Concord Carlisle Joint School Committee - January 10, 2023

001welcome everyone it is 5 31 and I'm going to call the Concord Carlisle Stephanie to order and I'll call the Concord School Community to order and for the notes Aaron all of the uh School free members are currently president and one of the Motions we've done is definitely judgments executive session under purpose two of the open meeting law to conduct strategy sessions and preparation for negotiation to non-union Personnel the director of student services we've done the Open session at approximately 6 pm okay Anderson Eye for both Toronto why for both foreign so up first we have something please fill out the form and you can just as we bring it up to movement but I already have one so Wilson you may join us with potato we recently through the unstable Amendment address that um

002happened actually sorry I didn't hear you we still need to do the stage one name in advance your name and address so we have it for a minute thank you um Wilson uh 136 Laurel Street on Parker Massachusetts um the Past full committee meetings the question of what books should and shouldn't be considered pornographically conveyed this is on top of the book challenges on not all boys are blue and Beyond magenta at CTA and some 30 and some 30 year old sell more and other people I am not here to change mine that has proven a futile caps at this point I'm given sped to provide an alternative narrative to make sure that the school committee knows both sides of this way this is an Essence a struggle for the school and a couple that

003is being paid across schools throughout America and dare I say a struggle that is playing out Across America itself not just in school this is a struggle in which everyone must take aside what is this struggle not only for the rights of the lgbtqia community or for human rights as the United Nations Office of the high Commission of the human rights stated and I quote discrimination against lgbtq people undermines the human rights principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights now taking the stand against pornographic literature is to be lauded include even but the issue is not all boys are blue isn't pornography according to Miller V California sorry according to middle of the California an opinion from the United States Supreme Court itself a book may be banned on grounds of pornography if

004it follows these criteria quote a whether the average person applying contemporary Community standards would find that work taken as a whole appeals to the Pavilion interest B whether the work depicts or the clouds and a patentedly offensive way sexual content specifically defined by the applicable state law and see whether the work taken as a whole like serious literally artistic political or scientific value I can say the point C does not apply there is at least serious political value whether you agree with the politics or not and in my own personal opinion theory is literary value as well Point beads multiply either given that the book's challenge do not present active sexual activity in a patently offensive manner although they do depict sexual activity now perfect um sorry this leaves only 0.1 the most fade and

005therefore we need to post to find philodium now permanent does not actually mean sexual that's a misunderstanding of the term the quote the Oxford English Dictionary Korean means both having or showing too much interest and things connected with that it would be imposed misreading of not all boys are blue to say that it's only poop it's the social activity that is very simplistic understanding of a world to deal with racism homophobia and infectionality through the lenses of a memoir I do not claim to have an in-depth knowledge of the American court system but as far as I can tell neither not all boys are blue or Beyond magenta actually fall into the category of a book that could be banned on ground from pornography and therefore I'm calling upon the accusing quality to drop this

006as it is not going to get anywhere in the end and only so it's the gum of the wheels of the school administration thank you for your time thank you and I will go online yet thank you hi my name is Kristen Haggerty 95 Revolutionary Road in Concord um I wanted to be here today and I apologize that I have missed a few meetings so I'm sure everyone must make this um I wanted to I'm looking at the goals of the superintendent of the goals of the school committee and I've been in listening to some of those meetings of the formulation and I want to make sure that um as you do your work particularly on beib which is often what I comment about that we look at both the inputs and the outputs right

007these are the things that we're doing to you know help move training forward to you know increased requirements about things as well but also think about the output how how are those inputs impacting our students in a subjective and objective way and so to make sure when we are discussing goals and our progress for them we are applauding what we have done so far I have not done any of that but what you have done so far and what the school administration and teachers continue to do and also the work that remains to be done you know what are we doing to make sure that uh on the ground in the school schools we are hearing from students that they feel safer that they feel more included and a sense of belonging in a way

008that we can measure and report on I think those are the important goals the second point that I wanted to make quickly was um about the public comment period And I served on another town board so I understand how lengthy School how lengthy meetings are and appreciate that and just want to understand ways that because you are not responding to public comments ways that the public can understand the deliberations that happen as a result of emails that are sent to you other correspondents that the board receives that the committee receives and how those items are discussed and inform your decisions so if there are opportunities for either longer public comment periods where deliberation can happen and the public can listen I think that would be um insightful into kind of what is going through your

009mind as you make policy as as you make decisions that affect the school thank you thank you thank you let's have one online thank you good evening my name is Robert given the controversial nature of this subject and the Relentless attacks on the Integrity of our teaching profession by writing media we must assure that our school staff is not only kept to the highest professional technical standards but the taxpayers and parents need to improved Trust on them I suggest therefore to establish a blue ribbon commission to examine how to deploy a remote controlled monitoring system on the professionals back that is Teachers administrators psychologists social workers guidance counselors Etc who are indeed a contact with students especially those who suggest the use of these allegedly pornographic reading materials and are in a position to direct

010teach and modify Behavior especially sexual behavior the first goal is to reassure parents and taxpayers like in our schools the professionals staff is driven by only one desire the safety and well-being of the students the second goal is to help prevent unforeseen but admittedly possible misbehavior on the part of certain staff that might give the impression that certain educational materials and they're using class are driven by not yet legal sexual motivation if proven this creates not just educational difficulties but the talent taxpayers are to face expensive lawsuits and body warrant monetary video monitoring system has already been widely deployed on law enforcement professionals and it has been very successful to prevent much misbehavior on one hand and prove innocence on the other everybody wins video cameras may already monitor the students too now is the

011time to money for the teaching profession in the monitoring system contemplated there will be two sensor types deployed on the professional step strings and source for those having X Y chromosomes and moisture humidity sensors for those having x-axis chromosomes and step with different chromosomal distribution would not be required to participate to ease its acceptance completely secure and non-inclusive radio control data collection system is considered the data will prove that the purpose of any encounter with the students is not to arouse the steps actually but it is strictly to enhance the psychological and educational development of the students sadly the internet is full of videos that when taken out of context with mislead parents and then younger deaths in the Integrity of the teaching profession the system will protect them from false accusations and not really

012expect the eager cooperation of the teachers union and finally of course all data collected will be kept secure and confidential but when potentially criminal activities I've noticed they must be turned over to law enforcement and finally absolutely I will be happy to volunteer my time to help the development of such science-based sensing system science is real it is time to take advantage of it thank you for your listening thank you for the back online you might have someone thinking about it would love to hear from you you don't have to be prepared if you just like to speak this up to you can just state your name of that um I was fugen 88 Milford Circle in Concord um I guess just as a young person who's been in the school system for 11 years

013I'm a junior I started I went to Alcott I went to Sanborn and Peabody because the reconfiguration wasn't the thing then um and now I go to cchs and I think uh visibility matters I've had one teacher who looks like me who's also Asian American in my 11 years in the school system and I've you know until this year I'd never had an openly queer teacher who's teaching me directly and I think it's much easier for students to feel alone and feel like there's something wrong with them when there's no visibility to them and so when I was younger and I didn't have adults like openly queer or openly for not openly Asian but you know what I mean when I didn't have adults like that who I could see myself in a lot of

014the places I would turn was to the library and to the Middle School library and to the high school library into the public library in our town and I think uh I think it would do students a disservice to remove their access to books where they might be able to feel seen because unfort like it's high school it is the internet is a vast space um if you're worried about your children find coming across content that you don't want them to see I think that's up to you but that's between you and your child but I think removing access to books from a public library it's not a decision that's fair to make for other parents and I think it's oh I think there's not enough importance placed onto the great good it will do

015for students who feel team in that way and I think if there's one child who has helped by the presence of a book in the library but I think that that Focus could have a place there um so thank you thank you for your comments thank you okay and I'll just look online live anybody else online they're closing out online any other comment in the room I mean if you'd like to if you'd like to make a public comment you have to come up to the mic and you have to be a resident of the town you may not make a public comment thank you thank you anyone else um this is someone online sorry oh okay your raised hand feature isn't working sorry Rachel would you like to um yeah I just want to

016say uh much appreciated sorry can you just state your name and address for the minutes I'm sorry go ahead uh Rachel freed um Concord Street in Carlisle um I just want to say thank you to the student I didn't catcher name who spoke up I think we need to be listening to those most impacted when we think about this work um and that is the students in the school um so I just thank you for the school committee for opening the space tonight and let's Center those most impacted in this work that is what diversity Equity inclusion work is all about um thanks again thank you all right thanks we're ready to close up public comment and move on to our cchs student update so we have with us Perry and I know I saw

017Felicity oh Daria Daria there she is okay yep just give me one minute to screen share okay um so yeah this is our student update um yeah fussy do you want to get started sure so well first of all happy New Year to all of you I know it's been 10 days but this is our first meeting of the new year and student Senate has also been planning a number of events for the upcoming months like Valentine's Day Celebrations we're also thinking of doing an art night and maybe a color run so there are lots of fun things coming up for the high school yeah for sure and then um we've also been spending some time as like a group discussing some different issues in the school one of the things that came up a

018lot and we've certainly seen in the week before midterms is sort of restructuring the like coordinated testing days we have right now the way it works is during like a big week where a lot of teachers are going to assign tests or other big projects like that the school tries to have this overarching structure so you don't end up with like a lot of tests on one day but I think from the student point of view and also kind of the teachers it could be done in maybe a slightly better way um a lot of times it just seems like it's a little bit unflexible and teachers feel like they're forced to be testing kids on a certain day that might not necessarily work best for the kids in their class and also as expected

019there has been a bit of an uptick in sickness after break um I don't know about Harry and zarya but at least in my classes there hasn't been like too many people out which is good news so far yeah for sure um and then also this Thursday and Friday midterm exams are next week at the high school so we're gonna have reading days on Thursday and Friday um and I think it's definitely a high stress time at the school but it's good that everyone's starting to get prepared a little bit earlier and those reading days are really going to help out to have some time in class to actually work on things thank you oh and then also the intersections Club is collaborating with the Esperanza project to provide underprivileged children in Honduras with clothing

020so they have a bunch of donation boxes around the school where people can drop stuff off so that's really great I think it's only been going on for a few days but we're excited to see the results of that once they wrap it up um and also I know I talk about chorus and Performing Art stuff a lot um the pop-up concerts that we had the day before winter break were also very popular um and yeah that was really fun and also zarya you want to talk about the cookie Fest advisory activity that we spent like five minutes on at the last meeting yeah um well good news is both me and Felicity won so all right we're like amazing um I mean she made red velvet and we won I got breast presentation she

021got uh best tasting yeah best flavor okay so that's that's always fun uh it was really successful I think everybody enjoyed their cookies um seemed like everybody had a good time it was fun yeah and zarya I hope you noticed that I told Harry that we should put include the photo that has you in it yeah I also agree that was definitely like a really fun way to see a lot of like classmates um who we don't usually have that many classes with it was just it was really fun yeah and lots of cookies yeah we also did it with the Freshman I'm like I'm a student advisor for an eighth grade advisory so they had their own which was really fun and I think it's also coming to the Juniors and seniors in February

022oh I didn't know that that's exciting to them we'll get to enjoy it for sure yeah well thank you so much sorry I know it's a bit of a quicker update this week no thank you right thank you can you can I just ask a question about reading days so do you still have homework on reading days or not of course my high school kids haven't told me about the reading days yet so this is all new information for me which is great um it's a little bit of like a under the radar thing because the two days before midterms we would probably just be reviewing for the exams anyway but yeah technically like teachers aren't allowed to assign homework for that night and then also in class we're not allowed to cover any new

023content oh okay okay but similar to the past but maybe with an official yeah for sure it's just they've given like a more we always called it that I don't know that was publicize it that way but yeah well your update was excellent as usual and don't ever worry about being brief we love the updates so keep it coming and if you ever want to come to a meeting you know where we are thank you thank you where'd they go nope okay thank you thank you guys right and I will moving on to recognition so Dr printer I'll turn it over to you foreign [Music] and some kind of not happening in the movie out there you can find it so there's a breakfast community breakfast really on Monday morning starting at eight o'clock at

024that high school um our pchs kitchen staff is preparing that and we're covering costs of that um then the movie I could find it if it pulled it up uh is a topic really pertinent to racial history that's a two-hour viewing I know core through the work they've done through the licenses to show it in multiple settings around town um and we're just excited to collaborate and invite people in to have Progressive have watched the movie together as a real method of hopefully promoting and equity and inclusion in town and maybe some conversation to follow all of that's at the high school Monday morning thank you Aisha for finding that for me great thanks man I thought to the teachers I told them 6 30. okay so you know we'll just keep going on um

025Alexa and I will talk for correspondence you want to go first sure we had um one correspondent piece of Correspondence at BCF um talking about abortion and we had two at the region uh one about literature and one just about you know something that happened in an extra particular event that was all we had there and I think we could probably just move right into our discussion just because we have a little bit of time let's try and be efficient tonight so um superintendent evaluation I'm going to turn it over to Alexa to talk about that briefly sure so um we one of our most important duties is to evaluate the superintendent um that is done through a very prescriptive process that is um that is is sort of done uh with a Desi form

026we do use that form so it's again it's pretty it's pretty prescriptive most School committees use it um it in it involves each of uh the school committee members to submit an individual evaluation and then there is a small Committee of it's historically I think it's been two people um who then synthesized the six seven um seven individual evaluations submitted by our school committee members into into a summary um evaluation that eventually gets presented at um our meeting so um that process um usually concludes in June um I'm I think that we have two sort of to Do's um if you guys could if anyone's interested in doing um the the aggregated review I did it last year with or I did it two years ago with maybe Heather about I think um so it's

027um it's a it's it's a heavy lift um and so far as you know you you're you're doing some work here um but it's not too heavy at the list um so if you could email Tracy if you're interested in um doing that work and then in the meantime um I will get out the form that we used um and then because we have so we have three members who have not participated yet in this process um I know we had two years ago Dorothy pop into a meeting I think it was just done soon Dorothy our Mast ref to sort of do a quick review of how we do um an evaluation and if especially our three members who haven't participated in that process just send Tracy a quick email if you think that'd

028be helpful um we can do that a couple of ways we could do it in the public sort of in a meeting let's carve about 20 minutes or we could set up maybe even something um at a more convenient time I I don't know um what would work but um yeah and I will say I have a few there are a few different apps on the agenda tonight and there are actually seven slots um I went I just realized that's today while I was doing my preparation for like um two for superintendent evaluation we had some bargaining um jobs that we need people to do somebody would sit on the directive student services so maybe if you can email me your priority like list of what you would like to do first and we'll I'll

029try and fit everybody in and just disperse the work through all members if that's okay with everyone so just kind of a priority list you have to hear everything later in the discussion towards the end I'll just give you the quick rundown and you can say what you would like to be done might be worth knowing that particular one is more asynchronous than synchronous yeah if depending on your yes any of the needs and and the and the majority of the work come in the early late May early June time frame so that's um we'll we'll have probably several weeks as individual members to evaluate to to fill out our own evaluations and then um probably like two a week or two um for the mid-age event synthesize okay and they asked he was making

030changes [Music] yeah I mean so the way that Jesse um without getting too detailed um Jesse has their own rubric so essentially a template for the evaluation it has you know I forget if it's four or five different categories um and then so so part of the so there's a secondary lift I suppose too the two people who um will be on this sort of subcommittee the the form is lengthy and there are several categories and Subs not categories but subcategories that won't really pertain to our year so what we do is we evaluate their very lengthy rubric and we pull out what are called Focus indicate haters so they sort of narrow our lens on the evaluation so part of The Upfront work is working with the superintendent and the other person on the

031committee to say okay what were the superintendent schools this year what were ours and what in this lengthy rubric is relevant to this year because not all of it will be frankly so um that's a good point so part of what we do in terms of customizing their form is through that the hearing is two members yeah it's again there's just those Focus indicators and I know at least since I've been on there was no but it was just sort of brought to us that wasn't really up for discussion but take that and I remember watching two years ago and Dorothy came to the meeting to kind of explain I was not on the committee at the time I think I was getting ready to join and she explained you know how you should be

032doing the evaluation so that might be worthwhile to do again I haven't done it Harry hasn't done it Sharon hasn't done it so the three of us are new to this anyway it was interesting and Dorothy does a very good job at that so yep great thank you for that um and just after the meeting I'll probably just send an email on the jobs that we're looking for um just to kind of go through like what the timing looks like what the lift is whether it's evenings in person or on your own time thanks right you think we have our I have Mrs Walsh is here are both of the students here yes Tucker Norton and Christopher Lynch I see their names there I can see his face now Christopher Lynch's can everybody see them

033yes we can thanks very much okay so we're going to be just I'll just quickly tell you a little bit about the program for those that are listening and then Tucker and Chris Christopher will both speak just shortly they won't do the whole presentation because that would take a good you know 45 minutes um but they'll just talk to you about what they did so quickly I will read what the global competence certificate program is so the Concord Carlisle High School Global competence certificate program aims to Foster students Global awareness and Empower them to identify their role as Global Citizens while gaining an appreciation for other world cultures viewpoints and perspectives exploring new cultures provides cchs graduates with the essential skills for participating in and contributing to an increasingly globalized Society um students we're what

034we're looking for in these students is basically is to think globally to have an increased knowledge of their relationship to the world think about issues from a Global Perspective gain an appreciation for other world cultures viewpoints and perspectives communicate effectively improve their foreign language skills or World language skills and their ability to communicate with people across cultural language divides and contribute responsibly use their Global Knowledge to interact and build relationships with people from other cultures demonstrate respect open-mindedness understanding and flexibility and behavior and thinking helping others to embrace multiple perspectives and our students so that's what our that's what our page just kind of talks a little bit about the program the requirements our students need to do and I'm looking at this so sorry for the my eyes aren't looking at the camera um

035our students must um be in good academic standing have strong attendance record um and they must model the core values of cchs our students are are studying in a language but it doesn't mean where they go is necessarily the language they're studying but we like to have them have studied at least three years of language or for example many of our students are growing up with another language in their household we like to recognize that the students do a minimum of 20 hours of volunteer or service work um and they are it's they are challenged to connect and interact directly with another culture and it doesn't need to be necessarily language they're studying but again many of our students have families in other countries and we like to recognize they go home and they do

036or they go visit their families in other countries and they do service work in those countries um and they speak another language and so we like to recognize all of the work that they've done many of our students travel abroad um other ones volunteer locally so we have an example of each Christophers did um a project in Watertown through the library and Tucker went to a different type of program where he had to speak Spanish and he did service work and I'll let them both tell you about that so students can they don't have to travel which is really important because some families can travel in other families can't afford to travel or they don't have the time so we have lots of opportunities for students to do this um this work uh in the

037area uh depending on you know where they want to be we've had students do it Lawrence Boston or from your home on the zoom working tutoring and students traveling all over the world as well so they do a three-page reflection after they write a reflection about what they gained from the experience how much they learned and how they'll use that in you know with whatever whatever they choose to do in their future they talk about the experience and they present us with a a slideshow or Google Presentation and show us what they've learned or they can actually show pictures with the kids that some of them are teaching students or building schools and so they talk to a group of people and explain all the work that they've done and then they're presented with this

038award and um a lot of them it helps when they are applying to colleges but I think most of them are not doing it for that reason but it definitely is a nice thing to add on so most of our students that are finishing it up just they can do it earlier but are more Juniors and seniors but I've talked to lots of fresh 9th graders and 10th graders and students that are looking to do this they get the information and then they start to look into programs different programs that they'd like to do so I'm going to introduce Crystal I want to switch back to the zoom screen let me see if I can sorry um Christopher and Tucker um are both going to talk about just a couple minutes each about what they

039did and um so Tucker I'm not sure if you can see him Tucker Norton is a senior and Christopher Lynch is a senior uh right now at cchs and I'll let uh Tucker since you're next I can see you next to me would you like to start yeah sure I'd love to start um so hi I'm tiger Norton uh senior at high school like I miss washer said I conquer Carlisle and um basically what I did is I had the um I had the opportunity to work with a bunch of great people down in the Dominican Republic through a service group called vision service adventures and during my time I was there for three weeks and all of July of Summer 2022. and during my time I basically worked with the locals and worked with

040visions to help build a cafeteria that um will have uh 300 local kids that what time the school they will eat there every single day and uh before it was just kind of like a little um area where there was just kind of not it wasn't really sanitary or like anything like that and there wasn't really any shelter it was just kind of like a roof with sticks and we built uh we built the cafeteria with concrete and cinder blocks and stuff like that um and we also helped run a day camp and another school there was like a mile down the road and during that time we would um exchange like the kids would show us Spanish well we show them English and the English phrases and stuff like that and it was just

041a really great experience for me and for everyone around me that was doing it with me and I'm just really grateful that I had this opportunity and I just feel like I did this in a spot in my life where I wanted to escape conquered and where I wanted to work internationally to help benefit others which I feel like I accomplished and um through this I got to express this through the global competency that uh with Miss washa and Miss O'Brien helped provide through the school and I'm just really grateful for that and um how many hours did you do total do you I most students do way more it was I did six equal hours of community service yeah okay all right great and thank you okay Christopher would you like they have uh

042presentations but we can provide them I don't know where I would send them but they're they're great so you can send them to me it's Lori and I'll get them to the committee that would be great we'd love to see them yeah okay great thanks and this is Christopher Lynch and I let him um speak now yeah hi um so yeah my name is Christopher Lynch I'm also a senior at the high school and um I actually started this work all the way back during my sophomore year so that was when code was really prevalent and um I was looking for a really meaningful project and um my my grandparents happened to be immigrants of this country and um you know my mom was um even though she wasn't an immigrant she was born uh

043only a year after my grandparents immigrated so um you know she's told me a lot about her experience as an immigrant um and Miss washer actually um uh brought to project literacy which kind of has the goal of um of of giving people who are non-uh they English is in their their primary language the native language um giving them um language skills and um so that was really meaningful for me just because my you know the only the only reason you know I'm here at Concord is um you know because my my parents my grandparents really valued the education um so with my time at project literacy um I tutored um her as Marta um she was she's a Spanish immigrant from Spain um she's actually from Madrid and um yeah it was really cool

044we met once a week every Friday afternoon and um you know I've always wanted to um ta they call it at the high school um and so this is kind of my opportunity and um we read I think the highlight of my time my throat was reading A Long Walk to Water it's actually happens to be a book um the the CMS reads and um you know through this book it's about a refugee um and you know we both found that um because we were kind of looking at um Jose Michelle's experiences and thinking oh this is so different um we actually performed a lot of connections between our cultures um and that was just really cool you know um a smaller Santa um it's called it's basically uh it's kind of like the Spanish

045equivalent of Christmas and um you know even though the Traditions look a little different um it was really cool to kind of hear some of um I guess her customs and um yeah um and so we you know as the week's been on we really got to know each other and we still talk um from time to time now when um yeah I think also just going back to the teaching because that was um I guess one of the big reasons why I did project literacy um it's also really cool to be able to make um kind of our lessons really meaningful to Marta you know project literacy has like a curriculum you can use but I found really quickly that um you know Marta you know had like very specific things she wanted so

046for instance um uh being a waitress you know we had to do flash cards specific for that um and yeah I really just enjoyed um being able to to be a part of her journey and um yeah we ended she ended up passing the TOEFL exam which was um really great um I'm really proud of her and um you know I'm really happy I got to be part of her um I could be part of her journey I guess you could say um yeah so could you could you quickly what project literacy is it's and where it s place so you were to Martha um and how many months did you tutor Mark I just quickly just explained our students do that don't travel yep so um yeah so I would say it was about

047a year um trying to think back yeah a little over a year um yeah I'm project literacy is kind of just um the non-profit that basically um gives people who aren't native speakers um they have English speakers um uh I guess just like language skill I guess you could say um and again that was really important for Marta because she was hoping to pass the TOEFL exam so thank you yeah they um so you worked with her an hour a week so that was the way that you gained a certificate for over a year and then other students travel and we have other students that come up with different opportunities their parents work in hospitals and we have a student who has a parent that works in Boston his doctor and so one of our

048students went in to the award where they it was um where people were being treated for cancer and the children people who didn't have a place to bring their children or leave their children who would bring their children in and one of our students they were all Spanish-speaking children and they would come in and he would help them in their school work give them art classes so they can be very creative with what they do if they don't travel and we try to look for something that matches with different students that do this program so it's a very special program and very special kids uh that's that's a very small portion of it and every year we have more students doing it uh these were the last two to present so we'd like to thank

049you both for coming on here it's kind of it's a lot but thank you and you did a great job thank you thank you yeah thank you so much for both of you spent that amount of time you know really giving your own time to others and that you can do it if you travel because I think that before it used to be more you would do it for travel but you can still be here and participate in the program and I just had a question and then I'll leave it to the table to see if anybody has another question how many kids do you think you have doing the certificate like every year before covid we had a lot more I think because then when people a lot originally a lot of students that

050just happened to travel in the summer um those were the students who first started to do it uh I'd say probably each year 10 to 15 originally and then covet happened and then travel couldn't happen so we had to be very creative um on how to do it although some of the students like Christopher did product literacy um that was kind of the only option those kind of programs for a little bit and now it's picking up again I just met with a student today who's going to do it in Sicily um another student who so they're they kind of trickle in so I'd say right now we're more at like four five six a year um and probably as we move towards traveling more and more um I think it will hopefully go back

051to you know around 10 a year right yes um hi Rachel um I've I have a quick question so kids do they find you like this doesn't seem to me like it's a model un Club this seems to be more like a custom experience so how do kids know how to find you and how is this program how do you guys get the word out so we put it in cchs news in the student news um sometimes that's hard because there's so many messages there that I think they get lost and that's not that's just the way it is and make uh announcements uh a lot of students in language classes hear about it what we're going to do and Tucker and Christopher I'm not sure if you would mind but Tucker has agreed to

052go to different classes and just present um in 10 minutes and I I'm sure I know Christopher very well he wouldn't mind either just presenting 10 minutes to you know to different classes not just Spanish obviously um but kind of do a little Traveling Show with me we haven't done that in the past because I think more people knew about it um it's just really kind of coming back and so one student did just come to find me today who I don't have as a student so it's nice to know the word is getting out more but it's definitely not out enough so I would love to take these two in previous another student Alan Crouch who also did it last year he's there still um Isabella Dorian have them maybe help me out a

053little bit and attend other language classes um maybe making an announcement an advisory that could also give it some attention it is posted there and it has been posted we have meetings but um also students work at their own pace which is kind of nice so I will be meeting with like Tucker one minute and then Christopher but they're in different paths so it's kind of an it's an individual experience but students can always write to me and I can meet with them but we need to get more of the word out I think just in general beyond the way that it's happening now so um they have agreed to do that so hopefully we will do that soon um and get some of the students going on that again right anyone else have any

054questions or comments for business I'd like to say thank you not only for sharing the experience but more importantly uh sharing with us your motives for doing it I think that we all benefit and are uplifted by the altruism that uh drove you to come to this program and uh support others the way you have described tonight so thank you both very much yeah thank you yeah they're great kids thank you thank you all right let's start a discussion hey um I'm Sue that for a business our superintendent's goals update thank you so we've done this in different ways this year this is the format it's taking where I am bringing you an update mid-year and then my job in the evaluation process is to provide you evidence and documentation and make sure you have

055access to the work that we've been doing so I'm going to just I've put a lot here but I'm not going to go through all of it so I thought I'd just highlight a few things and then take any questions that you have knowing you've spent time reading it um and it's also a nice reminder of the goals I'm working on and I think they'll correlate well with the ones you're going to to talk about that you took on of the committee so uh just to go in order and highlight different pieces some of them overlap so I actually want to start with you look at the work here that we've been doing on inclusion and research-based intensive Services the common thread of professional development that we saw as a very strong need and needed

056to be addressed that we were able to provide training to all staff on a consistent basis so we've done that through the faculty meeting at all of the schools um and we took the beginning of the year we took all the meetings over the course of the year and divided them up in three categories and this hits a number of the goals so it's worth talking through um one being beib one being mtss and one being special education um we asked the central office leaders of each so Mr nimichi Kristen Herbert and Debbie Dixon each have a three-part series that they are traveling with to these faculty meetings so all of our faculty meetings monthly are now training we're not doing any of the management pieces and administrivia that we were doing they're completely based

057on on these trainings um at least half if not the whole thing so at least a 45 minute session uh so three in Debi three and mtss and three in special education um it's been really my pleasure and privilege to get to some of these meetings I happen to be at Willard yesterday with Mr nimichi and just being able to hear the delivery in a consistent way that's what the central office leaders are offering is the consistency but the fact that we have everyone there I think some of you have been at different meetings where we've talked on um the depth and strength of our optional settings and we knew there needed to be a base built that all staff are participating in I think we see success in that we're reaching all staff and

058having really rich conversations I think we're all feeling the tug of using that time for only this purpose and maybe there'll be some talk on how how else we can get the time in and maintain the mandated you know Global training so that to me has been one of our biggest accomplishments it's building us a Common Language across all those major topics and work that we're doing and a consistency and a rule out in the way we're building structures so I wanted to just highlight that as a pretty significant impact that's happening across all of the school um if I go to the next one and talk on a bit of mtss you've actually had some of the data come to you that'll continue to happen as the work evolves I think academically we're built

059strength and depth and being able to service students based on the data the next goal will be to build that in social emotional um I was able to attend a webinar last week with some of the work Kristin's bringing in and that outside um there's actually programs now that divide tier one two and three in social emotional strategies our goal was to build both the screeners and be comfortable with the tools we're using and then to to build in tier one which is why we're talking fly five and responsive classroom and then work on the actual you know specific work that we're going to do that's more targeted it's kids are identified um so I think that's got a long way to go with the social emotional the academic it's fairly solid and we're building

060data cultures that uh teachers are reviewing data regularly and kids are being serviced based on that data every six weeks or so at all of the schools so I think we're making great gains and you'll certainly see evidence of that as the year continues and the beta is brought to you in terms of looking at student well-being we've done some rebooting of challenge success and sharing that information um I mentioned five five and responsive class and that's a major part of the work this year is that Elementary piece and then just trying to really be sure it's the priority a priority if not being priority in one for looking through so many of the work that we're doing um I think you know you've heard the kids talk about what just you know an attempt

061like we need the feedback from them and attempt to say no tests on this days sometimes means they just backlog into the days prior and if we don't ask the students how that's playing out in their world the attempt to make change doesn't matter the thing I want to focus on the most here is the high school schedule because I am front sitting in that right now um because it's both got a bargaining piece to it but also in Mike masculo's absence and we're working really collectively as an entire High School staff which I think has been really exciting I think the conversations even leading to the schedule are about all of these topics that we're talking about whether it be equity and access or intervention and support to students it's such a student-centered conversation

062that I think that's been really important and Powerful on many many levels at the high school have been a couple of really really amazing staff meetings over there where they've looked at yrbs data inform the scheduled decisions and Deb Jemison as Metro director is talking with the staff about how we've never had a medical student on our student Senate because access to the clubs is too late in the day and after school like the staff was horrified to hear that and as we all should be so I think the schedule is breeding a structure to address student well-being but it's also equity and access and everyone will name that the schedule is is the vehicle to so much and it's just been a really exciting time it's 20 years in the making of trying to

063put a new schedule and not for lack of trying not being able to find one that could successfully be agreed upon um so the thing I'll highlight there that's I think driving our energy is we're going to be building in flexbox we're still working on all the details as to what that looks like um students are able to sign up to meet with teachers on what their needs are teachers are able to invite kids kids are able to have a study and just do work and catch up like the plethora of we've met with a lot of schools like the array of what the options are is pretty wide and it really is about what we want it to be but just a common time a couple you know times a week a few times

064a week where the buildings all available to mix match do things right now we're always competing up against you're supposed to be here so for us to be basically got to pull you out of that and sort of that ebb and flow is going to be much much more fluid um so we've had a lot of great discussions with other schools that have done this and excited by the energy they're they're sharing I've been really excited by the energy with teachers are bringing to it we're honing in on a version a version that's going to be ready for some sharing with kids we need to get back to the staff the last we met with them we had a few versions on the table that were sort of you know narrowing down um I won't

065say this has been easy this one really hard conversation along the way too a lot of of consensus on the goals the how to get there is sometimes a lot of discussion but um boy what a what an amazing collaborative effort and we're able to have the hard conversations and I think that alone is growth so more to come for sure that evolved but that's that's a really exciting piece happening at the high school in a way I think I would have had a lot of firsthand but I probably have more than expected and that's been really a satisfying experience for me so um I think the last one I'll highlight and then we can talk on whatever um is of interest to you rather than going through all of these one by one um

066we've been really working on the feedback loops the communication input and really seeing that our core values mean we need feedback and input we don't do things in isolation that is just how we want to operate so the informational piece and I know you get a lot of this feedback from just communication and how to do it so people know what's happening um trying to use as many mediums as we have has been the more recent approach figuring um if there's multiple opportunities people are more likely to see things uh so we're all we've got all the buildings on social media we have most of them on but not all so we've got accomplished that so we know that that's a place we can share and celebrate and are trying to really um formalize that

067process a little bit more we've been starting to talk on how to assign people to it rather than sort of this ad hoc administrator thing that's going on right now um the Friday newsletter coming out of my office that evolved as you all know and now feels like it's got a more user-friendly format it's certainly got a more media friendly format um and we're just trying to streamline that as a place that people look not only for my message which is still really important to me that they're my personal message there not all superintendents do that there's often a newsletter and it's all just the added stuff from other people but it's super important that my note is there and then really having that Collective Hub of a central district but um people are valuing

068that we're getting feedback like that so um and then I think the last is we did a lot of surveys in covid and sort of slowed ourselves down I think everyone had a little survey fatigue but the equity audit that you'll be hearing about next week was a great experience that we obviously brought back this year and had a great response we're going to put out one for the Strategic plan and the gift of the survey is if you're not able to be at a focus group or you're not sitting at a table with a particular committee everyone's voice is heard and so the strategic planning survey is going to go out imminently later this week or it for parents to fill out staff even though all of them were at faculty meetings we want

069to be sure that even the quiet voices that were there maybe didn't are heard and then we're going to survey all the high school students because that voice Harry and team did a great job of a focus group and bringing their feedback but that was 40 some kids and there's 1300 so we're gonna we're gonna catch them is on captive and do it in advisory so they all mostly have to do it and that's been an important step in other surveys so so that I think you've got a big list there and I'm happy to talk on any pieces you're interested in or ask answer any questions um and I will update this at least once more this year later in the year if not between now and then in my dream world it's like

070a running list that I update weekly and you can also see this live document that hasn't somehow played out practically um but I do want to keep you aware of what happens thank you question um on the district bulletin can you see what the readership is like on that for sure sure yeah do you feel as though it's getting read yeah I think it's for the most yes I do um you know we'll never be able to say 100 but it does seem both if you look at the statistics of who's opening it that's what we can see um but then the feedback we get there seems to be some nice solid leadership there which I think was the important part to me was to build an angry date of the week that it was

071expected and anticipated and I actually picked Friday because of the parent I saved all those things I still did save them all till the weekend and read them all then and I thought why not make it fresh on a Friday so thank you really great really great um any questions or comments right sorry Cynthia sorry I think you mentioned the youth risk survey with informing you on making some detention for your gardening schedule and various other things when will we as a commitment go through that data I think we could talk about that or we didn't have it scheduled per se but Kristen oversees that and she's due for some various updates so we can certainly bring that it is online if you want to look at it right but right yeah we're happy to

072publish it along with the chairs about the community what to bring unfortunately because it's um quite expensive yeah it's very and it also prepares us against some of the other districts it's really pretty interesting um and we've added a lot of new questions that's really good yeah so we can bring that back when Beyonce comes back yeah thank you and if anyone Kristen is it is at a CEF meeting tonight so she's actually working with CEF on a significant uh ask to fund the training for five five and responsive classroom across the elementary school so he's with the high school talking with them so I'm grateful for their interest in even hearing more about it as they decide what they're yes about the mcf desk about like how do you attract little is it I

073mean it's such a is there any tracking of the usage or the availability or other two systems or right teachers availability to students I mean because you know if someone's getting HP or two intervention or that stuff is also monitored this stuff instead is a little more I actually think the schedule is going to firm up firm that up because there's actually a very robust software platform that the kids have to tell us where they're going to go or they're invited by the teacher so the accountability changes in terms of this is flex block can be an intervention block for students who need it to be so students who go seeking help will be tracked because that's how we're going to know where they are during that block students who get invited by a teacher

074are going to be tracked because we all know that the teacher invited them and they have to be accountable to arrive so I think the software is going to fill a lot of what you're talking about and it'll drive all the scheduling and locations of the flex Block in terms of right now it all depends if they're invited to a really formal intervention then certainly we're expecting them there at a time and date in a class period I think you're probably referring more to the drop-in support and like accommodations that a teacher made oh in the classroom like in classroom offer to a student um tracking that's harder for sure yeah more think on there yeah yeah an interesting thing one thing we are working on dcap is the district curriculum accommodation plan that we're

075mandated to have Debbie and Kristen have been resurrecting ours they're building based versions of them but we have to have one at the district level and ours has been on the show for quite a while we actually feel like we need to build that back get that in front of teachers and just remind them the array of accommodations that are available to them to support kids how we track it though still has me pondering that yeah um and then one of the things that came up I was in one of the uh part of the Carlisle based Forum about the specific plan and a conversation that we ended up having in a small group there was gentlemen who talked about getting mental health and the importance of focusing on all of that and she brought

076up a good point he said everybody wants to talk to them we talked about them yeah I think we could talk about everyone talks about multiple tasks for Success he said but I have yet to really be able to wrap my brain around how children are how the students are presented multiple times yes and where those multiple paths and those kids like where does the path end right and how do you utilize them absolutely I thought it was a good it is a good point sort of and maybe that's part of the next five years as it goes well with this conversation about the schedule about right as a way of of kind of reinforcing and veteracy yes not only idea of multiple paths but actually yeah you know utilization from conceptual to concrete yeah

077that's a great point and I guess I'll just find it you know we I didn't really name a strategic plan it's on the list here but we're excited with where that is the administrative team this morning sat and took the work of the last big group meeting and we have to make it look like it wasn't written by 50 people so we did a little bit of you know consistent language and some things like that and just being back in it again this morning for two hours it's really exciting to see what the collective feedback has come up with for next pieces and where we're going to be going so more to come on that too and when is that next meeting the next meeting is in February I don't have a date right in

078front of me but coming up okay so the survey goal the survey results need to be back that's why we're going to try to get that out so that'll help inform and then um the large group will be convene and reflect on all where we're at right thank you in regard to the high school schedule um and maybe premature to Ash pits uh but I'm curious in order to create Flex time does that ultimately need more time or does it mean uh somehow working within the confines of our current school today all within the school right it's other than the current school day we're reallocating the time um it could mean a little bit that's a big part of the discussion that is happening is where that balance is and how we make it successful

079decade are you talking to your microphone sorry sorry no wonder it's been an efforts a decade-long effort yeah and we're those are great questions and we're looking at that very quantitatively obviously in terms of number of minutes but we also need teachers being very qualitative about like what does that impact have so we've had department meetings a number of them we've had cross-department meetings because what we what we learned was math might have one perspective that isn't quite the same as social studies and to get to a schedule we have to have both of them talking together um really rich really really rich pedagogical instructional conversations that happened through the future do we have a structural uh limitation called 900 hours something like that yeah we still have to meet the 990. if the gift

080we had is we had room so we've got some we're not upright against it so um we've got some room to work within that and still be and come up with flexible that is a huge issue in other districts our our school day is is long enough in the way we've structured things previously has given us a little bit of play there not to alarm anybody who's listening in but uh could the change ever impact uh school hours at uh I will say very loudly no okay so that one's off the table yeah this is contained to the high school within the day as we know it the way our District's operates but yeah absolutely and it will not touch start time either no no none of those Basics are changing it's all within the

081eight o'clock to 241 anyone else hey thank you so much very informative and that brings us on to our symphony goal so I feel like this really goes together quite nicely so election's going to share um our current schools make goals and the two of us are just going to kind of bring us through to remind us you know where we're at what we're doing um some things we've accomplished already we have accomplished a lot and when you Alex and I did the exercise this week of kind of going through here and where anyone else that has anything to add that we've left out please feel free to add it on because it does make you feel a little bit better when these boxes are filling up with things that we're doing so um um

082our first goal was around Communications both internal and external um so as you'll see we are most of what we're doing is is ongoing in so far as um these are when we're talking about communication it doesn't start in September we don't get to achieve it by October this is something these goals will in fact be ongoing for June um because they're all um important we obviously completed our first round of fall coffees we will be doing those in the spring as well so that's why that doesn't get a complete um we continue to leverage the superintendent's distribution list and um her social media um we are we are going to start um Lori does right now put school committee updates in the weekly message I'm sure you guys see them they they um they

083do consistently appear um we have not yet sort of put one in our own voice with our own sort of written message you know whether or not we need to do that I'm not sure but um that's that's an option as well did every did he send that QR code yes I sent out the QR code with my little graphic oh we we did finally get that done I have the idea Sharon's all over that I have the idea I wanted her to create nine individual ones and I wanted us to game it and I wanted um us to see who could get the most I figured Domingos would win but I was willing to not be the winner in this film but we have just the one um but in any event um you

084could just screenshot that on your phone um put in your photos save it and if you happen to be somewhere be like hey are you subscribing I mean not I do think part of the struggle is and not as I just as the new year just changed I moved things into my junk mail like from my personal email address like nobody wants to get another email but I do think it's important to make the attempt to get people to subscribe to our community I think that throughout the book quite snazzy yes um so I appreciate that like yeah tell us we wanted to double it right yeah we were we started to double it I think we thought it 200 400 I don't remember two months I don't remember under 300 okay under 300. that's

085under them keep talking okay so um uh next uh Tracy has done some work we are going to have a round table with other chairs in um in districts that are close to us and sort of similar to us that's scheduled for January 25th and we will um report on that I don't you've gotten some RSV to begin I think I think we probably have like four or five people coming and it's um it's Carlisle Lincoln Sudbury Lincoln Sudbury Westin Bedford uh they're all districts that I think used to go to the Edco Roundtable so we're just trying to create a very informal one I mean people are really a b is on there we're no one District um so hopefully we'll we'll get some communication going amongst other school committees just kind of see

086what's going on out there I think it's helpful to always talk to people about what's happening and this is not on our goals and I don't know why but similar to that um our new member onboarding committee had on their first meeting this morning where um we sort of identified three goals we can update that on maybe writes a little report on our next agenda um 471. oh cool okay and I have an 80 open rate on the Friday email code 80. that's really good that's really that is that's extraordinary okay this data thing's kind of fun yeah um we have obviously we've done our practices and protocols it's been complete um since the onset of the school year and then we were able to successfully have a follow-up uh schedule a follow-up meeting with

087Rob Evans um so that will move to complete within the next 30 days I like that I love that okay and I'm gonna go on to the professional practice goal of the budget so we schedule that you can do that I'm going to react next time old school um we uh we have a budget Workshop coming up on January 24th Tracy Novick is coming to us we're very excited about that um Dorothy I don't think just tell me I think it's just going to be traded and that will happen if any of our meeting and or a budget workshop with Bob it's complete I love that so we have a nine pack in red complete and then um just continue to develop our understanding of the finance Community Sidelines and process and that we are

088all continuing to do as we're in the kind of in the middle of this process and also too I think our early there is an agenda overview that was sent in the fall but um I think reviewed I'll figure out with the date um that sort of reviewed the changes that the finance can be made so um to their process um so um Student Success and well-being is a big it's a big part of our student-centric goals so um one of our biggest ones is you know of course to stay informed so I have kept a running list of the different kinds of presentations that we've seen um that sort of that speak to these goals um you'll notice that simply I just put in um the uterus Behavior survey um it's just as a

089placeholder here in that sort of light pink because we didn't adopt it as part of our formal goals but I like you I I just happen to personally like this servant so um so yeah we can be I think we should be flexible and maybe I don't know necessarily maybe we'll talk with Kristen I don't know if we can continue to get all of these you know one two three four in there about the social emotional learning or if something will get like not dumped but um but regardless well this will continue to be iterative and as Laurie pointed out we haven't um you know we have some sorry if it's jumping um we have some real opportunity um to get Kristen in front of us um with these with these pieces um we did

090um we have completed some of our um other more academic things we have learned about we had our MCAT presentation in November 22nd meeting um we also discussed star 360. we'll get a secondary um end of the year review on that as well um that's why it's only partially complete um we have some we have some other academic oriented um items that we haven't yet heard from but we have heard about SATs and acts on access AP exams grades I.E progress reports are all obviously things that naturally comment sort of the end of the school year um we did approve a budget initially there's still lots of work to be done there but nonetheless um obviously we have really rich policy meetings I looked there hasn't been anything yet that is sort of squarely intersected

091with Student Success and well-being yet I'm sure we'll get to one um and then you know we really have if we view our meetings as ways to proactively communicate with the community about what the district is doing um with respect to Student Success and well-being we've actually been able to do that quite successfully um if you look at those if you look at that that list um and then we still will need to schedule a spring Forum um March is kind of a long month from thinking maybe March is a good time for a forum and but I mean all in all guys I think you know we're it's nice to see this very Quantified to make sure that we are in fact moving along here and I'll go to Tracy and I think also

092holding ourselves accountable to it like it's it really like for us like the exercises okay we talked about this in September and now we can actually go through and see what we're actually arguing and said we're going to do um so div is ongoing for the IB initiative so we have our Equity audit coming to us on January 17th and Andrew and Dr Blake and Dr Warren will be joining us I think that's the five o'clock start yes yeah like a five o'clock start and so we should get uh we'll get a verbal report then and then the other report will be after that and that's for the agreement with uh KW and then we had a professional development which we heard about in our October 12th the Eid meeting and I think that you

093know what I've heard all year is the ongoing TV that's happening in the district and to the staff meetings and that's a I think that's a huge change that we can't communicate that enough to everybody out there you know in the public because that was not part of what we were doing last year and it's a real concerted effort to really you know train every staff member that works for us so I think that's great um I sit on the CCPA hiring committee we've met I think we've met twice it's really this great committee I have to say like it's great to have all the teachers ideas coming in and how do we hire and retain pictures of color which is it's just been a really good I like total Think Tank um so that's

094been helpful I'll keep on updating you on that but Andrew we did get that reverting hiring Grant um from the state so that was great we have some blank boxes here with our restorative justice and discipline and the policy right there our student achievement that's yet to come we will hear that from Kristen but more Justice work too see what else one of the guys that is coming to us um nexo ecosystem enrollment and retention and I I think that that's kind of in process I would put ongoing on that because we've had talked about the different how um to apply to a district that's all changing right well and Millie's message talks about this past week it looks like they've had I think I mean I have nothing to compare it to um but

095it looks like I think they had something like 700 or 780 something yeah I got a more detailed breakout on another email and there's a nice response happening applications yeah so it's applications um all of that that's happening and then we have another complete to cross-reference with our fy24 budget and we improve their budgets at our December meeting and then just our ongoing work it's updating our policies and I think it's definitely um our deep work is definitely we're looking at our policy through that lens also and it's possible to have yeah I think I actually think that I have to say thank you Terry because it's been really helpful to just have everybody at the meetings and participating and to keep that's organized so you know it's always good to see this on paper

096and it's nice to see that there are there's meaningful policy that intersect with what we want to do from students it's nice to see that like visually here for me yeah and for actually communicating I mean this I I'm not sure we're ever going to say complete I think it always has to be ongoing um and just getting updates uh we so far have the calculus project The Playbook recognition but I don't think you know if we see something on here it's not complete I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily I think that that's ongoing work that could always be happening so I I think you know if all of these things aren't read by the end of the year maybe it means that that's what our commitment has to stay really with so

097so that's our goal update and if anyone is asking to add to it or comments for the diversity input from the medical directors at all from that group it's in general and it has to do with every time diversity um we talked to the medical directly together no no we definitely talk to the Metro directors sometimes directly sometimes through him but they're always getting feedback and connecting it depends on the position to to some extent um depending on the higher the end of the what's the matter so sometimes I wouldn't want there to be a disciplination like something must be the faces again the Metro directions work for us too much on my you know um I just oh yeah you wanna you want us to hear their input which I think I really appreciate

098sometimes I feel like the micro directors can be ignored but it isn't in on a lot of issues that would affecting my computer and so yeah this Committee in particular is run by high school today so it's so that's the committee is it's a CCTA and so they they manage that they're committee so it's not not Andrew's committee it's not a Metro committee it is the CCPA committee um so okay anyone else it's important question when we're talking about hiring retaining um diverse staff do we talk to our current staff better diverge or ones who have departed for ideas on how to retain and attract people who knows do that extensively um there's there's uh cohort groups of diverse staff that are sponsored regularly and they meet with Andrew or the principals or whoever's going

099to participate on all all The Parting staff are asked the feedback on whatever they're wanting to share obviously um and I would say this year especially I think our ability to see needs where they are and intervene if necessary or support when necessary I think there's a growing capacity on us as leaders and a growing growing culture of people willing to say this just didn't go well and I need you to know that um which allows us to come in and support and in some place of address whatever just happened so it's a work in progress I admittedly you know say that for sure too but I think some of the right things are growing to try to continue to recruit support retain and I think at some point that CCTA committee will intersect with

100the school committee um but it's not there's there's nothing yet there's nothing tangible to do with this they actually this was really exciting out of that committee came a high school teacher on luncheon where the ctta invited the diverse staff in and I'll be I think that's felt very pivotal to us because to feel welcomed and belonging here it has to be among the peers not just that your principal supports you or you know whoever so I think we're seeing you know some growing culture change flow for growing and they also talk about some mentoring opportunities between teachers um and setting up teachers with mentors so I think that that's always helpful when you're trying to retain staff is for teachers to feel as though they do belong in the community um you know especially

101for brand new t-shirts sometimes right I mean it goes for all features a lot we do have a mentoring program here but it's really important to focus on that recruitment what do you guys recruit from uh a number of places and I won't know all the sources we've got a number of diverse uh online platforms where candidates go when they're looking for we've built you know Andrew would do this much better than I'm doing it uh we've built connections with some of the black colleges across the country to try to build it's a pipeline challenge we're trying to bridge um I just met with UMass Lowell to try to have a very direct Pipeline with them and even engage student teachers and exposure to prospective teachers that could come in um there's a diverse like

102School Springs our main Hub of all jobs but there's also a diverse educator Hub that we're now paying into and providing for National exposure um Andrew will give you the whole list in one of his updates but we have a pretty a wider birth if it's solving everything not yet but we're trying to find as many opportunities to reach people as possible this grant that we just got is going to be really interesting because it's allowing has to have funds dedicated solely for the purpose of relocation costs bonus or incentives to bring people in educational tuition if somebody in-house wants you know if a tutor wants to be uh become a licensed teacher that money is actually allowable to to Foster that in them so those are new options we haven't had so we're interested

103to see how those by accidents I can throw out there there's a group called black teachers matter comes out of boxes ran by Dr Kevin Hilton and she helps uh school districts like this one I believe we're definitely we may be participating if not we've looked at it so I'll bring it back to double check thank you okay all right so there's where our goal sit and we will go now we're on to the search Community director of student services which we basically need this this will be really brief before we get to uh the riveting policies that's coming to us from the sniper um so we are going to need a school committee rep on the um search committee for the director of student services if anyone would like to throw their hat in

104and I and I would have to say like whatever you want to do you I mean we could we could certainly discuss it at the table but whatever you want to do like to prioritize what you really want to do um and then hopefully match you to what your needs are and maybe I'll just follow you and chat about it can I just remind you of the dates of that because that is a finite commitment uh the first meeting of the search committee is Tuesday February 7th at 2 o'clock the second meeting and I'll re-share this I know I sent it to you once but open again uh February 13th 2 P.M those are probably hybrid or even Zoom so those are more flexible those I don't think you have to be here in person

105for the interviews however are not that flexible they are scheduled on Wednesday March 1st 8 30 to 3 and March 2nd 9 to 3. I'll share this with you again what was the second March date the next day the second second is anyone at the people dying to do it right now I kind of been dying because they would have just wanted to know that did anybody else run into that let me show you my hands all right so moving on to Quality okay um okay and so the policy subcommittee of the whole met last Thursday morning um we had a vibrant conversation about our next batch of hay which is community relations quality thank you to everyone who could um make it um so this first section of this policy conversation will um be

106a first read of 14 policies um I'm gonna try to be as efficient as possible and I think what I'm going to do is kind of read through each of the policies give a quick overview of what the policy is intended to do what our recommendation is what our overview of what our conversation was about it and then what our recommendation was coming out of this meeting on Thursday um and then I'll open it up at the end for conversation or comments or questions um I also wanted to move your mic again a little bit closer um I also just want to know that we had talked about um going through each of the policies and doing a scrub of all of the cross-references um which is a very uh labor intensive so I will

107say I have started that but I have not completed it so um for all of these policies I will have that aspect of it for a conversation for our second read and not for tonight um you want help from anyone here like do you want us to break it up and and help you with that if anyone's dying to help me that would be great but I'm you know I I volunteered for this role so I'm also happy to take it on so better with that if you want to help with two cross references but so I'm going to jump in um the first policy that we discussed with KDA which is the School parent relation poll uh the purpose of this policy is to set the tone for how schools engage with parents and

108stress the importance of that importance of that relationship the changes between our current version which I will note for all of these policies um they have not been touched since 2005 or 2006 so it's been a while on all of them um but between our current version and the new Massachusetts Association of school committees or masb version or minor they add the word Guardian so it's not just parent a parent or guardian and then it discusses um reaching out to parents not just on student development but it adds ultimately engaging with parents on student conduct so minor edits our recommendation coming out of the committee was that the subcommittee was that we adopt new masc language um the second policy we reviewed is kbba which is the non-custodial parent right um and this policy provides

109the guidelines by which uh the schools can release records to non-custodial parents um the content is largely the same with some minor updates based on changes in math law so it's actually important that we adopt a new version so that we are in compliance with Massachusetts law um as a result the committee recommended that we accept masd's new language the next two are forms that are associated with kbba the non-custodial parents rights um they're both forms that Dr Hunter and her team would be using with families she indicated she doesn't use them she relies on legal counsel for as a result we're also recommending that we remove kbbae and kbbar um the next policy of PBE which is relations with parent organizations through this policy outlines how a parent organization can be recognized by the

110superintendent's office they're um there are a few updates um in the masc that I think is important that's uh discuss one is that it adds booster groups in our current version it was just ptgs and it said that um there could only be one uh recognized personal building and this this new version is unlimited because it's adding boosters and obviously there are a number of boosters organizations um it also requires that each parent group has a or obtains a 501c3 status and that they must all spending must comply with federal law relating to equity among student vendors so we we supported um this new masc version we just with one edit which was to remove the reference at the bottom to Aca which is the non-discrimination on the basis of death um reference um it

111already referenced Title IX which we felt was a profession um the next policy is kcb which is community involvement in decision making so Community involvement is critical to the work that we as a school committee also the critical to the work that the district does um so as a result we have moved all of the content in KTV has been moved to the first policy in the pay or community relations policy Ka um Ka which we'll be voting on later tonight that's the tone for all of our engagement with the community so because this content was moved to Ka we feel like it is appropriately captured and we're recommending that we um remove this policy um the next policy is kcd which is public gifts to school um this policy outline um how we can

112receive gifts and there were very minor updates to this policy um so we recommended uh adopting the new masc language um the next one is ktda which is the playground equipment policy um masc no longer recommends this policy playground equipment is considered a gift so we it is automatically included in the kcd the public gifts the school's policy so it is um somewhat redundant so we're recommending that we remove this policy same thing for tcdr which is the implementation of the playground equipment policy removing that one um the next one is kdb which is Public public right to know um so this policy highlights the citizens right to information about the schools and the district um and how they might go about obtaining it so there are minor updates the most significant is that it

113adds that a website is a valuable resource for citizens to get information um this our policy did not include that because I don't think there was that much information on the website in 2005 so um so it just adds that you can get a lot of information on the website if you don't get what you need from the website of course you can reach out to the district that looks like we're done on top of it um otherwise there were not many major changes so we recommend other jobs and we do a Nancy version um the next policy of kdd which is the news media relations um and the News releases this policy outlined our approach we're working with members of the press we actually have a lengthy conversation about it just given how the

114media environment is changing um masc recommended um policy did not change drastically from our current version but we made some suggested edits to it um namely changing um books man to spokesperson and um editing bullets two and three to give Dr Hunter um kind of the school authority over media requests and then she can determine how to manage the Press request from there um k-h-a is public solicitations in the schools um but we all agreed that we do not support and nor are there currently um excessive or even really any solicitation in the schools this policy is to ensure that it remains that way um so we we moved we recommended that we accept um the masc version with a couple of edits um one is to write the last sentence about the ptg um

115and the reason is that if the PTV is included in this um it says that it would include they would be included as um School groups and governed by the committee's policy on staff solicitation this would limit their ability to inform families about things that are happening in their under their purview um and we don't want that to happen so we were recommending that we remove the ptg section um and then there is a general note at the bottom that we think was erroneously put there about nepn classification system that we are also recommending that we remove we are almost done khb is an excellent advertising on school districts so we've actually had several conversations about this policy both here at the full committee level and then also um in the last two policy meetings

116um we really felt like it needed some tending to and um what we did was and this new language was in your packet for this evening but um we took a an aspect of our current version um a little bit of the new masc language and we sort of merged them essentially it is saying that advertising ought to be limited and that it has to be approved first by the school committee before any advertisement that is um that exact language is in the email that I sent last week and then I'll throw in your bucket um khi is political activity um this policy outlined both staff and and cannot engage in political activities um masc movements quality to gbi which is Staff participation and political activity um our gbi was updated in 2017 and it

117aligns with the mafd's version so we recommend removing this policy since it's covered in our current GPI um visitors and schools are current policy and the masc version are currently the same um however we had some suggested updates to the current version just to ensure that our building remain as secure as possible um the main edits um are that we change from um requesting that guests sign into the main office to that they're required to sign in um and that it takes place during adding that it takes place during school hours because we can't control we can't monitor who comes in and out during um after school activities and then we are recommending that we remove the fifth bullet about Student Records the last one is relations with booster organizations or kja because boosters are

118moved into kba kbe which is parent organizations you know underneath the policies that we are recommending that we will move it so that is the list comments question or concerns lots of Applause Shakespearean monologue well anyone on those 14 policies discussion nice words I like see I like doing these like in their entirety when they all relate to each other because there is like there are some intellectual connections that you sometimes just don't feed when you do them as kind of one off so I really like the way you've done it this year and I talk about that it's not a question comment right we move on moving on to Second read yeah great all right this is much faster um okay so at our last meeting we reviewed five policies for our first read

119this is our second read and we will be voting on these later on in the agenda um the recommendation after um these both of these meetings with our policy meeting in the first read was to adopt a which is the school community relations goal um as written by mast to strike kec which is the public complaints about the curriculum or instructional materials strike Keb which is public complaints about school personnel kber which is also public complaint for the school Personnel for the region and amend ke which is public complaints to include the Mast language so that is what that kind of package of what we'll be voting on I think crazy independent agenda we're going to do it through consent agenda yes um so if so now is your chance for question comments or symptoms

120on that kind of password s [Music] yeah it's all been moved into a general public complaint policy so there's a question about the defender but we're just going to be clear because it really doesn't say years I've done it most and there are any things yeah no so I lifted it right yes the minutes will get it right so I watched um I just love watching meetings it's like my secret thing that I like to do um I watched some of the select board too and I looked at their agenda and they don't have Motions like we usually have emotions remove like if anyone wants to remove something for the consent agenda you can move it at any point they have bullets right yes they like remove ABC blah blah blah replaces but it's not

121clear the removing three of these and then approving she's not talking about removing things yeah from the consensus yes no I think in our motion language I would look to someone at the table who really enjoys making motions that might be able to come up with the right language to do this I'm not looking really at anyone specifically but I kind of am I think I think and what we're really trying to do is just to be really efficient at our meetings because if we're we've heard it now we've met in policy we've got the first week the second week we're clear right right so objective no no no no totally so I think it would you know the first time it's clear instrument yes correctly yes totally agree all right thank you to court

122and Kerry for really putting on your thinking caps live and in the meeting to be able to come up with an appropriate coaching look at that right are we there we're not there yet we're not there yet no we're not that we're close though we're getting there um all right so any other discussion about the second read of the policies oh okay all right time to bargaining so we have two uh units of bargain with we have the secretary and we have maintenance typically there are two members that sit on a bargaining team sometimes there's been one and I learned a lot from doing it last year it's really helpful when you have someone that's done it before that helps guide you it's a good way to get your feet wet into bargaining if anybody's

123willing to sit and do that and if you can talk about just maybe with the lift might be sure so the smaller contracts tend to be a series of about five meetings probably a pretty good guess um the schedule is set based on the membership's availability so that would be something we would work with you on it's not a set schedule we work with the union and the bargaining Representatives here to set the schedule so usually they're after school we're not allowed to bargain during the day when they're on the clock so it would have to be probably three o'clock and after and these are K-12 these are both K-12 both districts good good point thank you you need it probably great if you can but I don't know that it's an absolute you do

124for the vote to approve it yeah if you can make it happen sure yeah yeah yeah next question I mean so the school committee gets to bargain with the teachers union we have eight Unions that's not too many Bargains I'm getting and eat text from Aaron you have my you gotta Mike I'm sorry Aaron these are new mics for the public that's out there so bear with us if you can't hear us and hopefully Minuteman media will just be like awesome and turn up something on the back end uh so just bring them real quick I have eight bargain units in our two districts both teacher unions both building service worker Union maintenance High School tutors and uh secretary and transportation and we have a great deal of shall we say technical support from uh

125Bob and Lily I'm going to say Denise long because oh yeah HR degree yes we need representatives of the committee at the table so again mm-hmm yeah that's not what I'm a trusting people that's good to know it's a great question to ask we usually just bargain with HR like yeah Labor Relations but yeah I know here with formal bargaining attention I wouldn't mind being a part of that nope I have to check on we have to check on that non-voting yeah like play into that we'll check on it we'll get we'll get some advisement on that this will be another thing where you would email Tracy anyway yes so again like think about it and the reason that I'm asking on email I'll just be like really to apparent it doesn't put anyone on

126the spot in a meeting so you can just like check your calendar see what your comfort level is and just send me an individual email and it would be really great if someone with experiences on one you know like we don't want to put redness yeah okay all right and then last the last thing I had a discussion was just the most participation and moving forward um kind of how to do this and thank you to Cynthia for pointing me in the right direction of different um you know the town has a policy obviously the governor is allowing for remote for the patients still too much the pound also has a policy which I looked at and there's you know because they would call it like the Attorney General's office is that the other the

127open meeting law and the remote participation all that sort of I mean we have the classical comedians yeah that's now being overridden one should say by the governor's uh recognization I'm fairly confident that something will happen to extend it Beyond March that's my personal opinions well they ran out of time some smaller more rural communities uh feel that you know to provide um remote participation through every meeting is a technology heavy list um anyway long story short uh they're they're just trying to find legislation that fits all communities that the MMA is um you know very much in favor of extending it as many communities yeah but that said um yeah no so no it was it was really helpful to go through and see you know even what the town had from 2013 and

128to participate remotely and I think all of us have had that opportunity at one point or another where for this for a business meeting we've had to be remote whether it's been like covid quarantined or traveling or whatever so when I look back to the 2013 one of the things I mean it really is they they want you in person for your business being this month is which we've done a great job at I really think we have this year and all of us have been here which has been hugely helpful um but you can if you are traveling or you know it's got to be an extenuating circumstance so I kind of like the hybrid of like yes we have the ability for the public to come to our meetings remotely and then can

129do it for these meetings great um so I think that you look at like in 2013 you can get permission if you need to be remote if you're traveling for work I think a lot of us have had that situation right so you just have to get permission from the chair to be remote now it does say only one member can participate remotely and the chair cannot be remote so I bring this up because at our next meeting Alexa will be remote but she will not be sharing the conquer moving Perry will have to chair the Concord data are you good oh yeah right I'm sorry sorry might be needed to you yeah it's a reminder but that's like that why we could all be remote right now we could be that right I mean

130I don't want I'm just saying there's no one person Forum thing right now that's that's probably I don't know how it's going to change yeah but um maybe in a future meeting we could do a little more of a deep dive on what really our rules and regulations around Africa for a remote participation of the obviously positive or something of that sort of you know so or what happened but you don't want to spread your dreams yeah yeah and I talked to Dorothy about it too um because I I had a meeting with her on this round table situation that we're that I have that situation but the round table meetings that we're going to have and she said really you know if at all committees are trying to decide what they're doing right and

131if you're really all in you should really all be there unless it's an extended like a very extenuating circumstance but right like flu illness and there are five reasons in the town policy and it is like you know illness of travel it's all these extensions so it's just interesting to go back and look at it and I will send everyone um what the 2013 policy was but the Attorney General policy is and there was remote participation yeah I I had a little flashback as this sort of came up this week 2018 talk about like worlds of different and someone was traveling I remember who was traveling I don't remember the topic that they felt so strongly about they wanted to remote in I couldn't even tell you the platform we used because we had never

132used Zoom before so I don't even know how we did it whether my conference call or yeah I ascended number of 2019 because in Carlisle it's as long as there's no yeah that's a lot yeah two of us by Falling in on somebody's phone with the microphones there yep I remember we were pretty enamored with ourselves about how Savvy we were that we had one person remote and first of all what a lifetime of change has happened since then but yeah it was a big thing so yeah and my request and I'm curious why but we don't need to dive into it now necessarily but legitimate as well um and so I'm curious uh is what we're discussing tonight relevant only to meetings like this or also meetings so I had that conversation with Dorothy

133that specific one because she was she was I think she was on all those emails and um what she said was she said you know really you're subcommittee meeting like if you perform just have the meeting like that like that's a point just like a business meeting that you should consider remote participation if there was in center and circumstances but if you already have a quorum of the subcommittee it's really not necessary to do that that was very funny answer my question so are you saying if there is a quorum you you can deny somebody remote participation I I mean in theory you could deny somebody yes why would we I don't understand well I think that you know you go back to those five rules that for 2013 I mean I think that's the

134only guidance we can have and we had decided our subcommittee meetings we're not going to be we were not going to have remote participation right we've talked about them a couple times okay so what I'm hearing is what we're discussing these public meetings of a school committee and not um right all right thank you and I think the difference too like the way I think about it is a subcommittee and an ability to participate doesn't really disenfranchise a member there aren't votes taken um all of the business discussed in the subcommittee then come to the full committee I don't know I mean that's sort of like that's I think a big differentiation like I think it's why you know we don't put them on I mean there's other reasons I guess we don't put them

135on mmn to their schedule as much as ours but um to me those two sort of things are in line with each other you know they're not broadcast so I don't know yeah yeah well it's just you know I thought it's important to put on we had you know people I remember bring it up so I just thought that we would address it as a group and I do think that you know we we had a smaller committee meeting this morning too it is really helpful to just be in person and even Dorothy's point about the policy sent committee like we are getting a lot of time in those committee meetings being in person and not everybody's there at every meeting but we have an a quorum at all the meetings so I think that's

136been helpful um and then it comes to this meeting anyway for another chance for discussion yeah right and I would anticipate that um the Blackboard might update that remote participation 2013 000 with his family Nevada separate from where we're going with remote classification after service so I can use this so you know different worlds see what they have to say yeah okay great um and with that we're going to go on to our accent items when I would look to um our policy chair and perhaps Mr Booth to maybe help us with a motion to approve our policies that I can understand us and we also have there is this so you know in there um at staff enrollment request also so it might be tricky but I think you're up to Japan I add

137it all in one separation okay and then separate the six which then makes it not consent agenda so we'll pull number six from consent Contender and we'll vote on that separately uh and k e and remove policies Jed k-e-d-r and k-e-sc any important session all in papers hi hi okay great and then I would entertain a motion to approve the request for staff enrollment you want me to read it you can read it go ahead um I moved at the Concord and conquered parallel school committee to vote to approve the following staff requests to enroll their children in concert Public Schools Concord Carlisle Regional School District for the 2023-2024 school year and the tuition will be waived CMS teachers on through enroll in kindergarten at Alcott Carlisle teacher daughter to enroll in ninth grade at

138second discussion all in favor and with that um I would entertain a motion to adjourn the Concord parallel school committee meeting but we all need we are also going to take a five minute break just for the audience and um because we have a photo op to take I don't want to make that motion no moved second favorite hi hey we'll be back in five minutes so this freaking payment um last year on the 20th when we were at special town meeting we adjourned a meeting of the Concord school committee what is it 10 15 minutes prior just like as a sort of is it why do we do that is it sort of a just in case something happens and we need to be deliberative about something I don't know yeah even if we

139don't do anything so that's something that we should in fact probably do again correct everyone is a all right that's really all I would say Thursday night so it's Thursday night the 19th town meeting begins is it at seven um so would it would it be okay to ask that we meet the learning Commons I think is where we did it last time at 6 45 and we will set an agenda for that meeting which would include us really just convening yeah yeah the agenda is but yeah yes right there I met with Don and Pat today I think I'm gonna have some upcoming remarks and then Don's going into that and it's a town going to prevent like they disappearing yes Bob's trying to say his last name last year thank you Pablo Wester

140it's got some slides about the tax impact that's it that's really that's it I just wanted to make sure that everyone was aware and that we were um set to do that so that we can in fact I guess I don't I know we're probably not going to have much more stuff but in the interest of getting this lessons oh I would say 6 30. yeah because I'm going to want to be working with Don and perfect awesome we sit together like we did at home eating a week that we're ago now I don't know I think we do we're not the convenient we did make a requested together and we can solve it easily that night well I can make such a request before and then they got rid of that so I don't

141know what to do maybe find out what they're doing yeah would you like to sit together I'll just ask that yeah but we should I think just in case yeah yeah that's what they did a regular clown reading but it's a special roster nobody was singing together right I was in the car with the high covet I think that was still important we'll get you a scrap metal yeah [Laughter] for 6 30 we'll be um so be on the lookout for that agenda we will sit together and we'll convene in the learning Commons at 6 30. that's it and we're meeting one of the euib first Tuesday night next week five o'clock right next week we have a five o'clock meeting that's PW Consulting okay great yeah yeah think about regular meeting and then we

142have our next regular meeting correct yes it's been a busy couple weeks so thank you all for being so thank you yeah this is great and I appreciate it I'll make a motion to adjourn we don't need to vote