001Okay, it is 6:30, so I will call the meeting to or order and I would like a motion to adopt remote participation as written in the agenda. So moved. Second. Okay, roll call vote. Since Pam is not here, it begins with Sarah. Sarah Montigue, Arlington, yes. Linda Herbison, Bolton, yes. Steve Woo Conquered. Yes. Maggie Sharon Dover. Yes. Colleen is not here. So Sean would be next. Sharon must Lexington. Yes. Jeff Stulan Nean. Yes. Alice Lucas. Yes. Very good. My understanding is there has been no submitted previously submitted public comment. Is that still true, Julia? That is correct. We move on to the consent agenda. My understanding is that did I see no grants there. So item one is not relevant. It was just donations and the minutes. Is that correct? That is correct. Very well.
002I would like a motion to approve the consent agenda. Uh but only the items on donations and on the draft minutes of March 11th, 2025. So moved. Second. Any discussion on either of those two items? Hearing none, move to the vote. Sarah Montigu Arlington. Yes. Linda Herbison Bolton. Yes. De Leoo Conquered. Yes. Maggie Shandover. Yes. Aron Mosto Lexington. Yes. Jeff Sulan. Yes. Still, yes. Very good. Chair's report. I do not have any items myself for the good of the organization. Members, do you have anything that fits under this category for this evening? Very well. Move on. Principles leadership report. Uh, good afternoon everyone or evening. Um, just making sure I have the ability to share my screen. I'll step off. Thank you. Great. Okay. So, um, we're going to go through a a couple items,
003uh, this morning. I was wondering, I didn't see Riley if it Can we just double check that Riley's on so she can do her part? I will continue on. Let's try that again. otherwise. Um, so I can fill in for Riley. Uh, as we talked about this, um, our seniors in vet science, which Riley's a part of, uh, took their veterary veterary science, uh, CVA exam. Of the students that took it, six of the seniors passed. Um, to qualify, they needed 300 clinical hours, a practicum, and their written exam had to be 70% or better. So, um, congratulations to our seniors for, uh, getting their certification. I think that's a wonderful thing as they move on. And to continue with that, our, uh, vet science, uh, did a competition uh, for uh, CDE, for the
004FFA. Uh, they had four juniors that competed in the competition on March 4th. They won first place. That seems to be a theme here at Menan, which is wonderful. Um and the winning obviously which is something we'll be talking about next meeting is that uh there more of our teams are qualifying to go to nationals which means that's out of state stuff that's going to need school committee approval but at this point uh we want to make sure we congratulate all that's there. So Max, Angie, Annabelle and Olivia for their great work in qualifying um during our FFA competition. I think Riley could have done it way better than I did. So, um, gonna move to Matilda next. Matilda, do you are you on? Yeah, I am. Okay, you're up. Awesome. Um, what I'm presenting
005on is a staff presentation that myself, um, another junior in early ed, Liberty, and a sophomore in early ed, Jamie, were able to do last Wednesday. Mr. Dr. Deva so graciously let us um kick off the professional development day by um doing a staff presentation about our Skills USA project. So Skills USA is a competition that obviously we go to and the three of us are working together to come up with a project about diversity inclusivity in early education in childhood. Um, so over the last few weeks, we've been kind of monitoring the preschoolers, doing some projects with them, and now we were able to kind of share with the high school teachers kind of our findings as teachers in preschool and how we believe that it can be implemented in a high school setting.
006Um, we talked about how a teacher's identity impacts their teaching and their strengths and how each teacher teaches differently, but we can all work towards the same goal. Um, and we kind of just overall talked about a how to cultivate a safe environment whether in preschool or in high school and all ages in between and to make sure that self-perception stays positive throughout those years. So, thank you to Mr. Deva for letting us um be able to present all that. But it was really really cool. Does anybody have any questions for Matilda? I have one question for Matilda. Yeah. Matilda, when you presented to the staff, was it to um get preparation for the Skills USA um event itself or were you just in involving them in in what you all have been working on?
007Yeah. So, um part of our project that we take to states is a community outreach piece. So by doing this project, we were kind of ticking that checkbox off as well as kind of like a little bit of an information session about what we have discovered as well as a kind of practice run for public speaking kind of thing. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? School committee members? Pretty straightforward. I see Alistister Luca's hand up. Yes. I just wanted to thank um Matilda for reminding us that progress involves everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Very good. All right. So, on to my part. I'm just going to give a little bit of an update of some spring updates that have been going on or that will be going on. And one of the lovely pictures
008that I have here is uh prom season is upon us in May. So, our students are are actually right now purchasing tickets. Um, and our adviserss have been working hard in making sure that it's going to be a magical night for all. As we know, it's sort of a right of passage. So, um, can't wait to be part of that coming up soon in May. Uh, things that we're going to talk about a little bit on on my report is um, MCCAST. I don't have a slide for that, but I'm generally going to talk about MCCAST, review the Minute Man Hall of Fame that occurred in March, give you another admissions update, and give you a parent student handbook update as well. Uh, so yes, we are in the mix of MCCAST season. Uh, we
009just recently took the ELA. Our 10th graders did that. We did a assembly uh just to discuss you know procedures of how the day was going and um discuss a little bit about why it's important to try your best um and we know that there's competency determination discussions. We don't even have to talk about all of that but it does affect Minute Man as a school. So everyone's going to do their best and try their hardest and work out. So from what we saw the uh effort that was put in during the two days for ELA was great. We have the uh math coming in May and the biology coming in June. So, uh we're hoping to have that same uh rate of vigor that happened on the last two days. Moving on to Hall
010of Fame. Um the induction ceremony was uh Friday the 21st of March. Um if you see there, I've listed down the uh inductees that were nominated and receiving the awards the awards. And if you look at the uh the celebration next to Miss De Mayo who is one of our staff members who is currently been here for uh over 30 years. Um so her service to Minute Man has been great and she is um retiring. We I'm very sad to know that because I've gotten to know Miss Deo uh in a great light and seen her in her classroom and how she interacts. But I do understand that uh we do have to move on. But for the most part, uh these are uh recognized uh people at the induction ceremony. And I did want
011to also commend the the committee as well. The committee has uh worked hard. They actually used the back conference room to meet and go over applications and review things. And um Margaret Murray, who's also a retiree from last year, has continued on as being an adviser for the Hall of Fame. So uh was a wonderful evening. I was not able to attend the event, but I do know that Dr. Peralt had a nice um had a nice showing for us. So, we appreciated her being there representing us during the Hall of Fame. Okay, moving on to admissions. Again, this is the same slide uh similar to what I showed you the last school committee, but obviously we took the date up until uh yesterday. So, um, our director of admissions, Miss Noron, has been, uh,
012updating me frequently. We we meet on a constant basis just to see where we're at. Um, if you look at the bullets that are listed there, notice that, um, we're managing the late district applications. Right now, we're working through some out of district applications and approved 74 chapter 74s that have gone out to out of district people. And uh coming up on May 3rd as a spring update, this is when we're going to bring our students in and have them do their uh practice the actually not practice but actually take a screener so we can get a good sense of their Lexile scores and their math scores so that we're prepared to uh for our ninth graders coming in of where we're going to schedule them and make sure that they're getting the most out
013of Minute and Man and getting the most success that they can. Uh just a general question on uh the admissions. Sure. Do we have an idea of how many out of district admissions, if any, we are going to be looking to accept this year or is that still too early to talk about? I don't have a number exactly. I can comment on that. Paul, yeah, I've got it. Um so, as of right now, we're hoping to maintain the 19 that we had from this year. Um we accepted 19 freshmen. we want to maintain so there isn't a big fluctuation for our districts. However, that depends on our indistrict applications. Currently, there are not a ton of late applications, but we always accept all member um district students before we go to the outofd district applicants.
014On April 1st, we sent um notified all the districts uh the outofd district districts um about their students who applied. So they could either approve the chapter 74 um application or not. Um and they have 10 days to respond to us. So once those 10 days are up, we'll be looking at our totals and hopefully accepting um some additional students because our goal is to fill every seat at Minute Man. Very good. Any other questions on the admissions statistics that are shown here? I Let's see. They're very tiny, so it's hard to see, but I don't think I see any hands. You should speak up if I don't. Very good. Great. Uh so just to close out the last piece is obviously um as you know the school council has been meeting uh every second
015Wednesday of the month. Uh which you know in planning purposes I'll just jokingly say that we should have planned better because I have a school committee meeting on Tuesday and then Wednesday nights we have right after uh the school council. But uh for the most part it's been uh very productive. We have uh reviewed the handbook. We have uh made suggestions as groups. We used an Excel spreadsheet. I think I mentioned this last time of what's redundant, what can we move, what can we take out, what can we put in, what make sure that's possible. Again, our main focus is there is a code of conduct, um the attendance and tardy procedures. And then if you look at the asterric there, uh requirements for promotion and graduation. As I know the superintendent has reviewed a
016lot about competency determination to the school committee. We just want to make sure as we talk about things like our um our program of studies as well as our school handbook that everything's aligned and that it's accurate and correct so that we're not reinventing the wheel and having to redo everything again. So once we get that information um that we're going to review it together and we're going to implement it for the handbook. And then finally as a timeline again it's a little bit updated because we need a little bit more time. So the hope is that towards the end of April or midappril um we we have a lot of it edited and drafted but we haven't got any feedback yet from staff especially administrators and uh our staff. So planning to kind of
017use one of those half days to kind of do a review of the handbook and make sure that uh everybody has input regarding it. We'll review those uh revisions in May and then um the hope is that we present this document to you in June. Any comments and questions? Now, how did I know that Alice's hand was going to go up? That's why. Go ahead, Alice. Um I'm really excited to see this coming up, you know, early in the year. And I also wanted to just ask um since the school committee has to vote to approve it and it does include a lot of it becomes essentially school committee policy, wouldn't it make sense to give this school committee the draft handbook at the same time in April so that we can get a heads
018up on what's in it? Because to just bring it to us for final vote in June when we haven't ever seen it before doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Oh, I can jump in on that. I'm actually hoping that the members of there's two members of the policy committee, Alice and Sharon. I'm hoping that they can join us in April so that we're actually working together. Um because where we get into trouble is where we have silos. Um so we haven't put um it into practice yet. But since there's only two of you and Amy and I of course will be there um we're hoping that we will literally do this together in April um and that way as we bring it forward we'll have all sorts of people who will be um
019experts in sharing what the changes are. Our pickup here is May. Um the board as as Alice knows because she attends board of education meetings. Um the board of education is not voting on the CD requirements until May. So we're kind of held in lock step with uh just that piece. But that is a very big piece. Um so that vote will be the second um week in May. Um, if I am not mistaken, I will be attending the governor's um, commission on um, Massachusetts graduation requirements tomorrow night in Taton. Um, so we can make sure we're on the forefront of whatever information is coming to us. Um so I hope that by the time we get to that um final document in June, which is very ambitious, might I add, um that both um
020principal delea and the policy subcommittee could together talk about things that stood out to them during the process. Other questions? School committee members? Uh just a question on timing. These CD requirements that they are developing and going to share with us in May. When are those those requirements take effect? Uh so you're stealing a little bit of my thunder for later, but it's okay. I just won't repeat it. But um the requirements will be for next year's class. We actually have all of our following year. Okay. So, not giving us in May and due for June. Okay, good. No, no, it is for next year's seniors and the juniors and future there will likely be more regulation. Okay. Okay. So, not for this year. For this year, we're all set with CD requirements. It's for
021the next year. Okay. Great. That's much better. Any other questions and comments on any aspect of the principal's report? I did want to note that Riley has come into the meeting and I don't know if she wanted to just quickly um review anything. I did I just see her now. So happy to have her speak up. She would like to add something. Riley, you there? Maybe I'm okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Superintendent's leadership report. Superintendent Crystal, you um the first item on the agenda is is uh school choice. So, I will answer any questions that the committee has about school choice, but I'm hoping that someone will make a motion um regarding school choice. Alice, I'll move to not participate in the school choice program for 2526 and to inform the Department of Elementary
022and Secondary Education of this decision by the June 1 deadline. Second, please. Second. Very good. Uh, do we need a discussion of school choice and why we're voting no or does somebody need a quick update on that? Basically the reason is that the amount of money they give us in this program which is a program that allows students from other districts to choose to come to Minute Man. The reason we do not allow it is that the amount of money that comes with the student is so far below what it costs to educate the student. And that amount that gap has been growing every year since I believe it's still not been raised since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. So even if we wanted these students, we could not um afford to have them come
023here. It's really kind of a pity, but that's the way it is. So uh the motion has been made and seconded. Are there any other comments or questions on the motion on the table? Very well. Then bring to a vote. Sarah Sarah Miku Arlington. Yes. Linda Herbison Bolton. So is yes to not accept school choice students. Correct. That is the motion not to accept. Okay. Yes. Steve Leoo conquered. Yes. Maggie Sharon do. Yes. Sharon Mosto. Lexington. Yes. Jeff Dulan. Yes. Alice Lucas toe. Yes. Okay. Very good. Jeeoff. I think um Riley had just unmuted right as Heidi started talking. So Sure. she can pop in. I don't think anybody would object. Hello. Hello, Riley. I'm so sorry. Um I think my Wi-Fi had cut out before, so I didn't catch that part before um Superintendent
024Driscoll started speaking. Oh, well, your principal briefly went over your report, but he explained I'm not doing this nearly as well as Riley would. So, if you'd like to add anything uh about the portion of the report that you were doing, it can be orally. That would be happy to hear it. May I jump in? I'm hearing Riley, if you have a cold or something, which I hear, please don't feel obligated if um but No, I'm perfectly fine. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. Um today, uh six of our students um passed their CVA exam. Um so now we're officially certified veterary assistants. Um, so that was, you know, the six of us pictured with, uh, Miss Chapen's dog, Jelly Bean. Um, and then obviously the four juniors who won the state FFA uh, vet size
025CE competition this year. Uh, so they'll be heading down to nationals in October uh, to represent Minute Man and Massachusetts. Raleigh, was it a hard exam? Um, it was about a 100 questions and you couldn't get more than 30 wrong. Um, I passed with um about an 80. So, um, still close, but thankfully I was able to pass. Um, I did we definitely studied a lot and did a lot of preparation. Um, so I think we all overall did a really good job. Okay, very good. Any other questions or comments for Riley while we still have her? Alistister Luca, I'm glad to know that the dog's name is Jelly Bean. Thank you. That's a great name. And Sharon and Riley, am I correct that you guys are the first class to get the CVA? Uh,
026yes, we are. Um we're the first graduating class of seniors from the veterary science program as well as the first group of students to take and pass um the CVA exam. Congratulations. Thank you. Many congratulations and it's it's good being the firsts. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Riley. And we move back to the superintendent and career readiness spotlight. Is that correct? Yes. Um I will be um passing it off to three people tonight. Um we um have been doing typically an academic um department and a vocational pathway. We added tonight um cooperative education since during my um entry findings. You saw the example of the um data that is lives on the DESIE website. So we were hoping that Christina would share with you some correct information and bring us up to speed on
027where we are and give us a picture. Um so I'm going to start with our co-op director. If you'd like to introduce yourself, I'll share my screen for you with your presentation. Excellent. Thank you very much, Heidi. Um, so I have presented before, so most of you may recognize me. My name is Christina Judin, and I'm our cooperative education and workforce development director. I'm very excited to share some things with you today, a little bit of data and a little bit of um, kind of real life co-op stuff. Um, I'm not natural, I don't have a natural math data mind. So, I want to thank um Heidi and I want to thank Dio Lin Miranda, our data specialists, for helping me to display the information that I track so diligently in a way that is
028um much more digestible. Uh Dio took my very busy, very overstimulating chart and helped me make it look a lot better. And Heidi is very good at articulating what these things that we track mean probably a little bit better than I am. Um so, the first slide is going to be that graph. And Heidi, I don't know if you want to address it or if you'd like me to. you want to take a shot, but I'm happy to address it myself. It's up to you, Christina. I would say I So, just a general I know Heidi in her entry plan has talked about a few things that she's working on. So, um what we're trying to do here is we want to show how we're comparing to other schools. Um there's been a little bit
029of a lack of reporting in previous years. So, one of the things that we took on when Heidi first started this year is we met we looked at the data since I took over that I um could kind of verify was reliable and we took data from the um other vocational schools over the past several years and the data that we have been tracking for the last three years and kind of created this chart to show you how we compare to other schools so that we're not just that line at the bottom when you know we have all these great co-op things going on. We wanted to kind of show you that comparison and if there's anything you wanted to add, Heidi, you might be able to articulate a little better. So, this is what
030we have. Let me mute. Uh, I have to lower this is a little bit of an echo. Um, so where we are right now, the last dot, you see our orange line there, is FY24. So where where we want to be for FY25 will actually be 100% of all of our juniors and seniors who are out on co-op. So I'm looking forward to seeing in June where our number is and our goal for co-op would be to catch those other dots above us. Um so do you want let me know when you want me to change the slide or if you want to talk about where we are. Um, so, uh, just before we head on to what the rest that I have to share with you, just to give you our numbers at the
031current moment, um, we have about 68 seniors out on co-op at the moment and about 28 juniors. So, maybe a tiny bit behind where we were this last year at this time, but pretty much on track to end about the same. At the end of last year, we had 82 seniors out on co-op and 40 juniors. So, 122 altogether, which was pretty pretty good. It was the most that we've had since I've taken over. So, it was really encouraging. Um, and I definitely have had a line out the door the last week or two in the office. So, I see those numbers climbing by the end of the year. Um, so what I wanted to do, um, with the rest of my time is kind of give you guys pull back the curtain a little
032bit and, uh, give you guys a little bit of a view into co-op. Like I said, um, I love I understand the value of numbers and data and tracking and, um, I'm really glad there are other people who help me articulate it well. Um, but where I thrive is really seeing the impact of co-op on students and students on co-op. And I'll kind of explain what that means. Um, so in previous years I've showed kind of some pictures of kids in action and collaborations with places um, in our communities. And this year I went about it just a tiny bit differently. Um, and I reached out to employers and said, um, you know, I had the opportunity to speak to our school committee and I want to give them an idea of what co-op is
033like out in the community. And they did not disappoint. So, um, I got some really great feedback and some really great snapshots that I'm excited to share with you. Um, one of my favorite things about working co-op is getting to be out in the community and getting to see the kids at work. There's this one stretch in Actton that I just love to drive. I believe it's Great Road. Um because as you drive down that road, we have a handful of students at the uh Posh Pup Dog Daycare, which is attached to the Powder Mill Veterary uh hospital. A little farther up the road, we have students at Blossom Station Childcare Center. Um just a little farther up, we have a robotic student at Lotus Systems. And then if you take a right and go
034down Great Actton Road, we have somebody at the Stow DPW. So, it's my very favorite route to take because we are just everywhere and that's kind of our goal for um serving the community and you know um giving the kids these chances. So, um a few different things to talk about. So, the first student that we wanted to highlight um I this is Ty Fangold. Um he works at Rensot Manufacturing in Wuburn. Um he's an advanced manufacturing student, but he has some incredible coding skills. And once they learned that he could not only work the machines but that he had these great coding skills, um they put him to work kind of fixing some systems and they have said that he has really sort of revolutionized the way they do certain things. Um so he
035they've said he has a huge positive impact on operations and they've really been utilizing his coding skills now that they know that they exist. Um on the next slide uh we have Rose Cohen from biotechnology. She's a senior from Watertown. Um she is doing her co-op uh at a research lab at Harvard Medical School, the Lurie Center for Autism. And she recently presented at a pediatrics research day at for um attendees at Harvard Medical School. So she is out there really impressing some pretty impressive people. Um and our next slide is Seoia who is one of our early education and teaching students. um uh since she works with children, we can't necessarily share pictures of her in action, but this is a picture of her winning at Educator Rising. Um and you're going to hear
036more I think you've heard a little bit about it, but you're going to hear more about it next uh school committee meeting because she earned a spot at nationals. I was super lucky to be invited to come and chaperon when they needed another adult, and it was just awesome to watch her shine. Um when I did her site visit with Blossom Station, um she had only come in to do her interview and they she did a an interview and then a working interview and just based on about 2 hours of time with her, they were so thrilled um with Sequoa's just demeanor, the way she presented herself. They commented on her maturity, her professionalism. Um and then as she's been working, they've reached out more than once unprompted to just say, "Um, she's doing amazing.
037Do you have more students? please send us more students if they're all like Sequoia. So, she is definitely out there impressing everybody. Um, and I'm really excited to hear about her trip to nationals. Um, our next I have two electrical students to show you. Um, one is Thomas Gallagher and then the other is Ben Morse. Both of these kids are incredibly impressive. They're just kind of the students that make everything really easy. Um, they get their paperwork on time. I've never had to chase a time sheet. I just spoke to Ben's in um co-op employer today and they were just raving about um how well he's done and there are several other schools that have co-op students at Sakol Electrical and you know they've said that he's just doing an excellent job. Um they've gone
038from three co-op students to 12 and they were still asking for more minute man students if we had them. um there he lives in Stow and they're out in Worcester so we didn't have very many to send that way but I'm really glad we established that relationship and he went out and found this co-op on his own and came to me and said this is a great place I'd like to work here and really kind of brought us together which is awesome and then Tommy was working at KMO Electric in Arlington in this picture um and very much impressing that employer um that employer had a little bit of a dip in work and um wasn't able to keep him on but without missing a beat and I don't even think he missed one co-op
039today. Uh he went out and found another job and he's currently working with James Kelly electric. And James Kelly is a Minute Man alum. I believe he said class of 2006. So as soon as he met Tommy and realized where he was from, he was really excited to collaborate with Minute Man in a different way. Um and he's been asking if there are other ways to get involved and volunteer. So I'm trying to bring him on to advisory boards and um make him coach skills students and all the things. He just has no idea what he got himself into when he made that comment. Um the next one is Sunune and um he is working at Parker Hannneathan Comri's division. Um this was a really interesting collaboration. Um I met Joel Vartell um who is
040uh an employee over at um uh Parker Hannah and we met at open house when he was there with his daughter. So, he was kind of visiting the tables while his daughter was in cosmetology working on her nails and he came over to the Skills USA table and we started talking and um I mentioned something about co-op and he said, "You know what? I think I think we should have a conversation. We might have a great opportunity here." Um and he invited the engineering department and myself to tour the facility. He spent several hours with us trying to figure out exactly how we could collaborate, what the need would be on their end, um kind of what type of students we would want to funnel in. So, Sunune was the student we put forward and
041if you've had the pleasure of meeting Sunsune, you know that he is the very best first impression that you can possibly make. An an incredibly impressive young man. Um they love working with him and when I spoke to him this weekend um we were selling concessions at the play because he volunteers for everything and uh he was just raving about the experience that he's having there and all of the people that he's getting to work with and to meet. So, it's just been really mutually beneficial, which is um always what we want, and we're hopeful that they'll be interested in taking in an additional student next year. Um the next student, I again uh I don't have an inaction shot of Abby Cluitt because she is working in at Emerson Hospital. So, for patient privacy
042reasons, um sometimes it's tough to get pictures of them in action. Um Abby is second to the from the left. She's right next to Rose that you saw in the biotech slide. Um, and this photo is actually from two years ago. Uh, Rose and Abby were part of an entrepreneurship team at the Skills USA National Conference. They won gold at states, went on to nationals. Um, I'm really excited that they're both competing in entrepreneurship again with another team coming up in May, and I'm really hopeful that they're going to make it all the way to Georgia. Um, I'd love to see them win in their senior year. uh she made a really great day in the life kind of tick tock style video for a project that she was doing and I couldn't get it
043to play nice in the slideshow. Um but she consistently gets really high feedback. Um and her nurse manager just thinks the world of her and has asked if there's you know many like if there's more like her we'll take a hundred of them. So it's always really really nice to hear that. Um and hopefully next month when we come back to beg for money for nationals I'll be able to tell you that these two students are going again. that would make me super happy. Um, our next is Amara, but we call her Mars. So, Mars Clark Gabby. She is working at Cavikio Green Houses in Sudbury. And Kavikio has been another tremendous partner for us. Um, they not only take co-op students pretty much every year, but they also um do a ton with horiculture
044during the year. Um, I know Mr. Keller takes students I think almost every exploratory rotation gets to go visit the greenhouse. And if you've never been to Kavikios, it's just massive and sprawling and they grow all kinds of amazing things. Um, and it's really fun and interesting when you're going to a place like that because the seasons don't line up with what's actually happening. So, for example, you go in in September, October and there are poinsettas everywhere and you would think it's Christmas time because that's when they're starting to grow. Uh, so you get to see a lot of really great stuff. So the freshman get to kind of take a look at that and almost every year there is a junior and senior co-op student working with uh their head grower Carrie Stafford who's
045been a wonderful partner as well. So very excited to see Mars in action. Um our next is Josh Curtis who is a robotics student and when I mentioned that stretch in Actton Josh is on that stretch in Actton as is Sequoia. Um Josh has been looking for co-op for a while. He is a senior this year. when he was looking initially last year as a junior, we were having trouble kind of finding the right niche. You know, he had a few I think it's going to work out and then for various reasons it didn't a lot of times the schedule. And in engineering and robotics, we tend to sometimes have a hard time convincing people that our kids can do the things that they can. Um they very much think of a lot of times
046college interns and they're very surprised to find all of the background that we give our students and once we can kind of get that into their minds, they tend to really open up. But Josh was really diligent and um he pursued this opportunity and um has been doing a really great job there. And when I did his site visit, um Timothy Lo, who is the VP of engineering and operations who hired him, uh he had been working for a few weeks over the summer and wanted to roll it into a co-op job. And he was not only thrilled with Josh's performance, um he's very interested in keeping this partnership and kind of having a pipeline for students, getting a little more involved with the school. And we learned that we were um at Yukon at
047the same time. So that was pretty cool. Um, next you might recognize our school committee celebrity here. I don't know if she's still on or not. Riley, I hope you don't mind that I used your picture. Um, but I wanted to highlight Elena Demo and Riley Trudale. Um, our vet science, uh, co-ops have really, it's been amazing. Um, we have all but one senior from animal science out on co-op, which is a great number. And we're in a variety of places as well. So Elena is at Arlington Animal Clinic, as are a couple other seniors and a couple of juniors. And then Riley is at the Kalin and Veterinary Group. And Riley did such a great job at Kalen and Veterinary that they reached out for um a junior and now we have a junior
048working there as well. Um and I did note because I figured you might have questions about where other um animal science students are. So, we have co-op students at these two locations, as well as the whole pet vet center in Westford, Banfield Pet Hospital in Framingham, uh, Animal Adventures Zoo in Bolton. That was one of the most fun site visits that I've ever done. Um, and the Park Street Vet in North Reading. So, the these kids have been pounding the pavement. Oh, and I might have not I thought I said it, but I don't think I did actually. Um, Posh Pup in in Actton. I mentioned when I on that stretch of Great Road that I love so much. Um, which is a dog daycare. We have several students there as well. So, I'm really
049impressed at not only how how many students we have out on co-op, but how hard they work to get there. And, uh, Sasha and Rebecca, our animal science teacher, deserve tons of kudos because they really equipped this senior class as juniors to go out and get into the field. Um they had folders with um a list of the skills that they had learned, the type of skills that they would be wanting to be coached on, their resumes, and a little blurb on co-op. And they were ready to walk into any employer with all of that information, turn that over, and it really helped build these collaborations. So, they deserve a tremendous amount of credit for all the work that they did to get such a big group out. Um and then I have one other
050employer I want to highlight before I get to Michael in Carpentry, but I'm really excited to end with him. Um, this one came in today and I didn't have a picture to go with it, but I wanted to share um, uh, some comments from Broomfield Manufacturing. We have one junior and one senior from engineering at Broomfield and he reached out today. Mike Trailer uh, is the gentleman we work with and um, I just wanted to share that he said that both students are doing amazing and the Minute Man co-ops are moving forward faster than we expected and I feel that they have the best leg up on all the other trade schools that we work with. So, that was awesome to hear. uh they do have students from Worcester Tech and Monty Techch. So knowing
051that not only are we putting kids out that are we feel confident in their abilities that they're holding their own with others similarly trained and maybe even exceeding those expectations. And then last but certainly not least, I wanted to end with Michael Shaw from Carpentry. Um and the reason I wanted to end with Michael is that his employer took a moment to write a little bit of a a response as to the impact that Michael's having. So, a lot of times we think of and we present information on the benefit of co-op to the students because they're our number one priority of course, but we really always want the relationship to be mutually beneficial between the student, the employer, and the community. So, I just wanted to share um the words that his employer shared.
052So, Michael works at Lipcon Construction. So, this is from the owner uh James Lipcon. Michael Shaw has been a welcome addition to the cabinet shop here at Lipcon Construction. A shining contradiction to the popular, albeit misinformed sentiment among tradesmen that young people are unequipped for a job in the trades. He never looks at his phone, and I mean never. Has never been late or missed a day of work, rarely makes mistakes, and any mistakes he has made can likely be attributed at least in part to inadequate instruction on my part. He also shows a good level of tolerance for physical discomfort, which is an asset for carpenters. Examples of this are long stretches of monotonous tasks like sanding without complaint, physical exertion, and the extreme seasonal heat of the shop. Last summer, we had a
053stretch where the shop temperature didn't dip below 90 for at least a month, and Michael stoically endured. Some of his work duties include edgebanding by hand and with the machine. Tedious work. Assembling cabinet carcasses. Gluing up cabinet doors. Sanding said doors with the drum sander and various orbital sheet sanders. Milling rough lumber with the jointer and planer. Processing material through the single head molder or shaper. Painting hardware install. Rooting. Sawing various work with the bandsaw, table saw, and the miter saw. If he chooses his trade as a career path, Michael will have plenty of options available to him. And we're thankful he came to us. And that's where I'll leave it because you can't say it better than that. So, thank you for giving me a few minutes to kind of put faces and experiences
054to all the numbers that we provide you. Um, and I'm thankful for the time. Thank you so much, Christina. That was wonderful. Pleasure. School committee members, any questions or comments on that particular presentation? Sarah? Um, Christina, I just want to say that was a great presentation and that really brings to life um what the students are like out in the field and to have those uh co-op managers have such glowing endorsements just speaks to all the hard work that everyone at Minan does to prepare the students. So, thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. And I'm really really impressed with our instructors always, but when getting all of this feedback and hearing things like we have other schools and we're feeling like they're moving faster and you know like they don't complain, they're not looking at phones,
055all the the things that we worry about when we send kids out to work that we really drill into them before they leave. It's great to hear that they're doing that without us over their shoulder. Other questions and comments other than we were very impressed by the work of those students in their in their shops. I think that's pretty universal here. Alice Luca. Well, we're not allowed to say that, Jeff. I think I am impressed. So, I want to say that I'm impressed. I I'm very proud of the Minute Man students. I always would hire the Minute Man students. Everyone I've met, you know, out doing the jobs is fab fabulous. They're very adult. I love that they're he's not looking at his phone. I mean, that is great. Um it's great. Just terrific news.
056Thanks. Other comments, questions? I had a um um I taught computer science in high school and if you have a really strong student with two years of computer science, they're golden. They have value. And uh even in Newton South when you're have the ability to send a student out to get a uh a job, summer job or an internship and you you see how well they succeed in it. Um uh a lot of high school students are ready to do that and with the right training and the right attitude and you have many many examples that you showed that of us. It's not all high school students, but there are many of them that that um work way above their uh weight class, if you will. And uh when you when you have an employer
057who gets one of these kids, it can completely change their mind about the value of of working with them and hiring them. So, I'm not at all surprised and I'm very impressed by the types of jobs that these kids are doing. Yeah, very impressed. Very well, superintendent. I think that um I think we're not quite done with this category. Is that correct? Correct. Um we're now going to move to the mathematics department. Mix it up with a little academics. And we have John Fusco who is our mathematics lead also happens to be our athletic director. Um and I am going to share his presentation. Good evening everyone. How are how is everybody doing? And uh I look forward to speaking about the math department. Um you know it's interesting when when I started working at
058Minute Man and I shared this with Heidi the other day. Um we had an open house. It was one of the first few years I was there and we had a science teacher, a gentleman named Samrono was working the front door and this gentleman from Lincoln decided to come in and check it out and he came in and he asked like, "Oh, uh, just came to check this out." And he goes, "Oh, yeah, great." He goes, "Uh, what do you do?" And he goes, "Well, I'm the, um, I'm the dean of education at Boston University." He goes, "Oh, what do you do here?" He goes, "I'm a science teacher." Science teacher? You teach academics at this school? what is going on? And as you can see, that struck me very interestingly funny that the the
059dean of education had no idea that we have academics at at our regional vocational schools. And um I'm going to sit here and tell you that I'm very proud of of of the math department um and what we've been doing to um to to help push our kids to become college and career ready uh here. So, uh, the next slide will kind of describe what we're really looking to do. Um, we have the advantage where most comprehensive high schools don't where we can really help give mathematical concepts through applications through the career and technical areas and we we can use really strong fundamental math to help all levels of learners at our school. And that's one of the key skills that all the teachers in the math department um utilize and help with these kids
060and work cohesively with the career and technical teachers to help build that strong mathematical background. And and that also goes down to the second point there. um in offering and aligning with the math the the Massachusetts frameworks from you know we we we go from algebra 1 to AP calculus and we have and you'll see in the next couple slides we have kids who um have to sometimes go beyond the needs that we can get and we work with them and find all the individual needs and get these kids all the mathematical needs that they can and sometimes not even get at a comprehensive high school. um with our ability and our flexibility within the school and with the scheduling in the math department. Um and if we could go to that next slide, we
061have a few of these kids. Um this was a really great year for our math team. Our mathletes um qualified for the state tournament um for the first time in school history, the math state tournament. uh the math meets. Um um I'm proud to say that in their first fora at this that they finished seventh in the medium school division that was held at Winchester High School. Um I I I think that here's the members. There's a picture of them. Um and some of these kids, it's kind of funny. you can walk around the school and it's like a a small sometimes there's a small scene of of Goodwill Hunting and they're working on a whiteboard around the school and and they're solving all sorts of high level mathematical uh computations and and algorithms and
062all sorts of cool stuff. So there this was a well-deserved group. Uh John Scogstrom um was the coach of the team and um there's there's some top-notch math students on this team and um it was really really really great to see them qualify for this great event. And here's a little something that just to show some of the um great integration we have uh through this and I'll explain this slide but if you can let that go. So one of our math teachers Kevin Hunt worked with Mr. Marshall and the engineering teachers and we worked with Mr. Marshall in physics and Mr. Hunt work was working with um advanced algebra and we also used a computer program to track the the rocket here and we utilize the physics part of it. And what we did
063was the camera the video of the of the rocket that we had. It tracked the path of the rocket and the kids could now take that data and we started to apply a parabolic or quadratic equation to it. and then deriving out of that finding that you know the the the gravitational pull and how that was quadratic and acceleration. It was it it was a pretty cool project and it's not one of the only ones that we do. Um, you know, we we vary from every inch of the school from cosmetology teaching um angles and how to cut hair um to working with the the the carpentry um plumbing and uh electrical department dealing with fractions and and dealing with um how to convert from fractions and converting to metric. Um, there's just many, many,
064many things here. And this is the department. And I can't say enough about these folks. They all have a little blurb on why they love to teach math. And I I want I I I think following um Miss Drison was going to be a tough go because all those great stories that she had, but um if you folks have any questions for me, I'm sure I can match some of those great stories, too. I'll leave this up um so in case people want to peruse this while you are asking questions to John school committee members questions or comments and I see Sarah I just have a comment and I wish that uh math was taught in that interesting way when I learned math in middle school and high school way back when. So thank you.
065Thanks and Alice. I'm glad to see the kids are still running after rockets. Uh well, I I I have to say, you know, we gota we got to be careful with Hansum Air Force Base how shoot how high we shoot our rockets because we don't want to get in trouble with them. So, just as a uh a math teacher from Newton South, um one of the the biggest problems in keeping students engaged at a academic approach to math is the abstract nature of it. So, uh we do we spend far too little time saying what is this math really for? usually is we're learning some math so we can learn the next math and we don't pause sufficiently to tell them well this is all stuff that's applied in the real world and here's what
066we can really do with it other than maybe putting that on a static sheet of paper. So we try to sometimes to do um applied math but believe me that's a lot easier to do at minute man. And when you say when you give them this is why we do it and and show that to them then they have a very different attitude attitude to it which of course the attitude is what makes them more successful. So that is exactly as was uh told to us that is a a huge advantage. If you can say that we're not learning math just so we can learn the next math. Okay, we actually use this stuff in the real world. And let me show you what you are likely to use it for if you stay in
067your particular career path. And at noon South, we don't spend nearly enough time doing that. And you can do it much easier at Minute Man. So yeah. Well, the the the the great experts around the building and and all the career and technical areas make it real easy for us and there's it's it's such a great relationship. It's it's welcoming relationship. They welcome us in. We love to get down there and and and it really works. And Mike will explain that too. Oh, you mean there's more? There is. Can you hear me? Okay, we can hear you. Okay. I it seems that I am frozen on the um on my own screen on the comments um of all the teachers. So, I'm going to have to figure that out. Um but we do have one
068more because we are in doing a pathway each um each week, each time we're here. Um so, we do have last but not least, Mike McQuen, who is the engineering and production um pathway. So, let me pull that out here. Okay. Oh, hi. Hi, everyone. So, I have a unique role here at Minaman um as I'm the engineering and production lead, but I'm also in the social studies department. So, I get to see academics and CTE. And um tonight, I'd like to highlight our CTE areas and how we get our kids uh college and career ready. So, I'd like to start with our co-op opportunities that we give our students. Second. Yep. Go. All right, there you go. So again, I'm I'm the lead for um engineering and production and you see our co-op opportunities.
069So we currently have 16 industry partners that our junior seniors work with. Um I know Christina talked about this earlier, but just to highlight a few. So um PJ Dion this is a plumbing company where students draw plumbing schematics and AutoCAD. The town of Nem DPW this is the engineering department for the town of Nem where students assist with surveying land listen in on town project meetings and convert legacy documents into CAD. A9 green. This is an energy efficient company where students are currently conducting energy analysis and simulation of buildings using HERS ratings which are um energy performance ratings. Broomfield Laboratories. This is a company that manufactures and machines wind coils for MRI machines. Currently, two of our students assist with manufacturing parts, inventory, measurement, soldering, and more mechanical, electrical, and manufacturing tasks. Zol Medical.
070This is a medical device company where students work in the electronics department certifying current ventilators for use and training ventilators for healthcare professionals. Um, one more example, Borg Design. Um, this is a machine shop in Hudson, Mass, where students work on the shop floor maintaining and running high volume CNC machines and related automative equipment. Again, um, the opportunities these industry partners give our students is is fabulous and our students thrive in these areas. Um so next I want to talk about our industry recognized credentials. These are our certifications that our students obtain in our cluster to boost their college and career readiness. Just a few to highlight. So OSHA 10 this is uh general safety for all. Solid works which certifies that students have basic proficiency in assembling parts and industry standard 3D modeling software.
071Besto AC/DC. This certifies that students have proficient understanding of AC and DC circuits and therefore a foundational knowledge of electronics. Lead green associates. This is an IRC for leadership in energy and environmental design. This is an important credential for anyone working within building design. So for example, HVAC engineers, civil engineers, architects, etc. This allows students to work on um any project team obtaining a lead certification for building environmental sustainability in the future. Um just one more example, NIMS. This credential collaborate um cooperates the students ability to run a CNC machine independently including programming, material sourcing and hitting tolerances. So again um the opportunities our cluster gives to give these certifications definitely gets our kids uh college and career ready. So, next I I just want to highlight a few um uh of our pathway, you
072know, projects that our students have worked on. So, uh first we have Bodie Taylor from Arlington uh calibrating and setting up our new benchtop mill and Connor O'Neal surface grinding at taper on a piece of steel. Next we have I know I know this is a project some of you are aware of but Scarlet Parody Luke Hamner Dylan Doyle Jay McNeel and Alex Filbr on this sunflower project and this was a collaborative effort with the juniors and the freshman during freshman exploratory. So you know just a great project they worked on and um I also wanted to highlight Pria Lennox. She currently is um you know in the midst of building a a full human form. Uh she's creating this by welding together 1,200 individually punched 18 gouge steel circles. Just an incredible project that
073she's working on. Um if you get the chance to see it. Next we have Kenny Jlly. Uh this is his senior project as he's doing conversions of an electric bike into a small engine with a turbocharger. and he's actually adding lights and instrumentation. Just another great project our kids are working on. Next we have Matt Pichon, Ryan Shartner um and Colon um Cola Janelli and Zack Tanabomb practicing setup surveying for engineering. And if we go back one slide Heidi I'm sorry there's one there's one more. Um yeah and yeah on the slide on the right finally we have Rishi uh D Francesco and Oliver White building a machine for an integration project for the drama club. Um the play was last Friday. Um and not to spoil the play but this machine played a large
074part in the finale part of the play. So, I don't know if you guys get a chance to see the play, but um and then um in terms of our robotics team, our robotics team had a um a fantastic year and um they wrapped up their second New England district competition. They compete at WPI in Western New England University and they finished 23 out of 40 um all over New England. So, um you know, they're on the track for great success in the future. And then last, you know, I I kind of wanted to highlight our our staff. I know John talked about this too, but you know, this was a um you know, really nice to get these quotes from from our staff. Um we have a really dedicated staff in our cluster and
075and I asked them to say a quick quote about why they love teaching and so I wanted to take just take a minute and you know really um talk about what they said. So Dean Malone, there's nothing more rewarding than watching students turn torn raw steel into something meaningful with their own hands. Our state-of-the-art shop gives them the tools and space to push boundaries. And every day they surprise me with their creativity and problem solving. Gan Boyd, I love watching the welding students create projects and the smile on their faces upon completion. There's nothing more I enjoy than teaching kids welding. Eric Stinnisfeld. I love being challenged and exploring new approaches. What better way than for a student to suggest a better solution than my own? I truly enjoy when that happens. Conrad Hulk, I
076love teaching robotics because there is such a variety of things to teach. Since the technology is always changing, there's always something new to learn. Tristan O' Conor. I love teaching engineering at Minute Man because I get to empower future engineers to develop their collaboration skills, public speaking, writing ability, and professionalism, which are all just as important to becoming a successful engineer as the technical skills, math, and science that interested them in engineering in the first place. I'm grateful for the professional foundation and opportunities that Minaman provided me as a student and I'm fortunate to be able to provide that for the current students at Minute Man. Angelo Papia after 30 years of working in the field of engineering, it was time for a change. I wanted to give back what I've learned over the years.
077So, I decided to try teaching. It's a wonderful feeling when you're explaining a concept and your students are engaged and focused on the lesson. Watching students go from I don't understand to look what I made makes it all worthwhile. Corey Dolan. The opportunity to see students actively engage, discover, and develop skills in a field that I'm passionate about is truly rewarding. Alex Peters. I love teaching advanced manufacturing because I constantly feel like a kid in a candy shop. We get to come in every day and exercise our creativity with every project and help our kids experiment to learn. Almost anything that our kids are interested in making can be turned into a project. Our technology is advancing so fast. We regularly get to try new things and teach our students how to adapt with the
078everchanging world of manufacturing. And then finally for myself, um I'm very passionate about CTE um and career and technical education. I I always have been and I just I love that I, you know, get to be the part of academics and CTE here at Minute Man. And I enjoy seeing the curiosity of my students when I'm teaching psychology and history. But you know, in my role as lead, I love walking around the shops watching all the cool things happening every day. and I'm very very passionate about spreading the word to parents and students about the benefits of Korean technical education. Throughout the years, one of my goals has been to break down the stigma attached to vocational schools and programs and to educate parents and the community on the value of CTE. One of the
079things I I've really thought about over the years is, you know, when you're a student at Minute Man or any vocational school, you stand out. and you stand out because of all the opportunities you have, including program skills, IRC's, and co-op to better prepare you to be college and career ready. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mike. Thank you. Questions or comments? School committee members? Alistuca. Um, I've toured a lot of the vocational schools in Massachusetts, but what sets Minute Man apart for me is that every time I tour Minute Man, someone who's with me says, "I wish I could go back to high school." And that's that is a credit to all of you folks at the school. And I also feel like the industry recognized credentials piece is something we should advertise more
080because it is it is another thing that sets Minute Man apart from like the local sending districts. They don't do that and they they don't even know what it is. So I think you know but their parents might and so you know so anyway I I just am so impressed. Maggie sorry. Yeah I have a question for Mike and then um just sort of a general comment about all these presentations. Um, so my question is and just speaking to it because I have a child in a university engineering program right now. When kids go out of Minute Man and if they choose to do a university program like I feel like the students from Minute Man are grossly overqualified for the program like my son's, you know, at a really good school, but like what
081how do are they able to skip classes? Are they frustrated when they get to college? like they know a lot of stuff. Mhm. Like what? Yeah. No, it it depends. So, a number of our courses have, you know, articulation agreements and so forth. So, it depends on the college they go to. But, you know, I agree with you. They're overqualified for a lot of that, but it depends on the college they go to. Okay. Oh wow. Um and you know like specifically you know when you talked about engineering students getting Solid Works um as their certification you know like like I I learned in the last year or so Solid Works is like the new replacement for AutoCAD and like my son's job this summer was because as a student he knows Solid Works pretty
082solidly but um you know he got paid a good amount all summer to rewrite all the programs that this particular engineering facility had in AutoCAD into Solid Works and like for families who maybe had like to be able to provide your kid that level of like up tothe-m minutee certifications is so unbelievably impressive. Um, I just want to say thank you about that. And and then, um, for all of you, I wanted to reiterate what Alice said about just it's the enthusiasm of the instructors and just the vibe of the whole school that makes us all want to go back to high school. And I hope that in the years to come, I mean, I'm embarrassed to be from Dover where like we are literally the only town that does not fill all our seats.
083Um, and I feel like the more that we can get the word out or at least to to my community all this amazing stuff, like I would love to have all these presentations stitched into like it's so rich with great information and I just can't thank all of the instructors that have this year presented to us and will continue to because I I know that's like an extra thing you're doing and I just want you to know we notice it and appreciate it and it's It's just amazing. So, thank you. Thank No, thank you. And I I'll share a quick story with you guys. I mean, I I I'm just I'm very passionate about spreading the word about CTE and I really think that, you know, um you know, getting the word out because um
084you know, we were at a presentation at the middle schools about a month ago and you know, some of the teachers that came up to us didn't realize the programs we had. We had the robots going down the hallways and they're like, "Really? You guys do this stuff here?" And and um when I was in high school, I took a woodworking course and I love it was my favorite course. Um and I wanted to take woodworking, too. And my guidance counselor told me to not do it because it would ruin my class rank. And I never forgot that. And I'm like, well, that's that's an intelligence that, you know, and um I just think that, you know, the word needs to get out that um we have so many great opportunities and our kids do
085stand up. Like that's that's the term. They stand up. Yep. So, thank you all of you. The math, I mean, I could go on about the math, too, because your math program is amazing. All all of it. Thank you. Committee members, any other questions and comments. So, I have uh two comments which are really just echoing what is what it what was uh just said. The first thing is that um uh the presentations that you are giving us um all the instructors are giving us are not just a show and tell. They're extremely valuable in uh keeping us in tune which is very hard for us to do because we're not at the school every day, right? Keeping us in tune to exactly what you're doing and exactly who the kids are and exactly what
086they are doing. So it is uh absolutely invaluable. Um the other thing is that you know in the academic world we have something called AP and what AP allows you to do other than getting status which is one thing that it allows you to do is to allow you to skip classes. So you skip those early classes you can take you can choose you can either graduate early or you can take advantage of more advanced classes. So when and uh it does seem to me that some sort of system should be set up to allow um in the kind of programs that our kids go into if they are capable of for jumping ahead so they're not bored which is what what Maggie said. So they can uh jump ahead and I know no formal
087system AP is a formal system, right? You take a a particular test that allows you to to skip it and that may not be available to the kids who come from Minute Man in this per the programs they go into and maybe that's too bad. I I I will also though Jeeoff to to your point there is something pretty cool about being able to leave high school and go into a highly technical field whether it's in biology sciences or you know anything if you go into a university program and like you know I remember going to orientation for my kids and having you know so many people say you know college is really going to you know kick them in in the teeth you know and to be able to be that student that leaves
088high school and goes into a university program where everybody else is really drowning and you are you you know what's going on. That's that's pretty incredible too. And and that is one of the things that we talk about when I talk about kids going to college, what they're going to do. I say um you can use the AP to skip a class or you could have a really easy class if you wanted to. Or for some kids who have a money issue, uh the reason they load up on APs is they can uh write they can I graduated early. Yeah, there you go. They can leave a year early. So, it's all those reasons that the kids have for Yes. And it is sometimes valuable to go through that class and to to be the
089big shot, especially that first freshman year, that first deadly freshman semester. So if you have a little bit of advantage to get you through that first semester and you transition from uh high school thinking to college thinking which may be less of a transition for some of the minute man kids then that is a great advantage so they don't crash and burn during that first semester which is not that uncommon. So, all good. Uh, the skills you give them are good and your presentation to us is is invaluable. And I also agree they should be put on the website and and people should see them because most people outside of our little CT world haven't a clue what we do, including a lot of people in DESIE and the board of education completely clueless as
090to what we do and the skill set that our K kids get. And the more I I attend their meetings, the more disappointed I am at how so many of them just don't get it. And they're the ones who are making all the rules and regulations for us. It's distressing, but more of that later today. Just thank you all very much for presenting. Any more final questions or comments, school committee members, before we move on? Very well. Thank you, Superintendent. All right. Thank you, Christina and Mike and John. Please don't feel obligated to stay, although it will be exciting for the rest of the time here, but thank you all so much. Um, before I move on to the calendar, I do want to lift up one thing that Mike said. Um he mentioned while
091I was at a middle school um so this year um because we were we're really trying to make sure we're making those connections with our communities we had vocational teachers leads some academic teachers work with our admissions director to make sure people are seeing more than just our admissions counselor. Um we wanted to make sure they were seeing our students in their uh trade gear. We wanted to make sure that they were seeing people who teach the actual programs they want to be in and um Mike was one of those people who got out there to hear and see. Um there is another initiative uh that we're do this Friday if I'm not mistaken. We have a guidance counselor's breakfast that's happening and it sounds like it's for our counselors but it isn't. It is
092for the counselors from all of our sending districts and the superintendents have been wonderful. Lexington is sending a ton of counselors. Um, and we have counselors from most middle schools. Um, and they are not coming just to have breakfast and hear about general things. They're coming to be trained in what vocational education is so they can provide the best advice to their students. Um, so I just wanted to call that out. Um, the next two items I have hopefully will be quick. Um, the first one you have in your backup. I'm not going to share it on the screen because it'll be so tiny you can't see it. Um the first thing is to look at our FY25 school calendar. Um we do need to adjust the the calendar and there are only two adjustments
093on that calendar. You will see that our snow day in February, February 6th, is marked as a no school day and the last day of school for this year is now June 12th. Um I think we've passed the point where we will have a snow day. Um, so I do feel it is safe for us to um or for one of you to make a motion to um change uh the calendar to address the last day of school for FRI 25. So moved. Second. Discussion. School committee members, how many think we're going to have another five snow days this year? Anybody? I don't know. It's been pretty crazy lately. Heidi, it's snowing at my job today. I hear no disagreement. So, roll call vote. Sarah Sarah Montgue, Arlington, yes. Linda Herbison Bolton, yes. Steve Leoo,
094Conquered, yes. Maggie Sharon Dover, yes. Mto Lexington, yes. Just need yes. Alistister Custoau, yes. And isn't it terrifying that we are already voting for the last day of the school and that there were vote talking about the prom and everything? I mean, it's isn't it September still? Feels like it. Okay. Next item. Okay. Um uh little warning. It says my internet connection is unstable, but I'll be right back if I um blip out. Um the next item is a draft of the FY26 calendar. So, you'll also see that in your packet. Um we are not or we don't have to vote on this tonight. I would recommend we just have a discussion and we vote on it um next month. Um the big things to be aware of is that we have an interesting um
095December. Um because of how um the holidays hit, um we would have school on the 22nd and 23rd of December. Um we don't have to not have school on the 24th, but I would recommend we do not have school on the 24th and not a half day. I'm not convinced we'll have excellent attendance. um from students or anyone. Um the other piece is on January 2nd, we are supposed to come back to school on January 2nd, but that's a Friday. So that means we would have uh the whole week off. January 1st is a Thursday and then Friday we would come back. I am recommending um that that is also a no school day. Um so we would have from the 24th until the 2nd off. Then there's a weekend. we return on the 5th.
096That does not push us substantially into June. Um, as of right now, the 180th day is on June 10th and the 185th day is June 27th. Um, your obligation as a school committee is to make sure that we have um 180 school days and that we do in fact teach the appropriate amount of time. So I want to share with you something that principal Diva did. Um we go. So um what he did is he tracked literally minute by minute each type of day that we have using a template that was provided to him. And um we have oh this is zoomed in very zoomed in. Um, let me zoom out for you. We have every single day of school with the total amount of minutes. Um, and currently we are um at beyond the
097nine uh 90 required, which is really important to do um because you don't want to hover around 990. If we had a late start one day due to weather, we would not meet our obligation. Um so, uh going through with all of our half days and early release days, um we are solid. Um when it comes to the 990 as well as our 180 days, um we have all contractual um half days and requirements in this calendar. Um, we did review it um with the MFA and Rosemary reviewed it and Katie reviewed it and Paul reviewed it and we have lots of sets of and Juliet. We lots of sets of eyes on this. Um, I would like us to look at um the Friday before April vacation next year, which is the 17th. It
098is currently not an early release because that is not a contractual day um for an early release and we already added two other um entire days that are not contractual. But I would like to discuss or consider um having that as a half day. Typically we do not have excellent attendance for our students um and um it would not hurt our uh time on learning. Okay. So um let me just try to summarize this so my brain can get around it. we have what would appear to be a little bit of a problem because of the days that happens to be especially on that December vacation which makes it uh unrealistic to assume that students are going to show up on days. So if we had school during those days we could make the bureaucrats
099happy and and check them off but it's unlikely that real learning would occur because of that. We're pushing towards the end of the year as far as we can push it and feel comfortable. Uh but this is your best compromise to make those days instead of pretend school days real school days by pushing a little bit later in the year than we would want to. And uh the teachers agree that this is a better way to go. Is that pretty much where we are? That is where we are right now. Okay, great. Um, it's fine with me if it's fine with you. Any school committee members comments? We can think about this for a month. Sharon, a parent. Um, just a question. I won't be a parent at Minute Man next year. Um, but we
100won't talk about that because that means graduation's coming, but um, have you thought at all uh like the 22nd and the 23rd of December? While I understand that that's like technically school days, I mean, would it be so terrible to make the 19th be day 185 in June and to take that whole week so that there would be like a true two week vacation? So, I would love to do that. I would not recommend that we do that. So if you take a look at that, if we did not have school the 22nd and 23rd, that would put day 180 on the 12th, which means if we have one snow day, people lose a weekend and have to come back on a Monday. So that alone is problematic. The second piece, the 19th cannot be
101a last day of school because that's a holiday. So now you are pushing all the way until June 22nd, which is two full weekends. And I think we'd be uh run out of town if we had two extra full weekends um on next year's calendar. That is a very valid point. That's why you get the big bucks. Any other question? I also agree with that half day before vacation. You're not going to have a lot of people if you make that a full day. Well, I will say this. If you all feel comfortable um if you like the this calendar as is my only recommendation if you wanted to um say look we don't have to wait a month I would recommend that you approve the calendar as is but add or amend or however
102you want to say it um a half day on the 17th of April. And we have Maggie I I am comfortable with doing that without thinking about it for a month. Well, then would you like to actually make that motion that we'll we'll put on the table there? I did see that Alice also had her hand up and if she was going to say something different, I wanted to make sure that she Okay, looks I I would like to make a motion that we approve the calendar presented to us tonight with the amendments as Heidi has recommended, including not having school on the like dangling day there on in January and having a half day on the day before April vacation. language on will be cleaned up, but we know January 2nd is the day.
103Sorry. Do we have a second? I second. Okay. Any further discussion? The only problem you run into is you have more than five snow days, then you might get a little nailbiting there at the end. When's the last time we had more than five snow days, Jeeoff? You know, every year is different. Climate change often means not always warmer, sometimes colder and more liquid coming down. But if if they're will if they want to go this route, then I don't have any objection. Seeing no further discussion, bring it to a vote. Sarah Sarah Montigue Arlington. Yes. Linda Herbison Bolton. Yes. Steve Leoo conquered. Yes. Maggie Sharon do. Yes. Sharon Mosto. Lexington. Yes. Jeffen. Yes. Lucas Sto. Yes. Very good. Item E. Oh, the state regulations update. So, this has been a lot. Um, right now
104there is no new information necessarily um that we need to take action with. Um, but I think the Oh, I is uh Courtney Zorn here. Oh, she is. Um, so I did want to take this opportunity to um let everybody know what Minute Man has been doing. Um so in addition to Alice and many other members being active at and with the board of education um we have been working we had several um public meetings uh where we invited the community to come get information about this for clarifying points and um Courtney who is the president of the MPA has been instrumental in getting information out um our parent meeting which um if I'm not mistaken Charlene and Sharon also attended. Um was I think we had upwards of 30 people, which is not typical
105for a uh a meeting with parents um on a Tuesday night at 7 p.m. So, I was totally impressed. I know that the attendance was because of Courtney, but I was hoping Courtney um it would be appropriate for her to share with you um what she has heard from parents and maybe the school committee might um consider um some action based on what parents are feeling. Uh so I'd like to hand it over to Courtney, please. Thank you, Heidi. Um and thank you to everyone on the school committee. Um yeah, my name is Courtney Hadley Warren. I am um I have been a parent at Minute Man for now five years. Um my oldest graduated last year in the multi multimedia engineering track. Um he is finishing up well he just actually started Q3 at
106Drexel studying photography which he discovered at Minute Man. Um I can report he was incredibly well prepared. Um sorry Mr. Rooken is not anymore because he had Nathan and he can attest that Nathan struggled at Minute Man and he is killing it at Drexel and I'm so proud. Um my middle kiddo Daniel or Dan as he's known at school is also in multimedia. He is a sophomore and I'm happy to report that my youngest Joe is committed to be a freshman there next year. So I'm going to be around for a little while but not as the president of the MPA hopefully after May. Um anyway, um this issue um first came on my radar probably a year ago um in one of the school committee meetings and then at our um March 17th uh
107MPA lunchon was brought to our attention again that this is um really an urgent issue at this time. Um and so I've spent the last few weeks um educating myself. I sat in on two of Heidi's Zooms um to get information. I also spoke with my Arlington representative Shan Garbbley who's incredibly um accessible to residents which is amazing. Um I spoke with him about it um in addition to just reading the relevant portions. Um I myself am extremely concerned um about the proposed changes to the regulations. Um, I have spoken with a lot of parents who share my concerns. Um, there's been some pretty robust uh, conversations about it on um, mostly the the Minute Man parents discussion Facebook page which has been helpful and I took it upon myself to create a document to
108help parents who want to submit public comment do so easily. This is um, it took me weeks to get my head around all of this. It's really complicated. The form um that some of you may have seen that they've given to provide um public comment is very complicated. Um so we have pushed that out um I pushed that out last weekend on Facebook to help um hopefully get more parents to submit public comment if they are concerned. Um and um Heidi will be speaking at our MPA regular MPA meeting next week which is two days before public comment closes. Um trying to think if there's anything else. Um and that document's very sharable if other people I just know myself um in today's political com climate I get a lot of requests from friends and
109family members. Hey will you you know send a letter to your senator about x y and z and in my busy life. Yes I would absolutely do that. Happy to do that. Can you give me language? So that was um I created this document in effort to do that for people um who have limited um time um and brain power for these kinds of things. So um I um am not aware of if the school committee is doing anything formally um to submit feedback, but um I would encourage you to do so if that's appropriate and certainly as individuals you can do so. So, um, thank you to Heidi for giving me the time to speak to you all. And I also just want to say I was really grateful to be here for the
110reports from the educators because it just reminds me again, um, what a what a great place Minute Man is and my son who's there now just just loves it, which is great. So, I get that perspective, but it's also just great to hear from our teachers. So, thank you. Thank you so much, Courtney. Sure. So, school committee members, uh, do you have anything else to add to that, Heidi? Before we go, I'm going to put the motion on the table and then see if people want to vote on it or whatever. I just want a reminder that April Board of Education meeting will be uh, VOGE is not on the agenda, but the vote is happening in May. Public comment closes at the end of next week. So, um, we still need to have a
111push to the Sarah, you have a comment. Yeah, I have a comment. um representatives from uh the town of Arlington were unable to attend the uh meeting discussion that um Heidi pulled together. And what I would like to do if it seems appropriate is um if it's appropriate for Courtney to share the deck she put together for parents to understand how to fill out the form. I would say that the towns could benefit from that too. And it might be that little nudge that gets them, you know, if it's a town manager or there were two people on the finance committee um for the town of Arlington when Heidi and Nikki and I attended and we brought up the the voucher discussion and they were like, "Oh, we're concerned about that, too." I I bet
112you we could get a couple of folks on the finance committee um to submit comments, too. But to to Courtney's point, if you make it super easy for people and give them some templates for language and how to understand the forms, um it just improves the likelihood that they'll take action. Thanks. We can talk strategy in a minute, but first I'm going to ask for a motion to be put on the table and then we will discuss that motion if we want to take it up or not. So the motion will be uh pretty much as follows and we can be feel free to change language during our discussion. The motion would be that the Minaman School Committee opposes the proposed DESIEC CTE admissions regulations and we wish to uphold the current regulations which allow
113for local control and discretion. Now would somebody like to move that motion? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. So at this at this stage we can if you do not want to deliberate and discuss and to vote on this we could table it we could vote in favor or we can vote opposed to this motion. Um I think we probably don't need a long discussion on the pros and cons of it because I think that we've been living with it for a long time. But if people would like to discuss the pros and cons, that would certainly also be appropriate at this time. So, school committee members, comments, questions, what do you want to do? It's up to you. It's not up to me. I Maggie I I support us voting in
114opposition to these amendments or amendment or I feel like it changes every day and it's like I keep following and it confuses me but all of it in my estimation is bad for our school and I do not believe that it solves the problems that they are purporting to need to solve and I would further argue that the problems they're identifying are not in fact the specific problems that are, you know, that may we may be dealing with at Minute Man. And I I I vehemently object to the way that they're planning to change the admissions process and would very much support us doing something official or whatever to send the message that our school committee does not support this change. Other comments or questions we got um Sharon. So, I agree with everything that
115Maggie said, but I also agree with what Sarah said about our towns don't understand. I think um Heidi and Nikki and I saw that last night when we presented in Lexington and were talking to some people and they were like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's, you know, we get it, but um you know, all of our town, all of our students always get accepted." I'm like, "No, you don't understand. That won't be necessarily an option if it's a if it's a lottery." No, no, no. Our kids get accepted. and like didn't seem to understand the financial implications either. And I know Heidi met with all of the town meeting or the town managers, but I don't know if it would make sense for the school committee to draft not just a public, you know, I
116know that we're all drafting our own letters to the public comment, but I wonder if it would make sense for like the school committee to put out like letters to the editor to our various town publications so that our town members can understand what's happening. Just a thought, Alice. All right. Sorry. I think it's very important for us to make this statement because the little questionnaire that this what are they calling it? A survey that they put together. They've moved the questionnaire down below the comment boxes, but it's still there. And it's still got the same flaws as it had before. and the flaws will result in them getting bad data um as answers. It's it's I I don't want to say it's designed to get bad data because I don't like to think that
117way. I think it's an absolute mistake that they've made and that they will obtain data that says people are in favor of um using the disciplinary record and the attendance record as selective criteria because they won't understand what the language actually says because there's no references in this to allow them to go back to the language in the document. They're never going to find disciplinary because disciplinary the word does not occur anywhere in the regulation document. you have to search for discipline if you want to find it. So, um I think it's very important for people to make a very clear statement in opposition, not just to fill out this form. It's a bad form. Thank you, Heidi. Heidi's on mute. Thank you. Um I lowered my hand instead. Um I I just want to
118make a recommendation that um if this uh vote passes and you completely oppose um these regulations, I would be happy to um work with Alice using Courtney's link to her document to create something to send to all of you that if you see fit um appropriate to send to the people who you work with in your towns. Um, we really need the one-on-one communication because that's where we get the most bang for our buck. Um, so there was no way the entire town meeting last night was going to understand in 3 minutes what was going on. Um, but I think as we connect with individual people ourselves, we can it's like that starfish analogy, right? We can um have each individual person do that. But I I do think Courtney's document is very useful. My
119document isformational. Courtney's document provides um specific action that seems to be aligned with um the school committee's uh feelings. And um I do believe that if if the vote goes through, Alice um may be um the experience right Alice in writing um a statement that we would want to share with the board of education regarding the vote. Um and we would share both that plus um Courtney's information with a guide for all school committee members. Hey, let me um uh state for the record that even if one believed that the admissions criteria of career tech schools should be improved, the process by which um uh DESIE and the board of education have proceeded on doing this is in my view unprofessional. They've chosen to use data that has flaws and they were they were it
120was demonstrated that it has flaws and yet to some extent they're still using it. They demonstrated that there are many aspects of career tech schools in including something as fundamental as our regional agreements that they were totally clueless of. They've s kind of indicated that the reason they want to push this through so fast they've already had seven whole meetings on it and it's almost as if let's just get it off of our plate instead of spending enough time to truly understand it and come up with regulations that make sense. So even if you were to believe that admissions every process can be improved and maybe our admissions process can be improved these particular regulations uh I believe don't make sense I will not list the the mirrored reasons why I think that they don't
121make sense and they don't make sense because the process that was done was flawed and it just irks me no end that they're upset that they've that some members are seem to be upset they've spent several whole meetings talking about this and it's not worth any more time on it. So, uh for all those reasons and everything that everybody's mentioned, I'm certainly going to vote yes for this particular motion. Any other questions or comments? So I my impression is that you do not want to table it that you do want to bring it to a vote and so that we will do so and we will do so now. Sarah you get to go first on this. Sarah Montu Arlington. Yes. Linda Herbison Bolton. Yes. Steve Leoo conquered. Yes. Maggie Sharon do. Yes. Did we
122have a second for that? Second. Okay. Maggie Sharon do. Yes. Sharon Mosto Lexington. Yes. Jeff Dul and Nem. Yes. Dallas. Yes. Again. Again. Again. Again. Okay. That was unanimous for the people here. We have two members who aren't here, but for the membership here, that was a unanimous vote. Now, my understanding is that there's going to be some documents created that will be sent to the school committee members that school committee members can choose to send or not to send to parties who are interested in learning more about this because you're right, it is not a three minutes and you're done, right? It is uh as Courtney has said, it's very complicated to learn. It took a year to get your head around it. Well, there's reasons for that. So the educa even people who
123are very much in favor of CTE it's going to be challenging for them to be brought on and any documents that we have that make it clear will be very very uh useful moving forward. Um is there anything else on this issue before we move on? Very good. Thank you school committee members. Thank you Courtney. And is that the end of the superintendent report? That is the end of the superintendence report. Yes. And now we have the finance report with a hopefully refresh Steve Leoo. I'm wondering if Steve would like me to take this one on since he was not here for the last few days. Couple days. Couple days. I've been out of country since March 19th. So yeah, please take it on. Okay. But first, how was your vacation? It was great. I
124almost became an expatriot. However, Greek is a very difficult language to learn. So, [Music] success. And the reason we are not taking those two votes, Nikki, is Do you want me to jump in? Absolutely. Um, so we are in the process of getting our END certified. Uh, I was notified today by our rep that it that it wouldn't be certified today, but very soon. Um, so I would anticipate in one of the next two days we will get officially certified. Um, and we cannot make a vote until the number is certified by the state. Um, so just a quick update. Jeeoff, do you want me to talk a little bit about it now or do you want to defer to me after? Uh, however you want to handle it, Nikki. It's always fun to see
125finance and numbers on it on things. always um you know part of our budget process is we plan to use um our excess and deficiency fund which is essentially if you think about um a school the revenue minus expenses and any excess um that we have in our budget um whether it's from additional revenue or from lack of spending our our expenses or our full budget. Um we are anticipating this year that we will have over um 5% and by um law we do have to um give money back to the towns um either by cutting them a check or reducing an upcoming fiscy year assessment. So um once we get that number certified, we will make that vote. We will explain a little bit in more detail how that happened and then what steps
126we can take so that doesn't happen in the future. But we have certainly had a long meeting. So I will bring all those details to you um in the upcoming meetings. Okay. So no item necessary tonight on action B, but you're going to hear an interesting story when we do take action on it. Food service management. Okay. So our current food service management contract is about to expire. So, we need food services, right, to give lunch and other uh food for our students. And I think Michelle has a brief presentation on uh well, just a discuss the process by which we've come to a decision because we're about to take uh hopefully a vote on uh a food services contract. Thank you so much, Jeeoff. Um, so just really quickly, um, we went out to
127bid, um, uh, and received two bids back on March 20th. Um, one was from Genuine Food, um, group and the other was from, um, Cafe Services Fresh Picks. Um, through the evaluation um, was done evaluated evaluative criteria was put in our RFP. Uh what we do is we take a look at the evaluative criteria based off of the proposals that the food service um companies give us. We had a five person um selection committee. It was comprised of the principal um someone from the business office, the IT director, uh myself and someone from our culinary department. So five really expertise and people who work with food service um on the regular um we went everyone on the committee um went through the the proposals individually and rated um each of the companies. Only one of
128the companies moved to the highly advantageous um portion or were rated highly advantageous which moved them forward to the price um evaluative uh portion. The company that um was highly advantageous was Genuine Foods. They had a overall rating of 49, which is very high. We were all extremely impressed with um what they had to offer and how they um really focused on what Minute Man's needs were and what we put out in our RFP as some of our areas that we wanted to be focused on in the direction that we wanted to move our food service um to. So um we're recommending that we move forward awarding the contract to Genuine Foods. So, I'm going to have a the motion put on the table and then we'll have questions and discussions on it. So, I
129would like somebody to move the um awarding of the food services management company contract as stated in item 8C of our agenda. Please move and a second. Second, Alice. Yeah. So, and it's a different company than we had before and um I wondered first of all what the dollar amount is and what is the difference between what we had before and what we're having now when we're not we don't see the contract. So, what is what is the difference? What how is it better? When we put forth our RFP, we had the evaluative criteria that that ranged everywhere from, you know, um ability to produce um the experience of the food service director, uh um quality of their menu, um certain things like that. Uh our our current company did not present a proposal with
130accurate information in it. Um so they were not rated um highly advantageous which did not allow them to move to forward to the price proposal um point genuine foods I will talk I'm just want to talk a little bit about what they offered us they are they wanted um Minuteman to be their flagship site they are um their headquarters are in Cambridge Mass um their CFO aim to our little interview for one district school, which was I mean a um one school district, sorry. Um which was impressive. Um he's very passionate about his company and you could you really felt that um they really wanted to be a part of Minute Man. It was more so they wanted to be here um and provide us and be able to um show show everything that their
131company can do. Um they they prom promised us an experienced food service director. Um they their food service director is also a chef. They had a menu that was dedicated to being culturally diverse. Uh they had um things that they put forth like try it Wednesdays and they use student ambassadors where they would go around with, you know, strawberry cucumber salad um throughout the lunchroom and and get kids to try samples of um really different foods to expand their pallets. Um they have uh extensive uh work experience working with federal regulations in the national school lunch program. Um they had amazing uh references. Uh one of their references actually in New Hampshire was somebody who was on the administrative review team for Desi Nutrition. Um and she sang all of their praises and their ability
132to really understand the school lunch reimburseable program and working with our students. Um they're very much focused on our meals being prepared from scratch in partnersh partnership creating partnerships with um local like-minded suppliers um in order to procure like the freshest ingredients. their CFO had opened 30 restaurants um in his lifetime um before um moving into this field and he really um he said no matter if we get the bid or not I would like to work with your culinary department and co-op some of your students and maybe they have like a warehouse that they um do major food production in and maybe have some of our students uh go there. just really looking to work with Minute Man as a partner um and less of just serving at Minute Man. So that was it
133was really impressive. They brought an incredible team um very familiar with our um the local area um and such. Um and and speaking of moneywise, their guaranteed return is 22,000. And just a little uh background, when we awarded the contract to Fresh Pix um in 2022, their their guaranteed return was $6,000. Um we do not know what Fresh Picks um guaranteed return on this proposal was because they never moved past um the evaluative criteria stage. So, we don't look at theirs because they're they're not a viable um person. But also, I just want to really stress that in food service, the goal is not to make money. Um it's to break even because it's a federally funded program. So really the focus that we put forth in our RFP and that they responded to was
134really about the best quality food being put in front of our students and really expanding the menu and um ensuring that you know our students are getting these really healthy meals that they like to eat. Um and and that was it. I can say that every single person on the committee was highly impressed. Um, I also want to say that this is the first time Minute Man has done an interview piece in our RFP. Um, which I felt was really great because we were able to really connect with um, the companies and get to ask those detailed questions that may not um, come out in the RFP and um, they were able to answer every question. We're was extremely responsive. um they consider or we consider them or they consider themselves a boutique um food
135service company which we love that because they're they have the ability to be creative um they're not owned by a private equity firm. So it's not about the money for them. It's it's truly about serving the students um and serving the school district. So, the the FINCOM uh met earlier today and we did uh vote to recommend this to the full school committee. Uh my biggest comment was this. You only got one uh bid. You got two bids, but only one that uh obtained your higher level of goodness. Are you uh going for this contract because it's the only one you have or are you going on it because you're truly enthusiastic about this company? And the answer was that everybody was everybody on their committee which fairly wide range of people uh Nikki Michelle
136others were uh highly enthusiastic about this company and wanted this company. One thing that this company did which they found very unusual was by their presence uh they demonstrated extremely strong interest in in in uh working with us moving forward. So that's that's all I know. any other question about about being partners with us and that when you're talking about food service and and providing these healthy, nutritious um appealing lunches to teenage students. Um there's always it's always a great thing to have a partnership and um you know a two-way street when it comes to our concerns and listening and talking about what works best for Minute Man. and me were very clear that that was their goal. Sarah, I'll also add since I'm on the finance committee that um the panel that evaluated the
137options put together a really rigorous scorecard. Um so I they satisfied all the questions that I had um on the criteria that they were using and um there's some good good thinking and rigor behind that. Thanks. Discussion, questions, comments, bro. Yes, Alice. I think it's I think it's very exciting. Something went weird with my camera. Well, I think it's very exciting and I'm going to vote in favor, but I would um in future like to see the contract if I'm going to be asked to vote to approve a contract. Fair enough. Sharon. So, did I read correctly that we're looking at giving them a one-year contract with the option to extend for four additional years? So, that's So, is that in part because we want to make sure that they're the right fit for us.
138Yes. It gives us that leeway. Yes. Uh, in the past, we've had food service companies that did not work out. So, uh, the one year kind of let's see if we it really works out is a very good thing, right? Yeah, I appreciated seeing that. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Very well. Then bring it to a vote. Sarah, Sarah Matthew, Arlington, yes. Linda Herbson, Bolton, yes. Steve Leoo, Conquered, yes. Maggie Sharon Dover, yes. Erin Mau Lexington. Yes. Jeff Stan stool in need of Yes. Alice Stuca Stow. Yes. You know it's getting late when you forget your name. Uh subcommittee reports. I believe that is the end of the finance report. Unless Steve you have anything uh to add from the month previous to when you left for your I don't remember. I'm sorry.
139Okay. Great. That means it was a very very good vacation. I like that. Uh, subcommittee reports policy subcommittee Alice Duca. Okay, so this is not as exciting as the name of the dog um jellybean. This is about uh the this section of the policies called DJ. There were four of them actually and we are only talking about one of them which isn't very complex but D. So, we're we're looking for approval of a change to policy DJA, which is closely associated with DJ. DJ is a more complicated policy, which we'll be coming back to you with that has to do with procurement and stuff and um uh who's the certified uh who does the bidding and all that kind of thing. It's much more complicated, but this one is very simple. Did you all read
140it in the in the packet? So, we're just adding the red sentence. Um, and as you see there, it's it talks about the school committee approving um contracts over three years. So, that was what we were just doing. Um, and it's the law. So, um I'm just asking for we we reviewed it, but we were in the meeting for what, two hours this week, um with Amy and uh Heidi and Nikki, and we really really really went into the weeds on, um purchasing and stuff. And Michelle was there. Sorry, Michelle. Um, we really we really went into the weeds and we had some very interesting conversations about this type of policy and this these four policies in D, but um you're only looking at one of them today. So maybe we could vote a motion
141for the first reading first reading, right? Just a motion then you can all chat about it. So move would like to make a motion. Yeah. Okay. Second. Second. Good. Any questions or comments? It's fairly straightforward. The next ones we're going to get are going to be a lot more complicated. This one's fairly straightforward. Very well. Then bring it to a vote. Sarah Sarah Sarah Montigue Arlington. Yes. Linda Herbison Bolton. Yes. Steve Loo Conquered. Yes. Uh Maggie Sharon Dover yes. Erin Mto Lexington. Yes. Jeff Stan yes. Alistister Lucasto. Yes. Thank you very much. Great. Uh, capital Planning Committee, Alistister Luca. Again, this is not as exciting as Jellybean, but um, uh, we did have a capital planning committee meeting. Um, I'm just reporting basically that we had one. It was in executive session, so I can't
142tell you anything about it, but we we do um we will have something to report soon, but we don't write at the moment. Just we did meet and know we haven't forgotten about capital planning. Very good. Thank you very much. Yep. Uh now Pam is not here this evening so I don't think we have a formal report on the EMAC subcommittee although we are going to be meeting in a week. When are we what is the date of the meeting ID? It's coming up the 15th. The 15th we have a meeting for EMAC and then after that we'll probably have something to say and uh there's no formal report on super evaluation but uh that's an ongoing thing. We'll be hearing a lot about that real soon because uh our evaluation date for uh the
143superintendent coming up in France the superintendent could perhaps give a just a brief synopsis of how that process is going in in her view. Um sure I can actually share a sample form with you um that I have prepared. make sure I have my correct screen. Um so um Maggie um is on I the superintendent's evaluation committee and Sharon if I'm not mistaken it um so um they put forth um as Pam shared um a process and asked that it would be put in a simplified format as Pam shared last time. Pam and I just met on this I think I don't Julia would tell me but it's very recently. Um and so this is the format. It will have my goal. Um I will be checking off any of the standards that the goal
144addresses. So we're doing the goals and standards at the same time. Um you'll see any key actions or benchmarks that I articulated in those goals. you will see a list of my evidence that is connected to that goal and any links or additional information. So, you can see an actual artifact if there is one. And then um the uh evaluator would um identify their rating um according to the rubric by putting their last name in whichever area um they see fit. Um we are not using a form. Maggie volunteered to collect these and uh calibrate them since there's only nine. Um and under each rating for each goal, there will be a place for evaluator comments where you will add text. At the end of the um evaluation form, um there will be overall ratings
145for the four standards. Um where again, you would identify which your individual rating is by putting in your last name and an overall rating. And if I am not mistaken, um the highest rating that um a superintendent is able to achieve cannot exceed um their lowest rating on standards one and two. So for example, if you gave me an unsatisfactory on instructional leadership, my overall rating for that per for the standards would have to could not be higher than that one. If you gave me exemplary on the first two and needs improvement on the second two, my overall rating could be high as exemplary. Um, and that's the same for all educators. Your overall rating is linked up to um, standards one and two. the goals are separate and you'd have evaluator comments here and
146that's um that is something we're going to dig into um at our next superintendent evaluation subcommittee meeting because I'm hoping I can start putting in my evidence and not keep waiting. School committee members, any questions or comments on this interim report? I do actually have one question for Heidi. So Heidi, during the process in which we hired you, one of your concerns was how we going to run this process because the words we talked to you at that time were a little bit vague and a promise I made you is that we would work together with you to come up with a satisfactory instrument. So, has the process that we've been running so far uh fulfilled my promise to you that it would be a collaborative process and and come up with a satisfying satisfactory
147instrument so far? Absolutely. And I also want to commend um Pam and Sharon and Maggie because they were really committed to making sure that this isn't a just a clerical task for me. Um so that is uh wonderful. Um, and I'm very satisfied with the process so far. Okay. Thank you. I like keeping my promises when I can, and I'm sure that the people in that committee would um adhere to that that high standard. Very well. Then, I believe that we have finally committed our um uh agenda for the evening. And if there are no many un invisible items that I don't know about, I would like a motion to adjurnn, please. Nobody. Okay. Good. I heard a motion in a second, I think. Uh Sarah Sarah Montigu, Arlington, yes. Linda Herbison, Bolton, yes. People
148do conquered. Yes. Maggie Sharon Dover. Yes. Aaron MTO Lexington. Yes. Jeff Stulan Nem. Yes. Alistto. Yes. So, thank you school committee members. Thank you superintendent. Thank you Julia. Thank you all administrators, staff members, teachers. It's all good to see you and um we'll see you in the near future. A lot of stuff to do coming up. Bye-bye. Good night.