak we will go uh every other starting with a comment in the room and then taking a comment on zoom and you will have a time limit of 3 minutes so with that being said is there any public comment you have one oh thank you am I reading all no um just the name Constantine LaVine oh okay we have one comment Constantine LaVine

108sorry about that I'm new here come on over here yep that yeah perfect hi I'm Connie Levine I live at 149 stove Street and I'm here to talk about one guest Ellen Garrison there's just a few items that I want to talk about uh this time I know I've gone over over the not counting of the um petition I'm not going to revisit that again I think that was a huge mistake and it was probably done because you didn't want to count the additional votes for Ellen uh which is shameful to say the least and um I wanted to talk about something that um uh was in in one of the uh Boston Globe articles that quoting Dr Lori Hunter here it says um this is what uh Dr Hunter was quoted as saying I

109am absolutely for Ellen Garrison and all that she's done I'd love to honor that because we're all about that work and the anti-racist work and the promoting of the diverse population in the community but changing the name would mean disrupting as she put it to the district's longstanding vision of for the Middle School I've tried a lot over the last few months as this started to see if I could get myself there and I just can't and so I thought about this and it really does not make a lot of sense to me and I'll tell you why this is not the the changing of a school name conquer currently has two middle schools peid middle school and sandborn middle school and it's been that way for quite some time this is the naming of

110a new $104 million Middle School combining returning students from the two existing middle schools into one larger new Middle School in and of itself will unite the students and allow them to make more friends there there is no need for conquered to be in the new middle school's name to unite students the only school with conquered in its name is conquered Carlile because it's a Regional High School that enrolls students from two different towns now I'm going to talk about what happened at the May 21st meeting school committee meeting is again searching for another compromise Carrie Ranken proposed Ellen Garrison middle school and she explained the process that had gotten her there right away Alexa Anderson jumps in and proposes that they elevate Ellen Garrison by naming the building after her instead it was obvious

111there was no way this school committee chair would ever allow the school to be named after Ellen Garrison because that is what would truly Elevate Ellen Garrison to where she belongs constant I'm very glad to see Carrie here as the new chair that makes me feel much more optimistic thank thank you for sir voicing your um your comment and uh we appreciate you coming out but the 3 minutes is up unfortunately thank you very much thank you apprciate let me just see if anyone on the zoom I don't see any I don't see anyone is there anyone else in the room okay thank you very much so we have can move over to the cchs student update we have so I see the the students are online here with us I'll do some introductions since

112we have so many new members tonight um so Felicity Zang is on uh Maddie I see you're joining us M Clancy's one of your new reps just voted in in the last week Maddie maybe somewhere like that conations um I did see zarya on she may have had to get off as time went by and I know Harry was there for a few minutes too but you've got Felicity and Maddie ready to share out with you here tonight welcome hi thank you um unfortunately Zary and Harry did have to leave today because they had um something else at 7 but we have the presentation and uh sorry I'm just can everyone see that I don't usually screen right so our update this week is pretty short and sweet because we are wrapping up the end

113of the school year so first as Dr Hunter mentioned we had elections in the past week or so and Maddie is our new school committee representative as Harry is graduating this year so welcome Maddie thank you yeah I just want to say hi really quickly so um as Felicity said my name is Maddie Clancy and I'm currently a sophomore at cchs and this year I've really enjoyed being a student Senator and next year I will be moving into the position of school committee representative that Harry Carley held this year and I'm just really looking forward to being involved and representing conquer carile High School in future meetings so thanks welcome welcome welcome Maddie thank you um and this week was also Senior Week for cchs which was a lot of fun activities I know if

114Harry was here he could have spoke more spoken more about that but I believe there were some activities including the priy day of service and a field trip to Kimble Farm um and there was also the awards night to recognize Juniors and seniors um and that was a really great moment to kind of recognize the achievement of students both academically and in terms of things like community service character and Leadership outside um of just classes and also last Thursday we were welcoming we're very much getting into preparing for next year and we welcomed the incoming class of 2028 which to me is kind of scary because I'm actually going to be a senior next year which not something that I thought was going to happen but um he helped uh tour the new eighth give

115the new ninth graders a tour of cchs and it was really great to kind of see some of the faces that are going to be joining our school Community next year yeah okay okay so to finish it up seniors had their graduation last Saturday morning on Memorial Field um I was unable to attend because I was studying but I heard a lot of positive comments um especially on the speakers Ally Saunders and Faith Clark so um yes next up sophomores at cchs took session one of the science mcast today and we're going to finish up tomorrow with session two which will be our last mcast ever I think so that's congratulations ever thank you reason to um so lastly right now students at CC are preparing for final exams which will take place next week

116Monday through Thursday so y That's everything thank you thank you thanks for bearing with our AG agenda change Felicity can I have like a one moment with you so I heard through the gra Vine about a project you did in your English class and I'm not going uh like some sort of presentation you gave um I'm just going to say I didn't know where you live but now I do my mother lives on like an adjacent culdesac to the culdesac that you live on and I am fascinated by I think you gave a speech about some going on in the neighborhood with respect to like the S Cole and it's like all anyone is talking about in the neighborhood apparently you were unbelievably persuasive peaked everyone's interest I told my mom about it and um

117I kind of want to hear your essay one day you might have to I might have you might have to send it to me if you hav't written down I by that too I want to hear this well series minle a sickle I was like um but anyway you were the talk of the neighborhood whether you knew it or not so well done I have heard about de skills too so there may be other members of the neighborhood in the in the audience this evening but um anyway I vote for an A on that project I did get a good grades thank you congratulations Maddie welcome aboard you have big shoes to fill but we have no doubt you'll fill them yeah thank you so much I wish har could be here I think this

118is be his last one but yeah so thank you again yeah thank you all so much thank you good night good night all right all right have some uh exciting the next uh agenda item is pretty exciting some recognition from the conquered education fund laori I might turn this over to you if that's we'll invite them up to the table for sure uh they're here to present this year's Grant award and you know having been able to work with them on the many amazing grants that the teachers have submitted it's been really great to see some recovery post pandemic it's been a slower road to get applications in from the staff and um this year I think we're really all excited by the range of things that were submitted and about 25 grants are being

119awarded um so I'm going to turn it over to them and they can talk on process grants and the big check that we're really excited to see um so hi thank you so much for having us here tonight I know many of you are on the table but I'm Jen Perry and this is Mari Alexander um Bill Stone and Greg wal Mari and I are co-presidents this year of the Ed fund and we're very excited to be here to present you guys with this check for 54,4 put the microphone Che awesome get a clean shot yeah get in here come on I'll get a better one so Bill's GNA give you some more details and some more granularity on the grants but this was um the biggest Grant season the most request that we've had

120in a really long time and um so we're very excited to have had so many grants come in and to be able to find so many grants oh thanks that's for our Zoom viewers because we have some famous alumni in the room too um anyways so I'm Bill Stone uh co-chair with with Greg of the grants Committee of the conquer a fund um first of all we want to thank all of you because we partner with everyone in this room and you guys do such a good job especially this one over here and we work you know hand to hand with principles faculty staff we love what they do we love the way they think and we love getting these grants so um for those that don't know what we do we basically Fund Raising

121the community we have some great sponsors uh a lot of community members donate all we really do 18 volunteers we go out we get grants we redeploy the capital to um Stu basically to to the students to enhance their experience to fund innovative ways of learning um this year as Jen said we've got we had 25 grants applicants um in the past I don't know four years the most we've had is 20 so it's postco it's really it's really it's picking up uh last year was our biggest year because we funded with sponsor learning which it's awesome to hear like how it's going um this year we awarded 54,000 the three main categories we've had had over the last like three or four years um one main category is Wellness mental health Dei um we've

122had a lot of Grants there we've had a lot uh in another category what I call Innovative and Outdoor Learning like just new ways to learn both in the inside and outside the classroom and then the third one is just your your typical like Innovation science technology um so I can go into those grants a little bit more but I'm really we're extreme extremely proud this year we have all three elementary schools we have the middle school we have the high school we always have the high school um two from mecho one from Branch one from launch and two or three from the uh preschool that's amaz so like that's why you have 25 right so anyway um it's been it's been a really good year uh some of the really really cool ones um

123I can't say enough about responsive learning but in the in the mental health Wellness diversity category uh we've got two from EO one is representation and identity formation that we we really loved um we also have a couple of music therapy ones one is for the CIP one is for C cips the other one's for um like the middle school for that Viola no it's for fourth grade fourth grade the viola guy that Viola kid just some Viola guy that's coming in he's going to teach his kids how to play the viol so go on bad Viola kid.com and you'll see who he is um for outdoor and Innovative learning um you know the one we're really most excited about is the teen authors Festival that's a CMS cchs uh kind of co-sponsored and it's

124just bringing in like was it 15 authors that that are going to kind of come in work with the K excuse me work with the kids and then kind of they're they're going to have like a whole like festival carnival about it so uh that's very exciting the solar eclipse glasses was did you set us up well that was a huge hit well you guys kind of set us up well and I went we we love the be that that impact was awesome and I think I've said this but I don't think we UND I did not understand that if we didn't have glasses my colleagues were keeping kids inside in other districts because they didn't have Assurance they were safe can you imagine we didn't have a thought of that didn't even cross our

125minds because this was so well supported so I did not know that Justin Cameron could thank someone so many time every single communication was like thank you to the that was really nice um another one that's really I'm an accountant so I don't understand this one but it's a mini PCR thermocycler which is a genetic analysis tool that I read this one I don't know either none of us read it so Greg's wife's a scientist and she had to like interpret for us so like yeah we think it's really cool yeah um so anyway Googling yeah so that's that's kind of a flavor of some of the ones that we we we're doing there's some stuff with the um you know the radio station things like that there's a lot more authors and like um

126Malin perer has a a World Language person coming in like a lot more of that type of learning so um It's Been a Good Year yeah so thank you very very much thank you amazing and don't unell yourself I mean the work of the Ed fund it's a ton of work um what they won't tell you is they usually run a party they also just did the graduation balloons they had almost 300 balloons that came out a Jen Perry's house nobody will tell you this but they drive around conquered putting balloons at graduates houses and carile and Boston they do all you've seen them everywhere so don't unell yourselves and without the Ed fund I mean it is really for new and Innovative um ideas then sometimes those go into the budget and then the

127budget supports a lot of things you pilot a lot of things I we heard about Q5 Q Q5 I think is one of the more interesting first I they're going to be calling well and I will say the other thing is at graduation you had a big shout out from the co-principals on you know really what the Ed fund has given to the high school so the principles absolutely have an understanding of what's happening and even the evolution it really was you know teachers really coming up with the ideas but now I think the principles the leadership team is also involved which is they're involved but the the teachers are who's coming up with the ideas which I think is so exciting and especially as you can hear the through lines to the school Improvement

128plans and the Strategic plan it's teachers really finding ways to to bring those things to life um so yes we insist on being involved and aware and supportive but um so much of it's growing organically really the the collaboration between teachers the admin team the Ed fund I mean it's really been exceptional so thank you so much for everything you do we're happy to do it happy thank you thank you so much are you going to leave that with me you want a formal pict stand by my office let's get a better picture yeah let's get a better picture yeah you should get you should get you should get in laor you get in you get in you who's taking I'll take it all right yeah cuz they were kind of sitting awkwardly at you

129girls dressed for the picture exactly good pict always thinking you want to get in there you go that's great I think I have a better angle you got it yeah wait who they looking at [Music] awesome have a good night oh totally thank you oh great than awesome to try those all right almost we have uh next is the consent agenda um is there anything on the consent agenda that anyone from the committee would like to REM remove I'll start with that if not um I would entertain a motion to move the consent agenda as written in the agenda so moved second discussion the only thing I would say to our new chairs is I think going forward we should have two separate agendas because it seems awkward for carile members to vote on conquered

130items for next time okay fair enough just a comment two separate consent agendas right one for con we've been we've been voting I know yeah but you could say I for region I for both let's just separate yeah we can do that moving forward it's a great it's it's a good good pickup all right so for tonight though um do we vote all in favor can I can new members vote on the consent agenda yeah yes you can choose to abstain but yeah just want to make sure we're good y okay all right all in favor I I all right good um correspondents I think if we're not mistaken we have there were four to the region I don't know it's hard to tell zero to I think zero Zer I'm doing CPS four to

131CPS on um on the middle school and a congratulations note to Andrew on his election so congratulations Andrew great and there's zero to the region um so we can move on to the next which is um we have our superintendent chairs and liaison reports I think the best way for us to do this is Tracy and Alexa we might hand it over to you to do the chairs because we're OB I don't have on um and then Lori we have you last 15 minutes we have no so I know we're kind of throwing this on you but do you want to have Lori go first sure okay oh sure happy too so I have just have a few updates obviously on the headline has been graduation over the last weekend and as the students so

132eloquently said it was just a fabulous morning um it's always nice when the weather cooperates but it's so much more than that I it's in my own head echoing um and so we're just really glad it went so well thank you oh much better thank you um I think I want to give you an update in public on the assistant interim assistant superintendent of teaching and learning search we have a finalist um we'll be talking about that in executive session so I think we're very close and very excited about that uh in terms of uh the middle school and the name of the Middle School we've been really trying to start to brand that so Mr Cameron when he met with the fifth grade parents even named it as welcoming them to the enland Garrison

133building at conquer middle school so we're really building it into our our semantics and our routines um I've been in been in conversation with the construction team and making sure we're talking about the signage which hasn't begun yet so they know that they need to work with me on how to to make sure that um Ellen's name is really prominent in the sign and given its due time uh you know obviously we're gearing up for a busy summer here we have a number of summer programs happening across multiple schools uh esy the special education summer program will open at alcot on the 24th uh we have case collaborative summer program housed at Willard that'll be coming up in a few weeks after the 4th of July we've added and everything most of what Mr Lucy

134mentioned in terms of our newcomers as Grant funded because the states actually funded that adequately um now they're including some additional summer funds which is good because we started to plan a summer program so we're collaborating with conquered wre for the older kids so grades two and up are going to camp for on scholarships grade one is doing halftime at Willard in a morning program and halftime at camp and the incoming K which is probably one of our most exciting notes given what we learned over the last year the coming K will be spending the mornings at Willard all summer long um and many of them have been at our preschool programs either here at Ripley or I'm going to a preschool graduation in the play Space on Thursday with the volunteers um so we're

135really you know serving serving those students quite well um in addition to that we'll have some small summer programs the Middle School Ry in the late part of the summer Pathways and uh mostly Pathways and launch will run at the beginning and end of the summer slightly different schedules at the high school so we're lots of kids around which is really great um in terms of facilities projects and we'll can certainly talk more on this next week as we really you know focus in on the launch into the rest of June July and August um thorough has no programs on it because the uh hru the eru units are finally here after many years of attempts to get this done um so there'll be a lot of extensive work going on over there that's crane

136involved and otherwise so we wanted to make sure there were no children there um otherwise the other big exciting project that Bob's working on with Russ and team is the retail space over next to CVS and putting together the improvements that need to be done and we're in the bid process there and I'm just really excited about what that's going to turn into so we need a name Angel's got a list in her office so I think that's probably one of the projects over the Summers to hone in on what we're going to call that's great I have my nominations you have a nomination already so we we we'll get back to you on that um so those are the highlights it's really busy and um a great time of year too with all the

137celebrations and festivities yeah wonderful um at sort of at CPS um D's here and I mentioned earlier and I think that um so D and Pat guy will be our Liaisons to the school committee and then on the Carlile side I think that Victor said he was going to continue on to Lea with us so that would be something to just check in with Victor on um I think Lori the Highlight was definitely graduation congrat congratulations Domingos who gave his son his diploma it was pretty awesome I have to say and uh it was great right I mean like there's nothing better than that I I did it last year with my son it was great um it was I mean the day was really exceptional and if you haven't had a chance to look

138at the speeches definitely watched those speeches I mean it it's Lor was all about her why what the kids why was and it just was I mean everyone had to have seen themselves in your speech I have to say yours is the one that I remember your speech and of course Faith was crying and I felt terrible for Faith when she thanked her parents but it was it was really great the student voice and the administrator's voice and just really I mean there is a commitment to the Strategic plan that came out through the speeches not I mean it is intentional but I mean I'm sure you wrote speech is not thinking like oh I better include the Strategic plan like it just it just is so natural and organic it just came it's a

139big at this point yeah y so I encourage you all to watch that um and it was just it was a great day it was a great group I've heard great things about All Night Live um they had I hear nothing about All Night Live I great it was all great uh senior UK was great you know Cynthia I thought of you when they're talking about Senior Week Cynthia and I might have worked on Senior Week for 2018 together and it's all the same stuff it's kimbles it's well now it's Six Flags instead of canaby so um but I think they had a great senior week so just really a great week up at the high school um I did go to the Dei commission meeting last week I continued leas with them and they

140were kind of processing through our meeting last week and yeah and I would say just to meet with I would meet with the chairs of I've met with the select board chair but maybe meet with the chairs of the select board in conquered in Carlile um fincom conquered carile and just kind of do the whole circuit okay thank you so yeah I I read it in your 30 6090 day plan so thank you for again yeah going back to the foundational setup that you both did it we really appreciate it it's not for nothing so it's a good good tool I'm already in the works Lor's been helping me perfect I'm sure the same for Brian going to get this going yeah everything's on the drive yeah it's like our answer to everything on the

141drive by the drive if you if you're good at Google Drive you will be a raging success on this committee if you are not great at Google Drive ask a lot of questions learn it I love the shared drives too like I don't I don't always like that when it's like the shared with me folders but the shared drives I'm like oh I can see everything right here so that that's really been way you've you you two designed it is so intuitive that it really is like when you say it's on the shared drive like it actually is easy to find it's not like you're just searching for through someone brain on how they might you can't always create shared drives in personal Google accounts it's because it's a right you know a school account

142that's why so because I've tried to create shared drives in my own personal and I can't do it and then I had to ask my friends at Google and that's why all right well that's great thank you um both or all three of you I should say um so I think the next we have I have a couple things oh I'm so sorry I missed y thank you um so first of all uh conquered has kicked off their pride month with quite a full program I have to uh I was at the select board meeting last night I'm a bit disappointed they got sort of bogged down in the flag raising um and sort of didn't really celebrate all the wonderful events that are in conquered and Carlile uh we did have an unfortunate event

143in conquer I mean Carlile with the theft of those signs which have been replaced very quickly so um but it there's still work to be done um so look at the it said to go to visit visit conquered or uh the there's another site but visit conquered takes you to the list of events and it's it goes all month long um the other thing is I keep forgetting to ask you Lori so we had our final meeting of the sustainability group and they've done a lot of amazing things so if you could for uh Priscilla's presentation to the rest of the you pass that along so it's in my uh already queued up in my email to all of you over the weekend excellent so um please read that there's just like incredible things going

144on every Elementary school at the middle school and at the high school I mean she's just done a tremendous job as have all of a bunch of people volunteers so check it out thank you yeah thank you thank you I knew I would mess something up so sorry that it's not on purpose any other Liaisons I will say in terms of the Liaisons that was always our challenge as to like how to manage reports and the length and and all of that so yeah well that's why it's good to see it right yeah yeah learn it and I will say just a quick comment to you the the flags in Carl were replaced and and I think they came back with even more so more than 200 now I think it's closer to 250 so

145that's awesome a great sign of support you know that means a lot to me personally so um okay so going now to the action items um oh discussion did I miss that the handbook UniFi the handbook that's what yeah oh sorry that's what I was looking at right we end up listing them twice which you could can decide if you like that we do it in discussion and then again is the action yeah I had it here sorry either way either way all right because they're both oh yeah we don't have to vote on the school committee schedule correct um either the handbook we have the handbook that's what we have to do so I know you're going to cover the handbook yeah I'll I'll open that up for discussion uh just a little bit

146of Storytelling here in the past we've been bringing a K5 handbook a middle school handbook and a high school handbook and we have named for the last few years at least that all three handbooks were just in need of pretty massive cleanup and it had been a goal of ours to get that cleanup done what evolved over the year because desie we had a coordinated program review and uh the handbooks front and center to desie as they do that work and the more we learned and what they needed us to update and talked on how we were going to get to where it needed to be it became really clear that one master handbook was a better way to go um obviously differentiated as needed in a few spots but desie was very suppored of

147that and actually provided us some of the models so there's been a lot of vetting of this it's not just us saying let's just collapse it all together um so I worked extensively with the principles we did a lot of extensive research to look at both other models online take what desie had given us as feedback make sure that all the other sources and you know found the best of what was in the old handbooks and didn't didn't abandon those um so what you have feels really really good to us it's been a long time coming all the policies are updated finally we have one master document to keep updated which feels much more manageable um I know one question you might have is about discipline and the code of conduct by law you can't

148define the consequence to a student Behavior we can only put ranges of Behavior or suggested Behavior Uh consequences it really it has to be taken by law on a very individual basis so this we borrowed from Newton where they highlight what is going to be a mandatory versus possible consequence we liked that that seemed like enough differentiation right off the bat to help communicate to families that if something happens if it says there's a mandated consequence then that's a prescribed action that will happen what that will be is still principl discretion um but we we liked having that range and some of the ways we were doing it in the other books just didn't feel feel like they were all that effective and were pretty messy so um we feel we're really excited by this

149believe it or not and thinking a handbook could be exciting but uh it's much more where it needs to be and going to be much more manageable going forward so I'm happy to take any questions I think it's a lot easier to read isn't it um then three separate ones that it's just I think it's such an improvement so um I support the the change thank you other than like administrative updates I I I think it looks great on right so what they're going to do because we talked a lot about this the handbooks had a lot of informational stuff in them so what they're going to do at the building level is find a way to do that we think the new website is going to be a really key important place for that

150um because to have like the lunch schedule in the middle of the handbook one nobody knew where to find it and two there's another way to do that much more effectively so calling that all out felt really smart and so many so many ways so just a comment I think almost every other school around us especially High School there's 30 chapter 37h I think it says 9 through 12 schools will have handbooks so I know we guess we slide into this with this on the other hand I we're fine to go with this we've got Jess's blessing on this let me finish so um I do think though it's important to have a One-Stop shop especially for the high school especially with our carel students coming in especially with new students coming in where they

151don't think this is where they're going to find all the information I know the principls will be intentional about doing that so they don't have to go here for parking and there for this and they for that you know it's just it's import it's a lot of information to take in and we have to be very clear that this isn't the place to get all that information um the other thing is there are some typos in the table of contents just noticed send those to me we before it goes out um but it is a big change especially I think for the high school less so I think for the elementary because then you know they have a you do this for parking at this elementary school so it probably lends itself better to the

152elementary level maybe a little bit to the but I think I feel like the high school is just it's a lot for families so yeah I think I think we're going to find more effective ways to communicate what you're referencing than where it was kind of buried in here and it wasn't really searchable and so I think you can't really modify it that easily we're going to change the the handbook you just read and everything is changing so um send me any edits if you caught typos we've looked at it so much we don't see them anymore that happens do do parents have to sign this like yeah and technically there's a sign off in Aspen they're supposed to do every fall um we chase people I won't say we don't but there is a

153sign off in Aspen that they have to click that they've read and received got it should they do that Elementary too or no we do elementary okay yeah y that's great I liked it and I liked all the I love all the policy throughout it too I think that that's good to have it all in one spot so thank you for that yeah and really researching handbooks most of what a handbook is is taking the important policies you all do and putting it more front and center so it do of policies which makes it really important they're updated so we'll be able to do that yeah moving great right thank the third item under discussion is the uh 2425 draft school committee schedule um I don't know how you all historically have covered this but

154is there feedback is there yeah so Lori sent out the SK the draft schedule that Erin put together I think um I I don't really have any I I feel like I kind of wonder if we could table this until next week um just to let people see the schedule people see it and think about it and then also let us kind of think about yeah I don't know it and other things yeah my only feedback that I had prior to the schedule was we had talked about this last year that Tuesday meeting of Thanksgiving week yes was always super challenging so I was like no Tuesday during Thanksgiving week that was pretty much the only feedback that I brought before the schedule was drafted so if you see anything else on there I think

155there's one December meeting that was my only thing with respect to the budget managing that but we have to we don't know about town meeting this year right town meeting could be in June what yeah town meeting is like and actually it didn't seem like from their discussion last night at the select board that there were really other any other vial options other than June um unless they looked to uh take may like take the cchs off the table and look elsewhere yeah but I I didn't seem like that was viable and it didn't seem like they wanted April and it seemed like unless something really drastically changed my my takeaway was I'd be willing to bet some money that we're looking at June 2nd for a start date MH that to shift things a

156little bit so yeah so it will shift the timetable hopefully yeah actually that's a significant shift yeah that's ath yeah but you think about even the setup of a June of a Monday town meeting they they actually can't set up till Sunday yeah which will I've been involved in the the whole time Carmen's been really collaborative yeah I mean you might want to go with December 3rd and 17th I can't imagine a December without two meetings given the budget Pace that even with a later town meeting we're still yeah bringing you budgets so I think maybe that would be the ask right to go through it make your notes bring them if you you know so we can go through this maybe email them email them so that we can come with a new proposal

157for next week for me so thanks giving is late this year yeah yeah yeah and Carrie you might need to do a little footwork I do think we're going to need a summer CPS meeting to do some Capital planning work yeah I was going to S well I policy I think probably we will send an email about summer schedules and um yeah so and then also like liaison requests and stuff like that so in the next and then just a couple things there's uh two um there's three bodies that have us as members and not just liaison which is the financial audit advisory committee the peg access committee and the adult community okay so those are to well I'm on faac I'm on Peg I'm supposedly staying on till the end of my term so

158you don't maybe just don't worry about that one and then we have an opening at adult communi and at the and financial audit do we discuss that that need to be one it has to be two people so we do need a replacement for that was that Court was okay that'll be on the master list we're going to bring next week y yeah we'll bring all of that next week and we will send an email asking if you have any like thoughts requests whatnot I think it would be good to have a separate workshop for what for us for the Oh you mean over the summer yeah yeah yeah yeah right so that that will be about summer availability good thank you and I think the best thing about you know having a bunch of

159new folks is um obviously we're you know in in a public meeting we don't have a chance to have I'll say a lot of niceties but I think understanding everyone's interest and expertise would be really great to get to know um just because like you said there are a number of different committees and and different things so' be great to understand that um okay so we'll send a message out it's the 4th we have one on the 11th we'll get a note out for asking for feedback by a certain time okay all right so moving to action item so um I know we had had on the agenda to vote to approve the 2425 student handbook are we comfortable doing that even with slight tapos I think so it's just a TS table contents yeah

160okay great so can I have a motion to approve uh the approval of the 2425 student handbook I moved or I moved to approve the 2425 student handbook seconded all in uh discussion thank you for the work yeah it seems like a minor thing like but it's a huge project it was a big project thank you all right all in favor I hi all right and then we have a vote to approve the CF grants for 2024 that was great to hear about yes I think I'm going to have you add the amount we have to accept the donation of 54470 check the check okay $470 so I move that we accept the conquered education fund Grant of $ 54,4 70 so so moved second second thank you for discussion yeah that was wonderful yeah

161they amazing on record how great F we are for that um all in favor I I okay right all right we are [Music] now going to move to Executive session I believe right is there anything else version of All Night Live totally totally yeah someone should read it um I moved at the conquered school committee and coner Carlo Regional school committee will enter into executive session under purpose to of open meeting law to discuss strategy sessions preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel and the superintendent and under purpose three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the CCTA and the cchs building service workers and not to return to open session second Anderson I a roll call [Applause] in alphabet oh God there's a new alphabet new alphabet oh you guys are there iank

162Rank and I Viola I wat I have to get used to this and I will also move that the conquered school committee will enter into executive session under purpose three of the open meeting law to conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the conquer Teachers Association and the CPS building service workers and not to return to open session second second Anderson I I Moro I I I Biola I nope it's conquer oh just conquer sorry you don't sorry it's hard