5/27/25 School Committee Meeting

001I think that was the thumb, right? Okay, great. Thank you so much. I'll call the meeting of the farmer school committee to order for May 27th. Please join me in the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And if you can all please remain standing for a moment of silence. As everyone knows, uh we lost a high school student at the evening of prom, Ava Liko. And we're just heartbroken for her family and all of her friends. Thank you. And Um Lori, I'll turn it over to you. Um um as Kelly said, um it is heartbreaking um to see such a beautiful uh life just in so early. Uh Ava

002um was so wellliked by her peers and uh her educators um at school. Um the loss is just felt by so many as evidenced um this afternoon. Um but they're just going to live forever um within us. And I'm just um it's been a very difficult um week and I just I I want to just give a shout out for our students at the high school. I'm just so impressed of how they've been handling uh so many of the situations from uh you know they they gave up you know things that they were doing as a senior class last week because it just it didn't feel right. Friday they um they made it a pink t-shirt day because Ava uh's favorite color is pink. uh they met as a a a group and we had

003um Riverside um actually consult with them about how do you get through this and how do you lead a senior group during this time and they've just done it with such grace and and just um so with adult when it's even hard for adults to to deal with such um situations but they've done such a great job and making decisions and um you know I'm talking about you know just the next two weeks you you know, we have senior week coming up. We have graduation and it's just it's it's so hard, but they are doing it um just beautifully um with grace and I just really want to talk about, you know, even during this hard time, our kids just rise to the top as we'd expect. Thank you. And to uh Ava's um family,

004um you know, we just our our thoughts and prayers are with you. Thank you. Sue, uh, could you start us with the mission statement, please? Fmouth public schools mission. The Fmouth Public Schools creates worldclass student learning experiences. Our Clippers are empowered to pursue their goals with curiosity, integrity, and resiliency. Felmouth Public School vision. Clippers are creative, inquisitive, and engaged learners who participate in their community as socially responsible citizens. Clippers effectively communicate and solve problems that impact the world around them. Thank you. In accordance with Massachusetts open meeting law, I remind everyone the meeting is being recorded. Any member of the public would like to make an audio or video recording either in person or online, please notify me as chair by raising your hand. Is anyone making a recording? Sorry, I don't have any up.

005Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh first on our agenda is public comment. Members of the public are welcome to speak about items not on the agenda and should be limited to two minutes in length. Due to open meeting law, the committee cannot act on public comment. For items that are on the agenda, the chair may accept comments from the public following the discussion of an item. Additional comments can always be sent to us at our um email address, school committee found. a US. Uh, do we have anyone for public comment? It's actually on the agenda. I'm guessing you're going to speak about dress code. So, um, we can't do it during public comment. You can do it during the the part of the meeting that has Yeah. Great. Anyone else for public comment? Kurt, on

006April 3rd, I attended the open forum about the Nest report. A question was brought up. How can we get information, questions, and ideas over to the building needs task force? We were told, "We can use the website, we can email Lori directly, and she would send those emails to the building needs." We suggested an email address for building needs and Lauren ensured us she would pass the information along. On April 6th, I thoughtfully put all my ideas, questions, and crunched numbers from the Nest report for different scenarios that are being proposed. I was sent to Lori, but it was sent to Lori, school committee, select board, and Dr. Nucci. On April 29th, I attended the building needs and wouldn't you know, my email wasn't shared with the task force and definitely wasn't printed and handed

007out like Peter Clark's email. It hasn't been shared since with the task force. I also haven't heard Lorie share any feedback from the feedback forms with the task force, with the school committee, or put any information on the website. So, I'm here tonight, May 27th, 51 days since my original email asking, "How do I get my email shared with the task force?" This entire experience has been frustrating, especially when you go all around town and different committees and subcommittees welcome the public's information, knowledge, and ideas. It seems like you really don't want our input, and you don't want to communicate with us. I thought you I thought you raised your hand. I did. Okay, thank you. Thanks for Good evening, Deian Rock with community member and staff member. If I've learned one thing in all

008my years, it's that animosity gets us nowhere. But I've also learned that neither does disrespect. Education comes in many forms and certainly not always from a book. We learn from each other and we learn by listening. We learn through discussion, open engagement, and an ability to accept different opinions and to embrace the lessons offered by alternate perspectives. We learn through a willingness to change our minds and broaden our horizons. These are the fundamentals of a growth mindset which we happen to teach in our school system. With that being said, I respectfully remind this committee that you have protocols to follow. In fact, they are a thoughtful and inclusive list of expectations created by and for yourselves. For example, number 10 of in our communications reads, "Work to build trust between and among school committee members,

009the superintendent, and the school and town administration by treating everyone with dignity and respect, even in times of disagreement. By maintaining an open environment where each member, the superintendent and the public is empowered to freely express opinions, concerns, and ideas. Additionally, number 14 of in our decision-making states, engage in critical thinking, expecting all committee members to freely offer differing points of view as part of the discussion prior to making a board decision. The faces and voices in front of you are here to work with you, not against you. As we have a common goal, I ask that you allow for informed and balanced discussion by following your own protocols. And I also wish to congratulate all three of you on your results. Thank you. Any other public comment? Okay. Um, next up we have an

010update from the Club. Oh, I didn't look to see is Kitty. Is it Kitty? Kitty is on. Yes. Thank you. Can you promote her? Can I say a few words? Okay. I would like to um introduce Kitty Hendrix who uh will provide a comprehensive report to the committee. Um but before I turn it over to Kitty, I just want to say thank you to the tribe. um for providing lunch bunches, academic support, um the the drums and dancing ceremonies and the curriculum development support um as well as our ongoing um quarterly uh meetings that just help shape our our schools into just a richer place for all students. So, thank you and welcome Kitty. Hello. Good evening. Thank you. Um yes. So um just here to report on the goings on in the education department.

011Um we have a lot we have two two working grants right now. One is the Natri grant which is the Native American teacher retention initiative and that's going strong right now. We have 14 um actually 14 uh participants um teachers and um students going to school for education and we have two more in the on the pipeline per se and um which is a uh the grant is to help support teachers um and you know steer them on the right pathway in order to take their skills back to the community when they have their degrees and to come and teach in the public schools that we have our students in. Um, and so there's a a whole slew of ways that we do support them financially um and also support them with um you know

012books and all the things that they would need for their school for schooling. Um, another grant is my grant which is the Indian education grant and we are busy working with um our new set of collaborators, the center for coastal studies, the national seashore and the pleasant bay community boating. All of these um partners that we have just uh started a relationship with are offering services for uh the tribal tribal camp kids and tribal students to use their facilities and to um facilitate programming and help to integrate into um present programming that I offer for Native American students. So that's an exciting collaboration. It opens us up to um a floating classroom which is an all electric pontoon boat and they have activities and um all kinds of ways that they can do hands-on learning

013while they're on the boat cruising Pleasant Bay and Harwitch. And they're off they're also offering sailing lessons for the kids. So we we have a few things going on with them um for my summer camp. The summer camp starts July 14th and it runs till August 8th and that's for K through fifth graders and that um is a 5 day a week camp at 8:30 to 4:30. Um also going on is that I'm working with the Cape Cod Children's Museum on a new exhibit and a it's a kitchen. It's outdoor kitchen and there's a fire pit. Of course, there's no fire, but there's um ways that kids can learn, you know, where food comes from. It's part of their food to table program that they have going on outside to the right of the children's

014museum. So, the kids will be able to um sit around the fire pit and we talk about what's what's important and what's seasonal and what kind of ingredients and what kind of dishes you can make with things that you go out and forage or or pick um fresh food and berries and those kind of things. So, we're just kind of in a development phase right now, but it's an Indian education um supported exhibit, right? And we have a a shade arbor as well where the kids can sit around in under that arbor and it's an outdoor cooking site. Um what else do we have going on? Um that's about it for now. Oh, we just finished we're finishing up on the 14 week series for educators through the nature grant and um Saturday they took

015a tour of Mashby. There are 22 in attendance. Um, a lot of teachers were from Felmouth, Barnstable, Mashby, and a couple of people from OffCape. And I think that's about it that I have to share with you today. Well, thank you. That is quite a list. That's We always love hearing what you're up to because it's always amazing. And we're busy over at Walk White Bay as well with field trips for all the districts sandwich mash beef almouth and um doing programs out on Cuddy Hunk and also Pennis. Oh nice. Um quick question the summer camps are they full or should we? Um yeah filled up about within four four days. It's 20 we take 25 kids. I'm not surprised but if not we I wanted to know if we could share. Um any questions

016for Katie? Oh yeah that's would have been a great idea. Thank you. [Music] I had seen on your website that you have the um garden community garden at Moship Farm. Yes. And I was wondering if the foraging and the outdoor kitchen and all that is integrated with your gardens. Like do you have a curriculum at the garden at all? Um actually that's the corn sisters program and as I know now they just um really um are reaching out to the parents the the women in the corn circle. Um so they're just I don't they're not connected with the program that I'm running right now but we are developing curriculum um with the many thanksgivings um concept where we have um thank you know not just one Thanksgiving but seasonal thanksgivings and how we celebrate those

017and also to support you know backyard gardens and um education for um families to grow their own food and buy locally and all that we need to do as a community. Wonderful. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much, Kitty, for all that you're the entire program is doing for the kids of Felmouth. We truly appreciate it. And on a personal note, congratulations on We Are the Land. It was absolutely spectacular. Oh, good. I'm glad you got a chance to see it. Yeah. I wish all of our kids could see it. It was it was really powerful and beautiful and genuine and I really yeah we're going to bring it to Ziterion next year so it's kind of local still within striking distance. So Terry Terry had a question for you. Um I visit quashnet

018school in Mashia every week and I'm really impressed that over the water fountain and on the doorways it's um instructions in English and the womb no language. Oh yeah, that's just really a great um uh inspiration of the kids of their heritage in that in that town all over the Cape actually. But anyway, and it's been Yeah, it's been a long time coming. So, I'm glad you noticed that and and thanks for mentioning it. But we want to do more of that. We just have to um just get it out there, get it out there to the community members first, but we also need to educate and have it present, you know, like on street signs, more things like that and place names and those kind of things um have to be done the next

019step. And I forgot to mention that I had a great time at Fmouth High School. We did an outdoor cooking with with um the class there, the I think it's the garden class, and um we we prepared a big soup with um some of their greens that they had um and had a good time cooking with them. That was fun. Thank you. Well, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Yep. Thanks. All righty. Thanks. Good night. Bye, Kitty. Always great hearing from them. Um, next up is first read on the handbook policy revisions and a discussion on all the different revisions. All right. Thank you. Tonight, uh, we will be presenting the revised policy portions of the handbook. Sections include code of conduct, cell phone use, and dress code. Before I turn

020it over to Mary Gans to review the policy sections, I would like to first focus on the Lawrence school dress code specifically. Um so we have had um public comment by one of our parents and a request by school committee members to have uh this on the agenda to learn more. The first Tom will share information about the dress for success initiative. Then Mary Gans will reference the law in this regard. Mary has been consistent with her analysis and attorney Andy Wall from Murphy Hessie Tumi and Leah Hane has concurred with attorney Gan's analysis. Before I turn it over to Tom, I would like to reiterate um to the committee that Tom and I plan to conduct a comprehensive review of the dress for success initiative as part of our refreshing all protocols for Lawrence.

021um once uh we learn uh whether we will be uh renovating the school, closing it down and then reopening. Uh so that was part of that process. However, if it is important to the school committee um to expedite the timeline, then I would um ask that you allow us to conduct a full comprehensive uh review next school year, which will include all stakeholder input um through surveys and focus groups. uh opening um uh spanning well beyond um the current um Lawrence uh families and students. Um this review would take up several months of time. I want to assure everyone that I am not um tied to an outcome uh of the comprehensive review but I do believe in the review process and whatever the outcome I think the school committee can feel more assured if

022we have uh uh made sure that the outcome reflects the community wishes. Um this initiative has uh been in place um well before myself and before Tom um in 2011 and I believe that we owe the respect um to the process that was undertaken at that time and the processes since then um to give it um uh its its due um and so whether the outcome uh is to continue with it um to modify it or to eliminate it um I think that um we should take that time as a practical matter, there's just not enough time to conduct that um review before the end of the year and give parents enough time to um to notify of any potential changes for next year. So um on uh the next meeting um this is first

023read tonight just to remind everyone. So, at our next meeting, um we'll be voting on the handbook uh revisions. And I just ask that, um that you vote the um dress for success along with all the dress code uh policies uh as written for the 2526 school year. And so, at this time, I will turn it over to Mr. Tom Bushy and then followed by U. Mary Gans. Welcome, Tom. Okay. just I'm trying first uh the second slide really is a an overview of some a brief history of the dress for success initiative. So so my name is Tom Bushy. I'm the principal of Lawrence stool. It's nice to see everybody and uh share the uh words that you know and Lori spoke earlier during the meeting. So um oh so uh the innovation school

024uh Lawrence became innovation school like Dr. Drew was saying in uh 20 2011 um in my my third year we renewed the uh plan status in 2017 and then uh during co the uh innovation status the innovation uh school status uh lapsed. So um it doesn't mean that it's that we uh can't explore that as an option down the road but uh I wanted to call out a couple of the lasting initiatives in addition to the dress for success. Uh we have preserved some flexibility with scheduling uh a literacy committee that still thrives and takes us through a building based PD every year. And of course we have the town meeting uh structure for our students during uh for our student government. Uh some of the developments to the guidelines that have occurred over the

025course of the year were uh ones that um you know seem pretty obvious now but at the time may not have uh may not have been when the plan was first written. with uh we took uh efforts to make the language around the the dress for success guidelines genderneutral and of course we had to take into consideration changes in fashion for example like turtlenecks some people think they're always popular some people don't like them strokes um and uh uh the way we have shared developments on the guid on the guidelines is through uh visual promotions that we share with families in the summer and uh we also have promote our be in the know and then over over the course of the year we we talk about what the dress guidelines are and we also

026have implemented a more formal relaxed dress guideline uh in an effort to formalize the process of when students are able to like you know if we're going on a field trip or a scenario where we're incentivizing the uh uh relaxed dress for students. So if we can go to the next slide for daily practices pretty simply the students come to the building they all report to advisory which is uh like a home room structure and we say the pledge and then we do a dress for success check and uh ask the folks in the in the uh advisories to read through the announcements. um dress for success check happens pretty seamlessly and quickly and then we move on with our school day. Uh our guidance counselors are immensely supportive of students if there's ever a

027need and even pre-addressing scenarios where we know there may be a financial hardship. Um and you know over the course of the day or or whatever it is if something comes up student slips during outdoor time and needs a change of clothes because they you know stomp through a puddle or whatever. uh these things occur pretty seamlessly. We can go to some annual developments here. Um you know over the uh we get donations over the course of the year. Periodically, we'll uh promote to families or community members who are asking how they can help to uh donate gently worn clothes, which we have a we have a really big repertoire of clothing that we can uh help help out students on a daily basis if needed. Uh we also have some charitable organizations that will

028help students out u if there's a greater need. We uh do send reminders like I was saying before to students, staff, and families uh regarding seasonal changes. For example, when the weather starts to get cold, we will remind folks, you know, that that jackets are welcome to come into the school building. They can use them for outdoor time, but when they come back, they've got to go to the lockers. Um as far as a building based building based reflective action, we you know, we do try to talk about drifts for success pretty routinely. Uh these conversations might occur at a team leader meeting. They might occur at a faculty meeting. Um and I will and I will say like Dr. Dor mentioned before there's going to be you know we're anticipating a greater level of

029uh interest in uh talking about next steps with dress for success initiative. And then uh lastly for the annual developments we do uh annually have the students who participate in the warrant committee um develop articles which they will they'll vote on and um uh over time uh a number of uh amendments have been made to the dress for success guidelines that have been brought forward by kids. Uh for example, uh this this most recent one, this most recent one um solid colors for all bottoms, whereas previously they were only allowed black, white, gray, maroon, hunter green, navy blue, uh khaki, and uh that's it for the annual developments. And then uh just in an effort to ensure that um you know the dress for success uh guidelines were still something that was important to uh

030faculty and staff at the Lawrence School. We did recently send a a survey anonymous survey to uh staff members and uh 85% of staff are in support of the dress for success. As you can see, 15% opposed. And the second question on the uh survey was simply asking for developments to the amen uh to the dress was success guidelines. And you can see that 60 felt it was amended appropriately, 23.3 felt it was too restrictive, and 16.7 ft should be more restrictive. And uh another uh part of the really just reflection that we do over the course of the year uh is to is to gauge some other faculty or or school-based groups and whether they are in support of the dress for success initiative. And as you can see some groups that have indicated

031support uh this year where the parent teacher organization, the school council, our department heads, our team leaders, and our equity team. So that's my turn it over. Thanks Tom. Thank you. Um so there are two distinct issues that I want us to keep in mind when we think about the legal analysis and one is whether the dress code passes legal muster versus if people disagree with components of the dress code or unhappy with it. Just because if someone's unhappy with dress code doesn't make it unlawful. So I am just speaking to you know is the dress code in my opinion legally defensible under applicable laws and as Lori said I conferred with Andy Wah who as you know also is another outside counsel for the district. He hand he handles certain matters that I don't

032handle and he and I are in full agreement with my opinion or our opinion. So, just for some background, um, in 2013, there was a PRS complaint filed about the dress code, which was shortly after it was implemented in 2011. And a parent at the time had claimed that the dress code violated mass general laws chapter 71 section 82, which I'll talk a little bit more in in a minute. And in that opinion, Desi said it had no basis on which to invalidate the district's approval of the dress code. The Massachusetts courts have not yet addressed whether this type of dress code is consistent with or contrary to student rights of free expression under section 82 or as a matter of first amendment constitutional law. Some courts in other jurisdictions have dismissed first amendment challenges

033to student dress codes when they are contentneutral that is does not suppress a particular message and furthers an important educational interest. And as you know there was a 2025 DESIE uh PRS complaint and DESIE simply said it's a local decision. Um, this is consistent with Desessie's perspective on school uniform dress codes, which I've said, you know, it's essentially a school uniform and it is contentneutral because it's uniformly applied and it is not suppressing or um it's not suppressing a certain viewpoint or a certain content in clothing in uh there's a DESIE document regarding school uniforms. It's actually a school enrollment information for children who have lost their housing. And one of the questions is, "Do my children need school uniforms?" And Desessie says, "Most Massachusetts public schools do not require uniforms, but some do. If

034the school your child is enrolling in requires uniforms, it should provide your child with a uniform if you cannot afford one." And then this is a while ago, but in a two 2014 Boston Globe article, it was entitled, "More public schools try out student uniforms." And there was a DESIE spokesperson who said, "DeSie does not track how many public schools require students to wear uniforms. We don't keep data on this." Said department spokesperson. Individual districts determine their policies on uniforms. So again, it's a it's a district level. Um, excuse me. Uh in 2022, the Lawrence public schools was renewing its turnaround plan and it was endorsed by Desi, the former commissioner Riley. And part of that plan actually included expansion of the high school uniform and Desi endorsed that. So Desi clearly is not advising

035school districts that they can't have dress clothes like this. Desi is not dispositive necessarily on the issue. Obviously, it would be a legislative issue or a court of law issue, but clearly Desi is not advising school districts against it. There are many, many individual schools and school districts in Massachusetts that have similar uniform content neutral policies. So, if Lawrence's policy is in violation, there are many other schools that are that are in violation of the law. [Music] um in terms of the lawfulness. So there are a couple of statutes that we've heard about Mass General Law Chapter 7182 which says the rights of students to freedom of expression in the public schools of the Commonwealth shall not be a bridge provided that such rights shall not cause any disruption or disorder within the school. Then

036there's another statute Mass General Laws chapter 71 section 83. That statute says school officials shall not abridge the rights of students as to personal dress and appearance except if such officials determine that such personal dress and appearance violate reasonable standards of health, safety, and cleanliness. Section 83 doesn't apply to Falmouth. It's a local option statute which only applies in cities and towns that have adopted the statute. And section 83 does not appear on the list of statutes that Falmouth has adopted on the town website. So that one doesn't apply. Section 82 arguably applies. However, the statute itself very specifically says it applies to second public students in public secondary schools. And there is the the law does not define what would constitute a public secondary school. Um DESIE has some definitions about what may constitute

037a secondary school. Desi actually classifies for certain purposes Lawrence as a middle school and not as a secondary school. But Desessie's determination of what constitutes a secondary school is not necessarily dispositive of what a court of law might say what constitutes a secondary school. Even if Lawrence were considered a secondary school, however, I would still say this passes legal muster, that this is a lawful dress code policy. And um there was a there was a 2001 superior court case in Brockton where a seventh grade student attending South Junior High School in Brockton which served grades seven and eight where a parent had complained filed a complaint about um under chapter 71 section 82 and the judge even there said it is not at all clear whether a junior high school or a middle school is

038a secondary school within the meaning of general law chapter 71. 1 section 82. Fortunately, this court need not decide the issue because the plaintiff at the hearing agreed to dismiss this count. Um, so as I said, it's a contentneutral dress code. It's not implement implemented as an attempt to curtail any particular viewpoint or message. And in dress code cases, although Massachusetts still has not address that addresses this type of dress code, in matters involving student conduct and student dress, the courts give significant difference to the decisions of the local educators and the building administration in terms of what they deem acceptable within their buildings. And um I've mentioned before that there's a LM versus Middleboro case that went all the way to the first circuit court of appeals. and in fact was appealed to the

039United States Supreme Court and coincidentally just today the n United States Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal and which means the first circuit court decision stands as president and in that case that was the case where a student it's it's distinguishable but the difference is is what's important here. In that case uh the student showed up to school with a shirt that said there are only two genders and the school prohibited him from wearing it. Now, interestingly, the parent did not uh or the case, the decision doesn't even reference general law, chapter 71, section 82. It's only based on first amendment rights and 14th amendment rights on how to raise your children. I don't know if they didn't me I wasn't involved in the case, obviously, and I didn't read all the briefs underlying

040it that led to it. I don't know if there was a decision made that they weren't even going to bother with section 82 because it was a a middle school student and not a secondary school. I I can't. However, the most important part of that decision for our purposes is that the court said the first circuit court of appeals, the judge said courts have repeatedly emphasized the necessary discretion school officials must exercise and the attendant deference owed to many of their decisions. Um, and then by at the end the judge said, "We close by emphasizing a point that may be obvious but should not be overlooked. The question here is not whether the t-shirt should have been barred. The question is who should decide whether to bar bar them, educators or federal judges. uh based

041on the Tinker case, the case is applying it. In the specific record here, we not cannot say that in this instance, the constitution assigns the sensitive and potentially consequential judgment about what would make an environment conducive to learning at the middle school, to us, the federal court, rather than to the educators closest to the scene. So, you know, we're talking about listening to teachers and due difference to educators. And I think that we really need to keep that in mind when we're thinking about this dress for success. Um I mentioned the Supreme Court just uh decided not to hear that case. So that decision stands. Um it is viewed as a very positive decision for school districts and for administrators in terms of enforcing student conduct and student dress. And then there's a very important

042element that I want to point out that applies to uniform type dress codes and freedom of expression. So nonverbal, non-written expressions, so you know, yoga pants, leggings, things that are not allowed under there, those don't necessarily carry a message. They are you're wearing, you know, I'm wearing pink pants today. Do do they actually express a message? And um under the law, under constitutional law, to bring a free speech claim regarding actions rather than words, claimants must show that their conduct has an intent to convey a particularized message and the like and that the likelihood is great that the message will be understood by those who view it. So me wearing my pink, they think I'm conveying a message. You may have no idea what that message is. you have to be pro conveying a particular

043message with what you're wearing and the audience would understand it in order for it to even be protected by the first amendment. So there's a very interesting case out of the sixth circuit which it's out of Kentucky. The sixth circuit involves Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. It is not binding in binding president in Massachusetts which is the first circuit but it's certainly instructive. Um and in this case it's the Blau case from 2003. The Sixth Circuit rejected the parents challenge to their daughter's middle school continuous actions similar to the Lawrence dress code and they said that the dress code did not violate the students first amendment rights of speech freedom of speech that the dress code did not violate the parents fundamental right under the 14th amendment to wear the clothes of one's choosing to

044public school um and to the right of the parent under the 14th amendment to educate his or her child. And I want I'm going to read it's a little bit of a lengthy uh quote from the decision, but I think it's important because it it um very much speaks to the type of dress code that the Lawrence School has. And this is what the court said. Under these circumstances, the parents have not met their burden of showing that the First Amendment protects the students conduct, which in this instance amounts to nothing more than a generalized and vague desire to express her middle school individuality. As the student stated in her deposition, she does not wish to convey any particular message, but wishes only to wear clothes that she thinks look nice on her and that

045she feels good in. And the father has not pointed to any particularized message that the student wishes to convey. In his deposition, he stated only that the dress code hinders her own ability to wear clothing that she likes, but did not suggest what message the clothing she likes would convey. It is not lost on us that in the eyes of a 12-year-old, looking nice and feeling good about the clothing one wears are important and rightly or wrongly may be enough to make or break a kid's day. Style and taste and clothing, it also is true, may be one of the first ways in which children learn to express their indiv individuality and engage in self-exression. And as every parent knows or will soon learn, it is often through choices and clothing that children first learn

046how to challenge authority, though usually authority in the form of their parents, not their school. Which is perhaps the reason why parents urge schools to adopt dress codes in the first place. Even so, the First Amendment does not protect such vague and attenuated notions of expression, namely self-expression through any and all clothing that a 12-year-old wait may wish to wear on a given day. To meet the modest requirements for bringing an expressive conduct claim within the umbrella of protection provided by the first amendment, the claimant at a minimum must show that the desired conduct, that is the desired clothing, can fairly be described as imbued with elements of communication which conveys a particularized message that will be understood by those who view it. The parents have not made that showing. So that's it in a

047nutshell. It's a contentneutral dress code. It's not suppressing um viewpoints and it is a similar dress code was was fully upheld um in another district where a student wanted to go to school just wearing clothes that she felt more comfortable in than what was prescribed by the dress code. We have more slides. Oh, okay. I wasn't sure. Yeah. So, um I guess I don't know. Do you want to continue with the handbook or the handbook policies which was next time I unless there's now? Yes, you're welcome. Yes, you're welcome to I know you have a handout. Did you do Thanks so much. And I know we have some educators here full of get to hear from this one. More than a few minutes. No, just two. Still two minutes. I don't know how many people

048are going to speak. Um I'm Megan Bodley. The time has come to ask yourself why it is so important to the administration at Fountain Public Schools to continue this outdated, unethical, and unpopular dress code based on the feelings of the common ball. In the first draft of the proposal for the dress code at Lawrence School allowing all colors, it begs the question why why is the proposal to release tiny bits of this dress code incrementally back to students? How many years do we have to slowly give items back until students have their rights to dress and appear as they do in elementary school, lower middle school, and high school? Why is this administration comfortable allowing grades K through six the right to dress but not 7 and 8 and then allow it again in 9

049through 12? a stated goal this year with consistency throughout the district. Maintaining this unequal, inconsistent, and discriminatory dress code is in direct conflict with that goal. I'm sure the principal will come and tell you that he supports the dress code and that the teachers that he invited will send you the same message. However, I think it's more important to ask the actual stakeholders how they feel. The students, they're the ones being directly affected by this implementation. When you get dressed in the morning, it's a way of expressing yourself and identifying you in and to the world. You choose what feels good and what makes you you. The students at Lawrence do not have the ability to do this. And this is an important part of learning who you are in the world and who you

050will need to and you will need to have this skill every day for your entire life. Something this district is taking away and then giving it back after two short years. I would like once again for you to seriously consider the gravity of this decision so that we can create a space that's best for our students and more conducive to the actual goal learning. There are approximately 1,764 non-charter public schools in Massachusetts, six of which have similar dress codes. I heard some surveys, but no numbers. There's no data. So, the numbers are really important. If this dress code was beneficial for children, then more schools would have more pop this would be more popular in the comment hall. Megan, you're welcome to um either leave it for us or and if you want to hand

051out I see you have I have handouts for all the school committee members. And River is going to talk for two minutes. Absolutely. Hi River and Hello everybody. My name is River and I'm in the fifth grade at Morris School. I would like to say that my mother did not force me to attend this meeting. and that I am here because I want to advocate for myself and the friends I have that oppose the Lawrence school dress code. I believe that students should have the right to wear what they choose to wear with few restrictions. The problem I have with the dress code is that all the current clothes that make up part of my identity would be unwarable for 2 years. I would have to wear very unfamiliar clothing that would make me feel

052gloomy and uncomfortable. I hope you will listen to my words tonight and make a thoughtful and informed decision which will affect many students at Lawrence School. I know for one that it will affect me. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. Do we have anyone else that wanted to speak about it? You just want to come on up one at a time, please. And make sure you state your name so we know who you are. Thanks. Evening everyone. I'm Jess Sakowski. We're from North Fmouth. Uh the father of three uh students. Uh one in kindergarten and two currently at Lawrence. Uh I want to take a brief while River and I disagree in our opinions. An exceptional job in presentation and so phenomenal. Very welcome. Thanks Michael. Very impressive. Um very much and and as I

053look around there are about 40 of us in this room all dressed for success and so we've all taken that over the course of our uh our lifetime and we've you know there are different colors, different styles represented. Um, but we're all here to do business tonight and we're all here to do the business of Found Public Schools and we take that very seriously. So, I do think that that uh that the notion of dressing for success as opposed to the idea of a dress code in in its stringency um is very appropriate. Uh I am very in favor of continuing uh with the dress for success initiative because I do think it's an invaluable tool uh which um can equip students by preparing them for customary standards in the workplace as many will start

054jobs even while they're at Lawrence. Um my daughter has her first shift uh working in a restaurant on Saturday and she has uh uniform standards or uh that that she's expected to abide by uh in the work environment. Um promoting professionalism, confidence and conformity in a setting among diverse colleagues and peers. um minimizing unnecessary distraction to the educational objectives uh caused by clothing concerns and the subsequent potential corrective actions that come along uh with some of those concerns. Um and abating some of the social stigma caused by some of the extrinsic value of specific brands, styles, cost of clothing, etc. Uh as a parent of two current Lawrence students uh and a member of the parent stu uh Lawrence parent council as well uh I can unequivocally attest to the initiative's effect effectiveness towards these

055goals. Um it's consistent application from what I've seen throughout the student body. Um and I I encourage you to continue. Um I would you're welcome to leave that if you wrote it down or you can email us. Thank you for your cons. Can you email it as well? I can certainly do that. Uh, two copies of two. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Uh, my name is Elizabeth Klein. I'm an eighth grade science teacher at Lawrence and I wanted to um the comments that I'm going to make I did this afternoon email uh to the school committee um as well as Dr. Burr and Mr. Bushy. Um so this is the end of my third year at Lawrence and I previously worked at a school that had a very different dress guidelines for students. The

056previous school had relatively loose regulations about what was appropriate for school and what was not. And as a result, because they were open to interpretation, um the dress guidelines were routinely disregarded and students arrived at school in a variety of outfits. Um when I started teaching at Lawrence in the 2022 2023 school year, I appreciated the dress for success guidelines and I still do. I firmly believe that having dress guidelines for our students is an important and appropriate. It levels the playing field, so to speak, when it comes to who has which brands of clothing. It also eliminates references to potentially inappropriate subject material by not including writing and graphics on their clothing. Especially in the current moment, language and pop culture references change constantly, and it's already a battle to stay on top of

057the slang that students are using in my classroom. I cannot imagine having to keep up with what students have written on their clothing as well. When I have 44 minutes and 23 kids in my room and I have a science lesson to teach, my priority is on the science lesson. Um, the dress for success guidelines, while they don't allow for the full freedom that I realize most young people want, they do eliminate anxiety for some students who worry about looking cool or fitting in on a daily basis. I also believe that dressing for the occasion is important. I would not show up to work in my comfortable weekend wear because I am at school to work, not to lounge. I think that the feedback the school committee has received regarding the dress for success guidelines

058at Lawrence School has opened up productive dialogue among staff members about the overarching goals of the initiative. It is healthy for any organization to re revisit policies periodically to ask themselves if they are achieving their goal. We do have the rest of it sent it. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Anyone else want to come on up? everyone. I'm the seventh grade art teacher at Lawrence. See you next year. Um I'm in favor of the found for success initiative and I emailed the school committee several weeks ago when it first became this um u revised conversation to let you know how I felt about it. But I wanted to bring one last perspective. My children went through FA public schools. They are 21 and 23. When they were 12 and 13 year olds, they didn't want

059to wear the dress club. It was annoying and it was stressful. And I hadn't been a parent at Lawrence School and they hadn't been a student at Lawrence yet. And they were nervous about how different was going to be. And I asked them as young adults, what do you think about it now? And they said that was a really good thing. I didn't have to worry about what to wear. um was one less thing we had to argue about and it was a really safe thing to be upset about. Um and as a teacher and a parent, I know it doesn't make things equal, but it's one less thing to deal with. Being a junior high student is hard. Being a junior high parent is also hard and it's one less thing that we have

060to debate about and I think it's a good thing and I support it. I wish we had it K to 12. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak? Anyone at the table want to speak? Any questions? Mike, I had one to Miss Van Moy's point. Why do we do it at Lawrence but no other schools? Uh it's my understanding that this was part of the innovation school as Mr. Bushy had shared and uh part of that application um they had decided to do that. So I don't know the committee or why but it was it was linked at that time to the innovation school which no other school uh is an innovation school and I think Susan may have more of an answer. Okay. Thank you for having historical perspective. What can you

061share? Um in 2011 it was an initiative um developed by the uh faculty and parents a parents group at the Lawrence School. Um Dr. Nancy Taylor was uh principal of the school at the time and it was voted on by the whole faculty in regards to there was a it the time frame was different brand names were creating difficulty with parents in regards to who could purchase this or um you're talking about the cost of brand names not vulgarity of brand names. no cost of brands etc. Um so it was just all part of the initiative um that was sent to and approved by the state. So the second part of my question is why not why why didn't it go to the high school then after that that I cannot answer but the initiative

062program gave I think it was just the high school is not an innovation wasn't an right okay any other questions on or questions for Mary since we have um yeah kind of to that point the what Mary had said earlier about um if Lawrence was a secondary school she feels that the dress code would still I think you said pass muster. Um so I wonder why we're not expanding it because I have heard you know privately in conversation with teachers and parents I haven't had the opportunity to speak to students because I don't know any seventh and eighth graders but teachers and parents are in favor of it and all of them have said pretty much all of them have said that they wish it went for more grades which I found surprising and interesting.

063So if if Lawrence was a secondary school and it would be okay by your recognition of it, part one of my question is why are we why would we not why would we only stay with two? Because I do hear the commentary and I think I said it before we're aiming for consistency. We want things to be coherent from grade to grade 12. We're trying to do that with P school, the grading reconfiguration, our equity audit. we want this streamlined effect across all the grades and this is very strange to me that so that's part one of that question and part two I think from my perspective is not a legal questions that I have it's more what is success as defined here to me this is inconsistent arbitrary and a bit confusing for me

064to read through there's no real um there's no real explanation of why yoga pants have now been added But leggings have not. Um, I I've heard mostly the complaints have been about graphics and brands and hoodies. The complaint about hoodies being if everyone has a hat or hoodie on in the hall and somebody yelled gun, you wouldn't know who it was. I get those things. There's just no explanation for the rest of it. And for me as a person who's looking at this policy, and it's our job to make sure that it's consistent, clear, easy to follow, not all parts of it make sense. And I wish there was some explanation for why why are fleece pants allowed but leggings are not? Why are sweatpants are not? Why are yoga pants allowed but but leggings

065are not? It doesn't make sense. And I feel like if you want to have solid colors, no logos, no hoodies. Those things can be consistent across all grades. We've already got no hoodies in I believe Morris Pond and the high school has just been added with that. Why not just streamline it? This all seems kind of hard. Like I hear that they do this check in the morning, but it seems hard to um make sure that all of these parts are always in compliance. And then my last point is that at this moment in this room, we have variegated colors, we have some brand names, we have denim, you're wearing lace. These things are sort of arbitrary to me. And all of us, I believe, are successful. And I don't understand what the kids are

066if the models in the society around them, parents and adults and teachers, people working at HOIE, people who are all around them are addressing not for success. So I don't understand why this is written the way it is. Can I ask one one more question? Not about that. And this might be if it's okay through to Mary or or Tom, Mr. Bushy. Um the the second to last bit here says the administration may wave any requirements in cases involving extenduating circumstances etc etc. My my question would be who makes that call? The administration would make the call. So well for example I I know we've had um even even atmouth high school. So no hats are hoods are allowed but you have a student who has alopecia and they're they're embarrassed. we'd allow them to

067wear a hat. Um, or you have a cultural religious reason. I need to wear a certain head headwear. Yeah. Of course, we're going to allow that. I mean, there are some exceptions that are required based on protected class status under the law. Um, if I'm sure if Tom had a question, he confer with Lori and if it was a legal question, she would confer with me if it was acceptable. Okay, I think that was my question. Thank you. That it wouldn't it wouldn't just be for legal requirements. There would be other options included in that extenduating circumstances. Yes. I mean there may be someone who's having a very bad I don't know I'm making it up mental health day and they think they have a bad hair day and Tom might say you know what

068if if you can wear your hat today then if you I mean I'm just making that up but there are no and I I just know though at at at the high school we we would make exceptions especially you know medical, religious, cultural reasons. We absolutely would and we and that's the piece that we've made consistent across um all schools. So, elementary through the high school. Um the rule is uh no hats or hoods and um but except for the exceptions there. And then if some student may have um anxiety or or such and needed to to do there's certainly an exception for that too. So, uh, religion, religious, uh, medical and, um, andor, you know, other and, and the Crown Act was passed in Massachusetts not long ago about natural and protective hairstyles, which

069absolutely by law are protected. So, you couldn't dress code someone for their hair. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, uh, since this, um, policy was, uh, part of the innovation school, and I'm not sure all of everyone here understands what that was, maybe it'd be helpful to know what exactly and was just the dress code part of being the innovation. Well, maybe we should have a broader understanding of what that was all about so that we could understand this in relationship to the policy. But we're also not one anymore. Does it matter? I'm sorry. We're not an innovation school anymore. I don't know if that matters to you for this conversation, but Well, if if it doesn't take too long, I'd like to I'd like to understand how it came to be part of the innovation.

070It was things like flexibility in the schedule. Um there were certain require do you know them off off the top of your head? the like the genesis of becoming an innovation world are some of the pieces that the some of the pieces that I know about was like the focus there was a focus on technology there was a a more flexible way to use the schedule there was the literacy team some lasting initiatives one of them we won't address for success but and the governance yeah literacy committee war committee um and uh good point both of tech but some flexibility in the schedule and so it's not an innovation school anymore. No, those are lasting initiative. They're all last year initiatives from this. Some of them remain. Okay. Thank you. Yes. I'm sorry. Not everyone

071has spoken. I just No, I know it doesn't seem like everybody has something. So, you can have your second speak and then we'll staff member I don't remember her name at Lawrence. The only I only spoke to two staff members. Um she told me she started the year that the innovation grant was put in place and she said that it was we received that grant as a response to the high level of um behavioral reports and incidents and so it was an effort to try and remediate that and the dress code was added on to try to make the problems go down. I have a quick question for Mary. um what you were just saying about you have some um exceptions if you have medical or what you were just talking about where this language

072has been frosted out because of MGL 183 on under six um and you've said that parents and guardians and students are responsible for ensuring students arrive to school in clothing that complies with the school's breast code and then down here at the bottom students will not be prevented from attending school or school function will be discriminated against so long as they're dressed in appearance and it used to say meet the requirements set forth above and now it says meet the dress code herein. Does that preclude in any way the exceptions for medical or no right below that it says the administ paragraph 10 says may wave any dress code requirements involving extenduating circumstances. Okay. And if somebody did not have a medical or religious reason for not wanting to, but they didn't feel comfortable, could

073they ask for? Of course. Always. Not on not on a daily basis, but I mean on a ongoing. Okay. Okay. All right. So, um, as it says, it's a first read. So, this will come back to us, uh, at our Zoom next meeting. Yep. All right. Is there something? Sorry. Now, now we can go back to the first read on um all the handbook policies. Mary's going to run through those. Great. So, the first section in your handout is uh just clarifying that assault can include threatening remarks. It does not have to include physical contact. And that's important because um you can the legal definition of assault can include just the threat to commit an assault. and under the particular student discipline statute which requires certain due process and also allows um even expulsion for

074assaults. It's important to clarify that an assault does not have to involve a physical contact that it can just be the threatening words um that places someone in apprehension of that assault. So that just clarifies it in two separate sections of the handbooks. Um, Felmouth High School Cell phones, they actually have been following this, but it was not in their handbook. So, this is what uh Dr. Harris has provided as their policy. Morris Pond um just revised some of their cell phones section. Very self-explanatory. Now, the Felmouth High School standards of dress. This has been in place for several years now. Uh, as you'll see, paragraph three, which referenced Mass General Laws chapter 71, section 83, was crossed out because, as it explains there, it's a local option statute that was developed with prior legal

075counsel that just didn't realize it was a local option statute that Balmouth had not adopted. um it just eliminates some language that is unnecessary and it also these um for example hats and hoods are not allowed at thouth high school but it was not spelled out in the handbook previously so now they have spelled out what is allowed and not allowed and there's a portion for waving any of that then we get to the dress for success for Lawrence which is the one so what you're seeing is crossed out. That was in the handbook. Um it had been revised over the years and this is the one that uh Tom's school has now proposed and it goes through the the daily attire, the relaxed dress guidelines guidelines, the PE guidelines and again that has a

076provision for waiverss. Then the Morse pond and elementary schools. They also have Morris Pond and elementary schools previously just cited to the dress code policy in the school committee handbook which is policy JICA and they didn't have any details about what exactly was was allowed or prohibited. So that has been changed to um set forth the the basic requirements that all the elementary principles and and Morris pawn principal have uh endorsed and then the recommendation at the bottom you'll see policy JICA as crossed out. It's a very vague policy. It's a mass policy. It doesn't actually specify specific guidelines. And there are many districts that just have their their dress code policies in their handbooks and they've gotten rid of the JICA policy in the in the policy manual. Did you say that was an

077MASC? Yes. But if you read it, it is it's very broad and vague and it's not it doesn't say anything. Okay. Any questions on the other handbook edit? Um I do of course. I'm sorry. We I'm on policy committee so I already sort of asked these questions but uh similarly with the alignment and consistency across all grades I I disagree with and I I understand that we want to give difference to each school and to the administrators and to the educators. However, the use of electronics in school I think should be a universally applied policy across all schools. The Falmouth High School does not have mention of smartwatches or iPads or laptops and those are in all the other policy handbooks. Um they're they're just not consistent with each other. And as as I said,

078I do understand we want to give difference to those educators and the people who are in the building, but because these are technologies that can have harmful effects on students, they can have um distracting effects in the classroom. There's no consequence written in the FAT high school policy. In all the other ones, there's a consequence. If your phone is seen out, such and so thing happens. If it happens again, you get a detention or whatever. Each other policy has something written in there. And the Fountain High School one does not. And then across the board, and I looked at the elementary school and Lawrence as well, and they they're similar, but not consistent with each other. And I again find that confusing. If you start in one school and smart watches are prohibited in elementary

079school and Morris pond and Lawrence and then you get to the high school and nobody cares. That's confusing to me. So I feel like that's a policy that as a school committee member I think should be universal and I'm not comfortable saying that it's okay that they're all completely different. Can I ask is is there a is there a rationale for them being different? Before we say, you know, we're not in favor, I'd like to understand if there is a rationale that all all that they're different for different schools. They asked that high school teachers and this is what the high school teachers could live with. And so historically we leave discipline things and a lot of um technical things to the administrators especially the administrator uh discipline administrators and teachers. So I mean if

080you we discussed Mary didn't we say maybe we could get it was already or did Lori call and ask while we're meeting about it? Didn't you? Yeah. Dr. Paris said this is what the high school wants and um it was intentional and actually under the law it I I know all principles confer with school councils but under the law the statute says that um principal schools with grades 9 through 12 will confer with their school counsel and develop their handbook and I know that Alan Harris has done that with his school council. So this is what they've developed. You know, I I understand Katrina's, you know, she doesn't like that there there's not perfect alignment, but kids at different age a ages do different things and I know Allan went Lori asked specifically about, you

081know, watches. He said, "No, this is what the high school has preferred and this is how this is what we'll enforce." Thank you. I just want to um make a statement that I did make at policy. um we don't hold our high school students to the same accountability or the same uh level as we do our elementary and our youngest learners. So, in my opinion, referring and leaning on Doc Harris and his team for having more lenience and allowance makes sense as they are approaching adulthood. And I certainly don't expect a young adult to be held to the same um like I just said the same standard as a fifth grader. Just a clarifying question. Um FHS cell phones the first line this talks about uh phone pouches. Do we have phone pouches? Yes, we

082do. It's not the individual pouches. There's there are pouches that hang in a shoe. Yeah, like a shoe hanging pouch that the students put their phones in when they enter a classroom. Yeah, great. And then I had one more question if I could. I'm sorry. Um the Morse pond, if you get caught with a cell phone or smartwatch, etc. After the second time, you're getting an attention according to this policy. All right, that's it. Just clarify. Thank you. Okay. All right. This will come back at our next meeting. Um, and of course, if you think of things in between, you can email the policy committee. Thank you guys for working on it. Um, if there's no objection, I'd like to take um something out of order because we have a number of people here from

083the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. And I don't if you're if you would like Yes, I would. Okay. I figured you would, but you know, if there's no objection, we'll take that out of order. Okay. Henry's uh Lori, whoever's saving it. I'll just turn it right over to Henry. Thank you. I I first want to apologize that uh I'm excited every time to present. So, my excitement makes me do more and I apologize to Lord, but also to uh fantastic people at the uh community members. And so, um I have a lot of of people that are here. And I want to start off right away by saying that um we're all about excellence in our with our students and we say the framework of excellence is DIIB for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. So

084we've got people here. It's not only students role but the staff's role and right now I just want to just highlight uh community members role. So, could I have the two people from the uh cultural world multicultural uh stuff right here? So, this is what I want you to do is first identify who you are and then I'm going to put something. It won't be noise. It'll just play. There'll be some images going on while behind you, while you're talking. Good. That's great. Okay. Okay. Identify yourself. Okay. I'm Elsa Partan. I'm Yuki Konto and I'm a parent. We're both parents. We're both parents and we're volunteers with uh with the Coalition for Children and the School District. Uh and we wanted to give you a tiny bit of background on the uh annual World's Fair

085and Multicultural Festival that we've been doing here along with Henry St. Julian. About 10 years ago, an immigrant from Northern Ireland living in Felmouth named Rachel RDE, you might know her, she was relatively new to town. She had married a man from Cape Cod. They had two young sons. She really liked Felmouth, but she felt like there was something missing. She knew other immigrants in Felmouth, but they seemed pretty invisible. She wanted to create some kind of festival to bring people together to celebrate different countries and cultures. She was joined by other immigrants that she knew in her effort, including including Maria Shinkle from Argentina and Manansu. Jo uh Jonas, what's her last name? Jansen. Jonu. Is that right? Okay. From Madagascar, uh they created the multicultural fair, which we've also called the annual world's

086fair, and we've been holding it at Mullen Hall School, and more than a dozen countries are represented at tables with crafts, arts, books, photographs, food. There's dance and music demonstrations from countries around the world. And over the years, the fair has drawn in thousands of visitors of all ages and expanded to include a dance demonstration by members of the Wampenog and Ho Chunk nations under the leadership of Cameron Green Deer. If you've ever seen him, he's fabulous. Two dozen volunteers work on the fair every year. Local businesses like Stop and Shop and Shaws donate food and drinks every year. The Coalition for Children and the Falmouth Public Schools are the backbone of the operation. And the coalition for children does all the administrative tasks, coordinates with school staff, orders the supplies on a shoesting budget.

087Without the coalition, the fair would absolutely not happen. They are the professionals who get the job done. And I wanted to give a huge shout out to them. I'm super proud of Felmouth Public Schools and the Coalition for Children for supporting this effort for so many years. It's made a difference, I think. And I want to extend my thanks to the school committee for creating a community where this is possible and celebrated and supported every year. So, thank you so much. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy every year to see how much fun we have and how many people come together and celebrate diverse cultures from around the world. And we hope to see you next year. Absolutely. I I'm having a hard time. I I don't know what Ryan I I can't mirror.

088So there was a lot of pictures and I'll I'll just say one thing is that we've have our Fmouth High School ambassadors. These are um early uh these are English learners uh students that are now are part of it and they are not only they're volunteering their time and we really want to build that up so we see them not as problems to deal but assets to shine. So they've been fantastic in our last uh situation we had. So, that's my first one. I'm sorry for not pictures on there. I don't know what's wrong. You can always send them to us. Can I send it to you? Might get a sneak peek. Can I get my my next two people? Thank you. I didn't know we were swapping out. So, like so my next question.

089No, I don't have a question, but I want to thank the coalition for since you said you do this, we should thank you for doing it. Yes, thank you. Agreed. Not know all that she does on that day. It is amazing. So, um, thank you very much. Uh so again, we're are continuing to uh build uh a belonging scenario not only with our immigrant uh population and it it helps all our population when we're dealing this but also we've had this fantastic uh Opal Lee walk. Can you introduce yourself and tell me the motivation for the Opal Leew walk? Thank you. My name is Paul Glass and I'm here with my husband Charles Evans who is the co-chair of the um Junth Community Celebration Committee and I'm apply well you know last year was our

090first I would say inaugural uh Junth celebration here at the St. Bonus church um held at in at Falentine Square, Time Square. It was anticipated that we may have about 50 people and it turned out 150 people showed up and it was a wonderful celebration and a testament to what was missing I think in terms of um the recognition of not just the holiday but what was behind the holiday and it was a learning experience for a lot of the members of the town and it was a great celebration for all of us. Um to that end we decided to make this an annual event and we wanted to incorporate the Opal Lee walk and Opal Lee is the godmother of Junth and she symbolically walked every year before the holiday was um um initiated

0912 and a half miles as a um commemoration and a testament to the ancestors who were um denied emancipation for two and a half years from the proclamation of um um the emancipation proclamation that was identified and read as a proclamation to the enslaved persons in the state of Texas. And with that um um that symbolism, we wanted to recognize um Opal Lee who is still alive. And we wanted to make certain that she was recognized in a way and celebrated by our feminist community. And uh with that we we identified a 2 and a half mile walk that started out from town square and walked around um you know through Walker Street and um Surf Drive and you know up uh Mill Road and and back around to Town Square again. And it was

092um a wonderful celebration. It was a wonderful testament to the um uh the the idea of celebrating and you know incorporating a lot of what we have here in Felmouth in terms of um inclusive and justice and equality and diversity and respect and I think that that's an important thing that we have um been about here as in Pelouth moving forward with um with diversity equity and inclusion but more importantly as a community. This is not just about marginalized communities. It's really about us as a community as a whole. And we want invite everyone here uh at the about both the found school committee as well as all community members to join us on June 19th which is the um again the official celebration for the Junth and we uh want to recognize all of

093the community members who were part of the planning for this Junth community celebration. We are the committee and we um um my child and I are not the only committee members. So um we have Siana Musi who's behind me and we have several others who are here and I just want to just give a shout out to um Henry St. Juliet who was the emphasis for getting us coordinated and keeping us connected throughout the year so that we can keep um continue with this planning process. and it turned out fabulous last year and it's it's going to be twice that this year. So, we want everybody to come and celebrate with us. Thank you. I will add the students did help with a lot of signage and those signs are going to be used in

094our school diversity. Our day that we're going to do Junth is the June 9th and we'll have a performance. We'll have food. We'll have a whole day of performing, but the kids were uh doing the signage and that signage will be used um at the Junth 19 as well. So, so we'll be we'll be doing some I would just add in terms of the walk, the signage was placed at two reflection points um as part of the walk and the signs were really dynamic. They were powerful. It was powerful phrases about justice and equality and freedom and it was um it was a testament. We really just want to um give a shout out and a huge thank you to all of the students who participated in making the signage and um making this celebration

095um worthwhile. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. One question still alive. 91. 92. She'll soon be authentic. We bring her up. You know, we we can send a personal invitation to her, but we are not sure about her being transported at this point. You know, um and we accept accept your donations. My last we can work on that for next year. Next year. Well, related, is it something that a lot of communities do um that replicate like like you've done? Did you model it after some place else in the larger cities and hats? Yes. But not necessarily in the smaller communities like Fountain, but we wanted to highlight it for Fountain and make certain that Fountain is aware of it, understand what its purpose

096is, and not just celebrate it as shopping day or a day out of work. Amen. Yeah. When you're going to the major cities, it's really really huge thing. Like I was telling H, I came from New York. Okay. And it was really really a major thing. Even if you ever gone to New York and been to Coney Island, you go to the Junth, you really can't even get on Coney Island because it's so hard. Everyone kind of comes in white and uh go to the water and actually they back into the water with recognizing ancestor and stuff. So it's a really huge place. Most of the large cities, but it is a national holiday. Thank you. My last one. Thank you so much. So, um I every every school has um has equity teams and

097every equity team has community equity partners and they are in with the stu with the u with the with the school. Um I think Mr. Bushy has one. He probably can help you with what happens there. So, he's stuck around there and he can tell you here. But I've got two members. Can you identify yourself and tell me uh what do you do in at the uh at the equity team? You start identify yourself. Yes. Sharon Sharon Nunes and I'm the equity team partner for Ticket School. Can you put it back where it was? I'm sorry. Just Yeah. Ryan can get you in the back right in the middle. Yeah. Uh so I'm the community partner for that equity team at Ticket School. We started working with them. I think is going to talk a

098little bit more about the background and what we've been doing. But uh we started working with them last fall as they were establishing their goals for this calendar year and going forward. And basically as a community partner, I feel that I'm the advocate for what's going on at Ticket School into the community and to help the community understand the importance of the equity and some of the challenges that they have. And you know, sometimes I'm not involved in all the discussions as appropriate, but it's been really great to support the teachers. And as all of the interviews in the enterprise for the school committee race said, the teachers and staff that I have met have just been phenomenal. It's just been wonderful to really get invol I was very involved with my kids when they

099were in school and with the school that they went to. So I'm actually pleased to be able to help on the other end going to St. Good evening. I'm Dr. S Malucusi and uh just a real brief background of community partners was when Henry took on and decided he would love to make this family his beloved community. We took that to heart and tried to figure out how we can bring the community to support the schools here in Falmouth. And so one of the ways we looked at as we talked about developing of the equity teams, maybe a good way to get people from the community was to have one one or two members of the in the community support each equity team at each school. And again, one of the things is we don't

100offer advice. We bring resources. So what the school does, we're just bring resources and support. And let me give you an example. I'm currently working with E public school. I really like high school and um one of the things that the equity team wanted they wanted a more cohesiveness with their staff and they wanted to find ways to get together and a part of equity a part of uh the community partners. We try to provide resources so they can do some of the things because listen teachers are busy and we really want to be able to support. So we are preparing a breakfast for and getting donations so the teachers don't have to do anything. We're just there so that they can we can provide time in the morning to so they can have their

101time to talk but we'll provide food and like a social environment so they can talk and also maybe suggest what ways things that what other things they would like to see done at the school. We're the support and we help provide resources to any equity team with anything they would like to solve. And one thing that Sharon said that is also imperative. If a meeting is not conclusive for us and it needs to be something that's handled at the school, we're not there. We're only there as a resource and as a support so that the school feels that they have a way to implement some of the things that they're thinking about with the with their teams and how to make their schools better. Thanks. Thank you so much. Beautifully said. Thank you. Thank you.

102So we talked about three things. We talked about the uh the multicultural fair, the uh Opal Lee walk, and this community equity team partners. I want to thank you for allowing me the extra time to do this. I I I really wanted to do something special. I got to remember my time, so I I won't let that happen again. But my conclusion is this. We are staying the course in uh this community. We're making sure that we're we're doing it. Uh we are very grateful to the staff, the students and the community partners and especially for tonight's uh people that are here together and with your commitment we want to shape this community into a really beloved community where everyone can thrive and just say this is my this is my talent. So that's my

103thank you so much. Just love it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. I'm sorry you had to wait so long to share it, but it was great news to hear. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Back in back to the original order. Uh first read on the policy BH public participation at school committee meeting. Yeah. So this policy was updated to include appropriate protocols uh for public comment including stating full name and the address village andor precinct. Um this falls under the school committee goal two. Uh we're working in tandem to ensure that all information is consistent uh in all locations of comments on this one. I'm wondering if we could um table this one until our subcommittee has a chance to flesh out some of the recommendations that we would like

104to be integrated into this. Yes, I was thinking the same thing. So, um, as you all know, one of our goals for this year, the school committee goals for this year was to revisit public participation, update it as as needed. Um, and so that the goal to those, Glenda and I are both on that group, um, have been talking about suggested changes to public um, just public comment. And so I'm wondering so we've already gone through it so if you guys want to hold it that's fine. Yeah. I mean it wouldn't be for this is first read anyway. Um so if if policy doesn't have an issue with it maybe we would put it not on our next agenda but the agenda after so that go 2 has a chance to coordinate with you guys.

105Sounds like a great idea. I think that sounds fine with me. Great. All right. Awesome. Thanks policy folks. Thanks Glenda. Uh, and of course if anybody has any other additions to to this, get in touch with policy codes. Okay. Reena loves to get letters. Yes. Um, based on when you asked the question when Marvin asked the question regarding the innovation school, I just looked it up real quick in regards to my answer wasn't adequate. The motivation school initiative was part of an act relative to the achievement gap signed into law by Governor Javal Patrick in Jan January of 2010 and it allowed schools some freedom from state guidelines to address local school needs in the areas of curriculum budget staffing and professional development. And some of the changes that were made at Lawrence, including the

106student dress code, schedule changes that allow more students to take a variety of classes and carved out staff development time during the week where team teachers could meet and discuss student progress. It also speaks of a literacy component and it was voted on by the staff and school council at the time. Thank you. Thanks for that extreme vote. Uh next up is first read on the calendar or uh yes. So, uh it was uh under my leadership that I started establishing that we would have um uh the calendar voted on and approved two years out. Um I usually bring this in March. So, I apologize for the um little bit late on this uh except we've had some really great conversations. So, as you know, uh we always share this with the um FEA and

107uh review the the calendar. And the reason we had additional um conversations about this particular calendar and may I remind you it is the 2026 2027 calendar. So um not to get confused with next year because this will be two years out um is because of how late the um Labor Day is. So as you notice in September, Labor Day is on uh September 7th of 2026. And there are u many districts that already go before Labor Day. Um but uh the districts that don't go before Labor Day. Um often when it's this late, they go before Labor Day in those particular years. So um FA uh and um our admin team, we've been uh discussing it and we came to the conclusion that um we would like for one year only to give this

108a try to see how it works. So as you can see um for teachers uh they would begin on August 25th and on that Tuesday that would be the normal time for teachers to start. It would be the last week of August. What would be different on this calendar if you approve it would be that um students would start on Monday, August 31st, which would be a week before Labor Day. So students um would attend Monday through Thursday as a 4-day week. All staff and uh students would be uh have the long weekend. It would be Friday the 4th through uh Monday the 7th. That would be Labor Day weekend. And uh and then we would have another 4-day week starting on Tuesday the 8th through the 11th. And then we would get into a

109normal routine. Now on the flip side, if you look at the back end of it in June, and here's one of the reasons um for the discussion, as you can see with this calendar, if we start the 4 days before Labor Day, then the last day of school is on June 16th. And if we have any weather contingency days, we we would be up um to June uh 24th. If we go after Labor Day, the last day would be um June 23rd and we would have weather uh contingency days up through June um 30th. So that's that's the difference. It's starting 4 days before but we end in mid June uh or we start after Labor Day and we could run clear up to the end of um June. And can you add about why

110we have to finish the state? and then to say we you have to finish by the last day of June. Um so that's we have can't go July one or after. So um so that that's really the uh only change um on the calendar. Everything else uh pretty much follows suit. Um we still have the same number of early release days. We have um a half day on December 23rd uh which has been our practice the last few uh years. Um and um oh and then the other thing that would change sorry I wanted to me if we go back to June if we move um if we go to after the Labor Day and our last day is not till the 23rd of June then graduation would be a week later it would be

111June 12th. uh if we go before it's uh would be on the first Saturday um as it as our normal practice and that's because the there can't be more than 12 days be between the um last day of school for seniors and and then the uh um last day for the rest of students. So that those things would change. So we're presenting to you um to try something for a trial basis to see how it goes. Any questions? Okay. Okay. Well, I don't have any questions, but I am going to make comments. It's well known that I said I would die on the hill that we will always start school after Labor Day because I think it is imperative for our own students, our own children to appreciate the full Cape Pride summer that a

112lot of them don't get. However, because this came from FBA and um after much discussion, I think it's reasonable. I'm convincing myself. So, anyway, I um I know that I've been very public that I would never uh agree to before starting before Lori Day, but I think that this is a a good example is to when we should this one time. Okay. Uh and of course if you think of anything we'll share it before we vote on it at the next meeting. Uh okay. Next up is act on policies. Yes. So um we had first read on policies BDE uh subcommittees of the school committee on uh JNDB responsible use policy and uh I'm sorry and school and district web pages. I yeah I JND DC schooling district web pages. Um we did have a

113first read on the uh BDE-R permanent committees and other assignments but there were some um questions about that. So I'm taking that back to policy subcommittee. But the other three uh we've had no uh request for revision. So as standing as the first read um in your patches I'm sorry. What did you just say was going back to all seats? I just bde-rate committees and other assignments. There were there have been some things that's been brought to my attention. So I think we need to go back to policy subcommittee on that. The other three we've had nothing. So um it is you you can vote tonight. So choose. Okay. Can I make the motion please? I feel that uh for all of them or are you making a motion to take them together? Not making

114them. No, R went back. Yeah. Okay. No, these three since nobody contacted us. Yes. All three of them. Okay. So, this would be taking all three. Yes. Okay. Just double check. Um, all three BDE, J, NDB, and JNDC. Um, all approve all of them together. There's a motion and a second. Is there any last comments on this one? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That's unanimous. Thank you to the policy folks. Next up is acting on the K4 report card revisions. Uh as presented at our last meeting, Dr. Tier, Dr. Castio, Karen Carson, uh Andrew Sullivan, and the teachers from all four elementary schools presented the timeline of a two plus year uh for developing uh priority standards, aligning standards to reporting and designing a report card. teachers have come to

115the agreement matches their practice. I'm asking you to approve the report cards paid to four that have been uh thoughtfully developed and vetted and were shared in your packet. All right. Is there a motion? I make a motion. Thanks, Melissa. Second. Second. Glenda. Any last discussion on this? Mike, I just have one. I'm going to be voting against this. Um I don't believe we have the full breadth of the faculty talking about this. I've heard some things against it. Um I am also concerned with the change of work for the teachers when you change the report card system and that is why I'm voting no on this. Any other comments? Okay, that was quick. All in favor say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right, that passes. Thank you. But I I after it's passed,

116you're probably not supposed to say anything, but um I just wanted to say um I hope we can find a little extra time for parents to get acclimated to this, too. So, is that in the plan? I thought you said it was. They do have a a full plan for the u fall, but it will be before the first report card in January. Great. All right. Update from student services. I'm going to turn it right over to Sam. She has a few uh updates for us. All right. So, back to school bash is listed. First, I um I received an email from Julie Williams Tinkum at um the director of the recreational center and she had reached out to myself and a couple other folks um from Felmouth Public Schools and asked if we would

117be interested in collaborating on a fun back tochool bash for our whole community. So that is a uh we've had two um two or three planning sessions and essentially what we're going to do is try to invite um some community members. So already in our back to school efforts, we work with the Falmouth um uh service center. They often have backpacks that we can give out um to students who might not have the supplies to go back to school when we work with um Falmouth Human Services. But this is going to be a much bigger effort. Um we we'd like to have um materials and resources for families. Um some clothing, sports equipment from Felmouth Public Schools. We're going to try to have someformational tables. So things like general information about the back to school

118forms, health information, athletics, VIPS, just everything. I'm I'm reaching out to um going to have the uh back to school like a little bike rodeo for kids. Um so we have safe routes to school. I had reached out to see if we can get YMCA there so families can learn about the before and after school programs and um maybe Lucini to you know determine things about the bus routes. So it's supposed to be a really fun exciting event. So, if you want to mark your calendar, we have a date of August 22nd from 4:30 to um 6:30 p.m. We had to plan something after the road race. So, hence the late date, but we're going to really flood everyone with uh save the date informational flyers before the end of school so that everybody will

119have that on their calendar. So, we're really looking forward to it. So, hopefully this will be a first annual back to school collaboration bash at the wreck. Right. At the rec center. Yes. Yes, that sounds fun. Okay. Not quite as exciting tiered focus monitoring. Um so this is again one of the uh compliance initiatives um for special education to support students is so at the start of this year I had said that in the previous year we were identified as having two areas um in an audit that were of concern meeting um some timelines for when families get IEPs. And then the second area was having enough peers in our uh preschool program. So during this school year, we had a corrective action plan to um try to fix both of those situations. And we

120um we had an audit, an on-site audit about a month or so ago. So a person from Desi came, they audited our files to look specifically at these areas. And along the way, we've had to produce progress reports and evidence of training for everyone, etc. and um we passed. So this is um this is great. So now we're we have corrected um those actions. Um another area of um compliance, we received a letter a year ago 2024 of January and the district was identified as needing assistance. So in this area, um there was a rubric that they had used and Felmouth had been identified as needing assistance in our 5-year cohort graduation rate for 2021. So this is older data and our uh 2023 MCCAST scores for the ELA um in grade 8. So essentially

121the the reason we were identified was because our um they do a comparison of uh all students comparing to students with disabilities and then we are compared the the gap um in performance between the state information and so our our gap was um higher than compared to the the state averages. So this during this school year, um Audrey Riley, the assistant director, and I, we've attended a few conferences. We um conducted our root cause analysis. We had a team of um other staff members for Felmouth Public Schools as well, and we were looking at the data that we had. And through that process, we reviewed a lot of the um data at the high school, looking at the um essentially the the credit requirements for graduation, the program of studies and the instructional support team

122manual. So that's the the process for the uh the MTSS process that we've talked about and looking at um students who are struggling, students who withdraw, etc. So after we after we looked at these things, we were um instructed to put together an action plan of things that we want to um put in place so that we can improve in these areas. So we submitted the action plan in February and I've sent a reminder email because I have not heard back yet about our action plan so that we could start to implement it. So, we have already received the next letter that says we're um still in needs of assistance, but that's not surprising because we haven't moved forward on a plan. And then the last little updates just about preschool. Um so, we will

123have our 10 sessions of preschool next year, which means we would have a total of 150 slots for students. We have um again I had explained before a variety of of programs that we're offering with more increased opportunities for full day programs for our prek and um and like a multi-age classroom that's for three and four year olds. And then we still have our AM and PM session. But right now all of our peer slots are full. And so we do have a waiting list of about a dozen students, but that's not all just for the full day programs. We do actually have some some families who are looking for um the AM or PM sessions as well. So when thinking about and planning for preschool, we're we we are um we don't have a

124lot of open slots for for this year coming up. So we use our data to plan for the upcoming school year from early intervention. So early intervention starts working with children and then once the children are two years nine months the school will do an evaluation and determine if the student needs to have the support of our um preschool program. And so it's kind of a moving target. We have a list from EI right now of all the students birthdays who will occur. um next year. We don't know necessarily that those students would qualify for the a slot in the preschool, but you can make some guesstimations. So, it's pretty likely that we may end up having to create an additional classroom midy year if if all of those things, you know, turn out that

125way. So, there's also other things that could change. On June, I think it's June 12th at the rec center. Um, the preschool does a screening. The the staff will screen all of the students who are going to be peers for next year. And sometimes through that process, some students are identified um as needing an IEP. So, then they might change from a peer slot to a a special ed slot. remember we have seven students, you know, on IEPs and eight for the um peer slot. So then that might open up a slot for somebody who is on the waiting list because that student. So it's kind of it's it's uh it's a moving target, right? It's always it's always moving, but just to kind of put that on your your radar that we could possibly

126do that next year. So I certainly am uh sharing that information with the building principal and thinking about that, you know, when we're setting up the school at the start of the year. So, we'd be we'd be poised and ready if we need to do that. Questions for Sandy? Sure. I wasn't quite clear about why there might be a change midyear. Could you reexlain that or? So, so currently we we don't have a lot of open slots in preschool in the current sessions. And we know from early intervention that there are a number of children in our community who are currently identified as having special needs. And so when the school system evaluates those students, they may end up needing the support of our program and we might not have a we might not have

127room for them right now because we don't have enough open positions. So maybe I misunderstood, but did you say you have to evaluate in the middle of the year or it would change in the middle of the year? Yes. So So we're required to evaluate students when they turn two years, 9 months. Yes. It would be the next year that it would affect. Okay. Right. Right. Thank you. Yep. We have Any other questions for Sam? Sandy, do you have your notes um like written down or like essentially what you just said? I do. Could you phone them to make not just myself? I don't know if anybody else building things like them. I just um I find that really Oh, the numbers. Yeah, just the numbers and um just essentially everything is just Okay, she

128can share it tomorrow. That'd be great. I still want I'd have to tidy them up a little. It'll be fine. I just want to like have something to like look at and mold over and compare and just getting all my stuffs together. So all all of it or just specifically the preschool? Just the pres. Just the preschool, please. Okay. Thank you. Oh, sorry, sir. Are we at the point now where we know what kindergarten registration or is that still I'm covering that few minutes? On the right on the on the traffic. Okay. Thanks so much, Sandy. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you really are. You're up next. I am next. But uh the first is uh human resources. Um, a couple of you have asked for that to be on the agenda. So,

129um, we had a a human resource, uh, director between August of 2017 and June of 2023. Um, and as far as I know, that was the only HR director that Felmouth Public Schools uh had. Other than that, the HR department fell under the business office. Uh, and for uh, one year now, that's also been the case. Um there was one year prior to that that um we had an interim business director and the HR um office fell under uh my office. However, I'll talk about uh how many of the the roles of the HR department is actually uh divided out. But uh before I get there, as of March 1 of 2024, we promoted Stacy Stokes to the assistant director of finance and she became uh the supervisor of payroll uh and HR. Um she

130has been in the business office. She had been um uh helping out with HR because there's many functions that cross over both the business side and the HR side. And putting her in charge actually helped integrate um those systems. she's um building strong systems and connections and making sure that we're um the functions that overlap are working seamlessly. Uh when our HR assistant um admin assistant uh resigned um I hired an HR u manager um Bonnie Donahghue with an HR director and worked in the business office as well. So she understands the crossover from uh the business office and HR and she is working with Stacy to ensure that all those uh systems are functioning uh well. So, we are getting ready now to post for the permanent HR manager uh as planned and uh

131Bonnie will stay on in her role to work with the new uh HR manager uh until that person is up to speed so that everything is system um uh systematic uh and um and we've actually worked through all the systems um and making sure that we are u functioning as well as possible. So some of the HR um functions uh is lure and Dr. Tellier um has uh did lure before we had an HR director and uh it returned back to her office. That makes a lot of sense. Um I am impressed with um how she has taken this uh this lure process and uh has become very customer friendly. uh we've gotten a lot of uh feedback um from the help that she's been giving. Um and first that required uh to really develop

132the systems in place so that we know exactly where every uh licensed um professional uh stands and then she started meeting with uh periodically uh with those that um lure was coming up to make sure that it's a smooth transition that everyone uh uh continues to maintain their license and most important that sometimes we have people that are on emergency license or waivers when we hire them and there's a very short timeline and so Sonia has been working to create plans to ensure that people get to that point of time when they actually have to move um to an actual license. So um she's done a great job and I appreciate that. Uh and that will stay with you. um the hiring process uh in um school systems, the hiring process um lives with the

133principles as the hiring managers as well as the directors when they're hiring people in their departments. So, um that has not changed. That's always been uh the process. Um they review the postings, they make any changes, they ask the uh HR admin assistant or manager to post the position. Um the hiring managers uh interview the candidates, they call references, uh they recommend the person uh to the uh admin assistant uh and um for the onboarding process uh and then they call and email um the candidates and that is a full process on the hiring. Uh the onboarding offboarding is uh an admin assistant uh or manager position. Uh that includes doing the quaries and fingerprinting uh collecting all the paperwork, setting up their emails, making sure they have access to all the systems, uh and

134preparing all the uh the letters. The cores and fingerprints was actually um uh sent to Mary's office when she was here full-time and then I took over this past year. Um but um uh Paul Dart, sorry, I don't know why I poor Paul. I was looking at, you know, I'm sitting there and he's not sitting here tonight. Um, but Paul Dart, um, has also been working with me, uh, assisting, uh, on the Cory's and fingerprints for the last six, six months. Staffing has, uh, always, uh, lived with, uh, out of my office with me and, uh, working, uh, very close with the business office. Um, currently, uh, Paul Dar is the director of finance and operations. Uh, and then that includes our entire admin team, and that's the, uh, directors and the principles. Um that's

135been a consistent practice over my tenure and uh will remain there as well. Um complaints is another area uh in the HR department and title N complaints are managed by Sonia Teller. Uh bullying complaints by Sonia and Sandy uh and or the principles. Uh and if we have sta staff complaints, they can be handled anywhere from the principles uh to Sonia and Sandy uh Mary Gans and or at times we contract with outside services um to help. So um and that's been pretty consistent with and without an HR um director. And then um things have have been running fairly smoothly. Um, and I don't plan to add $135 to $140,000 a year admin to the central office um, as an HR director, especially at this time when the budget is very tight. Questions on HR?

136Mike, just one. I don't know the woman's name, but someone you said a woman had went from payroll to HR just recently. Is that what you said? Something to that effect. Well, we um Stacy Soaps has been in the business office um I think uh right after I was hired. Um and then we promoted her to assistant director of finance and she uh is managing the HR and payroll because of the the functions that are overlap. Who was the other woman you mentioned? Bonnie Donahghue. Thank you. Is that okay? I'm sorry. Okay. Bonnie Donahghue. um I hired as our interim um HR manager because she has uh in her whole career she's been the HR director and worked in business office. So she understands that the overlap and what we're trying to achieve in our

137consistent systems. So she's here on the short term um to help sacy make sure all of our systems are uh in place before we hire the manager which we are now ready to um post for. And then one follow-up question if I could. If Stacy does payroll and now she's covering the HR stuff, is there she oversees payroll? Okay. Are there other people working there? Right. So in the business office um uh Jenna um is our uh last name and I know sorry she's fairly recent. We hired uh Jenna. She's doing a great she's done a great job. And um uh Jenna Benn can tell you and she I'm sorry. What is it? Belino. Albino. Thank you. That is correct. I just lost her name. Um she is actually she does payroll. Okay. Yes. So

138Stacy oversees the HR uh manager. Yeah. And the payroll person um in the business. And Donnie is helping Stacy with the HR stuff. She's doing HR right now until we get our manager in place. Thank you. Any other question? I think perhaps it was rep. There was some confusion because you said somebody resigned. That was the word that I heard and I was going to ask. We had um a U HR admin assistant that resigned. We're moving that position to an HR manager. And the HR manager is not the same as the $135,000 admin position. Correct. Correct. That would be an HR director. Oh, okay. So HR manager and director are different in what sense exactly? um probably will have a bit more um responsibility than an admin assistant um but not as um much

139responsibility as the uh HR director. Okay. Question did you have Oh, I'm sorry. The other question it went a little fast. Um staff complaints are resolved by Mary. I wrote down but you you named a whole bunch of things. Right. So, some staff complaints can be taken care of by principles. Uh, it could be um Sonia or Sandy, could be Mary Gans, or I would contract with an outside um firm to handle them and all of which has taken place. Okay. Um, in terms of kind of the conflict resolution or I guess in terms of just overall management of personnel, it sounds like a lot of it is kind of up to individual schools and principles. And I was wondering are there policies in place to kind of maintain consistency between how those policies and

140rules are followed between schools so that um you know a staff member who who has a conflict um the process for kind of resolving that is kind of the same at another school. Um so just to maintain this consistency within the district is there. Yes, good question. So yes, as far as the hiring processes, we do have the same consistent practices across all uh principles and directors. As far as complaints, um Mary Gance has done extensive training with all principles and directors in the process of how all of that's handled. Um and she's consulted usually throughout the process. Um last question. You said offboard and does that include exit interviews? Is that what offboard? We do exit interviews. Correct. Um they um we do a survey of uh exit interviews and then the last question

141is if they want to meet in person. I will say because of the type of um relationships that our um hiring managers have with um our staff. Um often uh informal interviews are done as well when people are leaving. So, um, is there I'm just wondering sort of like what Chris was saying, is that a consistent policy? Are exit interviews always administered? Are they always the same? The survey exit interviews are always administered. That doesn't mean that everyone will fill one out. And a formal exit interview um is offered to everyone. It's up to them whether they actually take that, but informal happens as well. And are those documented or is that just informal? like it's a conversation that happens and it's never there's no part of it that's like in their record in our

142in our record. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to say is it informal in the sense that there's no documentation of it is what I'm trying to say. Uh there's no documentation doesn't mean that there's not discussion, right? Yeah. Okay. Can I ask one the ex interview that's for ad men? That's not for the school committee I'm assuming. Oh no personel. personnel. But yeah, good question. All right. Although I will add we did start doing exit interviews for school committee members. You did a few years ago. You did? We did. That's a great idea. Yeah. All right. Enrollment um for 2025 26 kindergarten enrollment to date is 164 students. Um, compared to last year at the exact same time, uh, we had 183. Uh, so we are down a little bit. Um, but I

143also like to say that our official October 1, 2024 kindergarten enrollment for this current year was 202. So even um, we went from 183 to 202. Um, and then u, so we're at 164. And hopefully we'll um, we'll increase some. I'm not sure that we're expecting to get as high as the 202 though. Um, school choice, uh, we have received 21 new applications for the 25 26 uh, school year. 12 are kindergarten applications and I will say that North Elementary is at its max. Uh, so um, anyone requesting North there's just no no seats uh, at this time. Uh last year um total just as a reminder we had 46 uh schools choice applications 21 were kindergarten. The 46 also um I should add the 46 was also those that were in Felmouth that left

144um during the year that asked to stay. So that grew that number grew also because they were Bmouth residents but but moved out for one one reason or the other but wanted to continue their education here. So um and that happens uh at least a few every single year. Um I have a question. Could you please send me information for the same request that I asked for Sy's? Yeah, that was a lot of numbers. Absolutely. Thank you. just like in um you have any thoughts on that? All right. Yeah. All right. Um state budget. Um two areas of the state budget that I've been focusing on and uh watching very closely uh is the chapter 70 and the circuit breaker. uh the chapter 70 funding uh right now uh by the both the house and

145senate ways of means uh committees have agreed um to move the funding per pupil to $75 a student um to $150 per student. Um this has continued um uh seems to be bipartisan support and continues to be creative uh creating very positive discussion. Uh so very helpful uh in that uh area. uh as well the circuit breaker which I'll remind you is u the funding at the state level that reimbures districts at a certain level uh for out of uh district um placements right now um the uh they reimburse after you meet the threshold at 75% um again in both the house and senate uh ways and means um have agreed um to move that um to a 90% reimbursement level so from 75 to 90. Again, it is continuing with positive momentum. Um they've

146also um have agreed that the threshold where you qualify would increase. I'm sorry, decrease. Sorry, the opposite. That's wrong. Decrease. That's right. I'm sorry. Decrease. So, the threshold would decrease and then the amount of reimbursement would increase. um we don't know you know of course this is very early on but um I feel it's positive momentum enough that I felt like I could um say this of course we still have um over a month um before we'll know anything for sure but I do think it's very positive I just want to say that you know we've shared um you know our increase uh costs in special education especially the out of district um you don't get um support by both the House and the Senate and our legislators. Uh if it was not a an

147issue across the state, it's not an issue in just a few districts. Everyone is experiencing uh as shared also among the superintendents um in the in this area. So, thank you to our friends in Boston. Yes, thank you to our friends in Boston. Um we do a lot of advocacy and I do a lot of uh sharing and talking with our legislators um as do other superintendents with theirs. All right. um chronic absenteeism. Uh I know um that we uh were identified as being um having an issue with chronic absenteeism. The state just released their u March uh one data. The state uh reported um that they are slightly better. They went from 19 uh.6 to last March one to this March one at 19.3. Um so a slight improvement. Um I am going to

148which which is still better than where we are and I am going to report that our fmouth uh chronic absenteeism has actually increased. So we were at 25.2 last year. We were at 29.7 this year. we will continue to encourage our families um to send their kids to um to to school um and you know try to take action but we it is still an an issue um so I will say that our overall attendance uh data is holding steady um but it's the chronic absenteeism that's at 10% or more uh of absences um and so we those are the areas Awesome. So, so that data 29% have 10% are absent 10% of the time or more. Yes. Okay. Lori, do how are we in the state compared to the state in that? Do you

149know how they're chronic? The state is 19.3. Oh, okay. I wrote that wrong. Okay. I'm sorry. It will be interesting to see in regards to the last time this data came out. This was not just a found problem. This was a Cape Cod problem in particular and it's families taking vacations that seems to be consistent over the years. Well, that was my question. Um, is it the October Disney vacation? Is it do we have a is it a problem with um transportation like I miss the bus and my parents or guardians have left for work? What is is there a a theme if you will? Is there a don't think that there's a theme? I do think um vacations um you know there's um you know some parents of and this is just anecdotal um

150that don't live near their families do extended times um to visit families so that the children can get to know the the grandparents or the extended family um which certainly makes sense. um we don't have a correlation of um chronic absenteeism and lower grades. In fact, um the students tend to keep up on their work. And so we're not seeing that type of outcome as as we've you know started the last few years to to monitor that. Um I am sure that you know it could be missed the bus and can't get there. There could be some of that. Sure. I have a followup question if I could. Um are we seeing this uh K to 12 or is is there a percentage at a higher uh grade or school like is it uh Lawrence

151school has a higher percentage of chronic absenteeism than um the elementary I think it's a very good question and when we did the analysis before um it was kind of a frost at schools um but we'll be digging in deep again to just just to look where if we do have particular So that was related to my question is what are now that we we you know we have to start somewhere. So we looked at it last year now we have it for this year. What are we what are we going to do to like dive into the numbers and try to figure out where we can get you know the best bang for our buck focusing on getting kids to school whether it's the transportation or the vacation or whatever. Right. So, um, what

152we had, uh, decided before was that each school would look at the number of students, um, and they would look per month. And so, if because we know that if you miss more than two days per month, you're going to hit that chronic absenteeism by the spring. So looking at early on and making sure that we're making specific phone calls uh at the elementary schools um you know calling home and and saying that we really want your kids to school you know but the principles themselves are making those and with the students as they they come in is really making a big deal about how excited we are to have you here. Um we still make the phone calls uh and similar practices all the way up through um is that we are watching them.

153or making phone calls. We're trying to figure out what the the issue or concern may be, trying to work around that, figuring if we can help the families out um in any way. Um I know that across the board we will continue that. Um but just kind of digging down to see if we're seeing any changes. Um and you know certainly um I have been watching um the uh attendance rates for our multilingual learners being a particular concern. uh of late um it has actually improved uh since January. Uh so I'm I'm glad to see that. Um but a particular concern uh in that area is so um so we'll be digging down deep per school and then I hope also looking if there are places that are having success at improving that we borrow

154them. They're a good idea. Yeah. anybody because I've already asked. Okay, fine. I just I guess the overall question is there any repercussions for this chronic absenteeism like detentions or holding a student back? Because it seems to me it seems that if you miss 18 plus days a year and there's no repercussions, but you get caught with a smartphone twice and you have detention, it doesn't make any sense. like I mean I understand you're trying to entice students to come but there there should be some kind of a repercussion because I mean uh so when we look at um you know our our youngest learners um we know that uh they're dependent on transportation they're dependent on their parents to get them to school. Um so it it doesn't seem fair um to have a

155consequence for a student when the parent is actually responsible for the parent for the students to be in school. Um so it's it's it's so hard. We have that discussion a lot but it's it's um that I think that's where it kind of comes down to that that we are really concerned of punishing. Many of the students want to be there every day, but they're not there every day. So, that's concerning. I I don't really care whose fault it is. I'm just more concerned about getting the kids in school because or or or taking away athletics or extracurricular because there's there's a reason why kids go to school, whether it be social or academic or extracurricular. And if students aren't going to school, I don't know if this is still the case, but I remember

156like in in high school, if you missed school that day, you couldn't play in the game. Still the same. That's a punishment. That's that's a punishment for student athletes. And the same thing with students in the choir or the band. If they don't go to school, they don't get to play the instrument or sing. So why aren't those like similar repercussions across the board? It seems different to me though because Oh, sorry. Well, I was just going to say at I would speak to more of like the elementary level where they we do have programs like the keep them coming program with the district attorney's office and then when there are families that are um well the student is struggling with attendance but we know that the family needs support just like Dr. Dur said

157it's you know it's the the family that is supposed to be supporting the students to get them to school. So we we invite them to a meeting and try to see what resources or things that we can put into place to help support attendance. Yeah. But the absentee is a third of our students. It's not like a handful of of families that need help unless a third of our parents in this town aren't doing it. It's just I I don't think that if the numbers are increasing, there needs to be some other way to bring people in. And I don't know if it's both positive or negative, but that's it. One second. So anecdotally as a parent of an elementary school child and having talked mostly Melan Hall kids a lot of it some of

158it is vacation personally we've missed six days this year for vacation um on three different instances it was like a day here most of it though is illness and one thing that I've realized is that a lot of these little kids they're getting sick all the time and you don't want to send them in sick because they'll get everyone else sick and they don't feel well but that's categorized as an absence and there's no differentiation in there. And so some of this chronic absenteeism, at least with the littleer kids, could be that they are ill repeatedly throughout the year. And there's no way to parse that out. It sounds like and figure out if there if it's like back to CO and hit the number. And Right. And we did have this winter another um

159we had the flu. Several. Yes, we had the flu. We still had uh COVID. Thank you for reminding me that um because I didn't mention the the illness and that that is uh certainly something and and parents are encouraged to again keep parents kids home if they are sick. Um and it there is no distinction between excused and unexcused when it comes to absenteeism. Yes. Thank you. And I think we had talked about this before that just because or maybe it wasn't this it might have been with a different context that even though the state doesn't make a distinction we could and it might be really helpful for us to look at the data in that way and try to figure out what the what the number really looks like if you are just looking

160at kids if you take out the kids who are sick. Okay. We can always we can always look at it more deeply. Okay. Can I just add one more thing? Lori just reminded me. When when I as a parent and other parents discovered that when you get a note from a doctor, you still get the same results as if you didn't give a note from doctor. One second. Dian Deian, I'm sorry. It's so I'm having a really hard time concentrating. Um when you take the time to get a note from a doctor, but it's still you don't get any different result. You still have that thing on your child's report card that says you have this number. It's um disincentivizing to categorize it at all. So, if you want to have that breakdown, I don't

161know how you would address that, but that was the realization I came to this year. Okay. There's almost no point in getting a doctor's note. Did you have you had something else, right? I think Glenda had I was just um getting back to Sy's comment on resources to get kids to school. I know that I've asked this before. Uh if a parent identifies as my child missed the bus, I've already left for work. There is nobody to get my child to school. as a parent calling the school. Does the district offer transportation to go out and get the student? Is that so that the student doesn't end up with an absence and fall into that chronic absenteeism? What are we doing to hold up our end of the buyin to other than a conference? like

162I hear you with a conference, but I'm just sort of thinking um perhaps we're barely holding on at in a family and a conference is just going to send parents sailing over the edge like I I barely can get my act together to to just do the basic things and so what are we doing? Are we offering I will come we will come and pick up your student. What are we doing? I think well I think each situation is is different but Felmouth Human Services has um just lots and lots of supports for families. Um and it can it could be um it could be financial for some transportation that could help them also with their work and other demands. So, it's we we do have just a plethora of resources within our community and

163often those are the things that the families need to help work the schedule together. And transportation, you know, it it it I think it just I guess it's an individual um in the moment. Yeah. Right. The bus tomorrow, my husband and I are gone. They don't drive. Nobody's around. I have called the school looking for help. What are we doing in the moment to help the families? Anything? We don't could we don't have anything. Could I just recommend that we put this on the agenda as a standalone item and let Dr. Door get through the fine? Honestly, just a question that I've had before. It's okay. We can move on. I don't want to hold that. Oh, okay. Oh, sorry, Chris. Just a quick comment. you know, hearing kind of the rich discussion, maybe it's

164something we can consider as we're approaching goal setting for a district and superintendent that we can, you know, sounds like there's a lot that we can tackle here as a district. So, just want to kind of put it on the radar as something and clearly a lot of interest in and trying to fix it. So, thank you for that. Appreciate it. Can I add something to the for the you were talking about um what consequences we do have we do have like um for the high school that the high school they have the credit appeal process. So, their credit is taken away and right it's impact them and thank you for claring for that I'm not trying to punish elementary school kids I'm just saying the high school definitely different for sure all right communication

165all right so um based on the feedback from the school committee members and the FBA survey um uh where I need to improve on communications my team and I have been visiting um all the schools and talking with the u the staff about um how we can improve our communications uh here at the central office uh and me in particular um you know how can we increase two-way communication what type of uh information they would like to receive uh when and how often so this has been the basis of um our discussion and we visited five of the seven uh staff meetings uh so far uh and so um I will have a after we visited the next two I'll have a full um uh kind of report on everything that's said um but um

166just recently uh we have decided as a team that we are going to send out uh a communication for just staff on Thursdays. Uh the letters will include um the type of information that we're hearing that they want to hear about. Uh and each of our departments will have an update. So those will um those started last Thursday and uh we will continue u for staff only um updates. Um they also talked about um increasing the number of times that I get in the building and walk through. And I have to tell you, it's very rewarding that staff was actually saying that they want to see me and they want to hear from them. So so happy to do so. Um and so we will um so I'll be increasing those um even this year

167um going before, but I'll have a full report on everything soon. Okay. All right. Thanks. Um and um the uh quills and quotes. I'm going to turn turn it over to Dr. Teller. You want to say something about our annual Sure. So this is the collection of um the winning poems from this year. This is our 11th annual event. Um we have poets who submit from kindergarten all the way through our staff. Um it's become a bit of a friendly competition in different grade groups or in staff groups. Um we want you to have that. Each of the winning entries is uh follows with an invitation to join us at Highfield Hall um at the end of April which is National Poetry Month and they read and they come up to the podium. We start

168with their youngest right through our staff. It's actually a really powerful journey through personal uh identity formation and development. um as you get to hear that. Uh but we wanted you to have the collection from this year in print. Um and so next year again we'll open it up in in March. Uh they submit and then at the end of April once again we'll be back at H Highfield. You fill our whole space but it's worth getting comfy and cozy. It's in there. That's for sure. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Absolutely. And so just a couple other things. Pr uh professor uh Zita Aier is uh back in the states with us. Um our sister school partner and uh she'll be visiting tomorrow uh at our schools meeting with our teachers and students. Excited about

169that. Um building needs task force is meeting tomorrow night at 6:00. Uh the FE FEF teacher grant awards is this Thursday um at 4 o'clock. The VIP celebration um the annual VIP celebration is next Tuesday. um at 5:30. Uh Lawrence Spring concert next Wednesday at 6:30 and the Fountain of High School Awards Night is next Thursday um June 5th at 7. So lots of things here at the end of the year. That's exciting. I hope you can enjoy one or one or all. Uh and then before I close out um the uh the updates, I just want you to look at the um display here around Clipper. So, I know that uh goal three um is one of the things was to start using the Clipper experience more. And so, we thought this might help

170you out. And so, I um asked my creative team, uh Dr. Tier and um Andrea Sullivan if they would um put something together. And so, this is a start. Um we will be adding more things as we go along, but you could add things as well. But what you will see is the um actual um definition for each letter and what it means. You see some pictures of uh students that uh is exemplifying um the letter and we have some quotes um I started the quotes the last meeting and now we've got some more quotes up for you um that you can actually see and so we'll we'll just continue to work on it but we hope that this actually helps. Thank you. I like so not only the queen of flyers but she's also

171good at talking. All right. I I sort of want to go back to the quilts and quotes um maybe and I should have talked to you about this. You know, I've been to the um conferences and every year there's a company that publishes the essays that stu that students write and I've brought this back every year and they would welcome essays from our students and so maybe I'll bring you the information and maybe you can encourage them u at all levels to provide the English teachers to encourage their students to submit it for publication. Thank you. Um before we go to reaching business, I have a motion. Um and the reason that this has to happen this meeting is because Robert's rules says that if you table a motion, it has to be untabled during

172the next meeting or it is dead. So after speaking with uh one or two other um committee members about how we could maybe do this in a way that would have a better result, um I would like to make a motion to take Can I make a motion? um to take from the table the motion that we tabled last time to rescend our vote and remove items one and two of navigating the future and to clarify the purpose of taking this motion from the table would be so that we can amend the motion such that the new amended motion would stipulate and we would have to do this after we've taken it from the table obviously but I just want to make it clear first um so that the new amended motion would stipulate that

173Ticket and East Fmouth will no longer be the only schools under consideration in that navigating the future letter, but so that they would not be taken from future consideration by the building needs task force as a result of rescending our vote. Does that make sense? No, I need you to the first step would be that we're going to make the motion to take from the table the motion. Got that? If we can do that, then I would make a motion to amend what he had said. Okay. So that it would say we are stipulating that Ticket and East Falmouth will no longer be the only schools under consideration as they currently are written in that letter that we're trying to rescend. Um but that they would not be taken from future consideration by the building

174needs task force as a result. And the reason for that is that there was some concern that rescending our vote would mean that Tippet and Eastbound cannot be considered for the preschool in the future. Gotcha. So this would just make it possible for us to clarify that and possibly just resolve this in such a way that we don't have to bring it up anymore. Got it. Okay. So there's a motion to um Oh, and I'm sorry. The other reason for this is that the Nestec report, which the building needs task force is supposed to be responding to does not name East Felmouth or Ticket. And so it is my opinion that they should not be in navigating the future. So that is the reason that I personally am doing this. Okay. So, there's a motion.

175Is there a second? I will second it. Okay. It's not debatable. Just like taking from the table is not debatable or tableabling and unt whatever. You know what I'm saying? They're not debatable. Uh all in favor of removing it, bringing it back tonight. Say I I Okay. I I don't know how many that was. Okay. One, two, three, four, five. So, the motion um opposed. Three extensions. Okay. Uh, so that brings it back for would you like to make your amended motion now? So the amended motion would be that we stipulate that Tibbit and East Balmouth will no longer be the only schools under consideration but they will not be taken from future consideration by the building needs task force or ourselves I should say as a result. Uh, discussion. May I speak to that

176please? The reason it was tabled before was because we are expecting a report for the building needs task force approximately 15 people that have been working and discussing since September. We do not have that report yet and until we have that report I feel this is very mutual. Any other comment Mike? Um yeah before we have any report from the building needs task force we already have named two elementary schools. So, I feel that was a little premature to name two schools without having any data whatsoever. And that's why I agree with Katrina's motion. The way I'm understanding this, this does not preclude the building needs task force from recommending Ticket and East Famouth from merging. It does not. No, it just um says that will be that will not be the only option considered.

177The reason that I am supporting this now is because I never voted for and I don't believe any of us ever voted to merge tennis. We voted for a letter. That said, I want to um I would like to start a new move this to the side so we can get this get get this uh give the public some sense of whatever they need so that we can move beyond this at this point in time. I think this might do it and so that's why I am going to support this. I just feel like the building needs task force should have the opportunity to come back and present to the school committee. I don't want to uh and I said this before um I don't want to um disrespect the time that the people on

178that committee have put in. Um so that's why I agreed to table it the last time. I just want building needs to have all of the options available to them. All right. Yeah. Um I don't disagree with the notion of that any school in fact can be merged with any other school and I absolutely uh agree that I did not vote for Ticket and ETH founders to be merged. you know, did we hear because I made the motion and it was that we meet again and that was um the it was it was not um we did not have a opportunity to discuss it and that was the committee's fault. Okay, I'm going to blame the committee. It was no one else's fault. It was the committee's fault that enough people didn't say yes, we

179want to talk about this. We want to understand it more fully. So, I don't disagree with that. But as far as I'm concerned, there have been other recommendations. I mean, I asked I made a recommendation. Was it taken to the task force? Was my my recommendation read at the task force? There have been lots of recommendations. So, I have to tell you, I don't think East Found are supposed to be merged and that has ever come to this committee or any committee personal anybody. I certainly and I don't think anybody else in this committee has voted for that. So in fact in some ways I feel this is irrelevant if if it's going to make the community happy you know but uh there has never been that this was what we recommended planned for and

180was going to do. I don't know what I'm going to do. There's lots of stuff you know I've made a recommendation I I have reasons to uh support my recommendation and I be will be glad and I but I want to hear the I want to read the report again. I want to hear what the committee says and so it's I can't vote for it because it's it's irrelevant. It's not anything that that we have voted for. Um there is no going back until everybody has a chance. Yeah. Go ahead. My goal is clean slate. It doesn't mean you don't look at the work this they have done. It's just that here's the clean slate. Take this work and put it over here. Somehow I just don't have a sense that there's a clean slate

181or the building needs task force to write its stuff on if there's things on it already. That's that's not again not taking all the work that they've done already and put it over here. So um you know I agree with Margaret's statement that I don't I don't think that East and Ticket are being merged. and we're nowhere near that. And you know, my objection to the motion is really just procedural. We set the ball in motion at the start of the school year and then we handed the ball to building needs and they had a set of things that we had written down. They have a set of options from NASDAQ. They have the recommendations from community members, from school committee members. They have every imaginable option. And I don't see the point in trying

182to restrict what we've asked them to do when it is our job to make the final decision. It sort of feels like trying to to put our hand on the scale now when we know that the final decision is ours anyway. So, it doesn't feel appropriate to me to to try and limit it in any way. I I my full understanding of building needs is that they will take any option, ones we've thought of, ones we haven't, ones they've thought of, ones other people have thought of, and everything is on the table for them. And it's our job once their recommendation is made to make the final decision. And I don't think it's appropriate for us to weigh in on it now when our job is at the end. Um Chris, did you have anything

183you want to say before we go to second? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think I think a lot of us have the same goal in mind and and I think it it seems to me to be based more procedurally than than I think overall outcome. You know, I think, you know, I think it was in the beginning kind of fumbled a bit. You know, I think the ball was fumbled there. And, you know, I'm still a little unclear in terms of kind of the building needs, what they're considering, um, you know, I kind of see it as where this eliminates some of the restriction. Yeah. You know, a little bit. I mean, that's that's my personal view. Um, you know, I'm kind of with with Terry in terms of, you know, be nice to start

184with this clean slate and I and I would like the building to know that it's a clean slate like like they can come up with whatever options they have. So for me, I think this vote for me is more maybe more symbolic if it helps to ease a few of the community members concerns. But I think at the end we're still going to take whatever information is presented to us, think about it critically, rationally, and kind of make, you know, as best as we can, an unbiased, you know, an unbiased vote. Um, so I think, you know, this may or may not make any big difference. For me, it's just more of a symbolic thing than it affecting the actual overall outcome. Um, can I ask our building needs folks? I mean, do you do

185you think that would be related? You know, do do I do you think that the idea that we're we're actually trying to reduce restriction would make sense to them or do you think they would feel like we just turned over the apple cart? It's fine if you don't feel like you could answer that. I don't I can't speak. I'm just speaking in regards to over the years and all the many many school building needs task force that have been before this time and by doing this we're just we are totally upsetting the apple cart because it's not following what was precis Okay. Second comments. Okay. Um I think it is a perception thing that we with our proposed plans have given them a suggestion. So it is just procedural and perceptions trying to reset it

186so that there's no perception that we have given an instruction to the building needs task force while asking them to give us their advice. The other thing I could have done that I thought of doing tonight was to make a motion to refer this to the building needs task force. We have this conversation happening. Can we refer this to you? have you have this conversation, do your research, talk about it, and then report back to us on June 10th or June 24th. So that is another option. If people would like that, we can amend this and if they don't like it, they can put Ticket and East Fmouth back. They have the right to do that and then they can refer to us their recommendation that it should be east ticket, Ticket, I'm sorry, East

187B and Ticket. But your motion already allows for them to do that, correct? That does. Exactly. So if we amend this as it is right now, we can then refer it to them and it will we will formally have given them the opportunity to discuss this and tell us whether they think that this is a valid um concern. Robert, if you would make that a m amendment, I will vote for it. I made the amendment and you're making an amendment. If we can pass this as amended, then I can make a motion to refer that to the otherwise I'm referring Mike's motion, which is to completely get rid of one and two. No, you've already made a motion for the amended version and Mike seconded it. That's what we're talking about. But after we're done,

188if we approve that, then I can make a motion. We would still be in the motion. If we approve the amendment, I can then make a motion to send to refer our motion to the bills task. That's good clarifying statement just I mean not to change anything but I just want to remind none of these were plans right they were proposed plans to get feedback on them so I just want to you know sure I mean a couple of you said you know that I mean we've never voted on these these were what we put out or um to get feedback on I I just I'm not you know and I I'm not saying to vote or not I just want to be very clear these were never plans in motion The only plan that

189this school committee has voted for is to turn in the application for MSBA for the renovation of Lawrence. Everything else there were proposals as is everything else that the building needs once they hear or not hear. So I don't I just want to just remind people these were not plans we voted on. Just for clarification, I think it was the November meeting when I was sitting here. I talked to the chairperson beforehand about how to resend a vote. Um, at the time, and I still believe this is what the case is, the voting on that letter was us voting on the proposal as written. So, there's no reason for Katrina to rescend anything if we hadn't already voted. So, we did indeed vote on proposals one and two when we released that letter. That is

190why I had to resend it previously. And in November or so, I sat here and we discussed this and at the time you had said that the letter was a vote. So, we have voted on it. The issue is that it's very messy because that's not how you're supposed to do things. So, all this is doing is taking Ticket and East Falmouth off of the only options right now. Those are the only options. Those are the only options in proposals one and two are to merge Ticket and East. After months of fighting, we our superintendent pushed it back one year. The original plan was to merge those two schools and either a one-year roll out up to a four-year roll out. And that letter that we approved, that was our vote to do that. So

191again, if it wasn't a vote, there's no reason to rescend it, but we do have to rescend it because it was a vote. So, I think as what I've heard tonight from at least from Glenda and Margaret and Melissa and myself, I can't speak for everybody, but from what I've heard you say, none of us voted to merge East and Ticket. You had said that proposal was a vote. We released that letter. That was a vote. We have a vote to release the letter and the letter explains how we're going to merge those two schools. That is not what we did. We started the conversation with a number of possible options. One of which and the most important of which was creating this conversation where building needs would take this job and with community input

192would figure out what we were going to do. So then there's no problem rescending it. Then there should be no issue resending it. If there's no issue in then just rescend it if there's no point. Let's just do it. Margaret, next comment. I have no I have a question. I would like every member of this committee to say when you approved the letter, were you approving that this was the plan we're going to go forward with? When I approved I was not. No, I was not. When I approved the letter, I had no intention that that was the plan that we were moving forward with. And I'd like to hear from every member of the committee how they felt. I agree. Excuse me. I agree. Chair, um, can I have the question again? When we

193voted to release the letter, did you think we were agreeing to No, we were voting. We were voting to present this to the public. That's what I thought. Someday. Yes. It's just that it's still there. That's the Okay. So, I just want Thank you for posing that question, Margaret, because it is helpful for us to have said out loud where we thought we were. um you know I had been working from this assumption and I feel like I keep saying it but it's helpful to know that others are but but there in lies the problem there's confusion and so I who have previously consistently voted um I voted to table because I didn't think it was an appropriate time now but now we have to have it off the table I am voting in support

194of your motion because there is confusion. There's confusion by our committee. There's confusion by the public. And I feel that we just need to wipe the slate clean or and and just by wipe the slate clean, I mean um take the spotlight off of the original proposal and still have that in the mix. That's still an option, but it's among the options. And I think that that's that's where where I am and I think that's where the building needs task force is. Oh, I completely the bill. Yes. I'm not going to comment. Does anybody else want to say anything before we vote on the amendment? I This is going to unmuddy the waters. That's why I think we should do this. It's screams um clean slate. Okay. All right. So, the vote will come on

195approving the amendment. It's not approving the entire motion. It's just approving Katrina's amendment to Mike's. You need me to read it again? Sure. Sure. Okay. Um, so the amendment, the new amended motion would stipulate that the Ticket and Eastbound schools will no longer be the only schools under consideration, but they would not be taken from future consideration by the building needs task force as a result. Thank you. All in favor of the amendment say I. I. Two three four five. Uh opposed and it doesn't matter. Motion car. And does anyone want to abstain? Motion carries. Okay. Um, now uh before we vote on the motion, we do have an opportunity to formally I could make a motion to refer this amended thing to the building needs task force if we want to because I hear

196you that we want to make it their job, not our job. And I do hear you. That's why I thought of all this. Go ahead and say no, I don't need to do that. I want to know. No, I think you should. And I totally for it's appropriate to have another motion. Yes, you can make a motion while you're in the motion. You can't do it before. Sounds like a song. Y as opposed to mo. Please. I don't think we need any more motions. We're throwing more more wood back. This is This is all We just cleaned out the river. Now we're throwing more mud back into That's my opinion. That's fine. It's just if it makes people feel better that we are not taking the job away from the building task force, that is

197an option. And that's why I asked you to make the motion because I can support that because I think and I support that. Yeah. I think it it does it solves the problem for me of not wanting to usurp our the building needs authority. Um because we're really what you're saying is then it just pushes it back to them and which is what I think which is I think where it belongs. I do too. I agree with you. But I think it's important that we all agreed to well let's vote. Okay. So um the Did you write it? Yes, you got it. Great. All right. I move to refer the main motion as amended to the building needs task force to research this topic and report back no later than our next scheduled meeting on

198June 10th or June 24th if you prefer that. Yeah, I think June 24th. So I move to refer the main motion as amended to the building needs task force for them to research this topic and report back to us no later than June 24th. Second. Any discussion on this? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any I'm abstaining because that way I'm not muddying anything. Two abstensions and the motion carries. Okay. Minutes. Uh act on the minutes from May 6th. Those are the short ones. Second. Did you say second? Sorry. Any discussion on those? All in favor say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? And then uh second is MO motion carries sorry unanimously. And then second is acting on the minutes from May 13th. It's the copy at your seat, not the one that

199was emailed. So moved. Oh, was what was the edit? Um Cara Carson's name was spelled wrong. Oh, I almost emailed that to Sharon and then I was like, I don't want her to reprint the entire thing. Okay. Um is there a second? Second. Any comments on these? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? abstensions. That's unanimous as well. Uh committee member report. Thank you. Committee member reports. Anything going on? Policy had a great meeting and we saw the results today. Okay. Request for followup. Oh, also uh is tomorrow your last coffee hour? I saw that. We have postponed it because of the services. Okay. Request for followup. Oh, I do. Yep. I was wondering um if maybe it's the cheerleader in me, but I would like to go rah rahrh about I would I'm

200getting all wound up here. I wish that at the last meeting that'll give people about a month to think. Could we all say something good that happened this year? And I'll tell you one thing that I would say was my trip to Kate Birdie even though Henry St. Julian was alive. um because it made the connections to for it for our little elementary kids what connections it's making. So that's what I would say. So I don't know if people would think that's too dweeb or whatever, but I would request that we do that. Okay. Thank you. Oh, I thought you Oh, no. At the at the last meeting, you guess. No, you need some time to think about it, I guess. Okay. Uh next up is reorganization of the board. and turn it over to

201Lori. You want me to actually hand you his Gavin? No, I don't have a Gavin. I have a Gavin. Okay. All right. So, here we go. Uh we I am going to open up nominations process for the officers. Um actually just the chair uh for the family uh school committee. Are there any nominations for the chair? I love your cheat sheet. [Laughter] I would like to nominate myself. Okay. And I have some words to say, but can we wait till after all nominations? I've got it. I've got it scripted here. Okay. Where it falls, but thank you, Terry. All right. So, we have a nomination, Terry, for chair. Do I have another nomin Margaret? I'm going to nominate myself. All right. And Margaret, um, we're going to hear from you in just a few minutes.

202Just follow me. All right. Any other nominations for chair? Okay, hearing none, I'm going to um close uh the nominations. Uh and now we will let each uh candidate uh speak and Perry, you nominate first. I'm going to let you and then I'll Margaret will follow. Okay. People make fun of my lobster paper, but it's just the right size. Um I wrote a few sentences. Um having reflected on this year's meetings, I feel some meetings were problematic due to our and it happened tonight. confusion over policies, protocols, and procedures. I found some resources to help with this in two professional organizations. One is MASC, which we all know, and I don't know how familiar you you are with the National School Board Association. Um, for example, this is a protocols worksheet that I found. It's

203called um self- evaluation. This is from MASC. And by the way, if you live in MASHB, their district is required to do a protocol um a self- evaluation. So this is from MASC and I just circled a couple of things that I think we could use or maybe not use, but just to show you the gamut that it follows. They talk about seating arrangements, they talk about deliberation, um reaction when you're not in the majority, and another one is individual member requests. We've had a lot of talk about that. So, that's something that um could help us. And um and the National School Board has a really good guide book too for school boards. So, I would look those um because what I want to say is that next year we're going to have to

204make big decisions on major changes in our district and guidance on protocols will help these decisions that we make together. And if you elect me, I'll look up more of this stuff because it's cut and dry mechanics and it can only help. I don't think it convert anyway. So, vote for Terry Madirus, please. All right, Margaret. I'm going to say something first about transparency. My first year, um, after the election, someone who knew it very well said to me, you know, Margaret, it was fixed before you even sat at that table. And for the last three years, that has somewhat been it. People have made connections and made deals to get elected. And I find that difficult. I I will tell you I have told someone what I think my qualifications are. I have not

205made deals with anyone. And I also said that I mentioned to someone that I thought they would be a great vice chair if I was chair because one of the things, one of the skills I think I have is I really do understand and this was brought to us at M M uh MS one of the members from the mass I'm sorry this is very uncomfortable. No, it's very uncomfortable for the Massachusetts Association. They said that it would be important for the chair to really know and understand every member and what skills they have. And I think I do. I think I have that. So I'm going to say, you know, I have been to two of the uh conferences. I went to a summer institute. I'm one of the few people that have done

206that. But I also want to talk about my experience. I've been a director of social work in a social work department for over 20 years. I ran Mercy College social work program in Peak Skill, New York. um started with 20 students. When I left I had 450 and I ran this the Empire State Staten Island unit um program. I was the only tenured faculty with a group of untenured faculty. So certainly I have had experience in terms of running organizations in terms of understanding um and I also think that I have been to and attended to listen to um what the responsibilities of the chair are. Thank you so much, Terry, for sending that out because I really went through all of that. And I think I'm quite qualified. Uh over half the committee have

207been here for four years and more. And when I first got here, I was told that, you know, these positions rotate around. And that does not have to seem to have been my experience here. So, I am asking you to consider me as someone viable to be the uh chair of the committee. Thank you. Okay. And so now this is a roll call um vote. So I will um call you by name and you will either say Terry or Margaret. Chris, I'm starting with you the door. Just a point of point of clarification. In the past, and I'm okay not doing it, but in the past other people have spoken. Is that how does that work? I just don't want to do it incorrectly. I don't want to speak, but I just want to make

208sure because we've had in the past people have spoke. So, like as they're voting explaining why they're voting, but you have to talk to that. So, like if you wanted to go around and say why you're going to vote before we vote, is that what you're saying? Yes. If anyone chose to I I'm going to have to divert to someone. I don't Yeah. So, that I did not ask mask about. So I just So you open for discussion and if you can share how why they support a candidate if they so choose. You just can't go in order and have people share as you go. All right. We are not going to do roll call yet. Would anyone like to speak? There you go. Perfect. And it solved itself. Okay. I'll add that to my

209my list for next year anyway. All right. Chris Terry. Okay. Glenda. Carrie, Margaret, Margaret, Melissa, Terry, Kelly, abstain. Wait, I get back. You can't abstain. You didn't You didn't You didn't let me abstain last year. Last year. I asked if I could abstain when I just met you all. Was very uncomfortable. Thank you for pointing that out. I completely forgot about it. It was a momentary blip. Uh, Margaret. Terry. Terry, are you voting for yourself? Oh, Terry. Susan. Katrina. Terry. Mike. All right. Four, five, six. Um, and Terry has it. Congrats. Congratulations. Thanks. And I am now turning the mean back over to you for the next question. I'm kidding. No. Um, next office is vice chairman, right? So, vice chair. Okay. So, I guess I take nominations from the floor for vice chair. Correct.

210Any nominations? Chris, um, I nominate Glenda. Okay. Glenda, is there another nomination? No. Did I wait a mount? I'm going to nominate myself, Margaret. Any more? Okay. So, I'm going to call out your discussion. Oh, do people want to say anything? I'm sorry. You might want to fire me. My first job and I messed it up. Does anybody want Do you want to say anything, Glenda? for um only that you know my goal in how I voted this evening and how I would proceed is I think we need to um uh have civility and cohesiveness as as a committee and um that's that's uh how I'd like to proceed. Margaret, I've already spoken. Thank you. Could I make a comment? Does anybody else want to make any comments? I would just say that um Glenda

211has a way with words. Um she can take a a hairy situation and make a nice sentence out about it. I've read some of her comments. So, one of the major jobs is answering letters. So, I think she would be good at doing that. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. Also, I think you have an English background, don't you? So, okay. Take now names. Anybody else want to make a comment? Okay. Do I have to go around the room or other do it? Roll call. It's roll call. Yeah. But how do I say the first person? Let's start over. Okay. Chris. Uh, Glenda. Linda. Um, me. Yeah. Me. Linda. Margaret Glenda Glenda Glendon Glenda Can somebody count them? Seven tooth. Okay, Glenda. All right, congratulations. That's your job. Okay, third office is for secretary. Um,

212I will take nominations from the floor. I would like to nominate Katrina. Well, I would to nominate Margaret. Nominate James. And I would like to nominate you nominate Melissa. Okay. All right. So, you heard. Would you repeat them? Mike nominated me. I nominated Margaret and Sue. If you don't want, you can define it. No, whatever. Okay. I just wanted I didn't know if you knew that. Just surprised. Okay. That's very nice. So just to write I decline it. You decline it. Okay. So I not to start at the same spot. Can we start over? I we need to have discussion purposes. Okay. Um and I will say that I I nominated Katrina. I sit next to her every meeting and she has multicolored notes. Um the colors mean nothing. He told me I don't believe

213her. whatever my child I know in my child do think she would be good at taking notes can't disagree with that art okay I do take notes all right so I started over there last time right you started over here Mike would you please say Katrina Katrina I'll vote for myself okay Susan Melissa Terry get to get to Oh Melissa has to say something about herself while I said, "Is there a discussion?" Oh, no. I didn't hear from you. So, I would like to promote myself. I think I've done a pretty good job. It is my professional job to take notes, to keep minutes. Um, I don't I've not had any complaints of being secretary. Um, I think I'm prompt reviewing them with uh Sharon, getting clarifications, and think I do a pretty good job

214at it. Okay. Um, are we voting now? Mhm. Okay. Melissa. Oh, I don't vote yet. I vote last. Kelly. Melissa. Melissa. Melissa Melissa 63 Terry. Congratulations. Thanks very much. Yeah. Terry. Okay. So now is it time to admit? No. Moving to the Senate. Okay. Can you read that? I know I'm supposed to I don't have the paper. Yeah, it has to be the chair. All right. All right. So u I'd like to make a move to make a motion to move in executive session to conduct strategy for negotiations with non-UN personnel contract to discuss strategy with respect to litigation specifically the approval of a legal services contract and to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining for FEA units A B C and D. Having these session open session may have a detrimental effect on

215the school committee's bargaining position. Is anticipated the school committee will not reconvene into public session. Second. All those in favor? Yes. Yes. Mean yes. Yes. No. You have to go last. Welsh. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Logan. Yes. Okay. All right. be done set.