Minuteman School Committee 031125

001I call today's meeting of the minute man regional high school order. I'd like a motion to adopt remote participation as written in order. Second. Okay, we're going to have roll call vote now. Uh we do need roll call vote because we it is a hybrid and we'll continue even Most of us are here in order by just so we'll start with Pam again order. Pam Nurse Actton. Yes. Sarah Montigue Arlington. Yes. Linda Herbison Bolton. Yes. Steve Lew Conquer. Yes. Maggie Sharon Dover. Yes. Charlene Cabraw Lancaster. Yes. Sharon MTO Lexington. Yes. Jeff Stanm. Yes. Lucas Joe. Yes. Good. Um, I believe that we do not have any public comments that were submitted in advance. Brings us to the consent agenda. The consent agenda for this meeting just consists of the approval of the draft minutes of

002January 14th, January 30th, February 11th as written in your packet. Could I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda, please? So moves. I have a second. Second. Any con concerns or comments regarding the minutes in the packet? Very well. Then roll call vote. Pam. Pam. Yes. Sarah. Yes. Linda Herbison Bolton. Yes. Steve Leoo. Conquered. Yes. Maggie Sharon Dober. Yes. Charlie Cabraw. Lancaster. Yes. Sharon MTO. Lexington. Yes. Jeff Stan. Yes. Alison Lucastow. Yes. Very good. brings us to the chair's report. Not a lot of items on there today, but I do have a a few comments on for the good of the organization. Uh uh first, I just want to say that it is very exciting to have Superintendent Driscoll's entry findings as our main event tonight. We've kind of thinned out the agenda a

003little bit to uh focus on that item, which is the last one on your agenda tonight. Um, a few uh notes, changes to the agenda. There will be no policy subcommittee report tonight, nor will there be a legislative subcommittee report tonight. However, I do believe that Alice has a few brief comments on last night's board of education meeting. She had two agenda items. The first of which was, of course, the vocationals. And so Alice, you have a few comments. Yes, I do. And I actually wrote them down so I wouldn't say anything uh fresh. So some of us attended last night the special meeting of the board of elementary and secondary education. I don't know who else besides uh Pam, Jeff, uh superintendent Driscoll and I all listened to that from various places. So there

004are two topics. The first one was the proposed draft admissions regulations for CTE that we've been talking about for schools and programs. There was no draft available until yesterday morning about 7 hours before the meeting. Um that's when it was actually posted. Uh several superintendents, employers, board members, teachers, and students spoke during public comment. They were very good. Many people were concerned that the metrics that the districts must meet and the data used to study this have changed all through the process and they would like clarity and consistency. They also noted their schools had been unfairly characterized by groups in favor of a completely blind lottery using sloppy data and changing metrics and that this had harmed their reputations. There were several changes between the February 21st version and the one they discussed yesterday. Some

005were major changes. Some of the changes had not been carefully worded. I'm I think that's a polite way to say it. Student interest was added which is very positive and important but the indicators of interest were not sufficient to demonstrate interest. Like did you go to an online openhouse? That's not a demonstration of interest. Um and there was no allowance for measuring student interest. The draft also changed the number of allowed absences from 10 to 27 which was a shock in a bad way to many of the people making public comment especially as during the discussion the number 20 was also discussed but the written written document says 27 out of 20 270 days at the moment despite misgivings expressed by members of the board very little or no comments from some members and with

006verbal promises from the acting commissioner who is leaving on March 28th um he promised to make revisions in response to future public comment. The board approved the draft for public comment. The regulations would mandate a lottery with a newly added and undefined weighted element for any school with a wait list, which it's I don't understand it yet. The mechanics of the process have not been demonstrated that I'm aware of. The public comment will be open until sometime in April. There may be additional time after that, but that's not clear and it was not part of the language of the vote. The second item was to appoint an acting commissioner to take over when the current one leaves on March 28th. The board approved Secretary Tubweiler. So there's secretary um secretary of education to fulfill the

007role in addition to his current role which is secretary of education. So he would also be the commissioner for no additional compensation and noting that the commissioner is not supervised by the secretary but reports to the board. So there'll be further information coming to us as superintendent Driscoll indicated in her email. She will get information from MVA and share it with us regarding what we can do to be proactive. I think it's fair to say it would be worthwhile for everybody to watch that meeting. uh it is recorded and should be online and uh uh there are discussions happening in the background on how to respond and if it's necessary for us to contribute to that in an expeditious manner we will hold if necessary extra meetings so we can discuss it but there's really

008nothing for us to do quite yet except for uh bring yourself up to date on exactly what's happening when you when you see it and listen to some of the reports by the uh vocational community you'll be extremely impressed. I think you'll be less impressed when you hear some of the uh rest of the discussion in my view. Not being biased here, it's just quality. Yes, there was an interesting conversation about public comment and while one of the board members sort of acknowledged that they seldom make changes major changes after, you know, to a proposal after public comment. Another one indicated that while usually they're more aligned in what they're going to do before they bring it out to public comment, you know, my like my one of my takeaways is that public comment is

009going to be very important. So, I just wanted to put that out in terms of what we can do what we can do as individuals. It's um you know really reading and understanding and then participating in that public comment. Thank you Pam. I will listen to it on demand. Okay. One of the is in terms of what public comment is when I get through it and get more clarity in all of the details. We can determine how we want to engage our respective towns in public comment and what that looks like. Obviously a lot more on this later. Okay. Now brings us to the principles leadership report. Actually I do have one item for the good of the district. Very good. If you don't mind. Don't mind at all. Have one too. Share. Okay. I

010have been waiting um since the beginning of the year because we haven't been in person since then. Um but if you remember at the beginning of the school year we introduced a new tradition to honor dedicated service to Minute Man. Um so this year we recognized employees who reached milestones um of anniversaries 5, 10, 15 and we included anyone who hit one of those milestones. Um so we actually do have some school committee members who have hit those milestones. Um, so I do want to um recognize them and honor them tonight and give them their service pins. So the fir actually she did this for the staff so we might thank you. Um, so the first service pin goes to Steve Leoo. Um, and Steve, uh, we want to thank you for your service and

011we know that your time here is coming to an end. Um, but we're recognizing you for your six years with your five years pin. Um, the next person we'd like to recognize is Pam Norse for her 10 years of service. So, she hit it right on the 10. Um, Alice is receiving her 20-year pin for her 20 years 23 years of service. And last but not least, Jeff Stolen is receiving his 20-year pin for his 24 years of service, and next year we'll be getting his 25 year. Oh, well then we're we're off. That's what happened with the staffs, too. We were He whispered, "It's my 26th year." So, we'll have to recount. Then we owe him another pin. Superintendent Driscoll, will you allow us to do a polite golf clap for all of class.

012Absolutely. Um so we're going to continue this um tradition next year with the staff members and we want to make sure that we're doing this with anybody who um contributes to Minute Man. And I'd like to recognize Katie who showed me something that I I had not taken place on our website um on our profiles of uh some of our teachers as we're updating those by programs. Uh Allison Barry who does our website put the acknowledgement pins under the teacher profile that we just thought that was so nice and it's it's been there and I didn't even know last week that advisory. So um I think it's important um just to do things like which teacher was here the longest um Cindy Cindy Deo how long? 35 years to keep her for but she's retiring

013us. Yeah. Oh yes, Matt McC. How many years? He must be. Yeah. Yeah. Um and uh I hope we can do this all together next year. Um but that's it. That's for my good session. No, we have another one. Sharon. Yeah. I just wanted to mention that um last was that just last week Heidi that was the advisory board um dinner and that was great to be there and um I was there representing the school committee and Heidi gave a wonderful presentation about the importance of the lottery situation and I was very um I don't know it was it was very powerful to see the the passion that so many of our board members have for doing whatever they can to try to help this out who do I need to write to? What do

014I need to do? Where do I need to go? So, I think it's great. We have a really um dedicated board. So, I just wanted to share that with people. I'll add that last night when Superintendent Driscoll and Nikki and I were at the Town of Arlington finance committee presenting the budget. Um the advisory board came up as in terms of one of the questions that were asked and the group was impressed. Even though we told them last year, they of course forgot that we have one. But it's, you know, repeated constantly. Very impressed. Principal's report. of course said to not turn the microphone on so I apologize. So uh just to quickly recap so that it's recorded. Um again um want to thank everyone for being here and again our two student reps that

015are online. Again, we'll have Riley's report and we'll have Matilda's report. So, we'll start with Riley. You can unmute yourself. And Riley, you can hear us fine, right? Yes, I can hear you. Having a little technical difficulties. Hang in there. That's okay. There we go. You're up, Riley. All right. So, um on February 13th, um there was a vocational student of the year lunchon um at the district restaurant. Um and coincidentally there was also um 13 students nominated um you know for this very special honor um and a huge congratulations to Abby Cluitt um who was named Minute Man's outstanding vocational student of the year. um she will be joining um a very prestigious dinner um with a bunch of other students from other vocational students in the state. Um I'm not sure when exactly

016it is, but um I do know that it comes up towards the end of the school year. Um and I know everyone's had a wonderful time. Um, but I just wanted to take a moment um to name some of the other students who were nominated at the lunchon. Um, we have Stella Nadleberg, um, Jacob Paul, Benjamin Champagne, Dylan Pritchette, Allison Russell, Cadence Stevens, Samantha Monahan, Tamogna Kamaraju, Senate Argall, Aviva Pearl Mutter, Beerson, uh, Rose Cohen and Kitaki Pathic, um, who are all students from various shops from, um, the life science hallway all the way to the trades hall. Um so once again a huge congratulations to those students um who are nominated and of course Abby Cluitt. Hello. Um I'm Matilda. I decided to present about a organization that happened that early ed was able

017to attend last week um which is called Educators Rising. You may have seen it kind of on the Instagram which I put both of them in the corner if you were curious about um like exploring those further. But um all of the six juniors in early ed went to this competition and all of them did compete. States which is the one I'm in early ed so which is the one that we just went to was um February 28th. We it was a competition where each of us chose which one we wanted to be a part of. We've worked for months planning projects from um like writing books to making bulletin boards. We were able to go and compete at Educator Rising which was at um uh UMass Lowel which um which was fun. Um, we

018not only did we compete and all of us placed first or second, which was our which was really, really, really awesome because it was our first year going and we didn't quite know how the how it was going to work or if we were going to do well, but it was really fun that we all were able to place first or second. Um, not only did we compete, but we also were able to listen to some inspiring things from fellow teachers. Um, we listened to a seminar from He is Me, which is Anthony Smith. um he focused on talking about how your identity can impact your students and your teaching. He talked to us about how he was a black um how he is a black man in the education field and all the positive

019ways he's impacted his students um specifically those students of color that he has as well as the statistics um surrounding teachers of color in the field and how um it's a lot less and how he he is trying to inspire people around him as well to push for those people to be more recognized in the field because it does make such a positive impact on students. We also heard a keynote from the Massachusetts teacher of the year which is Desawn Washington. He focused on te um teaching us about the why and how and how each person should have a why and a how for why they want to teach. His message was about purpose, passion and the whole role that educators play in in shaping future generations. Um, another reason that I really enjoyed this

020event and all the other early ed people enjoyed this event was it was really, really awesome to be surrounded by so many other aspiring educators. Not only were we able to listen to current educators, but also be in a room with about 150 other aspiring educators. Um, so I want to take a moment to um tell you what everybody placed and what they competed in. So I'm Matilda. Um, I competed in the kindergarten through third grade children's literature and placed second place. Sequoa Keni placed first place in her middle school interactive bulletin board. Um, Karina Kirkjan in the elementary interactive bulletin board placed second. Taran Sylvester, also in the interactive bulletin board, placed second. They tied. Liberty McCcluskey placed first place in the teacher created material and Gabriella King placed second in the teacher created

021material. So, all six of us placed, which was incredible, meaning we all do qualify to nationals. We are currently looking into see if we can get all six of us down to nationals because it is in Orlando, Florida from June 25th to June 29th. Um, we're figuring out the logistics, seeing if we are able to make that happen. Um, another really cool thing about Educator Rising is not only did we compete at states, but Liberty and Gabriella are both Massachusetts ambassadors and Massachusetts representatives on the national board. So, we're starting to be a little bit more involved in Educators Rising and hoping to um continue it next year as well. Thank you, Matilda. Was this the first year, if I'm correct, that you guys went to Educator Rising? Yeah, so this was our very first

022year. We heard about it earlier this year. Were able to participate this year and are hoping to bring both juniors and sophomores next year to state. So, yeah, it was our first year competing and knowing about it. Matilda, how many people were in each of those um categories that you were competing in? Um I would say there were about like six to 10 people competing in each category. That's great. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? School committee members? I have one comment and one question. Riley, please extend congratulations to um the folks that that you covered. It was amazing. And it looks like Abby is in health assisting. Okay, that's awesome. Just I'm just curious what if she knows what she wants to do after that. That's wonderful. And Matilda, thank you so much

023and congratulations to you. And the logistics when you mentioned the logistics of getting down to Orlando, is it just because you're all busy and doing different things or is it is it a how how does it get funded to get you to all to Orlando? So, the funding um we're actually going to present to you guys very soon. Okay. Um hope um to go into the funding part because it is I mean you're taking six people down to a national competition in Florida. So, we're looking into the funding of it, seeing if we can do any fundraisers and we'll present to the school committee as well. Um hopes to see if we can maybe um figure out the budgeting of it as well. Just to interrupt for a second. Hopefully we get to the school

024committee. We need to present to the principal, then to the superintendent, and then hopefully to the school committee in time. Yeah, agreed. Very logical. We're in the um this just recently happened, so we're just trying to get all the information first uh before we present it to the school. Wonderful. Thank you. Any other comments? Good. Thank you very much. Thank you, ladies. Um so moving on to to my piece of the report. Um going to be talking a little bit about the Desi school report card. The DESI school report card comes out probably towards the end of January. It's where DESIE kind of gives us our own report card just like we give report cards to students. Uh the state has some categories that they put all together in one area for everyone to kind

025of view. That's families, community members, everything like that. um just to see what our school strengths are and and what things that we can always work on and see what's what could be used for improvement. Below there you have the indicators that are actually listed on the report card. So student enrollment, teacher information, attendance and discipline, academic opportunities, uh that's offerings that we have our students that are college and career readiness, um graduation, etc. uh our MCCAST performance even our school spending which I've heard those finance reports many times uh during the meetings which are very informative and then what we talked a little bit in October regarding accountability so they put it all into one so I've I've given you a couple indicators here just to kind of look at one of them is

026the enrollment indicator so if you look on the left obviously our school and our district are going to have uh similar numbers because we're all one but I think the comparison that you look had as you look at Massachusetts to see how our school is doing within that. So, wanted to put enrollment there because that's something that we're always talking about. Um, so I wanted you to see that. Moving on to the attendance indicator. And the reason why I put this one on is this is actually a graph you'd want to see go down because this is our chronic absenteeism as well as our average days absent. So, you know, based on previous years, we want to see that number continue to go down through the year. So we have that for you as well.

027Oh, okay. So the above one is the chronic absenteeism rate. Okay. Percentage. And then the bottom one is the number average number of school days a student misses. Yeah. I'm sorry it looked it looked it looked big on my screen. I think it would be wise to send these to us. Okay. Sure. that not a problem with the leisure. Yep. Um and then finally another uh indicator that's there as I talked about is that graduation rate indicator. So obviously watching that increase as you go through the years. If you look there it's a fouryear and fiveyear basis. That's how the state recognizes it as well. So if you look it's 2023 four year because we haven't got our fiveyear graduation rate in there yet. So as the numbers increase through graduation rates, those numbers will

028change forward. Yeah. So the blue is the four-year and the uh brown or dark blue is the um fiveyear graduation rate. And then on the bottom are the years for when uh students graduate. district. The schools in the district or is that this district? Just this district. Yes. I'm sorry. Yeah. If you look up the top, um they isol you can isolate different groups as well. So if you're looking at certain groups, you can do all students, you can do high needs, you can do EL, you can do special education or students disabilities as well to see uh what percentage and again like I said in the beginning, this report card is for us to also look at data um and see what we can work on or what we can celebrate. So, if I'm

029reading that right, we um surpass the state average um each year for high need students. Is that if Yeah, if you're comparing numbers um I can't see from this angle, but maybe that's we're 94.1. Okay. In 2023, the four year 23 is 94.1 and over there it's 82.8. I'll just be Vanna if anybody can. Yeah, thank you. You do the left side, I'll do the right side. Perfect. And then finally, again, we've we've gone through this before in October, but they also then kind of put our accountability in a in a shorter version. And a more, you know, way to explain it to everybody. As you've seen, we've looked at numbers. We've looked at that 74 number. That's us, right, against other districts. And based on what our information comes out to, our rating comes

030out to substantial progress towards the targets that have been set for us. I just want to clarify the 74. We actually don't get percentile rankings for full districts. It's for other 9 through 12 schools across the state. Each accountability percentile only compares schools against a school with the same MCCAST range. Um so for example a 7 through 12 school would not be in a pool with minute man. So this is just all 9 through 12 schools vocational academic you name it. um 74% and yeah, I'm sorry. Occurs to me that the department could include certifications held by students somehow in this data that would set us apart from all the other schools. I mean, it's not something they're going to do tomorrow, but this doesn't really reflect that we're different than other high schools. And

031if you had such a metric, you know, certifications, licensings, things like that, the vocational schools would stand out. Uh, so always our what next? Because we get this report card every year, it's important that we message out families where to access the report card. So, a letter from me will be uh heading out pretty soon to all our families. Just giving a quick overview and explaining that. And again, we'll continue to review our indicators. Again, identify our successes and where improvement needs might need to be that we can work on as a team. You know, we're redoing things. We just looking at it. Data is data and we we love data. data can guide us. Data informed decision making guide us in a lot of ways. So, wherever we can get it, we'll look at

032it and see what we can do. I mean, do you have and and this may be you may have just gotten this, but do you have any highlevel takeaways in terms of well, you know, if I'm going to look at, you know, what's the most important thing to really take away from all this data? I will be including some of that in my entry findings. Yeah. and the communication to the families. I know that you all implemented um an app that's going to be right. So, are you are you using that or is there something else that you're doing um just to build on the making sure that they understand how you all are interpreting the what it means? Sure. I mean uh mine is a a generalization right of where to access and all

033that but we do use parent square for our to families. Um, I can even use it for staff depending on what's connected to our student management system as well. So, we utilize that in so many ways. And the reason why I I lean towards that is that does also the translation piece for our families of limited proficiency of English. So, that way uh everybody's getting the message and everybody has direction of where to go and who to ask and and how to find things. regarding the information that we sent. Thank you. Good. Okay. Final thing is I know we're always talking about emissions. So, definitely wanted to give an admissions update. If you look at this chart here, um we have applicants uh compared to as of 31, right? As of March 1st, applicants to

034the slot allocations to acceptances to who accepted and who declined. So, um I guess the total number is where like I'm very excited because I'm looking at slot applications for 175 and we have 887 students that have accepted based on the applications that were sent and again based on who gave their responses. Um we do know and if you look at some of the notes that are there that additional students will likely withdraw uh due to private school acceptances. We're right in that time frame. Um and our out of district applications are up to 63 which is I mean wonderful but you know we have spaces that aren't there right now. So we're not going to look at that until we figure out what ends up happening in the future as well. And then the

035EMAC team is meeting this month to to look at the bigger picture, right? The capacity and everything of what we have. So, just wanted to make sure you guys had the updated numbers and can answer any questions. What's the final column where we can't see because Maggie's there? That's declined. That's declined. Thank you. Maggie was in the way. You want to see that number anyway. I just didn't know what it was. So, thank you everyone. I don't see any items under finance report, but it does say finance report Steve Leoo. It's going to be quick. Uh finance committee met on uh February 18th and March 3rd. We basically just approved warrants. We're kind of in the uh low period between budget our setting our budget and town meetings. So, you know, that's pretty much just

036approved the warrants. And um we did uh appoint uh Jeff as acting chair as I'm going to be out of the country from March 19th to uh April 5th. So, it's probably going to be a couple finance meetings in between that. So, that's it. Any questions on the finance committee report? Didn't think it would be in subcommittee reports. There's no policy subcommittee reports. We'll go straight to Pam, superintendent, negotiations and evaluation. Okay. Um, just a reminder of who is on the um today. We just wanted to go over what the um process will look like because we are going to be talking about this several times. So our committee has met a couple times um to the first time to really um we got together to familiarize ourselves with the process. Um the second time

037was to look at how we would The phone is not on with all of that. You want me to start over again? Joking. I I could hear her just fine. Okay, this is better. So, um if we could move to the next slide. So, that was just as a reminder of what the goals were that were set. Um, DESIE has four standards with numerators under each standard. And the four standard buckets are instructional leadership, management and operations, family and community engagement, and professional culture. For every school goal that's set, they recommend that um you know at least one standard is identified as being appropriate with um with um I think it's um one to two indicators as well. So for for each of those goals then um what we'd be doing is identifying or what

038Heidi would be doing is identifying which are the appropriate standards and we do have a very in-depth superintendent rubric um that you know we can make available to everyone that talks in detail about you know what each indicator stands for. So multiple pages here. So this is the process that basically I talked about before. The superintendent will complete the um self assessment. The committee will then work to be developing a form that includes the goal, the relevant standards, a place for the evidence, and then a place for the school committee to fill out with a rating and comments. Um the committee will distribute this to the school committee members. School committee members will fill it out by a certain date. The committee then will gather all the information um compile it, meet with Heidi, bring

039it to a school committee meeting. So that in short is the process. This is the time frame. um you know right now you know the superintendent's presenting her midyear update um in April um the superintendent will work on completing that you know the goals and the standards and the evidence you know that um self assessment um in May we'll work on getting that form developed um and distributing it to school committee members so that by our June June meeting we can um meet and review the evaluation. Uh very very complete and brief at the same time. Uh comments or questions. School committee members. The one thing I'll add is at the meeting where we present this to the superintendent, the superintendent has a opportunity to give her response to it as well. And the other

040thing I'll say is the one thing we we um uh really struggled with at the beginning of the new processes created by the state was a lot of the categories they wanted to look at were things that we have no idea about. And so we struggled with how do we uh evaluate somebody in something that we really can't see or is not really under our purview to see. So the way that we're doing it now kind of avoids that that issue and it's a very sensible I think process. Hope the superintendent agrees. Excellent. Very good then. But Pam, you're still on the date of March 25th for our 19th day finance committee. I am hoping that this numbers are back. Um so hopefully we can still we'll try to make that happen. Does that conclude

041your report? Very good. I see we've run out of subcommittee reports which brings us to the main event. Superintendent Driscoll, are you ready to give your uh uh midyear presentation? Really, your entry findings? Very good. You'll notice that at your station, we divide the packet into two pieces. One piece was everything except Heidi's report. The rest of it was Heidi's report that you can keep separately and read as many times as you would like. So, Superintendent Driscoll Thank you. Making sure the microphone's on. Um so today, um I am presenting to you with my entry findings. I know that you all read my report, um prior. So I would invite you as I'm going over any parts of this that you ask questions during each particular section. You'd prefer the questions as we move along

042rather than Yes. Okay. Great. Um, the reason why I'd like to do that is because we are uh it's organized in a way to have each highlighted area that has come up in the entry findings um focused in that spot. Now, if the questions end up touching in other areas, then I'll say I will touch on them later. Um, so we can go to the next slide. Thank you. Uh, so what are entry findings? So the entry findings are simply the details about what I learned about following my entry point. And if you remember my entry plan, my goal was to understand the norms, values, expectations, and goals of the community, um the perceived strengths of Minute Man, the perceived challenges and opportunities for growth, and where gaps and opportunity may exist within the culture,

043systems, policies, and practice of the district. So, the process of going through an entry plan has been guided by the new superintendent induction program, um, which I have been participating in. And you'll hear at the end of the year, I'll need Julia's help to find out just how many hours um, of time I have spent being mentored and um, going to these groups. It it has been wonderful for networking um, and going through this process has been has been very helpful. So the entry plan phases that you've already seen many times um we are currently on the presentation of entry findings which we had initially planned for February and due to so many exciting events we pushed it off until March. Um the next slide is just something I shared at the beginning of the

044year and I want to revisit it halfway through. Um, rebuilding trust and communication at all levels will go far. Thank you. That was one of the responses from my initial surveys. Um, and it I had it on a slide for the staff at the beginning of the year. And if you look, I don't know if you remember, but I use something called Mentometer when I'm usually in large groups with the staff. So, I can either get feedback in the moment with comments or um thumbs up, love, disagree. And this was one of my favorites because 35 individuals loved it, 45 liked it, and one sadly did not like it, but I'm I'm going to try to communicate with whoever that happens to um which we don't know because it's not. That was my bad joke.

045Okay. Um the next slide um is my philosophy as a leader. Leadership is not a license to do less. It's a responsibility to do more. And I do truly believe that the administrative team at Minute Man, they all subscribe to that philosophy. And over the past two years, they have stepped up to show that it they do need to do more and they will do more when it comes to supporting um Minute Me and our students and our faculty and I appreciate them tremendously. Uh I shared this before I really knew all of them, but this now that I do know um our administrative team relatively well, um I'm so happy that this is uh absolutely true. Microphone is on. It's okay. That's the best. Maggie, can you hear? Okay, I hear you pretty. Why

046don't you check to see how many people are check? So, giant shout out for the leadership team um and for our teacher leaders who have been super communicative through this um process. I've spent a lot of time, as you read in the report, meeting with individuals who are teacher leaders who are responsible for making things happen. um in our school and with our students. Um the next slide are the major themes. So this was very difficult to actually build into one report because Minute Man is it's just such a place that's so rich um with teaching, learning, and um people who make this place what it is. So, I broke it out into three major themes with four um topics under each of those themes. And you'll notice that my actual um breakdown in the

047report matches these major themes. Yes. Excuse me. I just wanted to make sure that this is a structure that you created for this. This is not a structure that was given to you, right? This is a structure that you decided was the appropriate structure for organizing your report because otherwise would have been Yes. Okay. Yes. Thank you. So in order to it it was a while to get started honestly because to get to this concise list of themes um it's harder to write a poem than it is to write a book. Um so that's that's what this is. Uh, so this was not a a keen list or anything like that. Um, what else? So, I'm going to open the full report to make sure if you have questions, I can see what I've written.

048Um, the first item is teaching and learning curriculum and instruction. So, Paul, can you wait? Um, I timed these so we can perfect. Um, so what I did in the teaching and learning information is I gave you an overview of historical MCCAST data, advanced placement data, SAT data, um, and some opportunities uh, for advanced placement indications on our transcripts. On page four, you see that we actually can't analyze our ELLL data in the big picture because we don't have enough students um for that data to be um available. We had six who were last tested in any area. If you have fewer than 10 students um that's not large enough uh to uh analyze. Um, if you look at page four, something that um is very important to know, this is a piece of our

049school report card, something that fills our school report card. If you look all the way to the right, it says chapter 74, secondary cooperative program. That means how many students are out on co-op. The last reporting of any chapter 74 co-op students was an FY18 and that indicated that 4.7 students approximately 12 out of the 256 eligible eligible juniors and seniors took part in a co-op experience which in FY18 wasn't accurate. I think um Katie's joke was I had more kids out in early ed total just in my own truck than than that. Um the good news is um when we're looking into analyzing these things um these things have been recognized now. So, we're working on fixing our documentation systems, our student information system, um, and communicating to people how our data impacts how

050our school is evaluated. So, something interesting, um, co-op counts as advanced coursework. Advanced coursework is an element of accountability that affects your overall percentile rating that 74 we said. So, it's very interesting. Um, it's going to be very interesting when we have our actual co-op numbers reflected in here. And this is just one tiny um bit of data uh that we have been looking into that uh we're not getting credit for at minute. We're going to make sure we get credit where credit is due. Okay. So Heidi, these are the categories that the state believes they call advanced learning. Is that correct? They declared these are advanced learning and these are one of the things that um I don't know if the term really makes any sense for these but that's what the term that

051they use and this is an element of the report card. Yes. And you're using this partly to point out the fact that uh the data that we have collected over the past has not been 100% accurate because the systems put together to gather it have not been in properly in place. Correct. And uh being very much of a data person of course you cannot make good decisions without good data. And that's one of the major themes of of your report. And I just want to emphasize I understand how hard a task that is to uh change a system to create good data. And I'm very pleased that you've uh uh recognize that as one of the major themes of your report. I want to contrast that with um the desi meeting the other night in

052which they're making decisions on data that is incorrect. So one of the basic principles of computer science is ego garbage in garbage out. You cannot use data to make a decision if the data is in is incorrect. And I do have an appreciation for how challenging the task will be to move from a place in which there are uh challenges in the data to where the data is accurate and it's not just an internal thing of course it impacts how other people it does um and if you look we also have 0% in it is it's it's a lot um and I remember back at my very first interview that I mentioned before someone asked me um what I would address or what I would change about Minute Man, right? You were there based on

053the data. Um and I actually said I well I would never answer that. That's very irresponsible because right now I only have access to public data. So I don't know what's really in there. And I thought either that's the best answer or the worst answer. So now um that I do have um we're looking at these systems. I'm it has been one of the primary focuses um of my um entry because we cannot make good decisions unless we have clean data and um I had two questions on this one was just a question about and I really I think I answered my question but um when you're talking about the advanced placement tests you said that students took exams in 10 different content areas, many um relate directly related to their technical areas. Does this

054mean that they're taking exams in, you know, in subjects outside of what they're being taught? When you say many are related. Yes. So, we have students who take AP exams but don't actually take the course here. Oh, okay. Um, we also have students in some of our vocational programs. I want to say environmental is one of them. Correct. Okay. How about that? Biotech. Okay. Uh, they take the environmental both AP bio. I guess I want environmental to take the environmental one, too. But, um, the AP bio is taken by biotech, but it's not actually listed on their transcript. So, as you know, when you apply to colleges, if it's listed on your transcript, when they recalculate for your admission, that's incredibly helpful. Um, so we have some opportunities for that that um I think we

055just haven't looked at before. Um, so it's beyond just identifying advanced coursework. We found that we have kids doing things and learning things that we might not be getting credit for on our transcripts, which which we could. And then my second question was about the impact of the DESIE accountability calculation. Now of course I understand the importance and why we need to have accurate data clearly but I'm I'm just curious in terms of you know what you know is there a practical impact to that DESIE accountability indicator? Yes, this particular one um advanced coursework is worth 10% of the overall accountability. Um we how it's calculated is you get a credit or a point for a every single junior and senior who takes one advanced course. You don't get extra credit if someone takes 20.

056All you need is one. So we have some students that co-op is their one. Um, that's just an example. So, yes, it does have a Heidi, I have a question related to page four, if I may. Um, with the restructuring of our data analyst position. Um, that's that's somebody that was here. Was that person here? Say that again. So, I'm looking at the underneath the chart. Um the one third sentence with the structuring of our data analy that need to be understood by more staff members to ensure our reporting reflects our practices. Our team leads have been working together to ensure we align practices and documentation. My question is and I just circled data analyst position and it's a restructuring of our data analy did we have a data analyst position before you went through

057this process of restructuring? No, we had a direct It's quite a long title. We had a director of longitudinal data and compliance and title nine and civil rights and accountability. Um that um that person resigned right before the start of the school year. um that person was responsible for a lot of things solely maybe without some of the checks and balances that we really that would be helpful so more people have eyes on this. Um so instead of replacing that um director position that reported directly to the superintendent, we added a a data uh specialist position that reports to the director of technology. Great. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Um, you can open the whole thing. Thank you. Um, so these are just some points to consider that I wanted to call out. Um, our

058student support team and there's two facets to that. Now, the administrators um meet um with Paul to look at um students as a whole who need support um as they're elevated through several different um you know, not just attendance and grades, but also social emotional needs. We have a student support team that's led by one of our psychologists who helps find unique um supports for every individual student. They regularly progress monitor them. Um that's a wonderful structure to have in place. We have to make sure our data is clean to support that information. Um the 2023 comprehensive health and physical education framework release may provide some opportunities for increased course offerings. Um that's a new combined comprehensive health and phys. And my recommendations are to continue to conduct a thorough data review. Um, as I

059said, all data in the school profile does not accurately reflect reality, which hinders progress of analysis, state accountability ratings, which would contribute to a true curriculum revision cycle. So, in theory, when I came in, I thought, "Oh, we're going to evaluate our curriculum revision cycle, get into teaching and learning." As a leader, I'm not there yet. Um, because our data uh is not clean, and that's not fair to jump. that's putting the cart before the horse. Um, we restructured the position of the director, oh, here it is. Director of compliance, analytics, accountability, title 9 and civil rights. The assistant superintendent um is in charge of title 9 and civil rights at this time. And we do not have a director of compliance, analytics, or accountability specifically. Um, those are everyone's job right now. Um we

060have uh our tech director who's really more of a systems director and um we are working on less of a gatekeeping when it comes to what these pieces of of data are. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't quite follow. So right now um we sort of those functions are either following under other people's positions. So there's not one person that's overseeing, right? We would we accountability and student data also combined with title N and civil that's a it's an interesting combination, right? Um so we have the person in charge of data working in data. Um the assistant superintendent of student services works with title N and civil rights. Um we we pulled those out. Okay. And uh we didn't have to um replace this uh interesting position. Okay. Um we should ensure that the program

061of studies reflects current practices in the curriculum. I'm not sure if I truly articulated this in my report, but right now um the leads um with Diane Dempsey, who's the lead of guidance, they're working on looking at our program of studies to make sure that our course titles match the same names that we report to the state. Things like that that seem little, they are not that's not little. Um, we also need to make sure, as you'll see with my overarching um, concerns, we have to make sure that our program of studies matches our policies and match the state regulations that are currently in place. Um, I hope that we'll continue the career and college readiness updates. I think it's worthwhile to use that time um, during our school committee meetings because it gives us

062a look directly into classes. Um, and I know it's not a comprehensive overview of each pathway, but it gives us really a look into what's happening in classrooms, and the leads have been wonderful with those. Um, and eventually, um, we should create a curric a cycle for curriculum review and documentation for academic, vocational, and supplemental programming. We need data to drive, um, what we would be review. um questions on curriculum and instruction. Okay, the next slide. Um and I actually am going to invite you to direct me to any pages that you have a question on and I think I will go directly to my slide in the name of time so I don't keep you here until morning. Um the next item is teaching and learning professional staff evaluations. So it came to my

063attention, you can open the whole thing, Paul. Thank you. Um it came to my attention as I was doing my entry one-to-one meetings um with all sorts of people um that there were groups of staff members who either had not been evaluated or had different methods of evaluation. Some were paper, some were it depended on who your evaluator was. That is not true for um any staff member who's in the contract because that's a negotiated document that we use. But there wasn't something consistent um outside. Um we also use a um a program called Vector or Teach Point or it's been named many different things. um and our go-to person um received your in charge of Teach Point during a transition period where she wasn't given the opportunity to really learn the background. Um so

064that's a wonderful thing. She wants to hone it and learn it and help everyone use the system. So that's been great. Um and in that professional development piece, our evaluation system also keeps track of professional development points for teachers. That has also not been totally clear. And our go-to person who is absolutely wonderful is is working on making sure that that's um not confusing for teachers. And if any of you know anything about teacher lensure, that is also in flux many times. Um it's important that we have clear resources for teachers. Um something that uh we created during or came out of those meetings in additional meetings. I do monthly meetings with all of our um administrative assistants. Um they seem to know a whole lot about what goes on everywhere. Um, we created a

065rubric that we're using for all professional staff outside of the um outside of the contract to make sure that everyone understands the same expectations. They I maybe it took me a day or two. I don't know how many days I met with um all of our custodians, our paraprofessionals, our um additional staff and technology um literally uh and of course our administrative assistants um to give them input so they could create um what they wanted this to be. Uh and they were awesome. They were absolutely awesome. Took a couple days to get everybody in the system. our data person added people like that. Um, and hopefully this year we will be able to have an electronic system that documents that everyone has been evaluated. Um, and I am also uh the administrators, if you don't

066know, they do have separate rubrics based on if you're a school-based administrator or a um a district administrator. they are we're using the state rubrics for them as a um so my recommendations are that we have targeted training for specific areas of improvement connecting to lensure renewal. Um right now we have a lot of professional development that are they can be one-stop shops. they are uh not necessarily easily aligned with lensure renewal, but we know based on the rigs, everyone needs 15 PDPs in special education. Everyone needs 15 PDPs in teaching English language learners. We need X amount. So, that's something to look forward to um to make sure that we're targeting things and aligning them to license uh renewals for those professional staff members to make things easier. Um I hope that we are

067working on more of connecting with people over paper. The evaluation process act much like Pam said should be a cycle and there should be it should not be a one-time visit where you write a dissertation and hand it to someone and then they react alone. It it really has to be a part of um just us working together as coaches. Um and currently the biggest piece is we need the creation of a thoughtful PD plan and process that focuses on explicit pathways of moving to higher levels of lensure um whether it's initial or professional and lensure renewal that aligns with district goals. So right now we have many new teachers who do not need PDPS. They need to be a part of their first year mentor program. Um it's it is possible to have appropriate

068pathways that support each person on their way. Um and we just need some time and a strategic plan. So I'm making lots of recommendations. Please kindly do not assign me to do all of these immediately because these are multi-year um goals and cannot be done um in the police. questions about Yes, I do. Uh I just actually want to point out um as somebody who was a teacher the uh care for your staff that you demonstrate here in taking responsibility for helping them have the paths to get their license renewed or to move up to a higher level is not necessarily typical at a school. So, I think that um it's uh a very important uh goal that you've taken on here and I hope that the staff is appreciative because sometimes getting those PDPs

069and some of the more obscure categories can be extremely difficult if it's not supported by your school. You have to like scrge around for them. So if you have um any assistance you can give and any uh assistance you can give to the staff in you know increasing their professionalism is u a very um it might be a very positive thing as I say not always taken seriously in a lot of schools. So I appreciate that. So that is one of my things that I take seriously wherever I am a leader. Um because I see myself as a teacher first. Um and I know the difficulty with that. Um do you have a question? So, I want to say I really appreciated this plan and report and I did go through it and made a

070ton of notes and I don't know for some of them if I'm behind ahead. Um, so I'm trying to like get where this is compared to this. So, I don't know if you want me to wait to see if you get to those areas or if you want. So, I but I don't want to throw things off. So trust me, and I don't want us to be here all night because I just have I don't think I'll be thrown off. I've been to a Bolton finance committee meeting will not be thrown off. I am sure of that. Um so if you have a question so well I have one related to this and one related to I'm still on page five. But but related to this, I I know throughout it, one of the things

071that you talked about in a couple of areas is, you know, kind of the issue of HR and where human resources falls and not having a person dedicated to human resources. And you didn't make any recommendations about it. You just raised it as an issue. But I'm wondering if some of this is this something that might fall under the responsibilities if we had someone who was focused on that human resources. That is one of my recommendations and it is in in the budget but yeah um and I'll get to that on a further slide. Okay. Um so so should I do page five now or I had a question about the academy model. So I don't know if you want that now or if that I'm not sure your pages match mine, but if you

072if you have a question about the academy model, that's fine. Oh, it could be I can't read page six. Oh, I I printed it out at home, so my page numbers be a little different. Okay. Well, let me get to the next slide. I have one more comment about the uh the professional staff evaluations and pathways to relicure. Something that was brought up way at the beginning of the year that we had some teachers who were worried that because they did not have their SEI endorsement, they may not get their lensure renewal this year. Um, we partnered with Bridgewwater um and um Amy moved around some of our grant funds so that we could run an SEI endorsement course at the graduate level for our teachers. Um they let us pick the dates. How many

073people like 25? I think we had about 25 people um get their SEI endorsement. some took the course for the graduate credits and for um the PDPs that you get for taking a graduate course. Um and it it was the fastest filling um PD I have I have ever seen. I was worried we might not have enough people to run it and it um it was wonderful. And we even had uh guidance counselors take this course because they know down the road it will likely be an SEI endorsement. Um so it was it was uh that was wonderful. So the next is the academy model. Why don't we pull the whole thing up? So the points to consider here is that there was substantial study of the academy model. Um the documents that I looked

074at show the intent of the academy model and what it should theoretically look like at Minute Man. and it shows the MBA MBSBA allotment of 80 uh 80% capacity is 628. The second piece of the academy model is that nuances of a high school schedule including singleton classes. So we not only have a regular high school schedule of 700, we are split in half for courses that run. Um, we need careful study of those details to prevent unintended consequences from negatively impacting students. So, I'm bringing these up um because one of the things many of you shared with me um was the academy model as I came in and um as I spoke to individuals, as I spoke to every level of um staff member, parent, student. It's clear that we have not fully implemented

075an academy model and if we were to do this um we don't know what the this is that works for Minute Man at this time. So my recommendations are um to engage in the MSBA recommissioning pilot for the next six to eight months. So this is brand new. Um, we have been contacted by the MSBA to be one of uh a hand I think we're the third district um to have them come and evaluate our systems, our HVAC system, our um systems that run our facilities to see if they are working as promised um from our new building. Um it'll take about six to eight months. We Michelle and I met with um the team Friday to kick off the process. They sent me um a description for all of you about this um this

076recommissioning project. Uh I didn't include it in this because it's too new. We'll we'll talk about it at a future meeting. Um I also feel like we need a long-term strategic plan, a five-year strategic plan that includes renewed exploration of models of student learning. We need to maximize access to vocational education and the minute man experience. Um, we need to study that, plan for it. And I think something that came up over and over again is that our goal has been to build the building and then when it came time to be in the building, we were shut down. So, we really do need a a recharge and renewal of what that looks like. And in short term, I do think we need to examine building space and consider how we use extended learning spaces

077throughout the building. So I for those of you who are on the building committee, I'm sure you remember what extended learning spaces are. There's they're those nooks and crannies around the building that are meant to have tables or learning areas and flex spaces. Um because we went straight into CO, those are not being used to capacity. And I think in some cases we didn't know that what they were. Um and uh doing all of the tours with the pathway leads and the department leads through all of their areas was um incredibly helpful in learning about that. Um more questions about the academy. Yeah. Uh so actually questions on um all three of these things. So, now you've explained what the MSBA recommissioning project is and why I didn't know anything about it. It's a new

078thing that they're trying. We come into your building after it's built and we see if it really worked out. Yes. That's good for them. They get to see how what they're doing leads to and good for you because you get their opinion of it and their analysis of it. Is that Yes. And we get their consultant. It is totally free. It's Oh, I was about to The magic word was not only is it useful, but it's free for us. Yes. So, you're enthusiastic about that. Very enthusiastic. And time is not free. That is what we'll end up. Yeah. But that's going to be well worth it, I would hope. Absolutely. So, the next one is a just one uh just a uh a sentence, but it it says a lot. This means we're going to

079step back and look at the entire uh learning process here at M. Look at the academy model at maybe other things we could be doing kind of. So we're kind of doing it both for both the hardware and the software of the institution. Is that right? So the hardware is the facility, the software is how we do teaching. Is that correct? Yes. Or less what you mean here? Absolutely. But I can't do that at home. And it would take a I'm assuming a year of study with accurate data to build a five-year strategic plan. One of which the elements would be teaching and learning and what it looks like. And of course with a lot of input from oh yes a a strategic plan process would include deep communication with parents, students, staff members, all

080of the uh it would be quite a an okay. So I just wanted to emphasize what is being said in this uh the enormity of what's being said in these three bullet points. And as you said, there's a large time frame in order to make this work. So this is not something that's going to happen quickly, but you're saying a I just wanted to make sure that my understanding of what you were really saying here was correct. And it is. Yes. So, and I I these are just some things that um I think I need to say out loud. Um so we're all starting from the same place, right? I have a question on page six. Um, under points to consider, it's the reference to a singleton class as someone who was never a teacher,

081but as you may recall, a parent of a student that did go to Minute Man and graduated. What does that mean? Good question. So if I am offering calculus BC, a very very high level math class, I am likely only offering one section of that class. Yep. So if I only offer one section of that class, that has implications um for all the students who want to access that class because if um music, the one senior music class is also offered that period, you can't take both. Sometimes when it comes to singleton classes, we have to make tough decisions. Um, scheduling is easier when we have many sections of all classes. Thank you. You're welcome. You can't have a question. I think um well, okay. Um just real quickly um and and partly Jeff asked

082the same question when that second bullet was like wow this is huge um you know doing that um strategic plan and you know I was always under the understanding whether this was correct or not that basically what had prevented the academy model from being put in place was issues is related to space that you know it it mainly had to do with space but what you're saying is you want to take a step back and really just look at you know that overall philosophy of teaching and learning yes yes and I can also assure you it is beyond space yes that's what I'm thank you okay um teaching and learning data reporting. You've already heard a little bit of this um points to consider. Um our 9th grade course passing rate on our school report

083card illustrates how bad data impacts Minute Man. According to the Desi data, only 86.5% of 9th graders passed all of their courses at Minute Man and even lower the two years prior. Um I I know that's super tiny. Um, but it's I want to say it says like 47%. Um, right. There is no way that not even half of our students passed all of their classes. That's not true. That has to do with our reporting through our student information system to the state. Um, that is one gigantic example of data that needs to be cleaned up. Another example um and some of these that we're coming across now I want to give a shout out again to grew and to our data specialist um these are things that we are coming across and um fixing

084and trying to clean up the data in the moment um but there's no way we have everything. Um the second bullet is another example. At least 40 of our incoming freshmen submitted demographic information that did not match the demog the demographic information from the desi sending school districts. So what happens is when we claim a student we get their profile. It's uh with a set with a number like almost like a social security number and we get their profile from wherever they have come from and it gives us every course they've ever been in all their grades their attendance and their demographic information. So, it is very easy to just dump that into your system. Um, this year because we were looking at a lot of things that maybe weren't matching, um, I think it

085was our admissions counselor, I don't even remember who did this, but I'd love to give them a huge shout out. um pulled our applications versus the state information and over 40 only of freshman only didn't match. Um so we had to check in and switch it to the correct demographic information which is really important especially when we're talking about um some of these issues with the state about which students we serve. Um demographic information is not required and it is not vetted. Um, sometimes that's put in when a child's in kindergarten and if a school district doesn't has empty fields, sometimes somebody's just clicking things. Not the best. Um, so I I really appreciate um, Cheryl and guidance helped us um, clean all that up and got that in the system. Heidi, can you share

086what some of that erroneous data was like related to which demographic kind of information was wrong? Um, this specifically was the race code. There's That's Yeah. Um were there one or two schools that were bad really bad at this or was it pretty evenly spread? I didn't look at which schools um we didn't go into that kind of analysis to say hey gave us this junk. Um we just knew it wasn't correct because it might be helpful to know if there's one school that's giving us junk. It might be. Um, I have a hunch a K12 district is probably not going to change their processes, but um, when we get our students, we are going to make sure we have correct information. Good. Um, and guidance um, is also talking about more opportunities to get

087more of that information in person while we have our incoming students here over the summer and in the spring. Okay. um recommendations work with staff to understand the flow of data and opportunities for error to create procedures that are not only vetted but also have checks and balances. Um so that means we don't want any uh gatekeeping. We want at least two people to be able to have access to everything and that was not the case before for quite a few years. um increase opportunities for multiple members of the district to learn about the concepts of student information systems, school interoper interoperability frameworks, that's the thing that connects us to the state each night. Um educational personnel information management systems, that's the staff information, EPIMs that we report and other reporting mechanisms that impact the

088district. Um, and I'm just adding a bullet, another shout out to keep that data specialist position. Super helpful. Um, and another recommendation is to adjust the director uh technology director position. Um, which sounds more like uh, you know, somebody who works for the Geek Squad fixing screens. That is not what he does. Um so we are adjusting that data um director of technology in data systems to increase um checks and balances on those district data systems. So that big long title about accountability, it's more about data and systems than it is about any one of those individual items. Okay, then next one. Um, oh, I forgot Maggie's over there. Maggie, do you have any questions? No, I I follow this report. I I cannot I have so many nice things to say about it, and

089I have notes, but you're generally answering them as I go along. So, all right. Thank you. I'll I'll speak up. Okay. Sorry. All right. Um, the next one is stakeholder engagement, communication, and collaboration. Um a big point to consider is that shifts in district structure impacted admin impacted administrative leaders and teacher leaders. Um connection to this information impacting Minute Man. Um so it is difficult to communicate and collaborate when we have misinformation um on our school report card on um the list goes on. um recommendations uh administratives uh administrative leaders and teacher leaders should continue to expand our knowledge base and connections to Desi Mava and colleagues outside our district. We've had um lots of people go to other schools to look at different models of um of practice. We I think next week or

090the week after where I'll go our entire administrative team is going to the MAVA um spring um leadership meeting um and at that meeting each of us has a Javaike group where we attend um and um I will continue superintendent check-ins with stakeholders at the superintendent level. um that doesn't stop with the end of this with these entry findings. I I really do need to hear anecdotes and stories to help me understand beyond the deeper. Um and a recommendation is uh a deeper dive is needed into our schedule of regular meetings to maximize how time is used to support student learning. So if we are meeting it should be about student learning. We want to make sure that things that are housekeeping are kept out of our meeting time because it's precious. Um, admissions. Um,

091you heard about, um, admissions from Paul. My number is a little outdated here. Um my recommendations are that we examine recruiting, marketing and admissions and retentions practices and processes including admissions software platform in efforts to strategize for FY26. I do feel like the uh our admissions director really has um put I'm sure you saw in the report has really put forth a sincere effort to bring more people into the process. So, it's all hands- on deck as opposed to one person recruiting. Um, and I think as many of you have seen with your work outside of the district talking to community members or people talking about VOGED who don't know about VOED, um, it is very important for us to be uh, loud and uh, our best advocates. Um the uh other recommendation is that

092we create opportunities for parents to engage with Minuteman through MTI enrichment programming. Um something that Nancy, our our director of the MTI, one of her goals this year was to create opportunities for connections so that we can get parents in our building. Um we want their fifth graders to know about us. We want them to see and know what we're about other than just getting a a flyer from their kids. So we do have an opportunity here. Okay. Community expect Oh, yep. I have a a question on the that that integration opportunities for parents to engage with Minute Man through MTI enrichment programming. So So lots of ways to engage parents. Is that to get them physically in the building and participating in the types of programs that are available when it comes to admissions?

093Yes. So, we do actually they asked about this at the finance the Arlington finance committee meeting last night. They said, "Oh, well, how do I become a part? How do I join or the um plumbing program or how does one do that?" And I said, "Please go to our website, apply, get on there. We take people." But what she's looking at doing is beyond that. Yeah. Is provide short-term opportunities for people to learn skills with our trained instructors in our gorgeous building to learn about the opportunities that their kids could have. So, it's it's dual purpose. That's a fabulous idea. Well, we will get it off the ground and once we have that moving, um I really feel like it'll it'll end up bringing a lot of good traffic. Right. And if you look at

094what's happening with what jobs are going to grow in the future and what are not, there are some trades that AI will never replace. Jeff's laughing at me, but I'm looking at you, Nancy. I I'll take the actually it was the opposite comment. There are a lot of things that AI that it shouldn't rather than there are a lot of jobs that AI will never replace. So, I don't have a very um happy view of where AI is going right now. So, yes, there are lots of jobs that AI will not replace and lots that it it might but it shouldn't. So, that was I'm not laughing at you. I was No, no, no, no. I'm I'm just being I'm just being silly dilly because it's it's been a long day. But, um Oh, there's

095so much potential here, but I don't want to um sidetrack us because we've got a lot here. Okay. The next item is community expectations points to consider. The big points um all staff including studentf facing educators receive multiple communications through a school week, school day with information for which they are responsible. So that means if my primary job is to teach students all day and we as leaders are sending communications all throughout the day, it's very difficult for a teacher to be aware of those things. Um, we've been working as an administrative team on ways to be concise with our writing. Um, we need to do more of that uh to make sure that we are communicating for value with our audience in mind. Um, and we are not bombarding people um with uh with

096key strokes. Uh something that we can see is how many people open emails and um mine mine are opened pretty much often. I put extra emojis in my subject line, but um but we send out so many some of them get lost. Um and there's currently no employee handbook for review or reference of processes or expectations. So that is very difficult when it comes to um management of any organization. Uh my recommendations are to consider consolidated communication systems and practices to ensure that information is digestible for the intended audience. So I know you mentioned parent square. We right now have parent square. We also have a website. We do not have um a separate app that connects both of them. So again, strategically we need to be thoughtful about is there a platform that does

097all of those things that saves us time and improves our quality of communication. Um and uh my another recommendation is to implement professional development dedicated to establishing clear community, behavioral, academic, and social emotional learning expectations in alignment with school and district policies and procedures. Um something that was very evident. It it came really with our paraprofessionals too who go to many different areas. Some of them expressed frustration that the expectations of behavior or standards are very different as they go from classroom to classroom. Um and that's hard for them. And I think we really would benefit as a community. We have an opportunity with our revised student handbook um and a true plan um of professional development to review those things that we expect and what we do. If we had a strategic plan with

098some core values, it would be very easy to connect our core values to whatever it is that we do. Um so again, this is one of those big picture philosophical things that we have to get to, but it should come from very thoughtful strategic view. So Heidi, yeah, uh you have a point to consider and I'm sure this is also really a recommendation even it isn't written there. The creation of a formal employee which we would need an H a committed HR director, but that is part of your long-term plan to create. Yes. Yes. I think we have pieces of what might be one. Um but we definitely need to dedicate some and and I don't know that people who have not been teachers may not quite understand the enormity of your last point which

099is to have um a series of kind of uh districtwide acceptable um behaviors just basic behaviors of this is something that all schools struggle with and I'm impressed that you wrote it here as a specific goal challenge very challenging goal As you said, this one is a multi-year effort as well. It is. And teachers spoke loudly that um that we need that with our students. Absolutely. You know, I would just say to echo what what Jeff said. You know, it's hard because not only do the teachers probably want the consistency, but the students actually need the consistency, but it's hard because sometimes you teachers think that they're doing the right thing by being a little more relaxed in something, but they're actually not helping the students to be successful in that area. And it does

100I think the um the assistant teachers or the what did you say that they definitely have that big window into they can do this over here and I'm trying to tell them that they can over here but they actually can. So it's really confusing. That's great that you found that. Well, and I want to say I don't think I I found it necessarily. It's I'm just saying it out loud. it it's it's things people already are. Um the next item is sending district partnerships. Uh DESIE regulations may impact the process in this area. Um it is clear that there's a widespread general lack of understanding of of what wallto-wall vocational high schools are period. Um, anecdotally, you've heard me talk about us giving tours to some of our ascending district administrators and um, I I

101I was with an assistant superintendent from a district. We were standing in the carpentry shop after we had already seen advanced manufacturing, you know, done that whole loop. And um, she said to me, "So, how long is this period again?" And I almost fell over. I said, "No, not a period. A week, literally a week." But I don't understand it. The concept is completely foreign. Um, and it's really important that we again with our strategic plan, we strategize how to explain what we do and how we do it. Um, recommendations are to continue to bring sending district partners to the Minute Man campus. um increase the number of students attending showcase day. And I don't think it just means invite every single student to showcase day, but we need to make sure that students understand

102what an opportunity it is to be in this building and we need to make sure their parents understand why that's important. Um, I'm not sure I don't know what happens in in our sending districts, but I am going to share an anecdote with you about my own eighth grader. Um, my own eighth grader. Uh, there was a tour to the vocational school in near me, which of course I wanted my child to go to. And he said, "No, I didn't go to that today. We didn't get permission slips, so you needed to sign one." I said, "You stayed and sit on my math class." He's inv class. said, "Oh, that's interesting. I wish you would have gotten to go on that tour." But on the day that they did step up day to our regular,

103um, high school, uh, my older kids were very excited that he was going to go and they said, "Um, oh, this is great. You're coming." And I said, "Oh, buddy, you can't go. I never I never signed a permission slip." He said, "Oh, I don't need one. I you only have to sign it if you don't want me to go." and they put all those kids on a bus and took them AC. I was like, "Oh my goodness." So, I'm not allowed to be involved in those conversations because I'm a little too aggressive with my own kids. So, that my husband uh with with the schools, so my husband's the one who deals with that. But I can't help but think how many barriers there are across the state um when it comes to helping

104kids find the right fit for themselves. a few uh historic notes of that. Well, one's a practical note. What often happens is you get a new select board member or something else in the town. They may know nothing about career tech. They stay there for a while. You train a little bit. If they're open-minded, they get a little bit more interested. Then they leave. You got to start all over again. So, that's of course one of the challenges we face. The other one is that we had um something we were considering pursuing at one point, which was to have the state add to guidance counselors a portion of their license renewal, their PDP, whatever it is that they get that they must every few years come and tour a career tech high school because a

105lot of the guidance counselors who are theoretically counseling students have no clue. what these schools are and I'll go uh and and and we should also make it that teachers can get PDPs. This should be an a way for a teacher to get PDP also to go on a tour of of a career tech school. Make that a way so that the teachers also will have a better idea because even in in Newton, right, Newton has Newton North and Newton South. Newton North has CTE programs. Newton South doesn't. I say that very few of the teachers of Newton South, even though Newton has these programs, have any idea what they were about or for or even existed. So, the level of ignorance about um our programs and how they benefit students is appalling. And uh

106I think that I really do think that guidance counselors should have it as part of their one of the categories that they have for part of their um lensure is to come visit and tour these schools and I will suggest that it's part of the regulations they're developing. Those are up for public comment right now. They are out for public comment. That's going to be my comments on the on the portion. At least they've identified that the member towns have responsibility. I think this could be part of their responsibility as well. Jeff, I'm sorry to interrupt. Is it Can I make a comment question? Of course. Go right ahead. Um, okay. This was one of the findings that you pointed out, Heidi, that really spoke to me. um specifically um in another spot in the

107report I think you have a map of the districts and you know it's it's notable to me that Dovar is one of the more remote districts to where Minute Man actually is and um one of the other challenges that we face as you know as a regional school district for whom our partner school Sherburn sends its students to a different vocational high school makes marketing of Minute Man a little challenging for do um in terms of the partnership with the sending district and um when I read these recommendations, it really meant a lot to me because looking at even the uh the application, we're one of the few districts that does not meet applications that equal our aotment. And that's one of the challenges I face sometimes when we go to the select board or

108we go to town meeting in terms of our budget. Um, and I think to to Jeff's point, you know, I like I hate using the word ignorance, but I think that there just is a lot of lack of understanding of the quality and the it's just so important because in our community, I speak to so many families who tell me that their kids need just like something different for their education than the comprehensive high school. So I I this particular slide and this particular area of your um findings is really important to me and I I really appreciated how you framed it and um particularly the part about professional development because I don't know Jeeoff you're probably aware of this but um a couple of years ago meetum where I used to work and where

109you represent actually had their big leadership team meeting their annual summit at Minute Man and I've spoken to so many of my former colleagues for whom that was a really really meaningful experience and they took it back like wow we get to go to Minaman we get to see this and that and how real it made for them and I'm wondering um anything that we can do along those lines in terms of inviting you know the leadership teams of our sending districts or anything for professional development in to see what's going on is really important you know from my perspective because it's hard to it's hard to make a case for why you So, our district needs to pay the amount we're paying for like four or five kids a year. So, thank you, Alice.

110I think you had a question. Oh, I I just wanted to say when we talked about this before, it doesn't really matter what the state does because if I'm reading that correctly, that is this the teachers and counselors from the Sunny Middle Schools have been here, right? Yes. So, I'm I'm saying I can't rely on the I love the state, but we can't rely on them. Um, so as soon as this spring, actually, our director of admiss admissions is working with guidance to actually have a guidance counselor's breakfast already this year. And while they are here, we will be teaching them all about unit man. Um but the formal um free professional development um that we should offer to our middle school counselors is something that would take a little longer to develop. But you

111are right. We can issue PDPs. We can um we can have that captive audience and it's entirely it would be a lot more useful than 99% of the way to get PDPs for these people. And when you do have these uh breakfastes, please let us know what the attendance is. Absolutely. which page. Oh, so that's that's actually one of the charts um that I brought to um the department of the board of education um when they were saying that uh they were telling their story. We we brought our story um stakeholder engagement. So, I did add an extra stakeholder engagement after the sending district partnerships um because a lot of people um make up our community and something that struck me when I I don't remember which tour I was on, but I remember um

112the biotech um teachers really would like to honor Dr. Mary Kurtz. And if you have time to read about her, she was one of the people who really helped us found the first biotech program in the state here at Minute Man. Um she passed and they would like to dedicate a lab space to her. I think that things like that shouldn't be just okay, let's do a little um let's do a little event. I feel like something like that needs to be receelebrated. Um, not only for Dr. Mary Curts in her efforts to help Minute Man, but also that Minute Man is not afraid to be a pioneer. All the things that go with that um institutional knowledge. Um, I do want to make sure I think Maggie just said it. um the the geographical

113area covered by Minute Man sending districts. It just adds a lot of obstacles to stakeholder engagement. Um so like there isn't one common place where we could go in the public and just tons of people would join us. Um there's we are spread very far um and wide and uh we struggled. So the administrators um poured over this with me to make sure um we were you know I wasn't saying things that were off and to we struggled over how to explain the word geographical area. So you don't know how long it took for us to what was the word I had before just land. Yeah I don't know it was terrible but they they helped me with that. I just want to give a shout out to that. Um, uh, our staff is very

114invested in keeping our website and information up to date. I sent two links that, um, Katie shared last week with our advisory that I was totally impressed with that I hadn't seen yet, but you'll see that those are the newly revised versions of, uh, looks into our programs. Uh, pictures are being taken down with masked kids. It's time to renew those. And um the I I think it's going uh very well faster than I even realized. Um and again my recommendation is to examine the consolidation of communication platforms both internal and external and um to engage with Hansum Air Force Base to build more formal connections. I I don't know if I've put it in my full report or not. Um is it might I mean tomorrow with them then Julia? Um, so tomorrow I'm

115going to meet with a gentleman. Who is it? Lieutenant B. Um, I have agreed to be an honorary commander and I am I I don't know what I've gotten myself into. Um, but I am filling out all the forms and meeting with who I need to meet to so with so we can have some uh formal partnerships with the military base and jet engine repair shop. We we shall see. We shall see. I'll I'll do whatever. So, I'm a little nervous, but that I'm sure will be uh will be you'll do just fine. I can't remember exactly when it was, but wasn't there a very notable military person who did a had a tour at Minute Man and was Yeah. Okay. Yes. So, I don't know if your your contact is aware of that, but

116I think our contact is the one who brought Oh, okay. Okay. Well, dur then. Yep. So, I will do We'll see. We'll see what I will do. I don't know. And Hanscom partnered with us for the um mock crash. Yes, the mock crash. Thank you. Yes. So you could take the helicopter back over. Oh my gosh. We'll see. Sorry. Just don't get into paratrooping or any of that stuff. You've got enough. You've got enough going on here. We'll be changing careers. Um the next one is super important. Next area is facilities. Prioritizing facilities focus. And these are shorter. I kept them for the end because I think we know this. Um, right now Minute Man currently has no staff faculty handbook. Um, it's not fair to ask the person in charge of facilities who needs

117to make sure we have a fully functioning facility in charge of our rentals um to stop the presses and and work on something like that. Um, it is also not ideal for a director of HR to directly supervise staff. That is not typical. Um and uh the perception of this split position makes the it look like the HR functions are not a priority. Um and and we need them to be. Um so my recommendation is to separate operations and facilities from human resources. It's already reflected in our budget. Um and I think it's a simple um change. It would be a full-time human resource um person until further notice. I know many times we've had part-time human resource. Maybe that would be something in the future that would be possible if we had s systems

118that um were operating that many of us knew and were invested in. We don't have all those yet because there's been a lot of turnover and change. Um the next one is the pandemic impact. Boy, that's funny how I did that. Um, I don't know why those are out of order. Uh, something that I think most of you know at this point is that we've had some issues with our facility because of the pandemic. We didn't run our building to full capacity for the first two years, which is a problem when it comes to things like boilers or things that are faulty that you'd want them to be used to capacity so they break within the warranty time. I have a list of things that um some of the things that we've had to replace

119or repair this year that we likely shouldn't have to replace or repair in a six-year-old building. Um and my recommendation is that facilities should be a major part of an overall long-term strategic plan. I would say one of the whole branches of it. And I've already mentioned participate in the MSBA recommissioning pilot. Okay, the next one is facilities. I'm sorry, quick question. Um, yes, facilities should be part of that. Are they going to be talking with the folks that are coming in for that recommissioning pilot initiative? Um, who's the vet? So, facilities are people that work in the district that physically work in this building, right? And they're going to have an eye on what's working, what's not working every single day. That's the facilities. So, they're part of the long-term strategic plan. Are they

120going to be part of the study that we're doing to see like when when is the next time we're going to have to repair that elevator? When is you know, so right now that's directed by our director of operations. Okay. Who has a split position. She is going to focus solely on facilities and the facilities staff. That will be her role. But the facility the members of the facilities department are a huge part of the recommissioning project. Um they it's a part of the the overall plan. They will be the ones to tour some of these consultants and the people who are examining. Great. You're welcome. Okay. Space allocation. Um points to consider. Again, that's redundant at this point. Um the building was designed clearly designed for an academy model. Um there are some underused

121extended learning and vocational spaces. Um recommendations and examination and this is something we can look at now an examination of overused underused and extended learning space extended learning spaces spaces should contribute to a long-term strategic plan. Um we have um an area across from our robotics shop um where we have I think the intent was to make it like an Amazon facility. Um and it's there we aren't using it to capacity. So we need to take the time for our facilities um our operations um director to be looking at how we use space and evaluate um what we have. And Heidi, this uh uh dubtales with the idea of what is the real capacity of the school. Yes. Yes. So this is very important to understand. It's not just an academic exercise to squeeze out

122a little bit here and here. The bigger idea is depending how you do uh scheduling and space allocation. you can uh be more efficient in your use of space in the school which can then have a substantial impact on the number of students for whom we can service effectively at the school. So this is uh again just a few words but it's a very big idea. Okay, the next one is capital planning. I know you heard about our um we the capital planning subcommittee did a deep dive into the uh 20-year projections. Um some points to consider is that the le the Leslie project is in progress and will impact capital planning needs. Um the capital planning subcommittee will be meeting um I don't know when our next meeting is but we'll be meeting in

123executive session to be talking about um that continued work and again the MSBA recommissioning pilot will inform that 20year plan. So already, and I know the the subcommittee knows this, the 20-year plan that we have already doesn't match what has happened just like the elevators that is not on those are not meant to be addressed on year six, but we are addressing them year six. So, we're hoping that this recommissioning pilot will help us inform that uh 20-year plan so we can shift things around if need be. and it would be more specific and accurate. Uh my recommendations are to continue discussions with the additional potential partnerships who have interest in 10 and 16 mil street as well as the east building, Tmont building. Um, so there are more there is more than just Leslie

124um who have been reaching out to me or to Michelle um our director of operations about our buildings um and not only renting but potentially renovating and creating spaces for learning um that are multi-purpose um so uh you'll be hearing more about those um Steve can tell you about one um but you'll be hearing more about those as they progress. Yes. Um, and I I I guess I've given this a lot of shoutouts here. Um, we're the second district and the third school who was asked um to be a part of this. So, that's a big deal. And I think it's recognized that Minute Man was one of the first schools to go through this process. And so, that we're not what's happening now is schools are in the pipeline are learning from other schools.

125There's procedures. Minute Man kind of did it on its own at the time. Um, so I'm glad that we have this opportunity. Um, overarching factors, um, two gigantic overarching factors are the state proposed amendments to the competency determination requirements and the state proposed amendments to recruitment and admissions regulations in career and technical education. Um and Alice gave you a little um view into one of those. Um you can go to the next slide. Um local graduation requirements are different from competency determination measures and the regulations that are being discussed right now are the competency determination measures. Um the governor has a commission that's going to be discussing this right now. the regulations. Um actually oh can you switch to the next slide uh there I was going to open this but in the sake of

126time I'm not going to open the entire proposed regulations. Um what is happening now in short is that the state is recommending that um there are two years of math required including algebra 1 and geometry that there are two years of English required. It's very similar to what we were discussing as a potential policy. They're also asking um that a um a US history course is added, a one-year US history course. Most schools already have those. Um the regulations in place are not permanent. It is a band-aid until the big picture regulations come out from the governor's commission. Um so there will be further legislation. We just don't know what that is yet. I'm hoping um maybe at next month's meeting we'll have more clarity and we can get into that in depth during my

127This isn't really a question for you, but more about like why what's the incentive for students to stay in school and do well if they're only required two years of math, two years of English, and a history class? So, it's up to the local district to have graduation requirements. So, you cannot get a high school diploma from said school district unless you've met local graduation requirements. Most local graduation requirements already are more rigorous than math score. Most local graduation requirements are four years of English, four years of math, right? I guess I don't understand why the state wouldn't be requiring that is there. So that I think I think the state is not requiring that because if you require something at the end of senior year, then there's no chance to redeem yourself, right? We

128would say end of the line, you don't get one. The the measure for the baseline likely needs to happen sophomore year. So students who don't make it to that point have time for remediation and support before they get to their senior year. You're welcome. Okay. Um Minute Man's next steps. We need to make sure that our policy, our student and family handbook and our program of studies are in alignment. The issue right now is we we don't know exactly how to align them because we meet the state regulations to exist. Um and once those are approved, those will um impact next year. Questions about that? All right. Um proposed amendments to recruitment and admissions. Um, I think Alice did a wonderful job with the overview, but there are a few things that I would like

129to highlight. Bring this. Actually, I'm just going to say it from memory. Um something in the regulations says that every vocational school would be required to have two open houses which is wild to just have everybody has to negotiate a new I don't know what that but I've never seen something like that in regulation. Only going to cost like what the community said $70,000 right? That's all just 70 just a little regulation. Oh do you got 70,000? I think that I don't think they were thinking of writing us a check for that, right? Definitely not. So, one of a wild unfunded regulation, but it's but it's beyond that. Um, so I think some of the well-intentioned um the well-intentioned regulations um have some of those unintended consequences by not understanding schools and assuming an open

130house could happen while we have 700 students here. just come on in everybody. So, I'm I'm some of these I you will be getting more information from me um with a recommendations on what we should be looking at specifically with the with the regulations that would impact Minute Man um with um a list of people who might want to hear from you. And again, at the Arlington Finance um committee last night, they were asking and commenting. I don't even think I brought it up, right? They brought it up. I can picture him. I don't know his name, but it but I I was impressed that that they were new. They knew it and they wanted to advocate for vet. Um so here are some um charts that I wanted to make sure I put here.

131Um because a part of that um conversation about Voke Ed is that we are cherrypicking our students and get all the good kids and get all the easy kids and we do not have students from select populations which is um just not true. Um and the definition of what disproportionality is is something that the state is not giving. And if you watch last night's meeting, one of the board members actually asks uh I don't remember which Desi staff member, um how are you going to if you when you audit a school district that you are accusing of being disproportionate, what metrics will you use? How will you and and the answer was we'll have them partner with an academic institution to determine it? Right. Thank god I was parked and got listening. Um so that's

132very problematic. Um that's like saying to a student, you have very important homework tonight. And when they say, well, what's for homework? We say many things. Um so that is problematic. So if you see the minute man by the numbers, um the first category is our high needs category. Minute Man is the blue as compared to all of our sending districts. The next one is English language learners. The next one is first language not English. The next one is low income. And the last one is students with disabilities. Um, as you can see, we definitely serve uh we serve our our fair share of all types of students. Um, with um students whose first language is not English and English language learners, all of our sending districts have very tiny numbers which makes percentages look

133kind of wild. Um, so that is uh that's something to be aware of. You can hear um Dr. Magguire from Tri County talk about uh her alleged disproportionality um at Tri County. They accepted 100% of English language learners to declined. They're disproportionate. Um the logic is is painful and uh not fair. Um so the next Oh yeah. low income. Um the next slide is our history of students with disabilities. Um which I think is very important. That was one of the explicit questions um that I have been asked at some uh finance committee meetings and uh do are we sending back students with disabilities? Um no, we are keeping we have everyone. Um we have substantially higher percentages of students with disabilities than all of our sending districts. Minute Man is the blue. I also

134wanted to raise up um the number of low-income students that we serve at Minute Man in comparison to our sending districts. And the last I think this is my oh my last slide is uh my recommendations regarding the overarching factors. I recommend that we pause on finalizing documents that will have sections that are impacted by the CD and admissions regulations, including our admissions policy review and our school handbook until summer 2025 or sooner if the board of education vote determines that action is needed. So, I am worried about putting in the work to change and document these things and then we're told we have to pivot. I don't want to be in a place where we are doing anything last minute. Um but I think our conversations with all of these groups have been wonderful

135to make sure we're ready um for potential um things that would come. And um my big recommendation is to begin the development of strategic planning including plans for gathering stakeholder priorities both for a significant duration during the FY 2526 school year and as a regular practice yearly at the administrative summer retreat. I feel like I've said a lot and I'm I'm happy to um shut the think um and I'm happy to answer any other questions or uh provide followup on any area you'd like to know more about. I think it's also important for school committee members to give uh the superintendent some feedback on her report. So it's not just you know you have thoughts in your head but she would probably be useful to her to know how what we feel about the path

136that she's on here. I think she got some comments of it during the presentation but not everybody spoke about that might be useful once. Do you want us to go by town? How do you want to handle? Uh we could do that by town. Would that be okay? Just if you have any comments up to my fellow colleagues. Okay. uh panel this, as I said, I love the report. I thought it was very comprehensive, very strength-based. Um, you know, really appreciated, you know, that really good balance of, you know, what, you know, what are the real strengths at Minute Man and how to use those strengths to, um, address some of the challenges. Um, one of the things, and you address this, there are lots of recommendations in here. And one of the things that

137might be helpful is just to know if you like, you know, not tonight, but at some point, like a prioritization, like if you're looking to implement these over five years, like what are the priorities? and you know which ones would you want to be um moving on first besides making a um a strategic plan and maybe the answer is that that will you know help shape what some of the priorities are but I think that that would be really helpful but you know overall I think this was you know I I really appreciate it thank you Pam I completely agree and Um there's there's always a lot of opportunity and there's always challenges around what do you start first and the phasing of it and then you've got the regulatory things that come into play

138that could change. So you know why create something and then all of a sudden after March whatever or whatever they whenever they decide April um things change and you put that time that time into it. So I I totally agree with that. So, I just have I have just two questions and this just comes from the fact that I've worked in the I've never worked in schools. So, so tell me if I'm asking something sort of silly. In the private sector, there's with a SWAT analysis, there's always strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, right? And the private sector wants to do everything at once, which is just like unreasonable, right? So if you think about we don't have a policy that covers or we don't have the physical document that can be communicated because these three variables are

139likely to change. Is there anything in about policies, manuals, whatever that could be started and then you just wait until we have the answers on some of the other things. Um I can answer that right now. Okay. They are all in progress right now. So currently Um, Principal Deva has been meeting with the school council to update the school handbook, everything that they can, right? Um, Amy and I have met about potentially, actually too, potentially about what a policy may look like that wouldn't have to be changed several times. And separately, there's a meeting for several hours tomorrow, a group looking at our program of studies. So, that's in progress. wouldn't just pause and stop. We just have to be aware, right? Um like you said, what could change and what what's the impact and

140how much time it people, energy and actual layout time with do you want to put into it? Okay, that's great. And then the um the other thing is how do how do you with the strategic plan um which you know things are going to take time as you've outlined this isn't something that's going to turn around you know come fall time, right? So something that that in the private sector you think about is when you do strategic planning which is a process and things are moving at warp speed right so the whole notion of like a five-year plan in the private sector is sometimes not even realistic. So my my point is there's things that you know you have control of that you can prioritize now pending all the things that may change and you

141know that the five-year strategic plan is going to take time is to just to just acknowledge that and um just prioritize as you've said you know what are the the things that we know can get done in a reasonable time and then prioritizing the this would be a great to do but holy macaroni it's going to take a long time or it's going to cost umpteen technology costs or whatever and do we have that here or do we not so um I think you know all of this um but I I think it's a lot of thought and consideration went into all of this so thank you um I really like the fact that it's data driven That's something that in industry is really important and in schools it's really important. That made me very

142happy and also as a new person I learned so much about Minute Man from reading your packet. So thank you Steve. Yeah man, excuse me. I'm getting over a cold. Um uh no I I agree with what what everybody said. I think priorities and the timing of the priorities are going to be pretty pretty key. Um, you know, and it' be I think important to try to hit some of the lowhanging fruit first. Not that there's a lot of low hanging fruit, but just so you can get a momentum of of of wins as as you go around implementing, but you know, I think everybody needs to know that it's going to take some time and you need to be patient. And like uh um Sarah just said, I mean there's a lot of external

143issues that'll be floating around that we have to be able to react to, but I think it's terrific and you've done a great job in putting all together. Maggie, thanks. Um what I first of all what everybody else said, thank you. I think it's a remarkable report. I really appreciate the databased and the assetbased way that you presented it to us. Um I've already spoken about my love of the um like I don't want to call it marketing um project um and goals around that. I think that some other strong points in the plan were I really appreciated and and I know Jeff spoke to this your um observations on professional development and making that responsive to what teachers need. I I think that's really important. Um as a person who did spend their career

144in public education, it's it's often times not the direction that that um districts or schools take in terms of what they're providing. I was really happy to hear about your efforts around the SEI endorsement because I have also worked in schools where that particular um regulation has caused a lot of snackus for folks and um I think that that's an example of how it appears that you're approaching problems and that really um speaks to me. I really liked the um observations and the goals around evaluation for you know the staff that goes beyond just the direct teachers about sort of standardizing it um creating a lot of different um you know more um formal and ongoing goal goal setting for folks. Um I was really impressed by your observations and the goals that you stated

145around um providing more advanced coursework about being mindful about singletons about thinking creatively and how to sort of integrate those needs with the academy model um and for myself I have to learn more about specifically and and you know I wasn't along the journey of the academy model so that's my own learning um and um I was really impressed with your presentations at the end around um analyzing how we are in fact not cherrypicking students and um I I took a a little um screenshot of one of those last slides because I think it's really powerful in terms of whom we serve at Minute Man compared to the um demographics of our sending districts. Um, and I feel like even though this is a very ambitious um, entry plan that the idea of incorporating it

146as the sort of the basis of your five year a fiveyear strategic plan, which would be obviously continually iterated, I think is a really positive direction. Um, it was a great report to read. I had lots of notes. You answered them. I I can't be more happy and I appreciate you zooming me in because I couldn't be there tonight. So, thank you. Thank you, Charlene. Uh, yes. Well, I first of all, I want to say that the report's very thorough and um has so much information here that um was great for both those of us who have been here a while and those who have not. Um I wanted to um pull out that I can read my own handwriting here. Many things that I loved about it. Um, I I love that there's going

147to be an outline for students of expectations for behavior hopefully sooner than later. Um, that can't read my own handwriting, so that's probably tough. Um, the fact that you're discussing having guidance counselors from the middle school come and do professional development here. Um, and I just wanted to say a little something about that. you know, you as an individual are really um you're a very good people person. Um when people meet you, you're just you're very approachable. Um, I think that's one of the reasons why we really liked you in the um hiring um in your hiring, but it might be also useful for you when you're making those relationships to the superintendent of our district um because they may not be aware of some of the latent um kind of comments that are made

148to students about going to the comprehensive high school as opposed to going to a vote tech And I think that's one thing that is very important for you to get across because it happens a lot. And um it's hard enough for these kids to leave all their friends, you know, to come to a school where they're not going to have as many friends to rely on, but to hear even sometimes from student from teachers comments that are baseless. um because you know um there may be this push to continue the student on with their group, continue the student on in our district, that type of thing. So, um I I'd like to see you um approach that with some superintendent. Um now, um I appreciate um so much that I can't read here. The work

149that you've done in um partnering with the military in involving um being involved with the MSBA project um in helping the staff here succeed um you know being someone who wants to raise your staff up. I think that's a really um great great characteristic of a leader, but it's just um also just a great characteristic of a human. Um and like the recognition that you give to people is very important. Um I want to highlight where we need to do better and um I appreciate that there was bravery in highlighting where we need to do better here. um that we have some data and foos here um that we have um a lot of opportunities for expanding things such as the academy model. Um and as a point of clarification, we do use the academy

150model but just not to the fullest extent. Is that correct? Our building was built for the academy model. Right. But there is the interplay of um of subjects. Correct. We have pathways. There are certain electives that certain pathways take. Well, then maybe I'm not totally understanding the academy model, but um you you're not alone. Yeah. Okay. Um All right. Well, I mean, um, in summary, I I think it's a great report, and I think that you've highlighted a lot of great things that need to be done, should be done. Um, and I'm just going to partner up with what Pam said. We've got to create some sort of um, priority as to how to do it. Thank you, Sharon. It's kind of hard having like a town at the end of the alphabet here because

151I don't know what you guys are going to have left to say. Um Alice will she'll take us home. I have no doubt. I'm sure she will. Okay. So, I think ditto to a lot of things that were said. I really love the fact that in reading your report it was very clear that you didn't just focus on your administrators or the faculty but like everybody has value and it's clear that you show them that everybody has value like you don't have an evaluation process we're going to give you one you know listening to the paras this is frustrating to you we're going to work on fixing that so I think that that's a sign of a good leader that everybody has value and everybody's part of the team So, I loved reading that. Um,

152and just hearing you talk about it. I love the idea of really strengthening those sending districts partnerships. Um, while you were talking, I was writing all these different things of different groups you could bring in because I just recently had a conversation with one of our, you know, one of our local schools and saying how so many kids don't know about it. Um, and so I think that there's a lot of opportunity there. And I do think that if you were to take all of your recommendations and categorize them, again, sort of like the lowhanging fruit that Steve was talking about, like of what the timeline would be to, you know, put in place all these recommendations, I think it will very nicely lend itself to your five-year plan because there will be those things

153that are a quick check the box and there's others that are going to take a long time and you can therefore kind of help that with your priory. priorities. Um, what I also will echo what others said, the whole idea of you being aware of the needs for PD for your faculty and then making sure that you offer those programs huge. Um, and that it was just really comprehensive. So, it was it was a good read. Thank you very much. Jeff Sto. Oh, that's me. Did I read in your report um I think in a few places that now you're going to work on your the strategic plan. So you have here the goals of what you like to do. You finished the first phase of your understanding the school and the district and everything

154and that you hope to have a formal strategic plan in the fall. Is that no? Um so what is that how does that work? in with the Nissip Group. Um after we present our entry findings, we are they guide us on working on a teaching and learning strategy. Okay? Which is different from a strategic plan. Okay. Um because most districts are mid-strategic plan. Um we happen to not be, right? Um so the strategy for teaching and learning are going to be those low hanging proof items and um the recommendations that we have or that I have in here I wouldn't say are this is our goals this is what we're doing those will inform some of the outreach that we're going to do with our stakeholders students parents faculty everyone who impacts Minute Man um

155because we have to find about what our community um sees and wants um as our priorities. Um so that's not quick. No, it's not quick. But you do tend to uh take these recommendations that you've created to heart and implement them as you can over the five year or so or however long it takes to get them done. Is that correct? Yes. some sooner than some like I said are progress process right now right okay so I guess my main comment is uh and I cannot talk for your faculty or for your staff I can talk from my point of view as a school committee member who's been here since the start of time and as a teacher is have that experience too and also as a person who did own software business goal was

156to understand the school uh where it needs to grow and uh make recommend. That was the the purpose of this report and of your you know nine months or so here, right? Learn about the school, listen, learn and come up with recommendations that reflect your view of where we need to go. Okay. And so from my point of view, I can say that you completely nailed it. Um you did demonstrate uh I think a very deep knowledge of the school again from my point of view and a lot of stuff from if I were teacher here my teacher point of view and you've expressed I think the goals that I would have in mind and a number that I did not consider. So I say that from my point of view you you nailed it.

157We have a very challenging and I hope fun for you. I think it would be mostly fun for you uh package of things to do and to bring to fruition. So it's good to have it on paper but you know making it real is a very large step. But I'm completely happy with this. I think that you achieved what you had promised you were going to do for this point. So that's my primary. Very happy with it. Thank you very much. I I would like to add one thing though. I I love that you said I nailed it. I did not expect that. That's makes me feel great. But um the information in this package really isn't from me. It's just me listening. It's from the administrators. It's from the teachers. It's from students. It's

158from parents. It's from the people who I've worked with. So I just want to make sure I give a shout out to all of those people. whose words were. I'm I'm well aware that the stuff comes from your conversation with these people, the people and others, but you're the one who looked at what am I going to present to the school committee. What's the important stuff to present? Okay, that's what you did. You said that I'm listening to and you listen and I I heard your comments on the par profofessionals, how you listen to them. uh especially about the the lack of consistency in behavior from class to class. So you did a exceptional at least again from my point of view I can't talk to your staff uh exceptional job of listening filtering deciding

159what was important to move forward on and to write it in a way that we could understand. So yes, I don't want to downplay the fact obviously you got this from interacting with all these people and all the people you interacted with, but this report is uh your putting all this together in a way that can be understood by any reasonable human being and I'm telling you I think that it does reflect the school and where we need to go. Thank you. Okay, Alice. Well, so I found this report to be very exciting. Um, I think that uh superintendent superintendent Driscoll's approach is professional. I think that the vocational administrators in general are more professional uh in their demeanor and in their thinking about education than many other superintendents. And I just don't mind saying

160that. But I think also that the um the professionalism of the staff is reflected in this uh report as well. And it all just speaks to what a great school Minute Man is that you can talk about the things that need to be fixed without anybody getting hives. You know, it's it's okay to have things we need to do and it's exciting to do them. And I feel like the granular detail um is going to enable the district to adjust some of what I refer to as the persistent mythologies about the school idea that you know kids get sent back. We've done statistics on that 20 years ago about kids get sent back and there were eight over like 10 years or something and but yet at the at the sending district that's what they

161talked about the only thing that they were talking about. Um, so you know, I think that this is a great report. I'm not going to go over all of the details of why I think it's a great report, but I am very excited by it. I think um I have no doubt that this group of people can um can, you know, take this and create uh the priorities that are needed and do all of that stuff. I think the fact that there are students at the school who want to be teachers tells us a great deal about the school and the people who work here. Um, we just saw all those kids uh who are interested in being teachers and we need people to be teachers especially these tough times are tough. It is a

162very difficult time to be a young person. It's hard to be an old person and to have um these very high level conversations about education. Um it that that is what keeps people going is if people keep doing their job and doing a really great job as superintendent Driscoll has done with this report. So I have absolutely 100% confidence in this uh entry findings report and I'm very excited to see what comes next. Mr. Chair, may I add one note that I meant to add and I forgot? Certainly. Um, I want to refer to page 18. In closing, I'd like to give some Rev's recognition to Julia, my executive assistant, who's had to adapt to my fast-paced technology- based work style. Um, I said to Jeff one time, I said, "Holy mackerel, Julia keeps us

163like functioning. How do we how do we recognize that in an appropriate And I don't ever know if school committee meetings are like that, but I I wanted to just say that to you. You're very welcome. Alice, go right ahead. Let me say this school committee is very professional. I've watched a lot of school committees. I've watched the board of education. I've watched You have no idea how many school committee meetings I've watched and been to trying to understand my job. And this is a thoughtful group of people. Um, so thank you also. I concur. And and you for those of us that are newer and you you have teaching experience and you have school committee experience and you have the capacity to go to a lot of the um important meetings that take place

164sometimes when those of us that are still working full-time can't get to. And I appreciate that of you, Alice, in particular because I feel like you're helping us really understand the implications of these things and the timing and all of that. Thank you. Okay. So, uh, what's next? Well, uh, in just a couple minutes, we're going to have a adjournment, which I'm sure we're all happy about, even though we very much enjoyed this presentation. We do have a retreat, which is not yet scheduled, uh, coming up. And uh what I would I I want to make sure that when we go to this retreat, we have a conversation with the superintendent uh to kind of get her view of how we can best use this time. I probably focus on some of the things in

165here might be useful, but she may have other ideas as well. So I was not going to plan spending any time working on that until after her presentation. Now the presentation is done. So we could probably with the officers at our next officer's meeting, we'll have a conversation how we can best spend whatever time we have whenever that occurs. Okay. So I guess that's my last comment and if there's if there's nothing else, do we have anything else? No, just thank you all so much. I hope that was useful. Our comments at the end there, right? Right. Could I have then a motion to adjurnn, please? So move second. Roll call vote. Pam Sarah Montgue Arlington. Yes. Linda Herbertson Bolson. Yes. Steve Loo Conquered. Yes. Maggie Sharon Dover. Yes. Charlene Cabraw Lancaster. Yes. Sharon MTO

166Lexington. Yes. Jeff Stanm. Yes. How do Yes. So, thank you school committee members. Thank you Julia. Thank you superintendent. Thank you all the people who attended either or remotely. And uh good night.