001okay thank you for your patience sorry we ran a little bit over um we're coming back from executive session please join me in the pledge [Music] supp of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you hi want to start us off with the mission and vision fsp mission the Falmouth Public Schools creates worldclass student learning experiences our Clippers are empowered to pursue their goals with curiosity integrity and resiliency FPS Vision Clippers are creative inquisitive and engaged Learners who participate in their Community as social responsible citizens Clippers effectively communicate and solve problems that impact the world around them thank you so much uh in accordance with mass open meeting law I remind everyone the meeting is being recorded if
002any member of the public would like to make an audio or video recording of the meeting in person or online please notify me by raising your hand in person or remote and state your name and the purpose of your recording anyone reporting okay student advisory thanks for coming again you're on a rooll you've been like you haven't missed a meeting and I don't know how long so thank you so much what can you share with us um the F the FPS found healthare takes place March 27th um nurses connect with students and families with educational materials immunizations and Healthcare resources this will there will also be student um presentations and prizes there and then the science fair happens this weekend in the Fieldhouse and that's for K through 12 students and it showcases their steam
003based projects so that'll be very exciting um and then similarly the robotics team this past weekend had their first competition and they Place third which is very impressive that's awesome and awesome and then Thursday we have the Shamrock Bowl um at the high school and it's a dodgeball tournament so hopefully we have a lot of people involved in that be fun um stamp testing has been going on the past or this week and um last week giving language students the opportunity to get their seal of by literacy very um a service academy information night will be held for juniors in the next few weeks um for them and their families to learn about that as an option after graduation um spring sports tryouts start Monday so and the good weather so hopefully that'll be nice
004and the last um senior art shows tomorrow after school and they highlight it's a group of students and they highlight all their um work and then also with sacks and I'm always very impressed they're always really really good so hopefully a lot of people stop in to see that um another one is super the soul fundraising night for Ceramics the bowls are made by the ceramic students and the soup by The Culinary students so it's $20 and you it always sells out it's a huge um fundraiser that's always very popular so that is March 20th and then similar to the senior art show there will be um artwork and literature pieces shown at the NST the Lighthouse Keeper and that'll be on March 27th and it's open to the public awesome that's a lot of
005stuff thank you Mike everybody wants to talk you have an online auction as well right for for the senior class no the senior class I saw there was an online auction yes there is actually good to give it a shout out I was wondering did you go to or talk to anybody did the challenge day that yes did you do it I didn't do it but a lot of my friends did everyone really really enjoy blow out of the water fantastic that's what I heard yes yeah do you know anything about it or um I know it was a very like everyone um all their phones were gone for the whole entire day so it was very safe space and they wanted people to open up or be able to and feel comfortable and um
006um I heard or one of our teachers explained a little recap and she said in the beginning that some people weren't really into it and they just signed up for it because they wanted to miss class but by the end of it every person was really like bought in and really enjoyed it I appreciate that honesty though yeah I I went to it and I just didn't want to um Prejudice and I you would say by it it was fantastic it was that's what I thought first too that kids oh it's day out of school you know but by the end even everyone was involved there wasn't a person who wasn't really engaged and it it's just um their their um procedures to get people to share experiences to let other people you're not alone
007in your battles or it was just phenomenal what they did um like can I just say one thing how it work they put a um masking tape down the middle of the gym and they said everyone who has someone in your family with a drug problem walk ACR everyone was silent and was glad you said about the phones too everyone walked across everyone who had that walked across the um line and no one said anything you just saw and then they would say do you feel pressure ex from your parents to get good grades and does that is it Troublesome and people it just people walking across the line and you looked and you saw um that you weren't alone in these things and it's part of the hope um I mean the the um
008Sharing kindness what is it Sharing kindness I no it's part of the it's part of the program for kids that have hope Squad yeah it's part of the Hope Squad thing so it's just teaching techniques to tune in to people you might notice having troubles but it was very intense but very rewarding so I wanted to give a shout out to the Hope Squad uh who got the speakers um anyway this one of the best things this year I think don't you think a lot of I hope they bring it back next year too because I definitely there were a hundred kids you know so they they want they would like to open it up to a lot more obviously but you need um you need more adults to do it to volunteer to anyway
009so thanks it's really great Margaret thank you and thank you um and you didn't mention trivia night on Friday at 7 o' there's too many things there will be a trivia night people get a table for six if anybody wants to join my table I can use one more person um our table for 12 okay and also uh there's only 23 more tickets left for suit for the Sol oh gosh uh because I have two here so um and they're not at eight cousins so if anybody wants them you have to get them from the high school yeah it always sells out yeah well it's 23 more that's old I believe it any last questions thank you so much we really appreciate it everything thank you okay next up public comments uh members of the
010public are welcome to speak about items that are not on the agenda comments should be limited to two minutes in length and due to open meeting law the committee cannot act on public comment for items on the agenda the chair May accept comments from the public following the committee's discussion of an item and additional comments and feedback can always be sent to our email at school committee falmouth.ma um and I just want to point out that we do have um the nezda report later on in our um in our agenda as grants are also later in the agenda um but I want to just address from the start that it was not my intention to take public comment on the NASDAQ report because we already have the online version for questions and we also have
011the public forum I wanted the committee to have a chance to talk about it amongst ourselves and so that was the intent of this agenda item as long as there's no objections I just don't want people to sit thinking they were going to get to say something and then not be able to okay have a comment come on up everybody Hannah berser Precinct one and I'm also a member of the fouth task force for workers and families and I'm here to promote an event that I think might be interesting to all of you and some parents in fouth uh this Saturday March 15th from 10:30 in the morning to 12:30 p.m. um we're hosting a community round table for uh families and child care and the the goal of this uh Roundtable discussion with families
012and child care providers and Educators is to just talk about some of the challenges facing public or families in fouth uh specifically related to maternal and Pediatric Health Care needs um access and availability to child care um access to education and recreational spaces um and so all of you are welcome to attend if I didn't say it it's in the Herman Foundation Room in uh the uh basement of the Falmouth Public Library on Main Street Saturday at 10:30 10 yeah 10:30 yeah I know it conflicts with the um science SP so I know that's a a bummer on our Edge but yeah we hope to see people who can make it um can I ask if people have to register no uh no well we have a RSVP I actually emailed you just a little
013bit ago with a a flyer with an RSVP but you don't need to RSVP and also importantly people are welcome to bring their children to the event as well we'll have coloring books and snacks and some games too so yeah thanks so much thank you thanks for coming thank you other public comment up name is Andy MOS and I have I'm in Precinct one and I have three boys in the education system and I despise public reading so I public speaking so um you're in good company well unfortunately I um came to the meeting because I feel that I can no longer Advocate quietly for my children in regards to bus transportation and I want to highlight two incidents that took place for me this year on September 20th my 9-year-old son broke his femur
014during soccer soccer practice and we were whisked to by ambulance to Boston Children's Hospital the cause of the break break was a nonossifying tumor and required elaborate surgery it took our family three weeks to recover from the traumatic experience which is when I reached out to head of Transportation Mr Aiden Malloy to set up a handicap bus for my wheelchair bouny in short he told me there wasn't much he could do for me because the buses were already in use and suggested that I get a second wheelchair for the school my most recent incident coincided with the detour on surf Drive diverting uh traffic down my road which is Elm I spent two and a half weeks assuming our frenetic morning routine was caused for missing the bus but it was not without explanation the
015bus stopped coming to our house the bus company was contacted and the error was fixed that afternoon I received a voicemail from Mr Malloy saying the bus would not be picking up my children until the detour ended because it was too difficult for the bus driver to turn around the detour ended and the bus still didn't come I contacted Mr Dart and Miss Reed for assistance it was only then that the bus came but only after a week it really sickens me to think that placing convenience and scheduling ahead of a child's safety is a priority in the end the worst case scenario for the district is a lawsuit but for me it would be the loss of a child thank you thanks for coming and I'm sorry I'm not GNA stay oh no wor
016than you for coming any other public comment come on up are you still doing the 15c warning yes okay good evening my name is Amanda mcgonagal I sit before you tonight with a simple yet vital request to take a vote to eliminate the navigating fut navigating the future proposals in start fresh the rationale is clear we've all recently seen external reports and not one of the eight options presented recommends merging just two schools that in and of itself highlights a major flaw in the process that brought us here how can we make informed reasonable decisions if the foundation of these proposals fail to align with best practices or viable recommendations we can all agree that this process could have been handled differently from the start imagine where we would be today if a building needs
017task force had been formed at the very beginning what if teachers staff family and Community forums had been conducted to bring forward their invaluable insights I know many of you share the same concerns as our community parents are worried about school consolidation which could compromise the quality of Education for their children teachers Fe losing their jobs are being stretched even thinner than they already are and the long-term impact on our student learning environment remains an unsettling unknown this is your chance to take a step back not as a sign of failure but as a demonstration of leadership reflection and a commitment to doing what's right by voting to eliminate these proposals you have an opportunity to regain some of the trust that you've lost saying that we can do better is not a weakness it
018is a strength I ask you to consider alternative Solutions restart the process with full transparency and engagement hear from teachers staff families and community members explore new options begin to have important conversations with all stakeholders I realize you cannot react or act to public comment but I also know that this is a creative bunch and I'm sure you could come up with an alterntive alternative language to bring forth tonight that does not reflect my exact words and violate open meeting law I also know that if one of you were to bring forward a vote like this that you'll be pleasantly surprised at the support you have from your fellow school committee members this is your chance to make things right by taking a vote tonight to eliminate the proposals you are not just hitting the
019reset button on a flawed process you're opening the door to a better future future one where every teacher every staff member every family has a seat at the table our children deserve better our families deserve better our teachers who dedicate their lives for our children deserve better and you have a chance to lead us there vote to remove the proposals word it in whatever crafty way we need to and let's begin again together thank you Russell so we cannot speak anything Grant related right because we have a number of Grant items on our agenda if um anything pertains to what I spoke about I would appreciate the opportunity to speak on it it regards anything I personally said at a meeting that's relative um so on the agenda as well Kelly is um special education
020funding so that's not open to discuss either then because I was going to speak on the um article for the town meeting in April oh that's not on our agenda so I can speak on that okay I really en Rael Russell Hi I really encourage the school committee to um get an external independent audit of the school's finances done this practice is actually done routinely with a lot of districts every year so like every year we do have the town and the Desi audit that are required um but that that is not a thorough um audit and I did get the records from Sharon Reed there has not been an external audit conducted at least within the past seven years and I feel that's important because we are once again going to the town to
021ask them to give us funds from the out of hold on I don't want to screw it up the out of District special education tuition stabilization fund which was established in 2015 and last year it was the first year it was utilized so last year the district received $825,000 out of that fund we're again going back to the taxpayers in April for another 300,000 this will essentially Wipe Out close to wipe out that fund so a business practice from my experience would be going going to the town to replenish that money probably in November or sometime shortly thereafter this is an important fund it is for out of District special education so what that tells me in the past year and a half or so out of District costs have gone up one over a
022million dollars and that that needs to be looked at we've also had four different Finance directors since 2022 um and I'm sure they've all done a fine job and left for their own reasons Paul Dart is still here um but with that Ty turn overc comes different methods and methodology of doing things right with reclassifications which I never got a response on that question from back in October thank you but it's important to have the finances looked at before we go to the town for more money thanks anyone else if you just want to send it thank you hi hi Sarah bden um good evening I sit before you tonight to highlight the importance of building trust within our community but I'd like to focus particularly on strengthening the partnership between fam public schools and
023private daycare providers these businesses are essential to our community providing high quality early childhood education that prepares children for kindergarten it is not and never should be the intention of found public schools to hurt private daycare providers instead we should be working together to support families and ensure a smooth transition for children entering our school system private daycare is offer foundational learning experiences that help children develop socially emotionally and academically by fostering collaboration rather than competition we can create a seamless transition from daycare to kindergarten ensuring consistency and learning reducing stress for families and better preparing our students a strong partnership benefits everyone private businesses remain respected and supported Educators can share the best practices families receive clear guidance about what to expect to move forward I encourage this committee to establish regular communication to
024private dayare providers host collaborative workshops and ensure that policies respect and support these businesses rather than create unintended barriers by working together we strengthen not only our schools but our entire Community let's build Bridges and not barriers thank you um we'll move on the presentation by C GL uh yes so um once a year usually sometime between March and uh June we have a presentation from the uh special education parent advisory committee chair um and it's focused on the work of the advisory committee uh I'm going to turn it over to to um Sandy capson Bellis now the director of student services um unfortunately our chair was unable to make it but s's going to give a presentation tonight so unfortunately um Terry elves Hunter who is our president of the CPAC um last minute
025was not able to um make it tonight so we do have a copy of her presentation slides in the packet and I'll just go over a few of them I know she probably had more details but I'm not sure exactly what she was going to share so I think she just wanted to kind of explain what CPAC was again the world of acronyms for special education um so in Massachusetts CAC stands for special education parent advisory Council it's a state-mandated district level parent organization designed to support families of children with disabilities and to assure that they have a voice in the special education process so we really like to focus on providing educational opportunities for our community on topics related to special education so we plan out um Terry and I have planned out our
026meetings for the school year approximately once a month and we post those dates on the school website the meetings are all um virtual so there's a zoom link they begin at um 6:30 if anybody is interested um we do send out communication on the the topics as well um another slide there uh Terry just shared kind of since uh 2021 when she first became the CPAC president and now some of the things that she has accomplished um she also listed the workshops that we've offered this year so we started off the here um working with the Federation for children with special needs and this was a great opportunity for um everyone who tuned in to hear about the new IEP so we changed our some of our processes this year some of the paperwork and
027so that was a great opportunity for families to um learn a bit a little bit more about that uh Terry presented um a presentation to all of us called parental stress and Trauma with a lot of resources we had a presentation from cord which is the cape Organization for the rights of the disabled this is an organization that's actually actually located on the cape in hyenas free services and they work with families uh to help their students or their their children with uh work Readiness programs internships job exploration they have workshops like dressing for Success uh help with resumés job applications budgeting so a lot of a lot of things that would be very um important for those transitioning into a work life and then we listed a few of the other programs that we're
028going to be offer offering for the rest of this um school year and then um there was a little another uh slide about defining the IEP and what that means for families focusing on the individualized education program that it's a collaborative process where the parents and Educators and Specialists all come together to create and review a plan tailored to the student stud unique educational needs so there was an explanation of what the parents um can expect to be um as part of the IEP meeting and how to uh I think to help the members of the team make sure that the parents and the families feel included as part of the team and I think there's one more slide that I could probably comment on which is the future of CPAC um I really look
029forward to increas ing our membership right now we don't have a lot of people that tune in to our our meetings but I really do look forward to gaining more feedback from the community and um some topics that people would like to attend I know if anybody has any questions about cek yes good job Sandy um can we invite Terry back when she can make it to do the other slides because Sandy did a great job thank you for Pinch hitting fantastic and I can go over some of these talking to Terry but I don't want to because it's Terry's words so if we could no offense Andy if we can invite Terry another time March through June or whatever it is that's my only question yeah try to reach out thank you questions I
030thought I saw your hand um what is visions of the community said the2 was notation where are we page two Through The Years okay that's I I believe I'm not 100% but I believe that's an organization that she was asked to come to and speak at there was a a workshops and she presented I think it's a state thing no I it was yes a state organization it's a virtual ual disability conflicts off the top of my head yes any other questions thanks for pining true we appreciate it thanks okay next up first read on the busing contract all right um so every three to five years uh we go out to bid uh for the school bus contract um we usually have a um a three plus two meaning a three-year contract and then
031the school committee has a two-year additional option um but we have to go out every five years uh so our current uh company uh bus company is lucini and uh they have been with us for five years this is their fifth year so uh Paul oversaw a process um to go out to bid and uh for you know the next three to five years so um I will turn it over to Paul um so you can um go over our recommendation um for the next uh 3 plus twoyear contract all right um as you have in the P package you have the recommendation from liance which was our advisor in the process of the bidding uh for the bus contract Alliance has worked with us uh with the school system in the past uh in
032the previous contract as well so the recommendation we have two biders as already mentioned lucini our current contractor uh as well as well as Mercedes cab doing business have escaped at destination the recommendation uh by Rich labre for Alliance education uh is to uh go with lucini again uh for another contract of 3 plus two years um and that uh in the rationale it's not just an uh an economic Russ now uh there were concerns about uh the reasonableness and the responsiveness of the uh Mercedes b uh cab uh bid um they did not for example have uh three contracts with uh three districts for more than 10 uh buses uh that's one of the key examples and that was one of the requirements that we had set um under the uh under the bidding
033process there were also concerns I mentioned about uh number of bus drivers that they'd be able to hire a number of buses they'd be able to require uh to buy in order to fulfill this C contract so with that uh with the summation of all of this uh the recommendation uh from both Alliance education Associates and uh for myself is go with you see so we will vote um on this at the next meeting so March 25th so um if you have any questions now or any time in between you I encourage you to reach out for questions mine is just a procedural I think question first so um I I loved all of this information I thought it was really helpful to have a better understanding of you know how lucini Rose to the
034top um when we vote do we vote and I apologize it's been five years I don't remember do do we vote on the actual cont like will we get the actual contract and have to review that or do we just vote on selecting we' SE just the second and then after you vote forth then a contract's created okay that's I wasn't sure how oh we actually make the vote first then the contract contract okay thank you we don't do this very often so I just want to make sure I understand it all right so Paul this is all about the bidding process and why the other place was not suitable this is good lucini I had no problem with lucini they've been doing it my only question I've asked several times is about the GPS
035systems right the parents keep asking me can we get you know last year buses were running 10 15 half an hour late at times parents asked not necessarily a personal GPS system but something to the administration where we could go in and see where the buses were um is that something that was discussed that is it's something that's definitely been discussed in this coming down the road so two factors that is the underlying software that we're using uh ourselves internally is being upgraded that process started uh last uh when we uh ENT enter new contract with the uh software provider uh I think it was around uh September uh but then we're start going to as we roll out we're going to be uh and the software is putting in place we're going to be
036having the trackers on the bus and the ability to notify parents so if I could currently does the head of Transportation know where the buses are or does l headquarters know where the buses are or is that like nobody knows where buses are no well no they FKS know where the bu they both and the software will be able to track those the buses live and you'll be able to eventually as parent you'll be able to track the where the buses okay that great thank you so much Paul that will be very cool any other questions on busing all right thanks Paul all right oh you're you're gonna be up next yep so um next up is update from the business office yes so um uh before um Paul begins his update um I'd like
037to share some information um share some information uh as an introduction to his first report on federal grants on February 26 Governor Healey and attorney general uh Campbell issued a memo I would like to read excerpts from this uh memo because G with public school very much in line um with the state including uh the department of Elementary ination um so the um first I'm just going to start out in the memo it says educational institution should continue to Foster diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility among their student bodies exist existing law and wellestablished legal principles that encourage and even require schools to promote educational opportunity for students of all backgrounds practices and programs that promote diversity Equity inclusion and accessibility uh confer important educational and social benefits for students they Foster learning environments that provide
038all students an equal opportunity to learn and better prepare students to work in our diverse country and participate in our Multicultural um democracy they are essential to promoting fair treatment and eliminating stigmatization it is imperative that the Commonwealth K12 schools maintain and strengthen efforts to prepare all students for college and careers including students from historically underrepresented backgrounds who are disproportionately students of color this may uh mean taking targeted action so that students from underserved communities including communities of color are aware of have access to and participate in these courses and programs K12 schools should continue to take affirmative steps to create and maintain a positive School climate where all students feel safe supported respected and ready to learn the school's respons responsibilities under these laws include review curriculum to ensure that it promotes tolerance and
039does not perpetuate discrimin atory or demeaning stereotypes provides students at all grade levels with needed skills knowledge and strategies through evidence-based bullying prevention curriculum develop and Implement plans to support and protect students who are vulnerable to becoming targets of bullying and harassment because of their race color religion natural origin sex gender identity sexual orientation or disability among other identifying characteristics prohibit students from engaging in bullying or harassing and prescribe disciplinary measures that may be imposed for violations Implement comprehensive policies and procedures for reporting investigating and responding to bullying and harassment and train administrators teachers and School staff to successfully Implement anti- bullying and anti-harassment policies and procedures and as I said when I started very much in lines with the very work that we do here in fouth public schools divers Equity inclusion and probably
040the most important belonging is embedded in everything we do and found with Public Schools we truly believe every child whether special needs multilingual Learners athletes High Achievers artists struggling readers uh advanced math students students who practice any religion or no religion at all students however they identify and students from every culture belong in fouth public schools every single student every single day we are committed to meeting the needs and expectations of every student we must continue to create a safe and supportive School environment so every student can access their learning and thrive in school and Beyond we will stay the course for every student in our district thank you Paul so uh over the past few months um I've been uh in discussions and any discussions revolving around the budget I've been talking about the
041impact of the potential loss of Grants uh should Washington uh eliminate the federal grants for education so we have roughly 1.63 million in Grants uh today we you know if things were to continue as normal we expected that in our budget for fiscal year 26 However if those grants are cut uh and if they were brought to zero the budget impact uh the increase in the budget uh that we would need to offset that loss of Grants would cause our budget uh request to go from 5.5% to 88.3% so it has a real impact uh on on the you know the town if we would lose these grants uh and let let you know there was a statement by Governor Healey that uh if Massachusetts and the school districts of Massachusetts were to lose these
042grants which would total roughly 16 billion for this state the state would be incapable of making making up that difference all right so it's it's it's a real issue that we want to uh bring to the table and in in the talk that we see coming out of Washington um it really focuses on a couple things one is obviously you know hearing the news you can hear the discussions about the goal of eliminating the Department of Education as a whole uh there's a talk of uh shifting the grant structures within now in place with the Department of Education put spreading it out amongst uh different agencies and having block grants to the state um the uh the theory here is that part of that money may not go to the same causes uh that such
043as special education such as uh low income reading and uh math comprehension that it would go into the form of tax credit for private school T so going to this block R format um is uh it it may not be beneficial for public school districts across across the country the third other component of it is the linkage of or the elimination of Dei in the schools and again I'm not taking a view here this is just what's spoken about from Washington um and and and if that if there was a connection between Dei and the uh availability of Grants um and again Massachusetts uh is unable to make up this uh difference uh if these grants were lost so I wanted to talk about and along with my colleagues here tonight how as has mentioned
044how Dei is embedded in the delivery of the programs and structure and curriculum and the relationships that the school systems the teachers and staff have with each of the students uh that we serve so uh let me let me ask those in the audience here uh in the building those who may be watching from home those who may see this uh video at a later date but as we go through this try to think about the impact on your chop you know if you hear categories of children brought up through this discussion and as we go through these grants think about it if the we losing these grants in the impact that it would have on on your individual child or that of your neighbor's child or of your siblings children and nieces the nephews
045Etc because I think this is this you know this brings it home to everybody who's a part of the the F school system so let's just talk about the student population you and you've seen this slide before it's been part of our budget discussion so for multilanguage Learners uh we have about 7.8% of the student body make up and let me add let me just clarify something you're going to see a number of uh different populations there is crossover between uh these populations so it's not exactly cumulative uh but I just keep that in mind uh as we go through it so 7.8% today of multilanguage Learners that's up from 4.4% uh in fiscal year 20 so what are the grants that uh that cover the uh the multilanguage Learners so in title 3 Grant
046we received $31,000 from title three which is uh from M multilanguage langage um and we in the school system budgeted another $999,500 so that our total amount of spend is million3 all right so the grants M themselves make up about 3% of that total expenditure on multilingual Learners and and the funding that we use from that that Grant uh funds our summer Language Academy so it's a twoe program for students who are multilingual Learners of English every August before they return to school um that funding also supports teacher professional development uh through our sheltered English instruction professional Learning Community which is required uh that professional learnings require for the renewal of their professional licenses and it also supports uh some of our family Outreach programming that we offer including the fames reading series that we
047do uh about every six weeks throughout the school year um where we have a combination of reading with families and then providing them books that they can take home to continue reading with their children all right so that's the multilingual population now um the second population we want to discuss is the special needs population again a growing number within the school system up from 18% to 24% and in terms of the budget uh the the the grants that are associated with special needs particularly the idea Grant um the F first one the largest one is 98 uh 2,000 um and the one for pre kindergarten is around 32,1 184 the large 240 Grant is used to fund and offset the outer District ex tuition expense it's a large component our other District expense for this
048year is roughly uh running around 3.5 million so this is a significant size Grant right so the the 240 Grant and I think just trying to think about that um with Ida we're thinking about um educating students in the least restrictive environment and providing students the opportunity to be educated with their typical peers and so in order to do that the grant does help support as as Paul said out of District support if students are not able to stay within the district but we do use the grant um within the district to support services that students would need um contracted services so for example if we have students who have uh visual impairment we have a teacher from outside of the district to come in and consult with us or teacher of the de to
049come in and consult with us um we have professional development supplies materials Staffing I think from a materials standpoint we think about augmentative communication devices that students might need or assist of technology different types of furniture or other other pieces of um equipment can also be um you we can also use the grant money for those services and then the 262 is the Early Childhood um Grant and that is focused on our uh preschool students and again applying for um using Staffing professional development supplies and materials are the focus there as well and and one number just to point out our total spend on special education again and that's in that yellow column that you see in the board but it's 18,1 165 so then again thinking about another group of uh students of the
050economically disadvantaged students uh that population has grown from 29.5% uh to 41.2% uh in 25 and the grant that is uh associated with uh serving those students primarily for this District it's in uh reading coaching um and the title one grant that you see it's sort of the purple uh column there 48,5 82 uh our what we spend in the budget of the school is $936,000 the total amount is a million3 and change uh so the the uh Title One Grant represents about 33% that's spent on uh reading uh coaches in in this regard at that higher percentage uh it's important to note that the funding is used for salary largely for reading Specialists reading instruction um and historically found has had three Title One schools uh in the past two years we've added two
051addition school so we have five schools receiving Title One support and all of them are schoolwide programs so there's two types of programs Target assistance are schoolwide schoolwide has a higher number of eligible students and through desie uh the Department of Education and Massachusetts to their most recent census data collection uh it's forecasted that we'll see an increase in that population um of students who are economic a dis advantage and likelihood of increasing um the needs within that student population so these are just three of the groups so as I mentioned multil language Learners 7.8% uh students with disability 24% economically disadvantage at 41.2% again not all of that is cumulative uh there are some students that may fall into two different or three different uh categories but nonetheless you're talking very a very large
052percentage of the body of students here at the felma school system but that's not the only uh population that we we focus in on mean in in keeping in mind every student every day and so it we provide things such as vocational training so if you look at the green colum um here you'll see that we received the uh Perkins Grant from 24,5 A2 that helps with vocational training we spend on the budget is 67 $75,000 on top of that our total spends around $700,000 that is to give students the chance to do Career Direct uh directly from high school or to take classes that helps them Advance it to uh another degree post High School uh such as nurse Ing and so on so uh that's another population that is impacted uh by these
053federal grants and we just want to you know again make everybody aware so that they can see their child within this uh entire population at that point I'd like to just turn over to H so in my section I'm not going to bring up anything new it's going to be really a review of what you already know know and I just want to reiterate some stuff because Dei has been taken a hit and it's it's them versus us and it should be we it shouldn't be those kids it should be our kids and so I want to make sure that we have that idea of it so in filment equity is ensuring every student every day receives support resources and opportunity for them to thrive I love that that we're system of support we're School
054of support which may need which definitely needs funds but we are a school that requires kids support it's not it's unlike uh what people like to say it's equality which assumes every kid gets the same uh gets the same approach in as works you know like we have the same way of teaching the same way and supposedly everyone's going to thrive that way uh we recognize the full potential we need to know we see our kids and so we're g our goal is to remove any kind of barriers that's going to keep them from Excellence we want to create an exclusive inclusive environment where all students succeed um and so the group that I'm looking at is one we forget is our high achieving kids and so Equity often Associates with those who are underserved
055but just as critical as those AR Advanced and high achieving Learners who are those Learners who are those kids they are a diverse face they they all these different faces in F Community they are all kids and so I want to make sure that we understand all these kids can uh succeed and they have different backgrounds different experiences and they deserve they deserve access to rigorous enriching challenging athlets and so I just got a couple of things and they're like we know this we heard this but it's Equity so expanding rigorous coursework that's Equity making sure that our kids all our kids have access to those those cours just making sure that happens that's Equity um differentiate instruction you've heard this all so many years it's making sure we provide tailored lessons to challenge our
056kids our highest achieving kids um flexible grouping get into group work that's in classes what is that doing we're making sure kids are are in classes and they might go into a specific group where they're challenge appropriate pacing that's Equity um mentorship have VIPs every year having experts from the field coming in saying Hey listen this is what I'm doing and promoting and showing those Excellence that's Equity um Project based Independent Learning having kids uh self-directed research and saying this one specialized learning that's Equity it's seeing those kids individually um datadriven you know decision-making we're looking kids by the data and sometimes we want to remove bias but we can see this kid can do it this child can do it let's make sure he goes into the right classes so all these things are
057really looking at our kids and making sure we see you you're different and we're to give you the right support that you need and that's what equity and I and I feel that all our kids need it I'm a I'm a father two kids I have a daughter love my daughter my son absolute love they're completely different if you gave him the same one my son would not do well my daughter you give her something and she just destroys it my son needed more uh direction is that does that mean does that mean that I'm going to give the same thing no we have kids these are our kids and we want to make sure we give them support and different kids need different uh supports to thrive some examples I'm going to give you
058some and I'm going to turn over to my Fearless uh partner in the high school but some examples I see and I'm sorry I'm a social teacher but uh Dr tell was saying why is this all math and science but I just went there uh but a lot of stuff is there like I love I went to Lawrence um the Lawrence science fair and it was during the school day why did they make a change put it during the school day well before it was in weekends and the transportation situation all these things no let's make sure we make sure that all our kids can show advancement they can choose to do that that's Equity um the enrich the we have so many partnership uh over in Woods Hole historically those who were um got
059engaged with those students were family members they were workers but now we've got we've got um field trips from every grade that's going down there and we are showing them worldclass institution that's Equity um personalized math pathway we just introduced a new uh k to8 i ready math program you know what that does that personalized instruction if a kid needs to go further and higher it will determine that it will see it and give them challeng ing uh materials advancing Equity dual enrollment opportunities I hope I'm not stealing some of your Thunder dual enrollment opportunities our kids have access to Bridgewater State University uh Mass Maritime psed about that for Seas that's if they want to do something I want to get some college level I want that that's Equity we're not treating your kids
060the same we're not um we just learn about the robotics here love that the we have no robotics here we have these enriching programs I sat into model un listening these high engaging students I go oh I got to in there I kept me all my St not to get involved but those kids said we want to engage in those um discussions that is equity and so I think we need to really communicate to the community what is Dei it's not this you know uh it's not just this um uh what the race based kind of mentality it is recognizing our students I was talking to Carmela um mski who basically said Dei is not about supporting those kids you know it's not about it is supporting our kids if we can start looking at
061kids as our kids that is fantastic every kid deserve the highest level of the potential it means expanding access expanding Excellence I really you not to privilege few but you're expanding Excellence to all our kids to to thrive and so therefore uh I want to make sure if you have I love what you were saying Paul before do you have your kids do you have kids that are have failure to achieve that's Equity you have kids that are failure to be challenged Equity needs to be involved you have kids that are failure to engage and Excel that's equ we got to get supports to help those kids in there where we are making a school of support I love that aspect support for our kids um make sure that's in there it's not race based
062initiative well race is important aspect for UND um underserved kids so I'm not going to not say it's not that but it's more it is a lens which we see all our kids we see all our kids as individual and a right to thrive so this is who we are I didn't say anything this is who we are this is what we do and this is what is staying of course and so now got to get back to you now I want to turn over to I'm so glad he came after me because he's so he's so Dynamic so the most dynamic Dr Harris take over so I think it's really important that first you you hear that shortly after some of the announcements at the national level in January uh had several teachers come
063to me and say for the first time in their career they were afraid afraid that maybe what they Tau taught could cost the district money afraid that that they had to think differently and as we process and looked at what is on the website right Excellence every student every day what was read as a vision and that tonight settled it a little bit but still some pause um and I want you to know how I know I speak for them when I say how grateful for they are for this meeting tonight and what it says to hear their superintendent and the school committee verbally say this is what we believe and who we are and we are doing the right work and we are with them so we are really grateful and we're really grateful
064to have a leader that speaks so passionately about it and is unabashedly courageous and saying yeah this is what it's about so I'm lucky and I know our teacher is still fortunate that we teach here in this town and in this state so if you don't hear anything else tonight please know that um at high school we we've worked for a few years now trying to live out one particular quote by the president of the teacher Association in Pennsylvania back in 2000 early 2000s Adam ransy who said Excellence without Equity is not Excellence it is privilege and Equity without Excellence is not Equity it is tokenism they are interdependent you cannot seek one without the other you're constantly in seeking both and at B high school we do our very best every day to try
065and do three particular things and look for three particular things where and how might belonging be eroded in our school and if and when it is how do we address that and work to make it better how are we working every day to be a beacon of excellence and education outcomes for students and how do we work every day to ensure that those outcomes Ines for students are not predictable by things kids cannot control students income should not predict whether they're in a class or not student whe they have a disability or not should not predict whether they're in a class or not that's what we try to live out in our work why the work is so good so I'm going to give you a couple examples of how we've tried to do this
066the the most live one and I'm so proud of our department head our department leaders and our teachers because it's their work so in Spring of 2023 the teachers came to the department heads and then they came to me particularly in English and in social studies for some time we had worked to create more access for honors by not having a separate honors class in nth and 10th grade in particularly in social studies did that in nth grade in English and a couple other areas and that work after doing it for some time the teachers came in apartment heads and they said look and one particular in particular was very dynamic in saying I feel like this mode makes me not as good as either one if I can have an honor section I can
067be better at really moving them to Excellence and set that bar really high and if I and I also with the other students is going to be better at meeting them where they are so we know that every solution creates a new set of problems and the reason we had moved to a more Blended area is that when you set separate classes it can tend to have them become separate and be predictable by things kids cannot control that the student that there's a lack of students with disabilities that land in honors classes there's a lower number of students who who are lomic that land in honors classes so our team set about to say they agree that that's a problem we need to work on so they attacked it by saying we're going to add
068honor sections because we do need to have a sense of Excellence because we heard from parents we heard from students as well we feel like the bar isn't as high as could be they set set at that but level two was to say as we set that how do we then say what does Equity look like down the road and began to look at well what if you add a team taught class into honors sections to create more access for students with disabilities to be in it not to lower the bar but to increase the opportunity and over the last two years we've increased our honors enrollment I think one of the things I was very proud of this fall when some students returned to us from some private schools they came and they've been
069in our classes for a month and they said to their counselors your honors classes are lot harder here we have to than we did in our other schools because you guys expect more that's what we want and we have seen an increase in the number of students who are traditionally underrepresented in our honors classes and our AP classes and we'll continue that work to look at the ways we reach both of those goals the second piece is this concept of what we teach and Henry talked about and the idea that coming from the outside and seeing the curriculum the foundational curriculum built in the core that's been so successful for so many years is so strong here and but we also teach a larger history we also have teachers who take time to make sure
070that their instruction and the way they teach is culturally relevant to the students who are in front of them one of the best examples can give is if if if you're in us one history you will get one of the richest learnings about Andrew Jackson anywhere in the world it's taught and it's taught with a sense of understanding and it's also reinforced with what some of the implications that time was but you also if you're an eth grade in this District are going to get an opportunity to understand the ramifications and implications of the Holocaust and other issues related to social justice that you won't get anywhere because they deserve to have all of that not just part of it and the last one that I think is so important is sometimes the diversity and
071the opportunity is the Excellence our highest attended basketball game of the year is Unified basketball and there's a tendency sometimes to the outside to look at that and say oh isn't that nice and to see it as Charity it is not charity it is opportunity you think our basketball players who just played to nearly beat the number one seed who had also been Partners weren't inspired by Brandon they're excited to play every day and to see what that's like the kids who are athletes and unified they provide an excellence and opportunity for the other kids yeah they benefit but our students who are more typically developed benefit even more because how they see them and how they see the world and sometimes we forget that diversity of experience going to school with where 42% of
072the population is low social economic and yet you still go to AP trips in New York City and they all get to go being a part of school where there's multiple multilingual students who have a chance to take the stamp test as if it's only a benefit for the students who are diverse no is a benefit for those who who who may be more typical that is the power and the last piece is this story last Thursday my admin team meets every day between 1:30 and 2 and there was a knock on the door Stephanie fanti who's one of our teachers who supports students who are multilingual was very excited to bring a student because it was that student's two-year anniversary of arriving to public schools in the United States he was a level one
073English learner which means he spoke he did not basically did not speak English it was his two-year anniversary and he was there to tell us he is a member of the National Honor Society and has just received his fifth SCH from where he's going to school that is what excellence and Equity looks like [Applause] thank fired up can we send these two to Washington oh my Lord really and by the way that robotics team this weekend was their first competition so they were a rookie team they were the highest finishing rookie team by a long margin they're going next weekend because they got 28 rank points I just learned this week on Monday but they had 28 rank points on Sunday and this weekend if they get 28 to 30 rank points they will qualify
074for the state the work of Carmela and Andrew cousins and the support of those parents that four years ago they they they they didn't have a [Music] bot thank you and thank you for listening to us it was important for our team to to share with you so we appreciate your patience listening it's not patience I think it's important for all of us to be participating and we all have heard all of this and um to be able to articulate where we are and where we're going to continue to go is so important uh Margaret you know I want to say one other thing because um Patrina and I are at do meet with the students from the high school not only did they tell us I mean they should really advertise f with Public
075Schools not only did they tell us that you CH never mind how wonderful you are and how wonderful the teachers are we asked about different teachers and some would say oh this is this is the one who really helped me and everyone else would go oh yeah and someone else say but this is the one who helped me oh yeah but they also said that they are challenged to move forward but they also are told to take care of themselves and you balance those two things and I think that's so important you know it's not just moving them forward and you know putting them under stress but also helping to recognize that they can take care of themselves but they can also be challenged so we want to thank you for that do you have
076something um I was wondering when you make the presentation to um town meeting and um with the budget information not that we have the opportunity to really stress some of these charts in regards to our percentages of multilingual um Etc students with disabilities but if we had a um pass out brochure it will at least get the town meeting members to start to think um in these terms in regards what are the requirements of our students if when things change where we have financial difficulty thank you and I I couldn't agree more and I would also add you know some of the highlights of this discussion about what what Equity actually looks like in the district because I think people don't understand you know there's this concept this abstract concept of what Dei means and
077that's not what it is that's not what we're doing so I would I would add that to handout too I just wanted to thank everybody for launching such a passionate and robust defense and explanation of the University eth inclusion Excellence um the sinons has been a little deafening and it's really a relief and I'm just very grateful that you all were here to make such a passionate explanation and defense um I don't want to put it down on this um completely U you reiterate T's sentiment thank you very much um I'm just curious has there been talks of contingency plans for if when funding gets cut um in terms of how we're going to I mean it sounds like it is embedded in our system so it's not like you cut a program here or
078there it's it's a part of who we are and I'm just curious if we've had discussions in terms of how are we going to cope with with this if it if and when it comes down kind of the lines um so I assume you're speaking about the the funding side the fedal that's right the funding side of it um so uh we um certainly Paul's done a nice job at over the several meetings speaking about what the Gap would be um we have also spoken to uh the finance um committee and uh and the town of so I feel like that we are in line everyone has asked us um and I'm assuming that by Susan's comment she would all also and I uh the committee would support um that we do talk to town
079meeting members and it's not that uh we would be asking for uh the increase funding in April because we we don't know right but at some point that could be the case and I think um uh to the point if we can share what it is what the funding is for and what we do in fam Public Schools uh for every student um I I feel confident that that we would have a support yeah um so just to kind of he backed that Dr so Sonia I'm am I correct in in thinking that title one Services the reading coaches because it's a schoolwide um program they provide um science of reading and phonics instructions to all students not just to um high high high risks or students who are not um not where their grade
080level and so that means in my mind that everyone's child at particular at the elementary level is benefiting from Title One Services because they are getting that that chronics and science of reading instruction so the the the science of reading um will cross our entire literacy curricular we're picking uh our new curriculum in the next couple weeks uh our phonic instruction occurs uh in every classroom K uh one two three by the classroom teacher the reading specialist is available to consult the reading specialist um provide specialized instruction uh to groups of students all students in the school are eligible and it it sort of Cycles through over a period of weeks and then they support the progress monitoring but they work in collaboration or partnership with the classroom teacher so they don't necessarily provide direct
081instruction to every student all at one time but all students are eligible depending on their level of need to be seen um by or supported by the reading specialist but the reading specialist is also coaching the classroom teacher so in in effect all students are benefiting from the tiple they should and my feeling is that I'm concerned a multilingual uh educator myself so that that is U particularly bothersome but for um title one that is going to be really um devastating to all students so even if people feel like oh my child is not multilingual that special ed um special education um they they will be impacted yes can I add a little bit more to to that because I think that's that's a good point but also um back to chryst's point um um
082you know we've looked at where the areas are that we could um you know the exercise of well if we lost 1.6 million like where where could we take right and you you know certainly know other districts um not because of this but just because they can't support the budget everything's more expensive and and often the first things that um that are cut are your Arts programs your music programs theater programs often are the first one and that is not what H with Public Schools is right it would be the last thing that we want to to cut because you know I mean we live in a community that values the Arts um so you know when you start going through like okay so that is not what we would want to do right we're
083not going to take a chunk of program um we have always um students play sports for free right is so would we start charging do we start charging for buses um you know do we we charge for activities um none of none of those would get us anywhere close to right it would you know it wouldn't help in in our deficit of 1.6 million so um and again we've done that for a long time it's been something we offer and to me it comes back to equity right because when you know um when you don't charge for athletics when you don't charge for activities that means all students could participate and so that would go against you know by starting those things that's that that would go against I know there's even more things that
084we have talked about over the years of wanting to offer for families um that we have inched our way into to try to be able to to help support like AP courses um you know so we offer support we can't yet fund the whole thing but we do offer family support you know in those areas um so there isn't anything that we could do that wouldn't drastically change who Family Public Schools is and what we offer our students so when you think of our budget um at uh 84 85% of our budget is Staffing the only place that we would be able to make up that difference would be through our staffing and what does that mean that means higher class sizes another thing that fouth has always valued and that we can continue to
085support is keeping low class sizes so we're in a situation where you know one we hope it never comes to to you know having to to really ask or have requests for the the funding difference but I think that um when people understand how things would change for our school system what we offer here um I'm I'm hoping for that understanding but I just wanted to let I guess what I wanted to just expand to show like we have gone through those exercises and there's there's there's nothing that we could cut that wouldn't kind of devastate how we operate I don't know if that's more helpful no I think it's important to acknowledge that you have done that exercise Dr Harris leave yeah I was I was going to ask him he said some teachers
086came you know students know what's going on too and you wonder what how they're feeling in schools you know these days I just do anybody yes have any words on that whether this is impacting whether they work yeah you know I mean in the high school because I'm sure they're more aware than first and second graders of world things I just wondered if any students had come like he said teachers had come to him but yeah that's a good question question yes can I P you back in your question thank you Terry no too late you've already G me approval to Terry's point is there any way that you all can reach out you know to to certain populations and see if they need to have you know discussions or what whatever you all want
087to do sure I mean just something that that's a good question you know the high school kids know what happen yeah I would think probably all kids all kids do but I mean high school kids I think are oh more aware of the political things you know we get interesting side right you that so did you have something I I just wanted to follow up on what Dr Jor said in regards to U the support of the community inment and school Committees of the past long time ago made a commitment in regards [Music] to we were not bone to charge for those extracurricular activities that busing Etc and that's what's made balance different because surrounding communities around us do charge and it comes down to um even extended family in the past in a surrounding
088town I have personal knowledge of in regards to where families had to make a decision as to what child could participate in a sport out of their children because they only could afford to pay for one of them no family should have to make that deis yeah there's so much background noise can I sh can I just add one thing when we do a a worksheet or something to Tom meeting maybe we could leave with Dei supports our kids because I really appreciated Henry's comment on that and I think that it's really important to lead with it supports our kids not some kids or those kids or that's can I take it back on Melissa in terms of might not let you in terms of um what Paul was saying in terms of the grants
089and what specific programs or initiatives in the schools that that would affect I feel like just to see that like where specifically we would suffer too I that be yeah okay so um we're going to continue with um grants and special education funding uh so I'm going to turn it back to Paul um okay um so uh this chart the first slide is uh what our current uh expenditure is uh let me just give you a little history we started this year with other District tuitions forecasted to be uh around 2.8 million and then it was a jump because the student needs uh a variety different instances uh uh sort of late in the uh fall uh and that need jumped from 3.4 million uh 2.8 million to the 3.4 million you see on uh
090on the first column on that chart so I I'm just going to go over what we've uh explained in the past so if you look at how do we fund this 3.4 million so uh the net circuit breaker amount available is 525 we talked about the 240 Grant the idea Grant is 850,000 available to fund this grant uh to fund audit District audit District our online budget is a mil 275 uh we have $636,000 in stabilization funds we drew down last year uh that we can apply to uh this year's uh out of District expense and let us let me say thank God we drew These funds down last year because we could would be in a very different scenario if we if we didn't we also asking uh the town for an additional draw
091in April of 275,000 when you take this amount and some uh will have 90,00 7,000 Surplus that will carry into the fiscal year 26 now the budget for uh the projection for cost for next year is going to be roughly around the same 3.48 um and if you can see through that column next year we will be short another 258 ,000 on our funding and that's with increasing our out District tuition line uh from a milon 275 uh to a million 375 our plan by the way for the budget for 26 going into 27 is to is significantly increase this number but let's uh here I want to talk about one of the mechanisms U that happens Within the circuit breaker the state aid formula so if your other District tuitions Rise by more than
09225% uh there's a feature where as set you know as you know we've said this often out of District uh reimbursements for tuition by the state are paid in a one-year time LA right so if our tuitions go up this year the circuit break break am amount doesn't go up until next year however there is a threshold if you exceed more than 25% increase then they do give you some relief uh into this year essentially they take from the amount that's going to be paid next year and accelerate it it into it recognizing how much of a strain This Is On Any Given District so in that in this chart it's just explained so if that were to happen um and and we won't know until May uh what the result of that uh circuit
093breaker uh application is so we're going to we're going to continue to uh come to the town in April because we can't uh you know guarantee anything until May from the state but essentially if you look at the circuit breaker column here uh you know for fiscal year 25 this number if we get that accelerated relief would increase to a million 106 um but likewise the number for fiscal year 26 would go down by the by the amount of the accelerated relief all right so essentially it gives the cash more quickly but the but next year would still be short the same now again if you look at the need in this chart even with the accelerated relief for fiscal year uh 26 we're offering where we would need 258,000 in additional funding and if
094I go back to the original side it's the same amount we're just taking money from the circuit breaker reimbursement in 26 and accelerating this 25 all right yeah thank you but this is so we still plan to uh uh apply for the uh draw down in April uh at the town meeting and we will go to a town meeting in November and ask for addition million dollars in replenishment thank you all right I'd also like to lastly like to talk about the fiscal year 24 CTP Grant we've heard a lot about this uh there been a uh a number of concerns that have been raised about this grant so I wanted to give uh the school committee and the general audience a rundown on how this gr uh was applied for uh and if I
095can let me just give a high level overview um so the Early Child Early Educational and Care the eec uh provides grants to communities so they can a public school district such as ours can link together with Partnerships and Early Education care providers and create pre- School uh mechanism for reinforce right so it's a way of during a public effort along with a private effort uh funded through the eec um and again to offer more preschool opportunities for three and four years all right so one of the theories is that if it's you know the public school has additional resources Beyond teaches and classroom uh uhas and so on it's that they also have you know otpt or they have other services that come in and work within those classrooms and a and a a
096private care provider doesn't have access to those Specialties so we can share those resources uh through these Grant mechanisms so it's an important function uh going down the road uh if we were to received this Sunday so the eec grants take pH place place over three stages there's an early stage uh grant funding mechanism and that early stage is to do A needs assessment uh to do a strategic plan and then to do a uh a grant report uh at the end of that Grant period so that's the first uh uh application the second application is for cppi implementation which in layman's terms is essentially building up the framework of the people and the staff and the supplies to get all three parties uh ready to then move on to the implementation stage which is
097the actual offering the classrooms and uh to the three and four years old so simple you know simple words divide this uh application stage one stage two and stage three all right in falmouth's history we applied for stage one back in fiscal year 22 roughly for $32,000 uh and the needs assessment was completed uh Grant report was completed in the Strategic plan normally you would then move to the next year the next fiscal year F in that case fiscal year 23 and appli for the next stage of the grant but because one of the partners that we were working with uh back in 22 had staffing issues uh they lost a couple staff members it wasn't ready to go so that there was a a one-year referral uh of the application for for the stage
098two the the planning and implementation Grant until fiscal year 23 all right so so what what goes into this application process right first of all there's a work with two community-based organizations one is YMCA head star program which is located at the fouth hospital and it's been there for a while my my understanding somewhere close to four years that they've been running that out of the ym here um the second was friendship guard um which is in East Sal the two became uh Community Based partners for uh the Coalition for children which was running this grant which was leading this Grant and behal of the fmer public school system so it when the grant became available to apply for which was in January 24 there was extensive conversations between the Coalition for children and uh
099the two partners I just mentioned there were conversations on budget on resources on laptops on asq uh you know the uh uh not the the screening uh mechanism asq service um attendance modules Etc so that that discussion took place over many weeks over a long period of time come uh February 14 uh 15 uh at the final before sending out its formal ad publication be runs a coalition to Children actually sent uh each of the partners the uh the breakdown of the budget on the final applications right and on February 16th Bethany gay emailed the eec with all of the required document uh that was needed to affect the application for felma public schools and our two community-based partners so in that application was a budgetary work right which outlined what the lead agency in
100our case f with public school's budget was being what each of the budgets for the two other members YMCA and um uh friendship guard right was clearly laid out and again those numbers were emailed to them as well on the night before that workbook was the workbook that the E judged the application for the grant all right so they had the right workbook they made a decision on the workbook and they turned down the grant so we received no funding from this nor did our partners it wasn't any money that was received by the district from the fiscal year 24 Grant nothing all right so in and now fast forward and I will say let me other one clarification in the course of the grant the fiscal year fiscal officer has to approve the application
101this was February of uh 24 uh the interim Financial director at the fouth public school was Paul donlin he's the only one that could approve that application I became the director of Finance uh on March 1st all right I can't approve an application until I become Director of Finance no no we're not we're not going to go back and forth but I'll we are not going back and forth if you cannot yield to the chair then you need to leave yes any grants that were applied for excuse me grants that were applied for after my appointment in March 1 grants that were applied for were signed off by me all right so there's no question anything came out after March 1 was had my name all right so that clears up uh one component another
102misunderstanding is the business relationship that was required on at the time time that the application was submitted in the application and if you look in the hand oute that I sent to you and if you turn to page eight the uh the memorandum of understandings that we were to have with these two providers did not need to be signed until June 30th four so to months after an application and only if the district received the grant funding under that application so there was I'm sorry we're not going to be repeatedly interrupted if you cannot yield to the chair then you need to leave that is Massachusetts General law is it is against the law to sit here in a public meeting and tell lies I have all the if you cannot follow Massachusetts General law
103and stop interrupting the proceedings then you can be removed all right you as you can clearly read in the application what is here is a is a the standard application uh that is going with uh uh that was given out to anybody who wanted to apply so this is in essence the instructions for this application and it says applicant applicants will be required to partner with at least two community-based organization it's and it goes down under memorandums of understanding it says applicants will be required to draft and Implement M us with the identified CBO partners by June 30th 2024 so there was no need to have uh an memoral OU at the date of the application the other so clearly communication has taken place with the partners um that's not true there is multiple emails
104and communication with these Partners detailed information some of which is proprietary by the way and can't be passed along because it's their business model right so that's I you know want to make that clear so that these Partners were spoken to uh throughout this Pro process in some case for years going back to 22 uh and and and that there was no required memorandum of understanding so the uh where the confusion comes up about this grant is that the district CH received a records request for uh all of the documents related to this fiscal year 24 uh cppi plan in the course of uh of uh fulfilling that request a wrong workb it was an initial draft of the budget workbook uh that had been done at the coalition for children uh and they in
105haste provided that workbook uh as the basis of fulfilling that records request the right workbook in this you can see the email um in the uh in the handouts that I provided the right workbook was supplied to the E the wrong workbook was supplied as a a part of a record request that's the difference an innocent mistake which happened the first time and in fulfilling that record's request and unfortunately continued two more times in in uh where they uh the person involved was thinking they were sending the same material we've made a change within the family school system so that none of these none anything involving Financial matter now come through the business office all right so that we don't have this situation going forward all right so and fourth uh we the district has
106provided the actual workbook that was sent onto the eec as part of that application right so there was no fraud uh uh alteration of workbooks yet had an incomplete workbook that was initially supplied to a records request you had a complete workbook that was supplied to the eec to evaluate their claims all right it's completely different story than what we've heard before so with that uh um any questions yeah the thing so when the application was submitted in February February 16 and then it wasn't required an until June 30 and then we were rejected before that was required we were rejected on uh I think March 13th with their bus that's that's pretty typical right usually don't and I just want to clarify though in general grants you uh if you get awarded then that's
107when things start taking place you would do your Mo you would start your meetings um and so forth really nothing it's all kind of projected until you you're awarded and then that's when things start I just in for General uh grants and then the followup question is this print out of um screenshots of text that keeps coming back up I wanted to just ask since we're talking about this the ass is that the one of the partners didn't know that they were listed as a partner is that what is that that is that can't be true there are exchange of emails between both of those partners and the Coalition for children uh extensive exchange of emails going through all the that I've listed and they were also notified about the final numbers on the on
108the on the uh uh application uh the day before the application was submitted so no there was extensive femails exchange of budgetary information exchange of equipment information such as laptops uh uh screening uh tools uh such as asq uh there was multiple conversations during this time to develop that very application so I guess the person was just confus then I think I don't remember exactly when I remember speaking to her from Friendship Garden I can't her name the director um in October or something like that about um I didn't know anything about this really yet and she was pretty clear that she didn't understand that she was listed on a grant so so I guess that was just her misunderstanding well krina I'd be shock uh we can show emails that that are detailed that's
109what I've reviewed all right I'd be I'd be shock that someone is hasn't been involved in that discussion uh here so aside from all the misunderstandings and everything bottom line question I've always wondered and never had an answer to us why did we get rejected when we have gotten accepted two years ahead what happened why didn't we get to go on with it well it's a little tough for me to answer I'm not there there's a grading system that the eec uses on the application and there were certain categories that we did well on and there were certain Cate categories we didn't do well um and and and there were other districts uh that performed us on our answers um so beyond that but I I I you know in a nutshell we just didn't
110we had tough competition that's right okay all right well and I think I mean most brands just because you get the implementation just because you get the planning doesn't mean you get the implementation are we applying m um through you Kelly I can ask Paul I don't know if you know this but those survey monkeys those went out to the different preschool providers in town who were the survey monkeys from there were there were several uh surveys that were taken uh as part of the fiscal year 22 Grant yeah uh there were surveys done for providers there were surveys done of family and there were surveys done for uh you know agencies that offer help uh outside of the school system that they may be agencies that offer housing or counseling services and so on
111so there were a number of different avenues that were people were surveyed during that time then the follow question if I could can we get a list of the preschool daycare providers who not their answers but just who submitted Survey Monkey as well as the header for the Survey Monkey because I Katrina had said there was one from Friendship Garden I don't know if I spoke to her but I have spoke to other preschool coordinators who had no idea any of this was going on so I'd like just having like and then um as far as the community goes with the preschool providers and all that stuff just to see who was involved in the surveys and if they knew what the purpose of the survey was for because right now I just have like
112the PDF so I really have no idea you know that's any other questions oh sorry sorry I asked turn are we applying did we just apply in February for this again the grant itself has not come out yet as our understanding um that now um to too much time has passed since our needs assessment and we may need to start back at the level of the needs ass um thank you for all the background information all I appreciate it uh do you have yes he does he was so he's gonna talk about go four sorry the business office it was time um so just uh he's going to talk a bit a little bit about uh go four and just just a cut a read itate um our goals these are our districtwide goals that
113um you know not only are led by our administrators but these are you know staff are always involved in actually doing the implementation of the goals um we have divided the goals the four goals up among um the the uh four directors slash assistant superintendent um and so uh that's why we have been doing so we usually like talk about the the goals and then we you don't hear from us again until uh June and we kind of give the you know the yearlong report on how we did on the goals and what we tried to change this year was to give periodic updates on how we're progressing through the goals so I hope this has been helpful um tonight Paul will speak on goal four uh in a bit uh Sandy will speak on
114goal three and then on uh March 205 um son will talk about goal one and Henry will talk about goal two so I hope you know we've given you know One update this is the second one then we'll probably then at the end uh in June give another so um anyway Paul um please talk about go four all right U goal four was really about sustainability and so one of the we were been working on a number of different areas in in trying to uh increase uh or lessen the uh District footprint um one of the ways that we've do is what we've talked about before that we've been more effectively managing uh how we heat up or cool down a building so that we uh when you know you control the building within occupied
115time we try to push that uh so that the buildings aren't heating up at a time you know at such an early hour that the heat by being wasted that students don't arrive two three hours later uh and that's been uh that's been pretty successful uh except that with the cold snap that we went just came through our energy Co our natural gas usage has gone gone up so we we were looking for a $77,000 saving for the year um but that it's probably not going to make that uh given we just had a much colder winter uh than we had in previous years so that's one on the offset to that though our electrical usage likewise we're trying to reduce that that has come down substantially so where we may intersect with those is
116that we may still yet achieve our Target but it'll be combination of both electricity and gas another area that uh we're working on is recycling with throughout all of the schools and making sure that we have an active program in the to the schools and by the end of this month within the elementary school all elementary schools will have students involved in the recycling process and um and uh in that essentially is the young kids go out with one of the teachers and they re uh empty into the recycling bin uh at least once a week for the elementary schools at the at the at the moris pond Lawrence in high school what they do is the the janitors custodians rather will go around to each of the rooms if there's uh a recycling bin
117that is full they'll empty it that then and there if it's not full or has one or two P papers in it it will hold off until the end of the week and then they Rec they have a recycling bin and each of if you go into the buildings you'll see recycling bin at the end of the hallways um for the you know handle the volume that's uh that's trying to be recycled so uh so we're you know making progress on every school you know having a program in place which I mean by the end of the month it'll be schoolwide um the uh the next item we talked about is the uh the milk containers this you know the big mil dispensers uh and uh there a name for them but I'm going to
118um we are waiting on so the Food Service division through the Cooperative of other cape card schools uh buys through a food Cooperative uh and that that contract is out to bid will hear uh in July or June the results of that bid uh and at that point we can see if we can bring more of these containers into into the schools um and and and reduce our just the volume of waste that we produced like in in the C so we're making progress some things we have to wait on some things subject to weather weather but uh overall we're making progress but you know I think um just my two sents yes we might not meet that Target that you originally set but can you imagine how much energy we would have wasted if
119we were keeping the buildings that much warmer for that extra time during a cold now so it's not just the savings it's also just the the use so and I think you're going to mentioned something about the recycling teams oh each of the schools I'm sorry it's part of that each of the schools have a recycling team and I said mentioned they're little green teams yeah they're little grein teams the kids are involved in and helping empty the recycling bins and so on and uh so it's uh you know that's the elementary schools uh so they're those are actively underway awesome all right thank you thanks okay update on student services standing all right so um esy the wheels are in motion so esy is the extended school year for our students in special education
120who are at risk for substantial regression of skills over the summer and um I feel like each time I give a little update I need to explain a little about some of of the special education services because I think sometimes you know people throw around words like summer school or esy and there might be questions so just to explain that students would qualify for these services not all students who have special education needs go to the extended school year but students who are at risk for substantial regression of skills over the summer would qualify so this year our program will run from July 7th to August 14th then we've um hired our coordinator for the which is a success and we've also started hiring our teachers for the summer school program and then new this
121year we're waiting for a final word from desie but we're going to be able to offer a lunch at the esy program so that's that'll be great um then I also wanted to just offer an highlight for our professional development last week our school adjustment counselors in school Sykes had the opportunity to attend a virtual PD from mlan hospital so uh the topic was supporting students with anxiety including panic and OCD um I did check in with um people from both the school adjustment counselors and the school psychologists and they said the presentation was excellent they really um appreciated the opportunity to have that presentation and we do utilize our mlan um Consultation Services throughout the school year so on a rotational basis the schools have the opportunity to present with a u counselor from
122the from mlan present a situation that's going on at the school and so that might might be invited the classroom teacher the school adjustment counsel anyone who's involved and coming up with a support plan um based on their experience they can offer some ideas and suggestions so we continue to take advantage of those opportunities and then also have the um professional development throughout the year um and then we have just a reminder Fresh Market is on Thursday got your call in the middle of the meeting um and actually this month Balou Human Services asked if they could have a table and be on site for Thursday as well to hand out information so they'll be there too and then for the communication goal so we've been using the QR codes this year to gain more
123information and feedback when families are attending school events there the participation has varied we've had as low as two and as high as 44 responses at some events but the principles are rethinking their plans to incorporate the QR codes and perhaps the opportunity to just fill it out during the event might not be best they're thinking more of maybe adding it to a flyer or something and then families could use it when they when they leave so um we did actually have QR codes available too and we just had the the survey um read to us last week so it's the information that they have been able to access that way has been useful in planning for future events and then for communication we're also looking at power school and ensuring accurate and current information
124so this is an ongoing effort um we have our electronic back to school forms that the students all need to fill out uh or the families need to fill out in the um fall and that really just takes a lot of um time and effort for our administ ative staff to follow up with families and support them in filling out the that paperwork so a lot of the schools have um offer direct support to families we have the Chromebook set up in the office families come in maybe to dismiss a student might be a quick opportunity to help them you know make sure that all that information is up to date it's important obviously for um when there's times that we do send out phone calls or emails so each of the schools um we're
125able to export a file after the connected calls go out and determine how what the accuracy is for the number of phone call uh phone numbers or um emails so just some general statistics for the contacts for phones we have 3,894 and there are about 99 of the numbers were either listed as the phone was deactivated or undeliverable so now we'll take that information go back to the schools and say okay okay these are these are the areas where we need to focus and then emails we have um actually a higher accuracy with the emails so the contacts 352 and 48 were listed as invalid addresses or an email error which could be either or and then we actually do have a a few families um who do not have any contact information in power
126school um that's 10 families so um we're going to continue to work and see if we can get that very important information into power school and then just sort of in general the schools continue to work to find out with families what is the best way to communicate is it a phone call text message uh or emails using social media the principles have worked hard at promoting um and using hyperlinks to people's names and emails and things so that people can quickly send an email if they have questions or concerns um and obviously there's a a promotion of um trying to just work hard to improve that communication so if you reach out to a family and maybe it was via email and you're not hearing back then check in and and make a phone
127call so it's a a work always a work in progress but it's very important for us to to have all of the um contact information especially in the case of an emergency thank questions a question uh the 10 families that don't have the power school is is that by choice or is that an inequity in some sort um I think it might be a combination of both and I don't actually know because I don't know you know we're going to be following up tomorrow I would just gain I just pull that information before tonight so okay I just would hope that um it just seems late in the year to for families not to be connected and if that's their choice that's one thing but if it's um in equity I feel like that's kind
128of a there are some preschool um names there so it may be families that have just um their students right like they have recently enrolled because it is the rolling admission um but that doesn't account for all of them okay thanks hi I have two questions and her points this QR thing you do what's that like the science fair and such explain this to me for a moment if you the QR code yeah I love QR codes yeah okay so that's that's exactly what it is so the principles so the principles this year in order to try to get feedback from families they thought if they could offer the QR code similar to when we had the NASDAQ report read to us could quickly just scan it with your phone and give feedback versus sending
129links to fill out a survey or something else afterwards right so it's like two questions and telling people it's only going to take one minute you know here are the two questions to fill out so was just again another effort yeah when you do that do you offer any kind of random prize because that will will increase the number a t-shirt wow well I will have to I'll H right the big one but because anything for free people are much more likely to go in my second question is about the esy lunch program yes I had mentioned it might have been before you here but I had mentioned that over the summer is there a way to feed or make make lunches available to any student who might be in need whether desie comes through
130or not can we still afford to buy lunch for the esy students and any student in Need for the summertime so I've been focused on the the esy and I know I've been working with Andrea Burns and she's working answer is yes okay I just want to make sure thank you very much thanks last question yes follow on the so it was I'm just wonder what kind of questions if there's two questions would it be specific to the event you were just had like what do you think about no I think it was it related to the event into just quick quick questions of suggestions of things POS just feedback information yep okay next up uh the Cap Cod collaborative amended agreement who's Carrie I know you're so knowledgeable are you taking it I'm Taking
131It Fabulous thank you okay so um on February 12th the board of directors of the collaborative unanimously and unanimously voted to in um change the articles of agreement so that um Plymouth Public Schools can be added to the Cape Cod collaborative um if this is approved by the member districts which is were a member district so if um if you want to read the entire article agreement if you're having trouble getting to sleep it's available I can send um I can send it to you um I have it a form I'll send it to you um if you have any questions you can ask me because um hope Hans who is the new director is going to zoom in at our next meeting and we'll field questions so if you just have a handle beforehand
132of what you might be want to know like why would you want to invite somebody else in which I hope I'm a couple things I'm going to read might help you you know that um I'll K you aside though if you want to look at the document um before we vote next this is just to learn about it next one will be the vot on it so um two things that I pulled from the articles of agreement that is kind of a general thing not everybody knows what the collaborative does um so the mission of the Cape Cod collaborative is to provide as an interdependent and that's the operative word in my opinion and interdependent collaboration of member school districts a flexible evolving range of high quality cost effective programs and services the other thing
133has to do with working together um this agreement is based upon the premise that some programs and services for member school districts can be accomplished more economically effectively and efficiently through the collaborative than could be accomplished by each individual School District so yeah that's the thing um so uh Plymouth has been coming to our meetings for months listening and doing a program here or there and I do not know why they wanted to become or good for them so I'll go over it again um everybody on the board of directors voted unanimously to change that um article's agreement so the next step is that each member district has to um agree to it and then we'll vote Kelly will sign it and then we'll send Kelly's address desie is funny I Kelly's signature des's funny
134they they want we have to cut and paste everybody's School member district signature anyway but so we'll get it done so I would say l having all the years uh work with things you can imagine if you have a very special special needs student that you need services for some in the outer District placements that we have for example um are are so um individual that if you have more districts you have more ways that you can coordinate two people can do that and save some money for both districts they also do a lot of wonderful things you hear me talk about year and year after year is the um the ability to go to the Mass Maritime in the summer our mslp program so um get opportunity for more kids to go there okay
135any any questions I saw your hand up sure I'll be glad to send I was making jokes about no I would think you would all want to take the can at it yeah for sure before we have to V yeah also the same question right okay um next up is a discussion on the NASDAQ report so like I started um said at the start you know we haven't had a chance to talk about it um we got the information we had you know the our the presentation this is the first chance that we've had um to to chat about the content of the report and um I also do think that you know so if we have questions or comments or things that we need clarified this is our chance to talk through them um
136but I do think we should be careful not to step into the building needs responsibilities so not we don't I I don't think we're in a place yet that we can be discussing the merits of all the solutions that's the building need's job and they've got a meeting scheduled so um so if we can stay focused and not get you know down in the weeds for doing building needs as job Mike you want to go first yeah I have a question and um as far as the building needs go for them to start at like a starting point I believe that every one of the proposals from the ndaq discussed redistricting or set you know moving the children to all of the elementary schools that being said the building building these task force is looking
137at navigating the future so if they're starting to navigate in the future and they present us with this is what we think NASDAQ is talking about redistributing students or redistricting whatnot so in my opinion those two things are counterproductive where you can have one group discussing navigate in the future focusing on two elementary schools where nezda and all of their options talks about all of the schs and I believe Dr Harris said it great when he said a student's income level should not affect their schooling something to that but I think that we do have to based on the nzda reports we have to give the building task force a starting point from that and I believe now is the time to delete the navigate in the future because it does not match up with
138anything that NDA ex and that's my only point Thank you anyone else have any thoughts or takeaways I can't oh just talking about um as I had mentioned um previously I would just put in a request to the building needs task force to um the data about prek and k um on several Pages indicated that it will be level um if not declining and so I would just like a clearer explanation or line to be drawn from that data point to the first three options which um recommend a pre a building dedicated to a prek facility so I'm I'm just um I would just like clarification for that and I think the building needs task force to be able to do a deeper dive um so one of my takeaways is sort of related tangentially
139related to one of your questions and that I was worried that we were going to see data that showed continual dropping going out even to the 10 years and I know they said that their 10 years aren't as um reliable but I was actually relieved to see that we are going to sort of level out again and hopefully any shifts that we make would that would be it um so I was actually not related to the prek andk question but just in terms of that the drop and then the level um actually I was comforted by that to know that we're not going to keep dropping dropping dropping dropping at least in their prediction that was one of my key takeaways that um from the data and it's not a question was just my okay
140are you taking comments sure yeah I just I I just think we should get to talk about it okay so some general General things I noted was at the very beginning of this um packet that they presented it's gave the um New England prek enrollment figures um New England states and it said that this is their 10 year um I forget yeah I guess it's a 10 year okay I forgot how long it was for the trends okay and they said that um massachus is um pre enrollment is looks to decline by minus 7.2 so um that's a that's a big consideration that was from the national Trends um and I think if you add fous aging population um you know you you got to make that consider so a consideration of that was what
141the national Trends were given to us by um I'm not sure where the Department of Education which said that okay so um that's something to be considered before or while we consider um closing down four schools or not closing them down up dumping them so I think we should keep both those things in mind and and also we I know we have fiscal responsibility but I also think we should be able to consider the value of neighborhood schools as well so those are some overlying things that I hope um we will all consider as we move forward with us and that was Point number one point number two is that with all the things that Paul's been a long time thank you very much explaining the effects of cuts and grants and things all focusing
142everything I think we should just lay low for a long at least a year before we consider doing anything because it's just such a crazy Financial environment I mean and I saw on one of the things you gave that the grant that we receive for the current prek that we have is could be anull so what would that happen to our prek initiatives anyway that's just my point I think we should really lay low for a while until things calm down above like to call that soon I would really like to abbreviate this discussion in regards to we have a task force that will be discussing all of these things they will come back to us with recommendations and then we take it from there I I think we're jumping the gun I think we
143can all have individual thoughts on our own you're not allowed to have thoughts unless the task force puts a maor ahead I mean but we're not gonna go we're not going to get into a back and forth but you know my original thought was that after everybody had a chance to look at the report there might be pieces that we didn't understand or we needed clarified or followed up on like your to your point so this is our chance to do that because we all know we can't do it any other way so if we can focus on those pieces and not get into doing the building needs job that is what we're supposed to be trying to do right now do you have a question about something I well I don't know if you'll
144be able to answer them but I have three very specific questions and a general observation but real quick yeah I mean this is what this is our chance to get questions so I didn't understand the projected student yield for all those various housing projects um I could I didn't understand why it is that the 3K through fourth grade students yield is so much greater than the high school projected yield and that's across the board for all the projects that these things like 19 to 24 students in prepaid through four or pay through four and then only three or four students in the high school and 27 to 33 with different set of projects oh so you're saying like how did they come to that like all those kids go into kindergarten they grow up I
145would assume they'd still be in high school why is there such a smaller number by the time I get to high school I think it's initial the initial kids that go so they're saying people with teenagers might not move here asily as people with small children just overall yeah we can definitely find out my guess is that if I had a kid in ninth grade I probably wouldn't uproot my family unless I had to but you're more likely to do it with young kids but that's I'm totally guessing can we try to find out really struck me that there was such a dramtic increase projected can I just can I also you know if you have a smaller kid the apartment aren't three and four bedrooms so if you have a teenage kid you need
146they need their own bedroom if you have little kids there's less space that you need and I think that may be part of it too that's how I sort of interpreted it the capital asset assessment that she made a point to mention that that was not done I don't know what capital asset assessment is in this context but she mentioned it and it's written in the report they didn't do a capital asset assessment Paul I don't want to put you on the spot but do you have any idea what that means have to take a look at all right we'll have to look at it we'll find out um and oh um there she mentioned the new parking improvements at East pal um no I don't know if this is the right time to ask
147but it was in my list of questions because she had said summer 2025 that Improvement was happening and I didn't know if there was plan for tree cting I remember when we talked about that back in the summer or early fall we talk about that that before yes we're planning the phase one right exactly so the the phase one is the you know you look at the parking directly in front of the building in front of the entrance of the building is's uh there space for six additional spaces if we widen that uh that parking on that island it would it would necessitate taking down two trees okay so the engineering plants are in process we have not cut them back since we first fought uh spoke with the DPW um but yeah if we
148you know that's pretty much the only area unless we take out one of the playground spaces to add additional space uh aret spaces it seems like a small thing that they just cut a tree at M Hall and all every single parent that walks to go get their kids every single person since it was cut it's gone what happened to that tree so you know I know it really is important to people um and then my observation um is just none of the data was surprising to me um didn't feel like new information I'm glad we collected the data um I found it to be well compiled and good researching data to have the outcome options felt like a waste of time for me because um they didn't include Laurence Mor Pond the high school
149in the assessment so there's no new information ideas or options on the table as far as I can see it um so in that sense I just reiterate that it feels like a waste of money in that sense it was good data good collection but to me it doesn't come up with any last questions can I oh Chris yeah um yeah I I was curious you know in in terms of the options where they included kind of closing the Morse pod Middle School was that based on since it wasn't included in the report was that based on kind of their own assessment or was that kind of because we had that as as part of our proposals I'm just kind of curious if that was something that they came to on their own so that
150was part of um the request here and it's building um uh needs task force that uh could fifth grade be included and so if they're saying fifth grade can be included obviously you're not going to have a school with one grade and knowing that it was already approved for the the renovation I think they were making the assumption if you can include 15 more without getting um emotional or something about this relationship between us and the task force I think it would be good to be working in Tandem and my comments were not doing their job it was offering things that I would like to consider I just think that we have a very important part in the decision too I don't think we should or could or would take everything they said as the
151bottom line I you know so I I don't quite understand why I was accused of doing their job for them when I was getting some observations that I would like to be considered so my um my take on how the process goes is that you know building needs is going to take this up they're going to prob do something similar they'll have questions I assume they'll go back to the um to Karen if we need clarification they'll look at all of these options at the end they'll look at all of the navigating the future original options and come to some recommendation that then will come to us and we'll do the same thing and if we don't like the option they bring us we won't vote for it because we have to do our due
152diligence as well we could be in a long cycle where we kick it back to them and say we don't like that one do something else you know the final decision rests at the school committee and the building needs task force is a way for additional input into a recommendation but it's not at all like we have to follow that that that is my take on the the process that we've set in place um that's my thought I have um two things separately one I was a little disappointed that the um overall I was fairly uh not disappointed with the NASDAQ report I was disappointed in the fact that uh the cost of the rental units were not included because I feel like um as I've said before F the Cape is a funny area
153and Falmouth has its own unique personality and each Village in fth has their own unique personality and that includes uh financials I guess is what I want to say to that so like the cost of H rental units including what um people are calling affordable housing so um I was a little disappointed that that big elephant in our town right now was not included in this because I think that that's a large piece and I think that potentially some of this uh the data provided to us could be skewed by not including like no single family I shouldn't say no most single families cannot afford a two-bedroom to the tune of $3,500 a month plus utilities plus a car payment plus groceries plus cell phone like it just I feel like that was um in
154I was disappointed about that because I don't think that that's painting the whole picture um was that that and that what was my second was that my first or second I'm so sorry I'm not in your brain I'm sorry I don't know just to respond to that um I I wanted that date as well and and I and I asked but they that's not within their scope they don't do that but we're already starting so we've got the first batch we've got some the aners so helping to present it at some point we're working on the second that would be great whatever information but we definitely have the information will it do you think it'll be ready for building needs when they they're the ones y well like I said the first is done the
155second one the second the first batch were already under construction the first the second one I think weren't under construction I can't remember exactly I don't know what I'm going to be able to get out of the next one but we're going to get as much as we can okay and then my second thing unrelated um but related to the discussion was if we look at building needs task force as we would look at another uh task force or subcommittee coming before the school committee we've had discussions previously so if you let's talk about policy things have come to school committee and we have had a brief discussion on them and then the school committee has said you know what we would love for policy to take the lead on that and then the policy
156subcommittee does their job and then they bring those recommendations back to the school committee sometimes those recommendations are approved and sometimes those recommendations are not approved so I feel like I'm kind of walking both lines there I I I agree with h Kelly and Sue that we need to let building needs task force uh do the job but I also hear Terry in there because we've had discussions and then sent discussions to um subcommittees or task forces in the past we could also if you don't want to use a subcommittee if you want to talk about a task force that we've had in the past we could talk about the school starttime task force that was a a year-long process and some of it you know we we ultimately didn't change the times of our
157uh start times on our schools so feel like I'm a little bit of a peacemaker right now trying to be a peace Builder and see um both sides and that's just my thought on any final thoughts okay thank you guys um next up is the p hold on I got to get the official paper public hearing uh is there a motion to open the public hearing on school choice thank you Mike second all in favor say I I any oppos any extensions great we're open all right just as um a reminder um we are recommending uh four seats for each grade of grades one through 11 so we're not we're not voting hearing it's the the public if the public has anything to say on sorry that's appreciate that will be next month or next
158month next meeting sorry the 25th of March finish did you did you yeah that was a no I just just wanted to just say what the recommendation was this was in the packet last I presented this no changes right no changes I presented this information at the last meeting I just wanted to State it in case anybody same as last year as well yes same number last year and I believe the year before last year it may have been six seats the year before six I think it was this is the second year four seats thank you okay come on up ask questions as well yeah yeah yeah I can't guarantee we'll have an answer but for sure um so just to help my understanding um with school choice do we set does our district
159set the um amount that is reimbursed to us so what is our actual so what is the bottom dollar expense for the entire District last year for for an example like what was the what was the expense or Revenue expense the expense so students leaving no no no what was the expense for the entire District the cost of operating the budget the full budget Bud budget full budget oh I'm sorry go ahead 58 million 2 and then well okay so cost of anything related to providing educational services so when we start getting into into like uh operations of the schools is that how we determine our cost per pupil like what goes into our determining what it actually costs to educate a student within our system and then how does that number compare to what
160we are reimbursed or are we reimbursed differently depending on that District's sending like do they have a cap on how much they can send to us and with the financial uncertainty as we move forward and more scrutiny on our spending um in light of kind of everything that's going on in the world what are we doing to ensure that we are prioritizing we are getting as much in as we are spending on that student um just to make sure that we we are first and foremost giving our our F students a a fair shake before prioritizing bringing other people in I can totally understand if it is a source of Revenue but at the end of the day is it a break even Revenue are we making money on that student really when you look
161at the cost per pupil so I just wanted to kind of understand what what that looks like well the general answer is the amount of money that's reimbursed is sort of formula set is set by the state um I think it's $5500 on a student if it's a special needs student that's being uh educated in the district then there's certain reimbursement factors that will go above that uh as well so it's not just the 5500 all but the the theory behind school choice is it allows districts to use capacity um so if there is you know if a a room uh particular classroom um is maybe has 14 students then you have capacity to bring in extra students and and help and that helps subsidize the overall program so we we received about a 53,000
162and and school CH funds uh we expect the same last year I mean and it's a voter confidence uh in the district from uh people coming in from other districts uh valuing the Fel school system my child to go to school here 100% so in in that in that the school choice funds are used for a substantial payment on on the tech technology side uh you know several hundred, I don't have to Breakdown off the top of head uh but they uh do programming cost the I ready program uh we just spent half half a million dollars on uh this past year uh was you know was subsidized through the school CH funds um a lot of the field trips athletic trips um a big car you know education is the uh is the value
163of these Fe field trips that you know they're all provided for through the school choice funds okay so um there's a distinct value in that um and again it's using capacity it's not we're not adding capacity to bring a student in we're using capacity within the system that if that student there that cost would be there right so it's capacit utilization not in uh so it's you can't compare what a cost of a student is vers you know overall what we're spending to what we're receiving on a school choice student I think I think of Finance is very much like in that one way so I was trying to understand money in Money out um because to a few of the committee members points and some things that You' discussed like I remember in high
164school I had toay well my parents had to pay I didn't have a job um for my bus my brothers and I to have a bus pass they had to pay for us to participate in sports so I realized that those are additional costs that we would also be paying for out of out of District students as well um and but we wouldn't be paying for transportation for that because we don't offer it so does it kind of even out so I just wanted to better understand for the money that comes in um is that comparable to the Services we provide and if not is it something when we say that we're looking at Cuts prior to looking at cutting wonderful staff that we have is it possible to look at okay with these school
165choice situations what does that money look like so let me just answer that question as simply as I can if we had a a a 58 million budget for example last year if if we had no school choice students we would have a $58 million budget okay with the school choice students we have $58 million budget plus a million dollar in school chice funds right so it is using the existing capacity okay so if we didn't have these students we wouldn't be laying off anybody okay all right it's it's it's that simple in our budget coming up we'll have $61 million budget you know and we'll have another million dollar in funds if we had zero school choice students in tening fam we would have a $61 million budget okay okay great thank you very
166much any other questions from the [Music] public so just listening to that it sounds like there are some perks to having these students come in right because then we have extra funds and we have different things that we can utilize them and do stuff that doesn't take from our actual budget so what are we doing with these uncertain times with the schools like most people in kindergarten now don't even really want to come to fou because they don't know what our fiveyear projection is going to look like are we going to D are we doing this so there's a lot of uncertainty with our school system at the moment so if we would like to have kindergarten keep people coming in but then also have out of District come in what are we doing to
167making them feel more secure and making them want to choose US versus other people more of a thought and a question for you guys than like just something to think about because I do know that there's a lot of talks around town that they don't want to come anymore because of navigate the future and and all that other stuff so just putting that on for you guys to think about because it does seem like there are perks and I would love that especially because if the budget is what the budget is our students and fouth are benefiting from that with not taking away from the budget so I don't know if you can talk on that now or I I don't have an answer to that question I have a question for Paul yep um
168Paul could you if you know where does fouth lie across the cape on school choice as far as are we um one of the lower towns that receive uh students coming in by school choice are we in the middle the highest we the highest we're the highest on the cap which no I think that's awesome like and I want to keep it that way because it does sound like it's going to be something that all the kids can benefit from and even our classroom sizes and different things that are going down but if we're thinking about that and we want to stay on that projection what are we doing to keep that going and that's basically what my question is thank you any last comments okay is there a motion to close the public thank
169you Mike second all in favor say I opposed any extensions great moving along okay see you Tuesday Paul see you Tuesday uh where um act on the Oh yay fun stuff okay act on the annual Art Gallery trip to the National Honor Society can I make a suggestion when I was at the summer Institute last year they said that all the budgeting could be done as one vote instead of doing I mean it's wonderful to hear about how great the trip is but if we could just it's not a budget item we have to approve it because kids are leaving I know but Pro them all together instead of each one separately it would take less time we can't because one of them is a outof district school trip and one is a donation and
170one is an item so I hear your point but we can't do it tonight because there are three different things do you want to speak to it so uh there are the annual trip is planned for New York uh 48 students um are um attending they're raising half of their money um and the itinery is in your packet but generally it's the same trip they walk across the Brooklyn Bridge they uh view the galleries uh in the Lower East Side uh and then they visit the uh museum of modern and uh art they have lunch they have dinner uh and they go to Central Park and then they travel home it's a one day trip this is their annual great Mike so moved thank thank you any comments I'm going to make a comment I'm
171going to make a comment oh Lord zip your lip lady I haven't seen you volunteer on thisp I know I just want to remind everybody how absolutely amazing this trip is and how much the students get out of it and it's not just about the day but seeing what creativity the amazing Jane Baker pulls out of these students is this is why she got our educator of the year so this among ion other things that we never could articulate all of them however it's an amazing trip that's my comment everyone should volunteer for it unanimously approve have 5 a I get up every day at 4:30 Mike so it's not a big deal all right let's keep it moving I wait minute I told Jane that I would volunteer and I was never called upon
172oh well maybe you're year we are not throwing Jane under okay so don't okay next is acting on a $300 donation from West Fus Society of Friends to the UN Club yes um The Advisory uh Danielle BLC um is um uh making a $300 donation for our un the UN in case we don't know the model un uh is a student organization at the high school um they do things that assimilate um the United Nations allowing them to research Global um uh issues um they practice their presenting skills critical thinking skills um this students it's it's an awesome program so anyway the money's going to the model un Mike thank you oh everybody wants a second all in favor say I there you go okay and last is a donation of microscopes so supplies yes
173so um Mr McCall um has a summer house in Falmouth and those microscopes were originally purchased for a laboratory at Boston University however um due to the delay in the laboratory's opening um the microscopes became obsolete uh in the meantime so uh but they will they are not obsolete for us they're uh excellent M uh microscopes Chris Brothers is very excited um and then what how uh this will work is that the high school we get those we look at the inventory of our current microscopes and we'll be able to um be able to use those in the other schools and so um yeah so great hope we accept the microscopes from this very generous gentleman is there thank you Chris all in favor say I any opposed exensions thank you Mr M I know
174this is amazing okay now we need an explanation yes thank you all right so um the policies that you're ready to see um are to to um vote on tonight and uh policy subcommittee did not think that we needed to have a first read because you've already seen them and and voted on them but here's what happened um this is reverting back to our policies uh regarding title uh nine that were updated in 2022 um to comply with the 2020 regulations uh so on January 9th 2025 the federal court ruling January 20th 2025 the presidential executive order and the February 4th 2025 US Department of Education Office of civil rights uh your colleague uh letter vacated the Title Nine regulations that were effective August 1 of 2024 of which we adopted so now we're all
175we're doing is reverting back because those are vacated uh back to our revised policies that we Revis in 2022 so that we comply with the 2020 Title 9 regulations so we're going back in time we're going back in time but luckily we'd already done our um due diligence of the time so we just really need to reopt the policies that we had a little depressing a little but any questions before we just take them one at a time one at a time we have to do them one at a time oh we can do them as a because we've done them before I make a motion to approve all four as a whole thank you Mike for the ride any last comments all in favor say hi opposed exensions unanimous great now that was a
176vote to take them together I think have to vote on them again I think you need two votes you're right we do yeah that was V so move second all in favor say I I any opposed any extensions thank you good catch appreciate that okay all right update so here I've got some exciting things um so do you remember uh uh I don't remember with I think it was the last time we were at moris Pond school and it was a group of students um the the no place for hate and they came and they presented and they were so wonderful this that student group has grown and they've been doing lots of activities uh in moris pond they this year are doing three assemblies through the year and they're leading the assemblies and I
177had the pleasure of going um I think it was just last week my time um and uh it was they it was so wonderful and their whole theme is really engaging with um the students because all students got to participate and it was really getting uh it was just thought-provoking about what do you think you know of someone when you see them right and how much more you could if you just get to know someone how much more you could learn and they did the whole analogy of I'm sure everyone knows the iceberg right what's above the surface right is is kind of what you see but it's below the surface is what you want to get to know and so they just did a really nice way of encouraging everyone to get to know
178the real people and make friends and but they did a wonderful job so I just wanted to to share that the group is strong and they're continuing um their work yes just a quick question is there a or whom is the teacher who's overseeing that we saw the kids last time but the teachers are uh so Donna Lima and um is I know Donna Lima is the number one I'm sorry Kathleen Mar is number two number two okay thank you thank you very okay thanks um so a real quick comment the iceberg you you know I was trying to catch my words about that challenge day that time yes that was another thing did to they taught you how to think about the iceberg so well good so our our fth and sixth grade uh
179students are talking about so our high school so um Jane Baker and you mentioned um you know she won the Massachusetts art teacher of the year and it's the amazing it is the amazing amazing Jan Baker of course and I agree 100% with that um so I mean and the award really goes to um recognize the educator who excels in practice instruction promotion and celebration of visual art I personally admire Jane a great deal um her creativity um her skills dedication to students I to your point exactly um when I think of Jane is what she the students are able to produce through her just encouragement and her teaching it's just incredible um I uh one of the things that she always says is that um she's not trying to make um artists out of
180all students right that she is trying to um teach kids how another way of communicating or expressing themselves and and a couple years ago I was talking to one of the students and um I thought for sure the student would go on to hire Ed in art I mean absolutely beautiful and she was like I'm not interested in doing that she was actually interested in nursing which is fine great great profession sorry I just you know but but she said that I am always going to have art it's going to be an outlet for me and I enjoy you know painting and draw you know drawing and so I think like that's really important right I mean it's a gift it's a lifelong gift so I just just wanted to share that there's a little
181something about Jane and today is her birthday because I had asked her if she would come because I really wanted to honor her person but she really deserves to have her birthday celebration with her family so she said okay if I just talked about it okay um if you haven't gone to see the art uh I asked her about it and she's making a book of all the art and the PCT and the uh dialogue about how they get that and I think the booklet is going to be like $4 and that art was absolutely incredible so if anybody's interested those books should be available and you can purchase them thank you I think we I wonder if some of those people remember when she did the um the War veterans and the teenagers that
182thing their comment what you heard from both sides of that aisle was um I remember genor I'll never make fun of an old per and driving slow again you know in The Young and the back and forth and another thing to be no is that she is a product of F I found with public schools so there you go one and she is a practicing artist herself too I think is just brings that passion into the students it's great also would like to recognize um our um floating nurse um there's a new recognition from the Massachusetts School nurses uh organization it's called The Rising Star Award uh it's for nurses that are um five years or under in the practice and uh Emma butter broke is in her second year with us she's a floating
183nurse she's um she's very uh skilled her clinical skills uh but one of the things um that we talk about with uh is just um how she looks at the old the um the whole child and um one of the things that she she was in instrumental in getting the Clipper closet at the high school um so she she actually started that but I'm definitely looking at the well-rounded the health health the to so congratulations U to Emma too so very glad she got that um the um papers okay so U the pouth high school jazz band uh won silver medal uh it's very exciting so um uh they are uh they did a wonderful job and they were just uh like the best of the best in the area and so silver is uh
184excellent excellent a I just congratulations them I am going to take a couple minutes to shout out everyone on the the jazzz band um for the uh the Sachs Woodwinds we have Liam Costa Hannah Park miles Chase uh H hanu Park Isabella Cabra trombones um Jonah Goldstone Evelyn hiker um by the way Evelyn is an eighth grade student that plays in The Jazz manth High School um in trumpets Elijah Dory um fi um ver um how do you say ver um I know how to say it um can you say it ver thank you okay so it's always say middle syllable that catches me up thank you so much Nate um burningham and Nate is also an eighth grader in the high school dzz Dan it's pretty awesome is it um in the Rhythm Section
185we got um IA Bay Brody Costa Ronan eses um Colin O'Brien Robert Simkins uh Jack Beardsley and Victoria Victoria Cabra so what um an awesome so I'm just excellent and the evening of jazz is coming up on Saturday April 5th at the kunam messent it is a wonderful evening um so you can get your tickets and you can go hear our jazz band um two students um at Falmouth High School uh this is pretty amazing too Macy Chase and marisel um JK uh uh artwork was selected to compete in the National K12 ceramic EX uh Vision they're going to be in Salt Lake City that will be on display at the National Council on education for the ceramic Arts conference their AR is going to be seen by tens of thousands of people artists Educators
186um from around the world it's absolutely amazing so um here is a small picture of their two pieces I don't know if you haven't seen it but I'll pass that around um so that's it's very exciting we got an email about that right yes can we just add one more thing Marisol is actually GNA be going to the University of uh Utah at Salt Lake oh really oh that's connection I mean that's great that is pretty exciting what are the chances what are the chances that's awesome meant to be um okay so you already heard about the robotics um from our uh student liaison and from U Dr Harris so I'm not going to get into that but I do want to say congratulations to our Regal seagull and their robot Lulu so um I'm
187get a little update on East bouth and T ticket uh principal har process um East bouth is still uh in their round one interviews and T ticket will be beginning their round one um interviews in just a few short weeks um I'm a little bit on composting so the town water and uh sewer advisory uh committee has approached me to add another composting location this one is going so well um and so they would like to add it at East Falmouth at the end of the parking lot near the texal bins um the Village of East fouth Association has approved it um and um so we're we're good with it we're going to do the same thing as we did here do it on a pilot um so we'll be checking it uh more regularly
188in the beginning if everything's going well um it could be a permanent compos hosting for the um East FM uh locations um we are going to offer a bullying Workshop again so Attorney Mary Gans is going to hold another one um uh it's it's been a minute since we've done one April 15th at 6 PM um by Zoom so hopefully more people can participate uh and she'll just be discussing uh bullying cyber bullying um talk about the Massachusetts law uh what distinguishes between bullying and just a um conflict a peer conflict and um and then how the school district U responds to um bullying uh uh claims in our process through that that Mary yeah Mary uh and just a few in March there's just a few things coming up um that you also may
189want to consider going to um well last night I went to the um third grade at Mullen Hall they're just adorable um their their course um and their uh recorders they're so good um we already heard about on uh tomorrow night is the art show reception at the high school also uh tomorrow night is the all bands night um we already heard about the steam fair but I want to give a plug we again have over 30 um uh Community uh scientists and members participating there'll be lots of things set up we're going to have the um the big whale that you can walk through uh will be there there's you know going to be the live horseshoe crabs uh on display you can look uh Plank and other microscopes there's a lot of fun
190things to do for the full family just bring the whole family out because there's just so many fun things and then um I just want to shout out to our our fouth again amazing fouth Community um there's going to be over $99,000 in scholarships uh and awards presented as well on March 19th it's all Coral night um and uh the 20th we already talked about the The Soup for the Soul um is on the 20th Flyers included March 22nd the FF Gala I think I mentioned it before but I'm get another plug great great event um hope to see you there and then um the next thing in March on the 29th and 30th is the Lawrence School play and they're doing Frozen Junior and they do a awesome job at the at so any
191questions for March 29th and 30 the end of the month quick on the J okay uh next up is um thank you thank you for that next up is approving the minutes from February 11 there a motion to approve the minutes so move is there a second a second any um edits or okay it it should be easy to search for and find yeah thank you uh anything else all in favor say I uh any oppos any exensions unanimous so um on the subject of minutes and since we have the opportunity um since is not here because she would probably be very upset if she was and I brought it up you know I have a lot of concerns about the amount of time that she is spending on records requests this year you know
192we've heard a lot of them um and so I mean obviously she's still make doing our minutes um and getting things done but I it is a concern I have and I'm one things and a million other things um you know I'm wondering if I mean does she need help um if we're going to keep at this pace it just seems to me that this pace of Records requests and the degree of them seems far more than we have ever had in my tenure and if we need God help us to spend money uh to address it I don't know if we can if I don't want to put anybody on the spot but it's a concern the uh volume of Breet request has you know virtually doubled uh over the last couple years I
193think there was 28 two years ago it's 57 so far this year and and it's it's an enormous amount of energy to try to respond to these record requests uh and then if there's an issue to go back and forth I'm trying to sort through the issue so um you know I mean hiring a staff member could be an expensive uh uh you know position to do um probably we don't know what the long term uh you know if that need will continue at that level um so it may not be the right way to go but uh I mean I'll just say be honest with you that this is this Ben train the administration give these request do yeah would it be possible to quantify um the staff hours that have been devoted and
194cost for hour and the cost per photocopying and just to get a sense of what the cost of the this um a usual amount of requests has cost us I thought about it I I don't know I mean that's a lorry decision but I I thought about it and then I was like oh my God I can't ask them to do one more thing by that was my first thought like okay trying to create that could we you know estimate I mean you you know all our typical um requests that you get annually you know a lot um are from businesses that where our bids may be coming up so they want you know they request for information that's a fairly simple one right you're you're grabbing um you know information of our current contract
195right and you're and you're sharing that um that doesn't take you know long uh other typical um records requests are um if if if someone's doing research or they're writing an article you know they may be asking um all districts in a region or across Massachusetts and it's usually data that's already there that you just download and you know and you're sharing again it's not on it's it's when you know there's it becomes you know if there's a a curriculum you know and we have to you know the number of people not just Dr Teller but let's say it's about history and now we're involving our department head and we're researching you know the depths of what they want to know around a unit or whatever that that takes that takes a long time right
196so it's not as easy as saying we had 57 and we can average two hours for it right one might take two hours one may by the multiply by three people 10 hours each you see what I'm saying I'm just I'm just trying to explain some of that so you know Sharon uh gets she's our uh Records request officer she gets the records in she um very rarely unless it's one of those datas where she can just pull down the data and do it it goes to other people and sometimes it requires multiple people and they're actually Gathering they're trying to make sense of what it is you know that that's being asked and sometimes that puts another strain of trying to figure it out um on certain level of um the records request if
197it's not straightforward then attorney Gans is involved and now we have hours for her to come here and pull records and to look at them or to review what another person has pulled and you know and did we answer it um another one that takes uh quite a bit of time is when someone asks for all emails between this person and this person for you know this 30 days or you know this 15 and then now it has to because no one's going to get set in and see if they can find every you right so it is involved on the back end pulling all of them and sometimes no joke we've gotten Stacks like this because you know what happens within all of those you get you know there's all kind of vendors you
198know that that might be in there or the chains right so it's repeat repeat repeat but you have to go through all of them so then it comes back to having to go through this do you know which ones included which because there's rules that's definitely when Mary Gans is involved right going through which one you know because there's the rules some can be included but have to be redacted now we're redacting you know I'm just saying like so it it just depends on the number and I don't know like looking at that and just the number of time we would take of looking at each one and trying to guess the amount of hours and no not to have my back to you up question I was I know so I we can try
199I'm just saying that it's not as straightforward as being able to okay well I was just thought I was just worried about Sharon but evidently I'm worried about know um there is a cost yeah and my concern is is is this taking time away from people who could be better be working in terms of student learning and educ time away from kids you know I no but taking away from people who should you know have other responsibilities that can't get to it how much it cost yes is important how it overwhelm sh Sharon yes that's important but I'm very concerned about students and their learning and that should be our Focus if this is taking time away from people who could be doing other things for students that's a problem Fair m point of order
200this isn't on the agenda so we should be discussing this as we are right now okay we can move on I think we've shared our our concerns related to our secretary um uh she deserves it um committee reports anybody got anything to report yeah um the tech committee met on March 5th um and we they not me they discussing um changes that Google made to how they um manage privacy for YouTube and so this came through on March 1st it affected all school districts in Massachusetts and um from listening to the conversation it seemed like teachers were not prepared and so all of a sudden the content they were going to provide during their classes was blocked you couldn't go to YouTube anymore there was a big thing that popped up and said you can't
201go to the site because it was gathering information about students off of their personal Chrome books all of a sudden with that policy change and so teachers were in the moment trying to strategize ways to embed the content into slideshows so they could give it to the kids and you know like hold on everybody does that work you know so it's kind of frantic um seems like last week was a struggle for a lot of people trying to figure out how to do a workaround on that and so the meeting was um trying to make instructional information for teachers to show them how to embed was there but to embed um the content that they need for their curriculum into slides so that you're not going to the website to YouTube you can watch it
202separately um there was some conversation about wanting to have a like a resource library of pre-curated videos so that teachers don't have to go through and pre screen a whole bunch of things um but you could just go and look for your subject material and find some preapproved videos and put that in um and then um there was uh a lot of conversation about what tools in our repertoire this will affect and how how you would have to embed videos for all those different applications um that took up most of the time we had a short conversation at the end about 3D printing um updating materials and maybe getting new devices for the um higher level computer classes for the kids to do more you know detailed work than the machines they have now and
203also about um cell phones and it's sort of an epidemic that has shifted from high school down to middle school now in elementary school are getting cell phones and so one of the teachers in the group had brought that as a conversation topic wanted to kind of intervene he was thinking with fifth graders and the people in the room were all like oh no no it starts in third grade you have to you know talk to parents first grade whatever um it's just smartphones going to younger and younger kids was really concerned about the impact on student mental health and emics and and effect the phones are having sort of a pure pressure angle was an interesting meeting I think they've resolved how to get You2 back into the thank you yeah soon I think
204we all received today a um email from masc division 7 in regards to a round table um discussion that's going to be held on Monday March 31st at 6:30 pm I've signed up for it I would suggest others as well because the topics are just what we're talking about the evening in regards to with many difficult decisions school committee members have to make what are the back best practices for dealing with public outcry um with the influx of emails social media accusations requests for comments from the Press Etc that we're going to have a round table discussion so I signed up already okay great well if some people can't make it maybe we can get an update from you guys right thank you Henry did you want to update on the de committee yeah I
205just uh the Dei u b committee got together and uh the the letter from Administration about staying the course was the main topic and they were uh impressed by the letter they impressed by uh what are how the impact on students on De and their and how impacts um students and then stories came about about um how parent how family members um how they're impact and I I felt like there were great stories that should be shared and uh the idea is like this at the end of the year we're just talking about impact on families and it would be great that next year there'll be family members that'll be able to tell their stories di stories and have a rich discussion instead of like Educators this is what families talking to families and so
206the the the the call is if there is someone that's passionate about di a family member that's passionate di that they would contact me and you can start working on U maybe a nice um form that um families talk about families talking to families about Equity things like that any other update uh Committee Member updates great any requests for follow yep okay so um some staff have um mentioned this and we've had letters from parents about um including staff input when we do the evaluation superintendent evaluation um I looked at the Jessie background for evidence Gathering and staff input is included there so I'm asking the sub evaluation subcommittee um to give the school committee um guidance on incorporating um staff input okay can so I know I know you have to have a meeting
207about yep fair enough uh any last things um the only update I have that we didn't get to is to make sure that the people who are assigned to each goal goal one goal two goal three for the school committee goals that we set for the year are working along making progress goal two people um started our work and I I can't remember what date I said we were going to have it on our agenda where everybody get where each goal gives an update I can't remember if I said it was March or April but um I'll look and resend it so that we can make sure that we're keeping each other um on target for that yeah would you be able to let I think I missed that meeting would you be able to
208send it to me just so I know what what I should be doing yeah sorry we we uh we assigned you we we put you on all of them because you know you weren't here to defend yourself so okay that's it motion to adjourn I oh you got oh I'm sorry yes um just a request based on the nezda report and trying to use data driven decisionmaking I would I'm asking for an agenda item to resend navigate in the future as it does not go with any of the N Things that's it okay oh sorry I wasn't looking up have some explanation or um description of how our exit interviews are conducted and also um the HR situation and um I know a little bit on that okay and then Kelly if I could one
209more um preschool and kindergarten enrollment for the last five years by by district and broken down into school I'd ask that I just remind me that's at last month and I'd like to get that as we go I think that's it's in the report for the last five years thank you okay um that was there were a couple the evaluation one will get kicked to evaluation resending navigate in the future and presentation on HR if other people want those just well that's HR so I was lumping them together yep um if other people want those please reach out and let me know and motion to adour make a motion second thank you all in favor hi hi we're