001Good evening. >> Uh we're going to call this meeting to order. Uh November 18th special school committee meeting. We could all please rise. Pledge the flag. >> Algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the father one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Thank you everybody for coming first of all. Um so tonight we have two school districts here to present to us uh some information on um you know what their school districts could offer to our children. Uh they're both interested in potentially partnering with us. Um several reasons why we're looking at this. Uh as everybody knows right now we do have a high choice out number uh with a lot of students currently going to Quabin and Quaog. Um we've done a
002several studies over the last 15 years. Um, and this is kind of a continuation of we were most recently doing a regionalization study. Uh, and here we are today. Um, there's going to be no final decision made tonight. There's no final decision at this point. We're just hearing from both school districts to hear their opportunities that are available. Uh, and then after these presentations tonight, uh, the school board will discuss, um, a little bit on the next steps. So, without further ado, I'm going to introduce Colleen Muha from Quaban Regional. Thank you and thank you all for having us. Um my school committee chairperson Mark Broofphy is over here and the vice chair Deborah Chamberlain is with me. So thank you for having us. We presented to the task force I believe sometime at the
003end of summer and when Matt reached out he said that um you know we were invited back to just share with a larger audience some of what Quabin has to offer. I'd like to keep this uh as comfortable and informal as possible. So, as I go along, if you have questions, I'm totally fine with addressing those in the moment. Sometimes um I have things in the slides or language that may not be familiar with you. So, I want you to be comfortable just asking me about that. So, um, one of the things I just want to start with is that we think about, um, the partnership between North Brookfield and Quabin as being one that we are a district that is already made up of many small communities. So, we like to think about how
004we could work together and see if this is a good fit for us. But, we are made up of five communities. Many of them are similar in size to you and some of them are even smaller. So our kids will come um with similar learning experiences. So our five communities that make up our regional school district are listed above. Hardwick, Okam, New Brightree, Berry, and Hoverston. We also have school choice students from about 18 other towns. I mentioned that because as you think about making this transition or your students think about making this transition, not only is there a lot to think about academically, but emotionally that's a big change for them. And knowing that you're coming into an environment where many of the other students are also from other locations. When you come into
005Quabin, we all become Quabin. And we really want to think about how we can make that transition. should this be something we pursue um for your students and your families feel as if it's it's the right step in a welcoming environment. We currently have 59 students from North Brookfield, nine of which are elementary students and our elementary schools and your elementary schools and students have very similar experiences. I think one of the things that you probably if I were you and I were sitting in your seat, one of the things I would want to know is Quabin seems like a big district and it is a big district. It's 170 mi. Is that right, Mr. Brophy? 170 mi. So, it's a large district in size, but we're not a large school anymore. So, I think
006we were talking back in the um late 80s, early 90s, we had over 200 students in our seats. That's no longer the case. Um 200 students per grade level in our seats, and that's no longer the case. So, if I were a student or if I were a parent, I want to know, am I going to find my friends there? Are my children going to find people of similar interests as them so that they feel a part of that community? So, I thought what I would do is just sort of break down for you how we really work with a lot of forethought to create smaller learning communities [clears throat] within a larger school district. So, we currently are a middle high school. We hold grades 6 through 12. Our middle school is broken up
007into the bands of grades six and seven. and they have their own assistant principal. Then our eighth grade and 9th grade where we have that transition over from middle school to high school has their own assistant principal and our grades 10 through 12 have their own assistant principal with one principal overseeing the school so that we have that vertical alignment. Um each grade band not only has an assistant principal but we have a guidance counselor who's really responsible for academic counseling. We have an adjustment counselor again by these grade level bands um with two guidance counselors in addition for grades 10 to 12. We also cohort our students in our middle school and some of the educators will know what that means but parents may not. But it's like a team approach. So you might
008be in the blue cohort or you might be in the gold cohort. And all the teachers in the blue cohort work with half of the students and all the teachers in the gold cohort work with the other half the students. And this allows for more positive relationships to be formed between students because they're kind of working amongst the same group of students and with our staff and it gives you again that smaller community feel. I did want to give you quab by the numbers because you might be thinking this is a large school and how many kids did they have in a class and that's going to be overwhelming. So, our average class size in middle school is 22 students, while our average class size in high school is 17 students. Our special ed programming,
009you're going to hear me talk about that later. The numbers would be even smaller. So, that average class size, I didn't skew it by adding in those small classes. Our student to teach, our teacher to student ratio is um 14 students to one teacher. And our average in our grade level bands at the middle school, our average right now is about 180 students like for seventh grade, 180 students for 8th grade and our high school average is about 150 students and that drops off because we have a lot of students who go for vocational education. Any questions so far? Shout out. I should ask. Oh, good. Do students stay in the same cohort from start to finish >> for the year, but not for every single grade level. So, not throughout their whole time at
010Quabin, but for the year. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a great question. Any others? Just shout them out like that. Love it. Um, so I was unable to bring students with me tonight. I was saying this is a big week for us, drama productions, um, concerts, so on and so forth. But Andre Amhog, who's a former uh North Brookfield kiddo, um was a school choice student with us last year. He graduated. He's currently in college. Um but I thought it might be interesting to hear he transitioned to Quabin in his sophomore year. And he said it was really easy to find his friend and group and his relationships just strengthened over the years. He said, "People like you for who you are, but you got to put yourself out there. You will find your people." And I
011think that's true. We all know that as adults, right? You you have to be a little bit brave, but if there are areas of interest in our clubs and activities, makes it a whole lot easier to form those relationships. So, some of the things that we really work um with our teachers and staff are is knowing our students by name, strength, and story. We think a lot about social emotional learning and making sure that our students feel supported. So some of the things that we do to ensure that our our students are known are we work in these cohorts and we team. We also implement co-eing. Co-eing is a model where you have two teachers in a classroom, usually a special education teacher and a regular education teacher, and they work together to team teach.
012So, if Matt and I are in a classroom together and we have 22 students, we might teach the same lesson, but Matt may have 11 kids and I may have 11 kids. Or other times, we might be working in a station rotation. And that allows us to really work in smaller groups with our students. That typically happens in our inclusion classrooms where we have special education students. Also, we do lessons from our counselors. So we don't want our counselors just to be unknown people who are sort of housed down in the office, but they go into our flex blocks. So we have a daily flex block both for middle schoolers and high schoolers and our counselors often go in and del deliver lessons. It can be on everything from you know um good work habits.
013So how do you you know keep track of your assignments, things like that. It can also be how to get along with others, how to stand up when you hear someone uh picking on someone else. It can be as we get to the high school level really thinking about your career path and what do you want to do when you graduate from Quabin and how do we start planning for that? Now, we also have a link crew program. North Brookfield probably has something similar to this, but this is as our eighth graders transition up to 9th grade. We have peer uh coaches, if you will, that work with the students and they spend a lot of time in small groups as they transition those first few days and they work with the ninth graders throughout
014their time as they enter into the high school setting. We also have clubs and activities. And you know, I'm like, I should probably make a slide deck on this because I'm going to forget all the things that we offer. But one thing I want to say about our clubs and activities is that we run them during the school day. So clubs and activities happen on a Friday during flex block. The reason we do this is so that all kids can have access to clubs and activities in the middle school. And we say to our students, if there's anything you're interested in and you want to form a club, just bring it forward and if you can find a teacher who wants to do that with you, you can have a club. So, our middle school
015students, um, we've had everything from Lego club to Pokemon Club to math club, but we also have hiking club. Uh, GSA, we have an affinity affinity group for our students of color. We have um, did I say hiking club? Hiking club is really awesome. So, I mentioned that because they not only meet on Fridays, but they do a lot of hiking. So like this weekend they're taking a van, they're going to the White Mountains, they're doing a day trip. They went um last year to Vermont, spent a weekend climbing in the Green Mountains. So hiking club's amazing. We have international club. We have so so many different clubs. Um we also hold things called town meetings. So, this is where we might bring a whole grade level together and our teachers are meeting with our
016kids and they might be providing awards and recognition and celebrations at the end of her first quarter or they might be preparing and talking about upcoming units or things that are happening. Um, but we do that to build community as well as to in communicate important things. We also have a national honor society, national junior honor society. They do a lot of tutoring and coaching. So, we use our high school tutors to come down to our middle school. They can earn community service uh hours for this and they work with our kiddos. So, if they might need some extra help on math or reading um and our students, our younger students really gain a peer that they can go to who is part of the school committee that's had the experience that they have not
017yet had. Um, another thing that we do is we have trained all of our teachers and staff on culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and learning. And that's just really good strategies um to help all of our students in the classroom. It might be working in small groups. It might be recognizing that some of our students need breaks, so we're allowing for activities where students are moving around the classroom. Um, it might be higher thinking activities that are scaffolded with protocols and things like that. Any questions so far? >> I do. >> Yeah. Great. >> Um, so you mentioned the clubs and activities. They have them in a flex blocks flex block on one day. Yes. >> What if you've got a student that's interested in two separate activities? Are they able to go back and
018forth? Like one week do one and the next week do a different one? >> Yeah. So that does happen. Absolutely. all the time. We want the kids to participate in as many clubs and activities as they want to. So, we do allow that to happen. And a lot of times, again, depending on the club, like I said, hiking club, right? So, if you miss a hiking club during flex block, that doesn't leave you out of hiking on the weekend. So, that it is important to have that flexibility. You're not locked in. Kids have high interest and we try and allow them to, you know, explore what they're interested in. Anything else? Okay. Um, so then another thing that if I were a parent or a student, I'd be thinking about is, you know, will my
019students be safe? Will they be physically safe in um the Quabin Regional Middle High School? So, I share with you some of the systems and structures that we have in place. So, we meet bimonthly. Uh we have bimonthly safety meetings and we invite all of our five community towns to attend and that includes the um police department. Usually the police chief comes from the town, fire chief, EMS. Uh we have an SRO up at the middle high school that is supported to us from the town of Barry and we join together and we're constantly reviewing all of our protocols for safety and also thinking about what are some of the activities we do with our students to help them um you know be better prepared, make better decisions. So we do Alice training and drills
020with um all of our students and our faculty. We also use something called an afteraction review process. So when we might have an incident happen um let's say we got a phone threat or something like that. Not only do we deal with the situation but then shortly after we meet as a team and we discuss the protocol that we used, what the results were and then we make changes to that. we codify everything that we're doing so that we have um resources when these things may happen again. We also use something called a threat assessment process. I don't know if this is something that you're familiar with, so if it is, you can stop me. Um but basically what we do is we train our teachers and our staff to notice differences in students. So
021the research shows that when students behavior changes that sometimes that's an indication um of something, right? They're they're feeling differently. They might be sad, they might be upset, different things like that. So if a student who's particularly chatty all of a sudden gets quiet, we pay attention to that. Um we also transition information from the elementary school up to middle school and high school about our students. Um, and so we use this threat assessment process to review our students from time to time. If we've heard that a student has drawn something with a weapon or they were talking about something, then we bring a team together. We start to meet and we go through this threat assessment process. Um, we also offer a lot of health courses for our students and these health courses focus
022on healthy habits and healthy living and prevention. And you'll see down the bottom that we actually are partnered in a grant. We have a drug-free coordinator and a family engagement liaison right on staff with us. This is some of the work that they do. So they again have um peers that they work with that join um and they mentor other students. So, for example, if someone is um found to be vaping, then we might say, "You're going to meet with our um coordinator or you're going to have to work through um you know, what it means to be healthy, so on and so forth. We also have vape sensors in all of our bathrooms. And we have programming, that's what I was just talking about, for when students have made poor choices. And more importantly,
023we have programming to educate our kids so they're not making those poor choices so they hear it. Not just sort of one and done uh the week before the prom, but they're constantly getting education around this. We have healthy habits classes in sixth grade and we continue this all the way up um through middle high school. Any questions? The other part of safety we think about is will kids be emotionally okay? This is going to be a change for your students. And I don't want to downplay that. And I I just want to say that um you know we all need to be working together if this were to happen to to just make sure that um everybody feels good that your kids feel good when they come into a new environment. That that's something
024we all need to pay attention to. Um, so some of the things that we do, as I said, we know our kids by name, strength, and story. I literally say to my teachers every year, I'm giving you permission. So teachers in the room, like they'll get this. I have to say to them, I'm giving you permission for the s first six weeks of school. Get to know your kids. Like that's the most important thing. Establish those strong connections early so when things get tough and things get hard, the kids know they have you as an ally. I talked about the culturally uh responsive teaching and learning. We talked about flex block. Those are available during the day. We have the SEAL lessons monthly. That's something we do from sixth grade to 12th grade. We also
025work really hard on teaching and modeling our expected behaviors and our core values. I believe you guys have some PBIS stuff here at the elementary level. Is that correct? So, this is like an older version of that. So, what does it look like to be a safe, respectful student at the middle high school? And we have really a lot of support from our counselors, our social workers in those peer model groups that I was talking about. Okay. So, I was like, okay, if I'm from North Brookfield, what do we already have in common? So I think we have size in common. Most of our towns are similar size, but your students have some of the very same experiences that our students have. So we have a Washington DC trip that takes place in 8th grade.
026We have three innovation pathways. One of them is advanced manufacturing with your which your kids already have access to. The other isformational technology and the third is business. Now those big sort of buckets um have a lot of underlying offshoots off of them. So in advanced manufacturing this is where we offer a lot of project lead the way courses. We offer cyber security. We offer engineering intro to engineering robotics maker space. Informational technology is a place where we also offer a lot of graphic design, website development. uh things like that. And our business pathway is the one that honestly is gaining the absolute most traction with our kids right now. Um and they offer marketing, business and personal finance. They do film for business, photography for business. A lot of our visual and performing arts
027end up under the innovation pathway. And what's really nice about the way we've structured our innovation pathway is that kids can take courses that count in multiple pathways. So if I'm looking at taking um I'll say I'm going to go with like web design, right? So that could count for either a business pathway or an IT pathway. So, we try to make sure that our courses can be used in multiple areas so that when students are trying things out, [clears throat] it doesn't feel like they're wasting their time if that's not the path they want to go in. We also have a substantial amount of advanced placement courses. You know, students can get college credit for their advanced placement courses. We have project lead the way courses that I talked about from middle school all
028the way up to high school. Students can also get um college credit for project lead the way courses. We offer French and Spanish just like North Brookfield and we have some curriculum alignment. So new opportunities to consider. So, Quabin has had an NJOTC program for many, many years. And 20% of our current students in 9th through 12th grade participate in our NJRTC program. And if you're not familiar with the program, this is what I want to tell you. And I see you smiling, so I feel like you have some experience with it. >> He was my uh your NGOTC director was my commanding officer, >> Captain Brennick. >> Wow. I need to hear more from you about that. Um, we have two amazing instructors. 20% of our students, actually, would I say 25? Yeah, 25%.
029No, 20. Sorry, I don't have my glasses on. 20%. So, I want you to think about that for your students. Like 20% of your population, this might be an opportunity that they are likely interested in. So, it is really a leadership program. It is not a program to recruit into the military. It's all about leadership. So, they teach our students and they support our students. I cannot stress that enough. Um, in becoming good leaders and good citizens. If you are an NJOTC cadet, you have opportunities unlike many of our other programs. They have built-in opportunities for academic support. They have drill team. They have color guard. They go to basic leadership training. They at the end of the year, every year, they go whitewater rafting, which is always fun. Um, and they're in the community
030all the time. These students are so respectful. It changes the culture of our school. So, they wear their uniforms one day a week. When they see you in the hallway, it's hi ma'am. Always. They that's how they always address me. If I walk into the room, they liberally stand up. Um, but they are the program is amazing. I just can't say enough about it. We've also been a distinguished unit for the past 20 years. And what this means is that as a school, because our academics are so strong, we get um I'm sorry, I'm blanking so I have to think of the word for it. someone will help me out. Um, but we can submit applications to themies. So, we get um two per service branch. So, two of our students can be submitted for
031consideration to go to the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy, um, Coast Guard Academy, that kind of thing. And that's because each year they look at our performance and our academics in our program. So that's a huge um something we're super proud of. We're also what we call an international balorate school and that might be a little bit less familiar to you. Um we call it IB. That's the uh sort of abbreviation but we have 25% of our students taking IB courses. Now you are probably more familiar with AP, but IB offers the same opportunities for kids when you go on to college. So if you take IB classes, you also can get college credit so that you don't have to take some of the classes when you get to college. Um we also offer
032a diploma track for our students where you can get not only your high school diploma but also an IB diploma at the same time. These courses are different than AP. So a lot of people are like why do you offer both you know so on and so forth. Um the strategies and the instruction around IB is a different approach to AP. You can have students who thrive in both, and we do. Um, and you can have students who perform better in IB because of some of the strategies. There's a lot of critical thinking, a lot of dialogue, discussion, that type of thing. Um, and also what IB always offers to all of their classes is a more global perspective. So they um even in their English classes, you read different books than you would in
033a traditional um English class. So that is also something that has been in place for probably the past 15 15 years. We are an innovation pathway district. We are uh happy to say that 80% of our students take at least one innovation pathway course. 14% of our students go on and actually get the innovation pathway cord at the end of the time upon graduation. Um, we have a wide variety of arts. We just finished our drama production of Shrek, but we actually have drama class, jazz band, orchestra, all the things listed up there. 28% of our middle schoolers participate in um our music or drama program and 18% of our high school students participate as well. You'll see some of the art offerings there. Everything from ceramics to CD uh 3D design, app design, film
034photography. Our students have the opportunity to create a portfolio by the time they graduate. So, if they're interested in going to art school or they're interested in being an architect or they're interested in landing a job and they want to be able to show graphic design or something that they could offer to a company or 3D design or you know um mechanical drawings or or things like that, they can leave with a portfolio that allows them to bring that out into the real world. um we have real world credentials for our students. So in our innovation pathway we have 33 opportunities for them to leave with a certification. We have offered OSHA certification, Adobe certification, precision measurement and um 30 more I guess. So I mentioned those last year at our awards night. I think
035it was probably 60% of our students that got at least one certification. We also offer a fire safety academy. This is in partnership with all of our towns and their emergency management teams. They teach our students about first aid. They also do um basic firefighting with them. And we have a lot of travel opportunities again through our Rosi program, French exchange. We offer a byianual European trip every year. Any questions on all of that? That's a lot. Sure. Athletics. I know this is really important to the town of North Brookfield and um it's important to Quabin as well. So, we have not just junior varsity and varsity athletics. We also have a lot of middle school teams and um that's an opportunity that increased when we moved our sixth graders up to middle school and
036I think it's an opportunity that could increase even more um if we were to have more students. But those are some of the teams that we offer. One of the things that we're super proud of is we have been designated as a unified um champion district. And what this means is we offer unified athletics. This is where students with disabilities play with uh typical peers on a team and they compete against other schools. It is the most heartwarming thing you've ever seen. Um and I see you guys shaking your heads. So, you've had that experience. It's amazing. And what I love about it is all of our other students will stay after school and they will show up for that game and they fill those bleachers and our pep band comes and our unified athletes
037are on the floor and they're going like this. You know, they want more applause and they love the recognition and it's just such an awesome experience not only for them but for the peer models. We have a lot of students who don't typically play athletics, but they say, "I'll be a peer model. I'll I'll join the basketball team so that I can work with some of these students." The other thing I want to say um about athletics is that we have a strength and conditioning coach and also an athletic trainer. So, our strength and conditioning rooms, we have three of them. Um, two of them have what you would typically expect, sort of weight equipment, um, yoga balls, the platforms, uh, different things like that. And one of our rooms is a more open room
038for dance, yoga, that kind of thing. We employ a strength and conditioning coach and he is available every day after school. It does not matter if your student is an athlete at Quabin or they just want to work out and get in shape. they can sign up. They have to sign up at the beginning of the year or throughout the year and they can stay after school and work with our strength and conditioning coach. He does work with our teams and our coaches to do plans for our student athletes um so that they stay healthy and that they're best prepared to be as competitive um as they so desire. >> I have one quick sport. Yes. >> For many years the field hockey team here in North Brookfield has been co-ed. Is that something that
039you think would be welcomed in your >> Oh, sure. Yep. Yep. I there's been times, I believe, where we've had um co-head teams. We just don't have one this year, but yep, that does happen. Um and so again, this is from Andre, and Andre actually joined our um unified basketball team, but he uh said, you know, what he appreciates about Quabin was the more diverse classes. He particularly loved robotics and graphic design. He said that the AP classes were hard, but they made him change his study habits and he enjoyed excelling in a class most people might find challenging. So I share that with you. All right. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about teaching and learning and I'm going to start with the high school. So I talked about IB. We
040are an IB for all school. We believe that all students can um take and succeed in rigorous coursework. So all of our students before they graduate take at least one ID class. It's usually in their junior year. It's an English class and they do really well. We're aligned with the mass core frameworks which means as you see below students are required to do four years of English and math, three years science and social studies. I bring this up because this is going to be really important. These are the important conversations we need to have if North Brookfield decides to transition your your students over. We want to make sure that we have a partnership so that we're not slowing any students progression or they're not missing anything by the time they graduate. Um, so we
041have an art requirement, two years of health and wellness. If a student is an athlete, we wave the PE requirement, but we do have a community service requirement of 45 hours. So, it will be important if we pursue a partnership together to get our guidance counselors working together and say, you know, what are the Northwork field requirements, what are the quabbed requirements, and then how do we make that work, especially for your older students. If they're first coming in, won't be as much of a challenge, but it will be for our older students. So, I just go back to I it's hard for me to name all of the um offerings we have, but maybe uh Mrs. Chamberlain, if you would take these course cataloges, would you mind passing them out? I brought you course
042cataloges. That's my gift to you. I know you can find them online, but I'm a paper person. Um, so take them, enjoy them. But we offer everything from horiculture to environmental science, robotics, um, all kinds of different things. We offer American Sign Language. So your students when they fulfill that world language requirement, they can do Spanish, they can do French, or they can do American Sign Language. Um, and schools are recognizing that now as well. Our middle school is a little bit straighter, you know, with uh the offerings, but again, they also have flex block. What happens in their flex block is a lot of opportunities for extra help, intervention. We have what we call a back on track room where kids just go to um receive a little bit of in time help. The
043clubs and activities happen there. Band course orchestra and the lessons. They have four core subjects and then they have a rotation of specials and those are some of the specials of our grades 6 to 8. You'll see that that project lead the way goes all the way up K to 12 for us. So um I talked about this a little bit the last time we were together. I don't want you to think that we have this vision of um you know this is benefiting just North Brookfield. This is going this partnership will benefit Quabin as well. So I want to talk a little bit about that. So we have experienced decreasing enrollment but we have capacity and space for way more students. We believe that partnering together will allow us to actually offer and hold
044on to more opportunities for our students and together we could even offer additional things. And uh one of the things that's always intriguing that we superintendent talk about right Tim is this idea of are there any opportunities for vocational um programming possibilities? Also, um we believe that there may be some cost savings, some that could happen with more immediiacy and some that might be seen over time and it could be an opportunity if your town is inclined to explore a regional agreement or other shared services. And we have actually met with both Tim and Mike to talk about what some of those possibilities could be. One thing that um Quabin has a lot of is specialized programming. So, we have really worked hard to try and maintain our students in our own district. So, we
045offer therapeutic classrooms at the middle school level, high school level, and elementary level. And a therapeutic classroom is for students who might struggle with uh regulation. We also have life skills classrooms at the elementary, middle, and high school level. These programs are specifically for students who um might struggle academically um and need more of a uh functional type of approach. We also have sore classrooms. That's just sort of our acronym for them. These are autism programs. We have these um all the way up K to 12. What I want to say um just because I'm thinking about it in the moment is as we built these programs, we've really partnered with experts to be able to ensure that we are building quality programs. So when we started the Soore programs, we used to have a
046partnership with New England Center for Children. We maintained that partnership for several years until we felt we could offer the same um programming as we did in partnership with NEC. We've been very successful with that. This year we just started our first well not our first, we had one a few years ago, but a language-based classroom at the elementary level with the goal of building it up to middle school as students transition. language based classroom um is for students who may struggle with uh dyslexia uh language literacy that type of thing. We're currently partnering with Landmark as we build that program. We also have an alternative learning program. This is actually not for students with disabilities, but it's for any student who might find themselves two years or behind in credit at the high school
047level. We offer this program on our New Branch campus. It's a subsparate program where our students have the opportunity to be in a different environment than the high school because for many of these students they may struggle with um anxiety or things like that when they're in large cloud crowds or large classes. So we do offer this alternative learning program and so far it's going really great and we have a postgrad program and that is for our students who are 18 to 22. These are students who go out and they work in the community. Um they volunteer. They do all kinds of different things and our postgrad program actually also um partners with Ashurnham Westminster and Narogansen on a regular basis. So the kids do a lot of social functions together. As a matter of
048fact, they have a Christmas party coming up that is uh a lot of fun. They plan it. They um do a lot of preparation for that together. Any questions so far? Uh sorry, I got to go back because I love that picture. Um but this idea of where do we go from here? Right. So, I've told you a little bit about Quabin. The way I see this working, so Matt and I kind of talked about this. The way I see this working is a partnership. I think we'd all be uh making a huge mistake if we didn't say that we need to do a lot of work upfront for our students to make sure that this is going to work for our kids. Um and I see that by working together. I think that um
049what I appreciate about North Brookfield and I will say about too cuz I I know they're coming in next. Um maybe it's where we live. I don't know. But I do think that our schools and our communities put our kids first. And so I think we all have to keep that as at our forefront that it is about the kids and figuring out how to make this work for them. Um, so that's really important to me. This is our vision of the graduate. I know you guys have a similar one. Um, kind of what we stand for. And then I will end with a little bit of a video for you that I hope is clearer than it is on my screen. Here at Quin, it's [music] your education. No hurry can be whatever you
050want to be. [music] At Quin, I can be a musician. [music] >> At Quin, I can be a chemist. at >> I can be then I can be me and I can be myself and also make new friends that have the same interest as me. >> I can be um an inventor, a big thinker um and hopefully an inspiration. [music] >> At Club I can be an IB diploma candidate. Atqabin you can be an animator. >> Atqamabin. You can be curious. >> Atqabin. We can integrate into society. >> We can be athletes. [music] At Quabin, I can be different. >> At Quabin, I can be in the Roi program. >> At Quabin, you can be an engineer. >> [music] >> At Middle School, we will prepare for success in high school. >> [music] [clears throat]
051[music] >> at quality. And we support our students so they can be successful. [music] At Middle School, we get to participate in clubs. And I get to participate in clubs. >> [music] >> Heat. Heat. And that is all I have. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. or if there's anything else you need from me. >> I have two more questions. Okay. >> Be the lady with the questions tonight. >> No, I love it. >> Um, do you have any cap on the number of students who can participate in those pathways programs? Like is there a limit like the capacity right now is only for 25 or 30 or whatever it may be? >> No. >> Okay. And then the other one is similar within those specialized programs for the special
052needs population and even like the alternative. Um are you close to the like state level student staff ratio? Is there room in those programs uh >> or are they reaching capacity currently at capacity? >> It's that's a great question. So our sore classrooms at the middle and high school level have room in them. Our life skills classroom currently at the high school level is at capacity, but we have some graduating and moving, well, not graduating, but moving up to postgrad. Um, life skills in middle school room there. Therapeutic classrooms for both middle and high school. I don't want to misspeak on this one, but I believe that middle school has room, but high school might be at their limit. Yeah, great questions and I'm happy to get you actual numbers so I can report that
053back to you. Great. Really important. Yeah. >> Hi, excuse me. Uh, so in terms of representation on the school committee withoutation, what would it look like for our small town? >> So interesting. I love that you asked that question. So in a tuition agreement, that would be something that we would want to work out in tuition agreement. So what does that look like? So that is something that could be put into a tuition agreement. If uh you know down the road you were to become part of a a regional agreement, it works by population and you get a certain number of voting members on the committee. >> When you say regional agreement, are you referring to regionalization or tuition? Okay. >> Yeah. So why tuition agreement is different than >> regalization first because we got
054kind of given it up for free pretty much. So why would we look towards tuition rather than regionalization? What's the benefits or the cost to that I guess? >> Um do you want to ask me that or do you want to ask your people? >> Oh no I'm just curious because I I know that I mean obviously the school has you know a significant amount of opportunities which are wonderful. The question though for me as a taxpayer um is with regard the long-term you know opportunities the benefits to you know our small town to the school system the costs and just trying to understand what the long term will look like short-term long-term I'm you know grass that person >> it's a great question I'm actually going to refer to Matt >> yeah so we
055can get uh you know the verbiage on the actual differences the ins and outs of regionalization and tuition out because there are a lot of differences absolutely um the biggest thing the hurdle to regionalization is the length of time and the votes that need to happen to get that to happen. >> So there would be a pathway if we choose to do tuitioning there would be still a pathway or an opportunity to approach regionalization at some point over the course of that >> correct that door would never be closed. Uh but just keep in mind that so with you're dealing with five municipalities so it would be six all have to share the same vote has to go through a town vote. Um it is >> easy. What's that? >> Good thing it's easy, >>
056right? Yeah, it it you'd probably be looking at we went through the same thing with Quay. I mean, we looking at a three threeear minimum probably study and then beyond that. >> Perfect. So, >> excellent. Thank you. >> I mean that you know and I'll be honest with you, one of the reasons we were interested in the tuition agreement is because it does allow us to sort of enter into a partnership and consider consideration of that. our municipalities and our school committee are in favor of looking towards um you know Northport feels interested in possibly pulling you into you know a regional agreement and being a partner with us um or maybe the tuition agreement works just fine but yeah we we don't want to take it off the table >> one more question I'm
057someone who my son benefited greatly from the teachers here in our small town >> yeah um is there a plan in terms of how we're going to include the teachers and any you know and again I'm probably way ahead of myself but I'm hoping has been thought of with respect to whether it be quaab in Quaog or any other municipalities looking to to you know engage in an agreement with us has been thought about how the teachers will be pulled into this obviously you're going to need additional people to to help support your you know this endeavor so >> yeah uh also another great question >> so yeah we I mean we'll definitely be discussing that further at a future meeting and there's we don't have we're kind of taking it one step at a
058time so but yes that that will be in consideration obviously that we have to talk about. >> Can I can I add one thing in regard to the in regard to the tuition agreement versus a regionalization agreement? One of the reasons the regionalization such a longer process is it is a permanent contract >> and it requires extra steps to get out of it. Whereas a tuition agreement is a a term limited agreement that gets renewed every three years typically over the course of you know so every three years we were in a tuition agreement we would renew that with the district whereas the regional agreement is something that takes a long time because you're you're becoming part of that region and then there are steps to actually withdraw from that instead of having the the
059laps tuition agreement. So just just to clarify the one of the differences and the reason that it's so much faster to do it that way time-wise, it buys us time to sort out that sort of regional stuff if we get to that point. >> And just to go back to the teacher question, so when we sort of even engaged in this process, one of the first exercises that I did was sort of looking at your student numbers, our student numbers, figuring out where they would have possible openings. Um, but that could be something that we think about putting into a tuition agreement about how do we um, you know, think are there any opportunities for your teachers to to come to Quabin? Does that make sense? >> Thank you. >> Do you have any more?
060>> I think that's good. Take a break. >> Okay. So, I just had a question. If we were to go forward with either of the schools, how does it affect our relationship with that application? do any >> as far as I know it doesn't it doesn't change that Sheila >> it does not change it at all is based on the town the town still funds okay >> we have a um assessment and we have so many seats as long as you are a North Brookfield resident you are able to apply for their lottery process okay thank you >> anything Yes. Um you anyone has any questions after this, feel free to email me. My information's on the website and um I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you so much for having
061us and good luck in your process. I know it's not easy. >> Thank you. Thank you. [applause] >> [clears throat] >> All right, we're going to take a brief recess. Uh, Quayog is going to go on at 7. I don't know if they're here yet. >> So, they'll be going on in a few minutes. So, we'll take a quick recess if anyone wants to use the facilities. We'll be back at 7. All right. So, I am going to introduce uh Superintendent Steve Duff. He's from Quayog Regional School District. Um I'll let you introduce Nikki. >> Sure. You sure? >> Good evening. Can everybody hear me? Okay. Or do I need to use the microphone? >> Use the microphone. Okay, I will. Thank you. Um, first off, my name is Steve Duff. I'm the superintendent of
062Qubog Regional School District. I've been uh within the Quaog Regional School District for about the last 15 years. I have three daughters that went through Quayog uh through Warren Community Elementary School, Quaog Regional Middle School, and then Qubach High School. And uh two of my daughters have graduated from college and are nurses now at Boston Children's. Uh my oldest daughter was a nurse at Hartford Hospital uh in the ICU department and now is going uh for anesthesia and my middle youngest daughter's at uh MCPHHS in Boston to do MRI tech. Um so to say that I grew up within the community that I currently work at. Uh I want to thank Superintendent Muha uh because Superintendent Muha and I shared commonalities. Uh she was the principal at Westbrookfield Elementary School and recruited me to Warren
063Community Elementary School. Thank you, Colleen. Um but we did some amazing things at Warren and West Brookfield and at the middle high school. I live in Warren. I'm part of the community. I know the ins and outs of the community. I know the ins and outs of Warren and West Brookfield. Um I really feel like being part of the community is one of the most important aspects of a school leader. um building helping to build families and cultures within our buildings and to keep our our students as safe as possible while educating them to the best of our ability. We do have our finance director with us tonight, uh Nikki Gonzalez. Uh she's been with us for a little over a year now. Um, and Nikki's been instrumental in helping us work with our towns
064to keep our assessments as low as possible and staying within our means to the best of our ability because at the end of the day, we know that town assessments um, in a regional school district, obviously there's a 60/40 split between Lauren and Westbrook Field. Um, but trying to keep those assessments as low given our demographics that we have is super important. Uh so our agenda for tonight uh we'll talk a little bit about our vision and our mission, the academics that we have, our extracurricular activities, what we do for school safety, what we have for student services, our community partnerships, uh what a tuition agreement may or may not look like without actual financial pieces into it, opportunities and challenges, and then we'll answer any questions that um that anybody from the committee or
065audience has. Um, so our vision at QuaBog is to provide a safe and supportive challenging learning environment in which students may achieve academic success and personal growth. I can tell you that all decisions made at QuaBog are made in the best interest of students. Um, and that is what drives everything that we do. Um, our mission is to form partnerships with parents in the community to prepare our diverse population of students to become lifelong learners in a nurturing safe environment with high expectations so they will become responsible, productive citizens in an everanging global society. So our academics um when we when we think about Claybog and we think about what we're offering our kids, I can tell you what we're doing today compared to what we were doing 5 years ago has evolved significantly. If
066you look at what's going on with students going to college, students taking trades or pathways, there's different opportunities that we have to provide our students. And we've evolved in those areas in a fairly significant way. Right now, we have college prep classes for 7th through 12th grade, honors classes 7th through 12th grade, pre-advanced placement courses 9th through 12th grade, advanced placement classes in 10th through 12th grade. We have 13 AP courses offered for 2526. In school year 25, we had 96 students who took 159 AP courses. In school year 26, we have 130 113 students enrolled in advanced placement classes that will take 201 AP exams. Alongside that, we do offer innovation pathways in biomedical courses 9 through 12, biomedical science, human body systems, biomedical innovations, and medical interventions. So, we have the college prep
067and we also have the honors and preap pathways. When we look at our AP scores over the past five years, if we look back to 2001, we had roughly 68% that passed with a three or higher. Um, for those of you who are taking AP courses, typically to go into college, you have to get a three or higher on that test. And if you do, then you'll receive credits for college for those courses. Um, my fortunately, we've had a lot of students um who have taken upwards of 10 AP courses and have carried 30 credits into their freshman year of college, which really takes place for all those general electives that you'll have to do. But if you look at 2021 all the way to 2025, if you look at our passing rate in 2025,
068we had 84% of our students who took AP classes get a three or higher on those classes. Um, I didn't do the entire breakout per per AP test, but in about 90% of the tests, our students uh scored higher than the Massachusetts average, which is outstanding. So, a huge kudos to our teachers and our students for taking on such a rigorous course load, schoolto career pathways. When we started when I started um as the principal, I was a principal at Warren Community Elementary School and they asked me to move up to the middle high school. When we moved up to the middle high school, we were noticing that there were students that sometimes you can get caught in the community that you're stuck in unless there's some other opportunities where community college at the time
069wasn't free of charge. students were having a difficult time getting into college or couldn't afford college. So, we worked with E2E out of um out of where with Holio Community College with Bay State Hospital. I'll talk a little bit about that with our local partnerships. But we looked at what were the needs within our community and the needs within our communities were for public health were for teachers were for fire for firefighters, EMTs. So we partnered with some of our local legislators and we started a CNA program, a certified nurse program which runs half a year. On the second half of that year, our students have phabbotomy and EKG. So if they take the full year and they pass CNA, EKG, and phabbotomy, they're automatically certified for an emergency room tech position. Last year, we
070had 14 students take the CNA class. We have 14 students that passed the CNA class, both the uh written skills and uh physical skills. And we have 14 students that are seniors this year that are working either at Qubog on the common in West Brookfield, Cedarbrook or Meh Haven. All 14 students are CNAs now that are still in high school working making anywhere from 20 to $25 an hour as a CNA. For some of our students, that's the breadwinners within their within their families. So, providing students with opportunities to go right into employment out of high school is really something that's super important to us. Uh the fire academy, we started a fire academy program back uh right the first year of COVID. It was actually pretty difficult to run it during CO, but we
071ran that and we also ran our CNA program. Our fire academy um is I would argue one of the best firemies that we have in Massachusetts. There are many school districts that are looking to model what we do. We're able to do the do these programs because of the partnerships that we make within our school community with our local fire departments, both Warren and West Brookfield. Currently, we have 12 students that are in the fire academy. They get level one and level two fire training. they don't get that specific certification. Although we did visit the fire marshall the fire center out in Springfield and um the fire marshall would like to see Quayog push our students to getting firefighter one and two certified because of the program that we run. Uh currently we have three
072students that are currently still in QuaBog that are sworn in as uh junior firefighters on the war and fire department. We have nine firefighters or EMTs that are currently employed by Warren or Westbrookfield that have already graduated alongside of the fire academy. The students that are there, if they're in good academic standing and they've been sworn in by the town as volunteer firefighters, then they're able to go to fire calls during the day as long as they're in good academic standing. So once again, we're looking for different ways to build programming for kids. Once you do the fire academy or the CNA program in your junior year, right now we've opened the fire academy in the 10th grade as well. Um, but once you do the fire academy your junior year or CNA program, you're
073eligible to take the EMT course, which is a year-long course at QuaBog. We've noticed through the conversations that we've had with the general public that there's a lack of EMTs. And anybody who knows fire services knows that there's a lack of EMT within our communities, particularly our smaller communities. So, we started an EMT program last year. We currently have 10 students that are in the EMT program. Last year, we had eight students in the EMT program. And out of the eight students, five students pass the EMT test, which is a national test. For those of you who haven't taken that test, the pass rate as an adult is very low. It's about 48% as an adult. We had five out of eight students that have passed it already and are currently working as EMTs. Um,
074a couple from North Brookfield as well. Um, so those programs have been hugely successful for us. We also started an early childhood education program which is the chapter 74 program. There's currently 50 students enrolled in that program. It's a 4-year program that leads to your certification at the end. If you do all four years, then you're eligible to go on to college and have six years of your college paid paid for you through the state of Massachusetts. So, straight through your master's degree. We partnered with Holio Community College and uh early intervention coordinators last year to revamp the program, the studies, and the structure of the program with the four courses that or the four years of and courses that you have to take. Um so right now we do have 50 students that enrolled
075in that program which has been very successful for us. Uh we have computer science with CAD. We have a wood shop Perkins program uh beginner to advanced furniture making. If you do all four years of it you get a halfyear credit uh in local union in Worcester. And then we also have a metal shop with making TIG welding. Um so we have a fairly comprehensive program. Once again, we're always looking to expand, but we need to make sure that the areas that we're expanding in are areas that are marketable within our region. We don't want to expand into a region that our students aren't going to have access to what they need access to. Our academic electives, I won't go through them all. Um, I'll have you just take a look at a few of
076them. Uh, personal finance is one of the biggest ones that will become a graduation requirement for Quaybog students next year. Um, I had a couple interns a couple years ago that Superintendent Buha had in her elementary buildings. Um, but I had a couple of interns last year and I said, you know, can we run to the ATM? And I what are we going to the what do you do at the ATM? Because they memo everything and there's different apps that they use now. Kids have lost a real sense of what does it mean to pay rent? What does it mean to have to apply for a loan? What does credit look like? What does balancing a checkbook look like? What does it look like? Um, you know, when you have a job and you're paying
077taxes, personal finance is one of the most important classes that I think that our kids these days miss. Um, we do have it at Quaog. Uh, and we do encourage as many students to take it as possible, but next year it would be my recommendation that that becomes a graduation requirement for uh for all of our students because I think it's important. uh when we talk about other uh electives that we have particularly when I look at the business department when you look at professional etiqu uh etiquette and uh business ethics when you look at those soft skills that kids need to have when they're going into the community what we hear from employers on a regular basis is we can teach the kids the skills. Do they have the ability to be able to
078communicate and work collaboratively effectively within a working environment to be able to enhance those skills and work as a team? Um, so business ethic and professional uh business ethics and professional etiquette have become articulated classes with Holio Community College, which means when you pass those classes, you get college credits for those classes. But those classes are also mandatory in our pathways. So, if you look at the early childhood education pathway, they have to take professional etiquette and they have to take business ethics because we have to develop well-rounded students that will be able to go right into the job market. Um, the wood shop and furniture making, CAD, we added electronics and engineering this year. Uh, AP art history, it falls under the English department. Digital photography, um, I can tell you that our art
079department is spectacular. We offer three different AP art classes. But if you come into Quayog and you look on the walls when you walk in or you look at the stained glass that was made by students or you look at the murals, the art that our students are producing is outstanding. We also Okay. Uh family and consumer science. We have nutrition and integrated health. We run several yoga classes now. Um, back when I first started, yoga seemed to be an area where we would just put students to fill schedules and we probably had about 15 students that were on it. Now with our yoga program, we have a hundred students that sign up as their primary elective because of the benefits that they're getting out of doing yoga once, twice, three times a week. Um,
080that that program has just taken off. Family consumer science, um, our family consumer science teacher does a spectacular job. There's a seventh and an eighth grade rotation in that as well as health and nutrition, teaching kids how to measure. Um, some didn't know what a the difference between the freezer and the refrigerator was, believe it or not. So, those small things when we talk about measuring and things like that, there's some crosscurriculum stuff that gets tied into that. Uh, Project Adventure, uh, I know that North Brookfield, I'm not sure if it's currently used or not, but I think they have a high ropes course. Uh we have several ropes course now through some air marks that we'll talk about after. Um we have a zipline, we have low ropes course, high ropes challenge courses and
081the goal there is to actually provide certification to students who want to take several classes to earn their certification in that. But project adventure is a graduation requirement and it teaches kids in groups of anywhere from 10 to 15 how to work together to solve problems. Um, and it's really it's a dynamic class that we see kids come together. Uh, we offer Spanish 1 through 4, environmental science, AP biology, honors, an anatomy, and physiology. Those courses are all you can take those as singletons which are just one courses or they're built into our pathways. Uh, we have AP psych, abnormal psychology, film and history, 20th century pop. Uh we have window ensemble concert band. We have introduction to theater production one and two. Um which is probably I was a big sports guy growing up.
082When I moved up to the high school I became an arts and music and theater person. We have 70 kids that take place in the in our play last year and we have about 70 that are going to do the uh Legally Blonde this year. If we didn't have a strong arts and theater and music program, then I would beg that those 70 kids would probably struggle. There's different programs that every student needs and it's our goal to provide that. But when you have 70 kids working on a production, and we say this to our athletes when we bring them in and we do a little teaser for the plays. I said, "Imagine if you worked for three months to play one game. You have a bad game, Monday's done, you go, you get another
083game on Wednesday. Students work for three months really hard and they get one opportunity and if they get it wrong, then they get it wrong. They can't just go back and practice and do it again in two more days. Um, so a lot of credit to our theater program and our teacher, Mr. Joinville. Um, within our academic support, uh, it's important to note that every student at QuaBog, we're onetoone school. every student kindergarten through grade 12 have a school issued Chromebook. Um, contractually teachers stay after uh 2 days a week contractually, but we've added other components on to that. Our guidance department meets on a regular basis with students and they also do bi-weekly meetings with the principal, assistant principal, and other guidance department members. Um, and we flag students that, you know, may have
084some low grades, may have some attendance issues, may have some behavioral concerns. So what we did is we used summer of of our title one funding and we started a homework club after school which is 2 days a week from 2:30 to 4:30 that students can just go to the middle school cap. They can be assigned by the guidance counselor. They can be assigned by a teacher. They can be assigned by the assistant principal. And so they get two hours from certified teachers. We created a Saturday school with certified teachers that run from 8 uh runs from 8:00 am to 12 pm. It's a 4-hour um Saturday school offering. If students fall behind, we'll have conversations with parents. It's not a consequence. We want to see every student passing every class. And every student needs
085to be valued and um and recognized within our school district. But on top of just doing the certified teachers on Saturdays, if we have students that have attendance issues, we use Saturdays to make up some attendance. If we have a student that's been out three or four days because of a sickness, then they're able to come to Saturday school and get direct help from the teachers that are within that program. The big thing that the state always talks about is chronic absenteeism and suspensions. If we have things that we can deal with on a Saturday school in terms of discipline, I'm not a big fan. Sometimes kids have to be suspended. That's the way that it is. But I'm not a big fan of students not being in school. If they're not in school, they're
086losing a day of learning. So we can also use Saturday school as some disciplinary pieces. Um so we try to do everything we can to make sure kids are in school. And then we use targeted interventions through title one funds. Uh we are districtwide title one which means we get it at both our elementary schools, our middle school and our high school. And we can use our title one funding in ways to support all students within our school district. Uh we did hire a student engagement coordinator that will look at some of the students that are having some difficulties and work with those students on a regular basis to make sure that we get them where they need to be. Extracurricular activities. So we do have 21st century programming at the middle at the middle
087high school and at our elementary building in Warren. But our 21st century program offers our students, I'll I'll say this from now until the day I retire, the most challenging time for kids is between the end of the day and the time that parents get home. Um because there's a lot of whether parents are at work and what students are doing. I'll say between 2:00 and 5:30. We have about 70% of our students that are involved in an afterchool program, whether it's a club or whether it's a sport. And on top of that 70% and you know a school is successful when students are staying at school because they want to be at school. We have students that stay till 5:00 that aren't necessarily assigned to a club. But in our 21st century program, we
088offer esports. We have a cooking club. We do Dungeons and Dragons. We have social media club, drama club. We have a fishing club, which is very popular during the spring when they stock with uh the trout. We have an art club, robotics club, an entrepreneurs club. Um, if you have visited QuaBog and you've seen the new school store and the merchandise that's inside of that school store that was designed by students, all the materials were picked out by students and now that entrepreneur club has opened the school store, which is awesome. And we have a yearbook uh yearbook club. We run a theater program. We have concert band, chorus, driver's education, intramural volleyball um has become volleyball has become very popular. We have about 35 kids who do that in the spring. We're looking to
089move that to a club. Pickle ball weight room, community service club, student council, n national honor society, national juniors honor society, um national art honor society, uh which is in its third year. Um they do some fantastic work. They put a lot of work out in the West Brookfield uh library. Uh astronomy, math teams, special Olympics, and GSA are just some of the clubs. A lot of these clubs when students come particularly from sixth to seventh grade when they come up and they have a niche that they want to be part of if they find a club that they want to run and we can find an adviser for it. If we have 8 to 10 kids that are interested in it then we'll figure out a way to fund it because we want want
090to make sure that every student has the opportunity to be involved in after school programming. For our athletics um we have football, junior varsity and varsity. We have soccer boys and girls. We try to run a middle school JV and varsity team depending upon what the numbers are. Uh this year we were not able to run a middle school girls team, but we looked for other ways to see if there were ways to combine the students that we had with some of the recreational programs that were around. We're very good at coordinating with the rec wreck programs, whether it's through football or soccer or cheerleading. Um we're very good at doing that. Our boys and girls soccer teams uh made the districts this year. They got beat in the second round, but they got through
091the first round, which was great. We have cross country for boys and girls. We have varsity golf. We have field hockey, JB and varsity, and cheerleading JB and varsity. Um, when I first started at Quaog and I went to a basketball game, there were four girls that were actually I think there were two at the time, but sitting on the bleachers at a basketball game with a pair of jeans and one pompom and I said, "Wow, we really need to expand this program a little bit." Now, we have over 30 students that are in our cheerleading in our cheerleading um club or varsity cheerleading, but they also do meets um where they go out and they compete against different schools. And last Saturday, we won first first place. Um and that's I say it's it's
092remarkable the amount of effort that they put in to get there. So, we have over 30 30 girls that are in that now. Um winter sports, we have basketball, boys and girls. We will have a middle school boys and girls basketball team. We'll have a JV boys and girls basketball team and we'll have a varsity boys and girls basketball team. Basketball is one of those um one of those sports that we always fill and have three co three teams running for each each. We have competitive cheerleading. We have indoor ch track uh and boys and girls varsity for track. For spring sports we do uh baseball. We have middle school, JV, and varsity. Depending upon the numbers, if we have enough numbers, then we'll run all three. We have softball, middle school, JV, and varsity.
093We have outdoor track for boys and girls. And we have tennis for uh boys and girls. I would say that 95% of the time, if you want to play a sport, you have the opportunity to play that sport, provided we have enough numbers in order to support the middle school sport. And that's what we sometimes this year. I didn't think it would be a problem this year. It was a problem with middle school girls soccer. Um we haven't had that problem in the past, but we only had nine players that played and that wasn't enough to fail the team. Um so we try to find different ways to do that. So school safety, obviously safety is one of the biggest priorities in a school. It's our number one priority. Uh we do have a safety
094committee at QuaBog within the entire district, not just at the middle high school. Uh we meet on a monthly basis. The members include our local police chief, Chief Mlette, Chief Hagglin, our fire chiefs, Chief Lapiierre, and Chief Lavoy. We have um a representative from the Massachusetts State Police, Scott Sheay, um comes to every meeting. uh school administrators, Homeland Security comes and we look at we did a survey with Homeland Security to figure out which every one of our buildings needed and where we could tighten our security up if we had to do so. Um so we meet every month we do our Alice protocols. Uh you're all probably familiar with Alice pro protocols. Um we have comprehensive safety plans which are reviewed multiple times a year um that stay within the building. Uh but we
095work with the local and state police and homeland security and our local towns about where those where we can take advantage of those opportunities. Uh staff trainings include but are not limited to our Alice training. Our current seventh graders just had their Alice training about a month ago because Alice from sixth to 7th grade sometimes looks a little bit different and there's different opportunities that I don't want to say opportunities but there's different um there's different ways that you can evade and do things like that up at the middle school. Uh so they had their training uh about a month ago. Uh we do visitor awareness screenings with all of our secretaries. What are we looking at when we see somebody approaching the building? What types of questions do we ask for somebody to come
096in the building? What are the red flags? We use a system that's called Identicid for anybody who enters the building. Um, and it runs their ID and if there's anything that we're concerned about, it automatically sends an alert to administration um that we are automatically aware of. Um, we have reunification training that we had the state police come out and do with us. We ran through different scenarios on one of our professional development days where if you ever had to reunify after an evacuation, what does that look like? Who's responsible for X, Y, and Z? Which was uh very extensive training. We do have cameras in all of our buildings. We have cameras all on the outside of our buildings so we know who's on our campus at all times. We do use a red
097dot emergency system where every classroom teacher has it on their computer or on their phone. We use it when we go outside. If you push the red dot, it automatically alerts the police that there's some kind of emergency that's going on. Um, so we've used that. Uh my school alert is if you've ever seen the town alerts, I don't know if North Brookfield has the town alert or not. Um but we have a member of our school community who actually put together the town alerts and has put together a my school alert for us where you can register for certain things like if you want to know there's a snow day, you'd register to my page or if you wanted to know if a basketball game was moved to another date, you'd register for that
098sport and the alerts would get sent out to you. Uh we do regular walkthroughs with local law enforcement. I can tell you that the police and the fire the fire are particularly there more so at the elementary buildings, but the police come up to the high school every Friday. We do bus duty together, but at least once or twice a week, they just come and they walk through our buildings with us. Not because there's safety issues, but we really think having police interact with students and student interact with police are really part of building a positive um community relationship with who we who we're working with. Um and we use the one call now system. So student services um our goal within our student services is always to keep kids in district as much as
099possible. We add programs as we need to add programs to facilitate keeping kids in district. The last thing that we ever want to do is send a student out of district. So we did create several specialized subsparate programs within the last few years. We have a autism program at the elementary level. We have a social emotional behavioral program at the elementary building. We did uh just start this year. We started an intensive learning model at the elementary building um for [clears throat] students that may be three or four grade levels behind um you know you might have a fifth grader that's on a first grade um academic level uh in the this program is specifically designed for that. We do have an alternative ed program at the middle high school um and those are for
100students that might have some behavioral issues or might need some therapeutic supports. Uh currently we have five students in that program and uh within that program all of the students are going out to an elective or specials or uh classes. We obviously we have extended school year uh for all levels, but our goal is to integrate students into the general education setting as much as possible. We really think that it's super important that our kids stay within our communities and we're not sending them out to other communities or other districts. um you whether it's a collaborative or it's a public day school or a private day school, if we can keep kids with their cohorts, then we find that kids are much more successful. Um one of the questions that has come up in the
101past is, you know, if we did a tuition agreement, what would happen with out of district placements? If we had a student that maybe we would recognize or we might recommend may need an out of district placement, uh that would be a decision between Northport field and Quaon and we would work together to figure out what the best placement is for that. Um but I can tell you that uh in my uh I want to say in the last five years, we've probably sent three or four students that I'm aware of out of district. Um, so we really try to keep kids in as much as possible. The hard part with out of district placements, as you will know from North Brookfield when you're special education, is sometimes you have students that move into your
102district that already have an out of district placement on their IEP. And at that point, you're still on the hook for that unless we can figure out a program that makes sense, but that would be a team decision. our local partnerships. Um, so we work very closely not only with our fire departments and our police departments, but we work very closely with our board of selectmen, with our finance committee, uh, committees, whether it's an advisory board in Westwork, our finance committee in Warren, Miss Gonzalez, and I have the pleasure of going to finance committee and advisory board committee meetings once a month uh, for each town. I attend board of selectment meetings once a month. I think it's important to have an open line of communication with your board of selectment, with your finance committee.
103Um, you know, we have some towns that are doing or we have a town that might be doing better financially than another town. So, it's important that we're communicating effectively back and forth. Um, and if a tuition agreement did come to light, I think having those open communications with the town of North Brookfield would certainly be very helpful. It's important for the board of selecting to know what the school district's doing and what's going on within our communities as we're all together. Um, and the finance committee certainly need to know what we're doing with our partnerships. Uh, we've looked at things with green community grants. I can tell you that we've done well over a million dollars in green community grants for our elementary buildings and our middle high school. We did energy uh lighting
104energy upgrades at all three buildings. That didn't cost the towns any money. We just did a entire heating system at Warren Community Elementary School that didn't cost the town any money. We just did an IVAC program this summer at QuaBog uh for $348,000. Uh that was through a grant. Uh we look for grants for as many capital projects as we can as well as educational supplies. So we're always looking for ways to offset assessments. Um, you know, we haven't asked or I haven't asked for uh capital capital improvement plan from the town of Warren or West Brookfield and back until we did a playground at Warren Community Elementary School about nine years ago. Um, we are looking to upgrade our stadium lights this year, uh, which will be a capital improvement request, but we'll see
105where that goes. Uh, we do have with our local partnership, we have a community service club which is made up of about 20 students. We spent the last six Saturdays going to elderly and disabled residents within our communities to do uh leaf cleanup, to wash windows, uh to do we do three houses at uh three houses every Saturday. Um and I think it's a great way for our students to give back to our community members. Um there was uh um one of our one of our houses that we did this weekend. Um it was an elderly lady who lives by herself. Um and she had to have firewood moved from it was probably about 100 yards and the students moved the firewood up to um where she could access it off of her front porch.
106And you know at the end of it when we did her leaves and moved the firewood she was crying and the students said this is why we do what we do. For students to have that intrinsic value about giving back to their community I think speaks volumes. And it's those types of things that we build within our school community about giving back and fostering those relationships that are huge. Uh we do a couple popup restaurants a year for our senior citizens. The community service club goes down to the Warren and West Brookfield senior centers and they teach our senior citizens about Facebook and about emails about how do we stay connected with our family members when we don't know how to use these platforms. Um which has been very successful. Uh we do have a
107partnership with the Warren Police. Uh we do uh we collecting Christmas presents. We're going shopping on December 1st with some funding. Um and we're going to provide Christmas for a little over 150 families uh within with at Warren uh in in the town of Warren in particular. Um, so the the town, the fire department, the police department, the board of select and finance committees, always look to the school to see if we can partner with them because anytime you're in a small small school district or a small town like Warren, West Brookfield, North Brookfield, it's important to have those partnerships because those partnerships will last a lifetime. Uh, we we just did our um Veterans Wall, we did our Veterans Day assembly. Um, the Veterans Day Assembly is one of the best assemblies that we
108do. Uh, we get to honor any alumni from Quaug that either serve or have served in the military. We have a wall outside of the auditorium where they get their picture and a plaque put up. It's called the veterans wall. Um, and that's open to any alumni of Qubug. So when we start thinking about some of the tuition agreements and things like that, um you know, if if this came to fruition, those are the pieces that would be included because it's super important to recognize our veterans. Uh we do utilize the behavioral health network. Um we do have adjustment counselors and guidance counselors, but sometimes students need additional counseling. If you have any students that have needed additional counseling, there's a six month to a year waiting list to get students into counseling. We have
109a partnership with behavioral he health network where we have two counselors that come to the middle high school uh twice a week and those counselors we bypass that 6 to 12 month waiting period for students to get into counseling if they need it and we also run that in our elementary buildings and then we have articulation agreements with Holio Community College in uh Quincse. Those articulation agreements allow us to give students college credits or the college to give them credits for the work that they've done. That was our local um support. We also have state level partnerships. Uh we have a great relationship with Representative uh Berthume and Representative Smaller as well as Senator Durant and Senator Olivivera from Western Mass. Um with these partnerships, we were able to get started our CNA program, our
110fire academy. Currently, our fire academy costs us absolutely nothing because the Warren Fire Department is at QuueBay from 8:30 till 10:00 every day for free. And the reason they come for free is because at the end of the day, our students are going in there working for the small town fire departments that are very difficult to get. So, they've been there every day for the last 5 years uh training our students. So, the fire academy EMT course, high ropes course, uh night EMT courses for adults. Uh we recognize that within our community, there are adults that need additional courses. So, we're running uh EMT course at night now with a partnership with the folks that we use during the day. We have 16 uh 16 adults between the ages of 18 and 30 that are
111participating in this EMT course. We have first responder and CPR training. Uh this year, if you've driven by Quaog, there's a beautiful new uh snack shack. Uh it's probably I want to say 1,200 square feet. Um that project was completed through an air handmark from Representative Smalla in support with uh Representative Berthium and the senators. We were able to do that project for $100,000. $100,000 seems like a lot of money, but when you talk about a full septic, a foundation, three bathrooms, the roof, the walls, everything, we're able to do that because we built good relationships within our community. We hope we hired local vendors or local contractors and they did this program or this building forund $100,000 and it was much needed for the school. So, we're always looking for opportunities to enhance what
112our students have. Uh this upcoming year we'll be building a uh fire tower at Qubard uh Regional Middle High School for our level one and two training as well as uh availability to our um local departments as well. Uh Senator uh Durant and Senator Olivivera as well as Representative Berthume and rec representative Smaller frequently visit Quaybog. Um it's important for them to know where their investment goes. So when they look at the, you know, one of their first investments was the fire academy and the CNA program and when they come and they have to report back to the state house on, you know, how much how how well did that $50,000 earmark do? And when you can turn around and say, "We have 13 students that are now on the Warren Westfield Fire Department or
113you have 14 kids that are working as CNAs." It gives them the leverage to be able to ask for more money. Um the snack shack was huge last year and this fire tower will be our next uh next earmark that we look at. So grants uh we are highly competitive in grants. We benefit grants to support our innov innovation pathways building improvements extensive consultation for our early childhood education program. We have a new math curriculum. Uh super important our math curriculum. We had two separate math curriculums at our elementary buildings because we had innovation status um which means you can choose your curriculum. The problem that you have when you have two different programs at your elementary school is when you merge in seventh grade uh you create some gaps with common language. We are
114now using one um one math program. This is our first year of implementing it and it's grades K through 8, not K through six. Um so everybody from kindergarten through grade 8 will have the same common language moving into high school. We did a new ELA curriculum, the Wonders curriculum for K through five and um study sync for grades six through nine. We have targeted tutoring. Um we use mental health counselors, homework clubs, free afterchool clubs, and transportation and internships. So what does that all equate to? And US News is just one of the pieces. Um and this is the first time that Quaybog has been in a top 10 for US News. Quaog was number 10 within Worcester County. Uh Worcester Metro West, Quabin number 23, and North Brookville 47. I don't say that
115for any other reason than we can do a lot with a little. And I think that what you find in smaller districts um like a North Brookfield and a Qubog is there's not a lot that we have, but we find a way to do it. We don't have curriculum directors. We don't have coaches. we find ways within our buildings to offset the budget to make things make it as feasible as we possibly can. So, a tuition agreement if North Brookdale and Qua school committees uh well, North Brookdale and Quay school committees are the only um entities that have to really approve it outside of Desi. This is not a town vote. This is a school committee vote. um QuaBog when you know we started talking a little bit with the regional task force um that
116was put together by North Brookfield uh Qubog did vote to um you know enter into talks with North Brookfield about a tuition agreement. Desi requires notification for both North uh from North Brookfield on changes and Desi makes a recommendation the committer committee uh commissioner who has final approve approval districts. We would work together with North Brookfield um to form an agreement that is fair for both towns. I think at the end of the day when you look at creating a tuition agreement, it's not looking at just grades 7 through 12. I think that if there's a way to retain some of the money, the difference between the foundation budget and what that tuition agreement might be to be able to reallocate some of those fundings potentially to the elementary building to look at onetoone devices
117so that everybody can build up as they come towards quad. I think looking at ways that you can build sustainability within your district of wherever you're going to tuition in is going to be hugely important so that we're not creating gaps when we get to seventh grade. uh North Brookfield would still receive their current total foundation aid for all students per DESIE. So tuition agreement, you get your you get your money and you pay whatever that tuition amount is. Uh the potential agreement would be less than the current per pupil foundation aid which allows North Brookfield to allocate the excess funding either to students not tuition into QuaBog whether you use that to offset your local assessments. I don't know what the current configuration or what the current budget looks like in North Brookfield. Um,
118but it gives you some opportunity to leverage some funding whether it's for your tax purposes or whether it's for investing it into the elementary buildings. Um, terms will be part of a tuition agreement and could be up to five years with a fixed percentage rate for each year of the agreement. I think the important part is when you think about a fixed rate, you know what you're going into. when we go into budget season, we have no idea what the chapter 70 funding's going to look like. We don't know what circuit breaker's going to look like. We don't know what rural aid's going to come back as. So, knowing in advance, particularly when you're one municipality. At the regional school district level, it's a little bit trickier because you, you know, for us, we have
119two towns and we have to see what their local assessments are, what the above minimum might look like. But for one municipality, knowing what funds are coming in and what's going out in advance is super helpful. uh transportation uh North Brookfield would be responsible for the cost of transporting their students. Uh transportation could be in if you look at transportation contracts because it's less than you know looking at the total enrollment that you would be looking at 136 students or so. Um the the transportation could be provided by Qubard with North Brookfield paying for it as long as it's less than 25% of our runs. So we could actually contract with our current transportation vendor to cover North Brookfield's runs to Quaog. Um and I think that would be cost-saving for you. Uh all Quayog
120Regional School District operating costs less transportation belongs to the towns of Warren and West Brookfield. So if we need a new roof at Warren, we're looking at an MSBA project right now at West Brookkefield. North Brookfield takes on no responsibility for any of those capital projects. Those capital projects belong to Warren and also belong to West Brookfield. No capital project belongs to uh the town of uh North Brookfield. Um students that are currently school choice into North Brookfield from other districts will have the option to school choice into Qua. So, if I'm a student from Palmer and I'm school choicing into North Brookfield and I'm in eighth grade and North Brookfield chooses that they're going to tuition 7th through 12th grade out, any student that is currently tuition is currently school choicing into North Brookville
121would have the option to school choice to QuaBog or they would have the option to return to their sending district or they would have the option to school choice to another district. Um, return to sending districts or school choice So opportunities um I would say that Quayog is continuously looking to expand their programming. I think that in the future we're going to see a big trend towards uh uh high school to careers. I think we're seeing that looking at utilizing some of more of the community colleges which can be very beneficial when we move forward from there. Um but we're always looking to expand. I think that to some degree it would provide North Brookfield some financial stability which will allow for savings or the ability to reallocate like we discussed a little bit reallocate
122some of those funds towards whether you want to do onetoone um you know an onetoone initiative at the elementary buildings so that when kids get to where they're up at whichever school whether it's QuaBog um they have access to those Chromebooks um which I think is huge. North Brookfield scholarships would stay with North Brookfield students. Um, that was another one of those questions that we had. We have very we have very many scholarships that are West Brookfield based or Warren based at this time. Um, it might be a resident in West Brookfield that wants to give a scholarship to a Westbrookfield student that's going into business. Um, so they apply for those. If you have North Brookfield um scholarships that are current North Brookfield scholarships and North Brookfield wants to keep those with North Brookfield
123students, then we allow that to happen as well. That was one of the questions that we had been asked. Uh North Brookfield can repurpose or lease the middle school high school for other needs. Uh the ability to review current covered expenditures and operating and transportation to find cost. Um, and once again, we maintain small class sizes that allow for personal attention to each student. I take a great deal of pride in knowing every single one of the students that walk through our door. I have one of the strongest values that I carry is if a student feels valued within your school community or recognized within your school community, then those students are going to be successful. We have a very good track record of making sure that students don't fall between the cracks. We have
124a very good track record of making sure that we're providing opportunities for students that are going to help benefit them as they mature from 7th grade to 12th grade. The growth and I would say um I'm sure that superintendent Muha will agree with me to see a preschooler become a 12th grader to be a principal of my own daughter from kindergarten to her superintendent when she graduated in 12th grade. To see each one of those students grow into you the remarkable young adults that they become is outstanding. We've had many North Brookfield students that have entered our system. We've had many North Brookfield students that have entered our system in the hopes that they would graduate. We had one North Brookfield student drop out and come back and beg to come back to school after
125dropping out one year because they needed to graduate high school. The student went from a 67 GPA to a 4.0 in their senior year and cried at graduation because somebody gave that student a chance. We give every student every chance that we possibly can. We foster those relationships. We track our students and we help them be successful. We never want to see it see a student slip through the cracks because it's our responsibility that we make sure that we guide them to where they need to be. Um, so I think having small class sizes and students being recognized, having a a building with 550 students, whether it's 200 in middle school, 350 in high school, it provides the opportunities for us to know a little bit about everybody, but not too much about everybody, but
126for some reason, I always find out too much that I want to know. Um, challenges. It's never easy to close a building within a community. elimination of positions or reassignments and integrating uh students into a new school with new students and staff and teachers and adjusting to the new expectations that can be a challenge. Um you know both academically, socially, emotionally and understanding what schedules look like. Um, we do have in but I did want to start off and I do want to extend my deepest sympathy to the North Brookfield um, school district for the loss of u, Mr. Serret. Um, it's difficult. We were in a small school district. We unfortunately lost our building principal last year and we know the impact that that can have on a school district. Um, so I did
127want to start with that and I apologize for not starting with that. Um, but when you build small school communities where people can rely on each other and they can support each other, I think that's the piece of education that sometimes gets lost. You can look at scores, you can look at everything else, but looking at those relationships and watching kids mature into young adults and giving them opportunities to be gainfully employed when if you ask somebody in nth grade, "What are you going to do when you're in 12th grade?" They had no idea. And now they're going to be a nurse somewhere. and it wasn't something that they had planned on doing. But if you can provide those opportunities for kids, then it allows them to expand into areas where uh where I think
128it's really important for them to go. Um so there are some challenges. Um I know that probably many of you do know that um we do have principal Dior who is a principal at North Brookfield. Um you know, he does know many of the students at North Brookfield. Um I know many of the students that come to Claybog now. I know all the North Brookfield students that are there. I think we have 72 students currently at qu within the Quayar Regional School District, 30 in the elementary school, 42 in the middle high school. Um, and it's it's like our sixth graders coming to seventh grade from two separate towns. You see them come together and those friendships and relationships bond. I think we've had uh quite a bit of success with our wreck programs. We
129have students from Warren, West Brookfield, and North Brookfield that play on WCK teams together. I think those relationships start early. And if you can continue to build upon that, um, only great things can come. Uh, so just some real quick pictures. Uh, you know, our chair team number one, that's our phabbotomy course up there. They're poking my arm down there six times in a day. Our River East, we have a partnership with River East. Uh that's uh Senator uh Durant and Jake Olivera and Todd and Donnie. That was the entrepreneur club. That's part of our yoga class. We went to uh we went to um one of Oklahoma Farms and we did outdoor yoga with pets. Um I'm going to tell you it was probably one of the best experiences our kids ever had. That's
130our new uh gravity swing for our high ropes course. Um, so there's tons to do. Um, there's plenty of opportunities for students and our goal is to provide as many opportunities as we possibly can and to support our students um, every single day. Um, I do bus duty every day, not because I have to because I think it's important to take the temperature of every student when they come in and if we see students that are having a difficult day, then we're able to have those conversations and have them get back on track. Um, so that was a lot in a short [snorts and clears throat] time. Um, I do want to we did have a visit from uh Deb and Bruce. They come out from the regional task force. I want to thank them
131for coming out uh to visit us. I see Deb I know Bruce is over there. I always say whenever anybody wants to come to Greybug or they're looking at school choice in or they move into the town or whether it's just a visitor, come to our school when there's kids in the building because it gives you a true feel for what type of community we have. Um, you know, I think that Bruce and Deb had a good experience there. Um, I think just coming and visiting when there's kids there, so you can see how kids interact with adults. Um it's just it whether you're in North Brookfield, Quabin, Tantas or Quaon, kids are kids. But that structure that we provide for them is one of the most essential things to help them be successful. So
132that's what I have. So I can open to any questions that you may have. I know about you. Um my job um are you at capacity within any of your pathways program? Is there a set at capacity seat numbers in any of your particular pathways programs? >> There are. Yes, there are. Uh early childhood education, there's openings um because that's a 4-year program. The fire academy, we had 20 applicants for the fire academy last year. We took 15. uh CNA program. We do anywhere from 14 to 18. Um and we prioritize our seniors for the CNA program. So if there were 30 30 students that applied for the CNA program in their junior year, they're going to get in either their junior or their senior year. Is it priority to any town? I can tell
133you that the priority isn't to Warren or West Brookkefield or North Brookfield. Um, we've had several students uh from North Brookfield that have gone through the CNA program and are going to school for nursing. I have a student from the town of North Brookfield who's driving the brand new engine in West Brookfield as a firefighter and as an EMT. Um, so it's not based upon what town you come from. It's based upon particularly for the fire academy. It's based upon why do you want to be a firefighter and how can we help you get where you need to be because we want to help kids be successful in that pathway. Then the followup question still like capacity number >> um within your specialized and subsparate programs are you close to your like max staff ratios
134in any of those programs? >> We're not and if we did we would add additional staff. Um so I can tell you that we added an additional autism classroom this year. Um so we have we call it a little source and a big source. Um because we have a K through three program and a 4 through six program. Um and currently I want to say we probably have 16 kids in the program. Okay. Okay. And those are 16 kids that potentially could be sent out of district if we didn't have the program. >> Okay. Excellent. And then transportation questions. Yep. >> Um with the homework club, with the Saturday school and and they might be separate answers and then all of the after school like activities and clubs and stuff. Do does Warren and Westfield
135provide transportation for the students that stay after for those things or the weekends? To the families provide the transportation? So for the 21st century program, QuaBog provides the transportation for sports and other after school activities. Then families provide the um the transportation for that. >> Okay. >> Yep. So for like middle school sports, we always run those right after school cuz it's only transportation one way where with JV and varsity sports, they'll go either second or third because they can get transportation back and forth. I'm not going to say it's um easy, but I can tell you we haven't run into a lot of transportation issues. Um we have cars from North Brookfield that come up with five kids in it at a time. I think that folks do a great job of car pooling
136to be honest with you. >> Um and then just one other four thing. Um for many years North Brookfield hockey team has been co-ed. Do you think that that will be welcomed in qual? >> We support whatever MIAA what we do. >> Yep. >> All right. Thank you question. >> Y >> first I want to thank the folks who came on spoke tonight was very helpful in lighting. Um one of the previous presenters talked about tuition possibly merging towards a regionalization agreement. >> Y >> I know that's something that our school has explored with Qubog previously which obviously we're here because that didn't go forward. Is that something that's still open and opportunity with the Quayog school system? >> Yep. And I think regionalization, you know, eventually can be a very positive thing um for
137us. I can tell you we went through the regionalization study um that North Brookfield Elementary School had a new roof, which was an MSBA project, which means that we would have to keep three elementary schools open. I think when you start to look at regionalizing, we looked at the study, we were going to make North Brookfield High School the middle school, and we're going to make Quaog the high school. But at the end of the study, it wasn't it was inconclusive whether it was financially beneficial or not because Northfield Elementary School wouldn't be able to close because it had the MSBA project on the roof. And if you close a school prior to the complete or prior to paying the full tu uh full MSBA project back, then the town's on the hook for the
138entire project. Um so that came up as being inconclusive. Um at that point when we started looking at potentially discussing the tuition agreement um and we started looking at the numbers and what our capacity at Quayog was, we can comfort comfortably fit 136 students into QuaBog, the facility itself. Um and with your transportation cost, a big thing with regionalization, a nice part of regionalizing is your transportation assessment you get. Typically, it's they'll tell you it's supposed to be 100%. You know, fortunately, it's come back in the 80% um pocket lately. But if you look at your tuition or your transportation cost versus how much money you'd be able to keep in with a tuition agreement, I think with the tuition agreement, particularly now at the middle high school level, is more advantageous than what you
139would look at for a regional agreement just because of the funding that you'll be able to retain within the district, which is the difference between the tuition agreement and what your foundation number is. Um, so you'll actually keep more money than you probably would at this point if you regionalized at the middle high school, but we would be open to looking at the elementary buildings in the future. I think as we look at and that's why we started the regional agreement when you look at towns like Warren, West Brookfield and North Brookfield with tuition uh not tuition with enrollment that's shrinking yet forced to do something. Um, and regionalizing looked like it was going to be the best thing that could happen. spent three years on the study to find out at the end that
140it was inconclusive and it's difficult to walk into a into such a big endeavor without knowing whether it's financially beneficial for all three towns that were involved. Just a quick follow question I asked some of the other uh presenter this evening as well is I know you mentioned in your slides so that one of the drawbacks would be obviously lay off assignments you know termination of staff um I'm not sure how familiar you are with the staff contingent here at this uh at the school um that they really are second to none um and if there'll be a place in a potential plan for them uh you mentioned Diane someone who is larger than life and believe in the small experience the experience of the small school um and really was a a champion of
141the the staff team here. Um, is there is there potentially a plan that would incorporate and include um the staff in transition plans? >> So, I'm going to that's kind of a twofold question. I'm going to be honest. I don't We can look at special education. We can look at how many kids are per grade level. Um, so right now I have 118 kids in our 8th grade. If we had taken North Brookfield on this year, I'm not saying that was ever in the cards, but I'm saying if we did, then I would have to hire additional middle school teachers because in seventh and eighth grade, your schedule's a little more locked than it is at the high school. The more students that you add into a building, the more teachers that you're going to
142need. Am I going to say that we could absorb every teacher? I'm going to tell you that we probably can absorb every teacher. But are there going to be some pockets and openings where there would likely be some opportunities for teachers to transfer over? I would say there's probably going to be some of those opportunities. Can I guarantee it? I can't. But anytime you're adding more students to a building, then obviously special education numbers, uh, you know, we know where special education numbers are. We'll have to add some special education teachers. I know that going in. Depending upon the grade level and depending upon the number of students would dictate the number of staff that we need. >> Thank you. >> Yep. You said you have honors and CP classes at the middle school level.
143Are your middle school classes homogeneously grouped then or are they heterogeneously grouped? >> I'm sorry. >> You said you have middle You said you have honors and uh college prep courses at the seventh eighth grade level. >> So are those classes homogeneously grouped or heterogeneously grouped? >> Heterogeneously. >> Can you explain how that works with the CP and the honors at the seventh grade level? >> Yeah. So it actually it becomes a little bit tricky because we get our recommendations out from um we get our recommendations out from our sixth grade. So when we look at particularly going into seventh grade and that'll filter up into your seventh and eighth grade. So we get our recommendations and typically your recommendations are based on math and English. Um but sometimes you get groups that only have
144a math or an English. Um, so when we do our schedule, we have five different sections in seventh grade for ELA, five different sub uh sections for math, science, and history. So when we do those schedules, we add in in seventh grade, we add additional rotations. We have a flick which is a French and Spanish component for one of our electives that depending upon where you land in your honors pathway would depend whether you go into flick or whether you have some CP and some honors classes. Um we do have one parent here um Rob Miner. Uh Rob has three students uh that have or we he has one student left that's going to graduate high school. Um, I did ask Rob to come tonight um just so he could speak about his experience not
145just with um not just with Qubog because Rob has a daughter Becca that stayed at North Brookfield their senior year and his two sons transferred Ryan and Reese transferred into Quaog. Um, and so Rahm has had the had the pleasure of having a student um, graduate from North Brookfield and also has the pleasure of having the student graduate from Quabod. And I thought it might be nice to hear from Rob about what his experience has been with Qua and with North Brookfield. Um, you know, once again, tonight's about providing opportunities for students. Um, and I think it's important that potentially you hear from a parent that has experienced both school districts and how they've kind of compared to each other because I would guess that there's a lot of similarities between Quaybog and North Brookfield
146in terms of that small school feeling in terms of teachers being champions and second to none. I can tell you that's how we feel. And I'm not being disrespectful to North Brookfield teachers because I know that they work tremendously hard and I think that we share a lot of the same values because you have to work so hard. um and give our kids those opportunities. But Rob, if you I don't know if you want to say a few words. Rob just came in. I didn't know he was even going to be here. So, it' be great to have you come up. >> Thank you. Uh I really had nothing planned for this. Um I just wanted to say that I did I had my daughter graduate North Brookfield. Um and she I believe she had
14716 in her class. For her, North Brookfield's great. and um she was a top student and um the teachers at North Brookfield are great and I for those don't know me I volunteered for North Brookfield soccer for baseball I was a um a Cub Scout leader so I I love North Brookfield I always have loved North Brookfield so that decision to um move the boys was tough uh we did look at other schools um but in the end they like Quayog uh they want to go to Quog and the opportunity they were given has been great Um, one of the reasons why they left is is sports. Um, soccer was going to end it at Quaog. I mean, at North Brookfield, so, and they're big soccer players, so they went for that. And I will
148say going over it was it was great. Like, no one from Quaog left them out. They got along with everyone, and it worked out great for them. U, my youngest, Ree, who's graduating this year, he's taken six years of wood shop, which is a great opportunity, and now that's leading him into engineering and college. So there there are there are other things in Quaybog that they offer different things that does help them out. That's really all I had. Any questions for me? Um they did get bus. They did take the bus and that was that was easy. That was nice. Um and then it was a lot of car pooling at first. Um but you know we got by. So any questions for me? I'm happy to answer anything. Okay. Any other questions? >> All
149right. Well, thank you all for your time. If anybody has uh any additional questions or you want to come and visit Quaybog, I think the best time to visit is during the school day when we have kids in the building. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Thank you to both tonight who came to speak, Colleen as well. Um so we do have public comment on the agenda. So if anyone wants to give a public comment, now would be the time. Um, and then after that, uh, the school committee just has a couple just a couple next steps thing we're going to discuss as a committee. You're welcome to stay for that or you can leave. It's up to you. So, if you wanted to leave now, you can leave now. Um, but any public comment, Rich?
150Yeah. Um, I think the union something right now. Um, um, I guess I have two things. Uh the first is and I think um maybe said it really well you know one of these kids fit in really well here like this is a place there's school choice to quaban school choice to qu there's also choice to north Brookfield everyone who's here probably not everyone but many students are here have the option to go to the other schools and don't because we provide something the other schools don't and I think if we're taking that away from the students and again taking away community input into those educational places because I think did mention it but obviously there's probably no seat on the school committee there and qu said there was didn't mention it but was on
151the side one non- voting member so you really have no influence or input there >> we're taking that away from the community >> um and the second comment is I don't know how as North Brookfield we can look at Quayog with the two or threeear process we went through and say That's actually something that we should really look at uh definitively because again we we sort of talked about time. we can't look into regulation right now because we don't have time which I think we we might but um but two or three years were wasted on qua you know there was they knew that I mean there are things they knew like they knew the roof was the new roof was new like there's plenty of stuff we saw that going on they played around
152with it their school committee pulled the plug on it not one of the towns not one of the towns voting in a final vote saying no their school committee said yeah we're not interested anymore thanks for the three years so I'm not sure how they come back with a bait and switch and we're like yeah that sounds great yeah thanks we'll you know, we'll take your second offer, which is not going to be as good as your first offer. That's my comment. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Yman, I am a resident of a different town. I school choice my three kids here. They've all since graduated. I'd just like to say that I made the choice to bring my kids from a larger district to North Brookfield because they needed a smaller environment which
153helped them flourish greatly and to be successful in their college career and now they are three thriving adults. Um, I can't say enough about North Brookfield Junior Senior High School. And to think that it could be closing is just it it's it's sad. It's just very sad to to think that it could close because of the good that they did for my three kids. That's all I wanted to say. >> Um I just it's Pam Bachelor. I just have a quick question. Of course, I'm, you know, I work here, but both of my kids attend here. Um, I'm assuming before any decisions can be made, when are we going to hear about some numbers, numbers per head, numbers per student? If if a student is tuition to Quaog or Quabin now, would we be paying
154the same amount for them? Would would that stay? Would that change? When are we going to see some numbers? because I pay taxes in the town, too, and I'm sure they'll go up or whatever because everything climbs because that's how it is no matter where you live. But what are we looking at? >> Yep. So, I mean, so we're going to be talking after the public comment period real quick about our next steps. Um, and that's going to include what you just mentioned. So, it'll all be open and transparent. We'll deliver all the information. >> Um, I had something to say real quick. Um, the thing I'm still not I'm a current senior at North Brooklyn Junior Senior High School. I just wanted to make a few comments. Um, I've been in this school's district
155ever since preschool. I went through sixth grade and then gone to seventh grade. Of course, that was during the COVID period, which was weird for everyone. And we had a lot of discussions within my family about why should I perhaps leave the school district, go on to different places. And I just wanted to make it clear to everyone here today that I stayed because not only did I love the school, I love the people. I love the teachers. And it is an experience that I've never felt or I mean I know many people that go to big schools. And the fact that I tell them I can pick out every single kid from my grade all the way to sixth grade and tell them and know each name who they are for better, for worse.
156Um it is an experience unlike any other. And even with these talks of perhaps regionalization or moving out, I do not regret a single thing. As of right now, I am taking some of the best classes out there. Uh yesterday, my STEM teacher taught me how to refill and replace filaments for our 3D printers where we're going to be creating our own rockets. And for those who know me, I'm a big nerd and I like space. So, not only is this school being able to uh prepare me for the future of aerospace engineering, but I know many other students that love this school and really really would love to graduate from here. And I think it would do a great disservice to not only the town but [clears throat] to the world in general if
157North Brookfield were to tuition or perhaps closed. It has been an incredible experience and I am incredibly proud to graduate a senior at North Corfield Junior High School. That's all. JENNA B [applause] seeing nobody. All right. Thank you everybody. Um if you want to stay, you can stay. We're just going to discuss our next steps here. It's kind of an awkward format with no table. Uh but um you can more than welcome to stay if you if you want to come closer if you want to stay that's fine too. Um but we're just going to be discussing our next steps and how we go about that. She had to record. >> Oh, yeah. >> What's that? >> Oh, no. We'll >> need to stop. >> Okay, cool. by 10. >> All right. So, we'll have
158to keep this kind of brief. This wasn't on the agenda, but we have to obviously have to hear what we want to do next in terms of information. So, I mean, I'll hear from anybody else here that has ideas. I have kind of an idea of what we should do in preparation for our next meeting, but first >> Well, we need the numbers. >> Yep. tonight. The whole point of tonight was to figure out what they're offering and now we need to talk actual numbers. We need Tim to talk to us about numbers, right? >> How how the budget is looking and all that stuff. >> Yep. >> Yeah. So, I mean I would say so I think we take the a two-layer approach like a lot of people here said they love school here
159and everything. So, first approach is we need to hear from Tim about the sustainability of this school district as we are. So we need numbers on projections on how we can sustain how we are now with funding formulas. I think that's >> you said you were working on something or so we need >> I think in conjunction with the other thing too is that you know I've had conversations with Jay Sullivan and Robert Jesse and there's a lot of questions that's still not been answered around you know you take these this tuition out money we have like said we have 50 students with school choice out already as at the high schools what I understand right now is that those students the 5,000 We're paying for those things right now in school choice for yourself.
160If you're not on special ed, that number will go up to the new tuition rate. So, there's some things that we sure that these numbers are going to work for us because if that if that is in fact true >> that those numbers all project up to the new tuition rate, that's a different whole conversation. >> Yeah. And I agree and that's the opposite of what we heard from Michelle and >> Michelle was on this call too. So, I don't know what what the previous conversation >> that's why I think all that's important before we get to the next. Correct. Correct. And I have all the responses here, but they're solidifying some other questions that we had. >> You know, the other things we need to discuss are the special education raifications. We know and
161I know both districts talked about how >> they are working to keep kids in district as are we. Um, but there's nothing in any tuition agreement that I've seen that really has any safeguards for that district to then send a kid out, which then based on every tuition agreement I see in this state, the cost goes back to the center. So, >> right, >> things we need to kind of fish out and I think >> which we already did that >> we did, but but I think that we need to kind of really have that very visual thing to see so we can see what what it costs now, what it potentially could cost, what it look like if we keep pushing out. I agree 100% on all of that. So, >> so I think
162when you talk about the budget plan, it's twofold. It's one looking at the budget that you save as a district. We present what those numbers would look like if we did tuition out and how that affects our students in our budget, >> but then potentially come up with another budget plan if we just stay in elementary school. Yep. >> Which would look different as well. >> Right. Well, so that's kind of what I was going to get at is that we we definitely need I mean I have a list of things, but between here now and next meeting, I think we need to at least get the picture of the official picture of what does it cost to operate the 7 through 6 through 12 building and what does it cost to operate the other
163building with any movable parts or you know that because there's going to be some shifting and things that could happen. So >> well part of >> but we need the numbers too. I mean >> that's what I'm saying. So, so part of the conversation was that >> there were a lot of numbers thrown out earlier this year. >> Yeah. >> That were just round figures and blanket numbers that aren't real numbers. >> And we need to find out what the real numbers are. And we and obviously we're weighing that versus services versus what the school services we can maintain here are. >> It's not just dollars and cents, but it's part of it, >> right? and we need actual real numbers which is what we've been waiting for you on to to kind of get
164that. So we now now we see the services we we monthly get updates on the services that the school is offering here. >> Now we need to know what we're giving up to get that and what the actual cost is because I don't think I don't think the savings are what they said they were but I won't know that till we see the actual number. >> Yeah. I think that the we so I think there was I mean I would have we could do it in open session have them present numbers but we can also do it in a way where we have we asked him to meet with the other administrators uh and get the numbers that way uh with one of us or two of us being present. I mean we could do
165it that way if that mean or we can have another special meeting when they come back but I know there was some you know I don't know if we wanted to do that in open session or not. Well, numbers are what they are, but there's a lot of us doing math. >> That's what I'm saying. >> Putting that together. I think that's my point is >> we could summarize it visually would be more productive and then we could talk about it. >> That was my point. Thanks for saying that. And if we get the information and then have until the next meeting, >> anyone would like to come watch us do math at an open meeting. >> Anyone other than Rich? So I think we I mean whoever if any two people want to volunteer
166to be on that group to meet with Tim and the other administrators, we have to come up obviously with dates on when we can get together with them if it could be a Zoom call. >> When you say other administrators, who are you referring to? >> Uh Colleen and Steve. >> Okay. So I think I think two members of our committee should probably handle reaching out to them and getting that information and Tim can work on his numbers and then and then as a subcommittee basically make a subcommittee for this financial aspect of it. >> So that they can do that because we can't all host a meeting every time we want to sit down and do math. >> Does that make sense? I would volunteer but I'm not going to be here for months.
167>> So any volunteers? volunteers. I've already I've already I've been doing I've been involved with this since the beginning. So, >> so my you want you want to check with Maggie? >> Check with Maggie. I know she mentioned >> Maggie is a numbers person is her. >> Yeah. And I think I mean we can we can vote tonight to appoint her and then we'll have to come back and she doesn't want it accepted. Um, but I mean I think she would be fine. I would assume even if she wants to be part of it initially and then I can take over when I come back. >> Yeah, that's fine. If she wants >> do that initial part. >> That works. I got a motion. >> I move to form a subcommittee to gather the actual
168numbers on this and I nominate Matt and Mackie to be on that subcommittee. Second your motion. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? All right. Anything else we want to discuss tonight? I mean, between we also I mean, I have a list of things that I want to talk about at the next meeting, but I can bring them up at the next meeting. So, we'll I mean, obviously there'll be an update at the next meeting, right? The next regular meeting, but then we'll have another meeting where we can actually focus entirely on these numbers. So, another meeting similar format to this. We'll do it here. We'll all sit down and talk actual numbers and have a a more full discussion and probably get something so we can face forward other than these students. Does that
169make sense? >> Sounds good to me. >> All right. All right. Anything else to go over? >> So, just to clarify the presentation that Mr. performance kind of been working on in regards to like the if we were to stay type stuff. Are we going to have that presented at the next regular meeting and also have it be a part of the public meeting when we have the other numbers ready to present like is >> it should be public either way but I don't know timing I mean that's more up to you in terms of when you think you can have that ready but >> just in terms of like what we were originally talking about where if we were to stay currently as constituted what do those numbers look like as we progress forward
170with the enrollment numbers. So just a budget presentation if we're not switching out. Is that what you're referring to? Because that's that mean that would be scheduled for >> and just your professional opinion. >> But I I think if I'm going to present around what I think is is can happen to the district in the next say 3 to 5 years. I think we need to have the numbers from both qu and qual I I don't know why we wouldn't entertain those numbers to look at >> which I was that's what we would be doing and she Tim Kim was just separating it so we again would give them to you we can all put because we're going to need the operating cost of the buildings too so which is what you have because I
171don't know that the number I had that I think there might have been what you wanted to probably firm that up the current >> what number I'm sorry >> from the last What? What number are you talking about? >> The number to operate the high school building. >> When did I present that? >> No, I did. >> Okay. >> From what we had in the task force. I didn't know if you wanted to clear that up. I mean, >> yeah, I mean there's a lot of things I I would I would present what the projection was for FY27 salary costs with with I have to get look at the insurance projections which we don't know exactly where that's going to land, but those are the indirect costs with insurance tool. We're in the process of
172right now putting right before 27 with all the rollover. So that that's how I'd start this conversation but I again I would need those numbers and I was hoping to get those even tonight but from from Qu and we need to look at what they will bring to the table and because I think we talk about negotiations around this tuition out agreement. We need to have all those numbers because if if there there is some room to discuss potentially, you know, can we look at transportation as something we can look at it as a as a cost share is as special education is black and white as we talked about. Is there some cost sharing there? But those are the other factors that we have to weigh and look at the tuition out number. So,
173what we need is a is the subcommittee to get the tuition out, even if it's a range or something we can work with because I know that there's a whole contract process involved in that. We need those numbers. And then we got to sit at the table with Tim and figure out that if a high school were to shut down and we tuition out the students, what does that actually mean? What are the other right >> other costs that we're not thinking of as we sit here looking at just a high school budget and an elementary school budget? You're not just taking this away. There's >> there's the special ed stuff like that. So if we get those numbers and then it Tim I don't think Tim can operate in a bubble on this. He
174has to work with you guys to >> and that's what I you separated. So I think that's what >> Well, no, I was separating you guys getting the the info from them. >> I understand it. So we'll make sure >> I'm just thinking too like we we mentioned like possibly looking to hopefully do a vote by maybe January. I just don't think that that >> Yeah, we'll see. >> I'm just not sure. >> We have to see what we get for information because nothing's locked in. >> I don't think there's any way that's possible. >> That's what I'm saying. Like I don't think that would be anywhere near future. >> It should not be rushed either way for January. >> And that's what I've said all along. Nothing should be rushed, but we do need
175the information. I mean to be able to move forward. Just so everyone's clear, I did ask for that initially and then we decided not to between them and then I don't know what the if there's something to do with their committee with getting approval on numbers too. There might be that I think I'm not sure. So that's why they weren't public. So that was the hopes, but but um I mean obviously it's something that you know we can get those numbers, we can deliver them to you, we can sit down and talk about them, put everything together to present for next meeting. Um and I guess what I was saying is about the you know your professional opinion is like so we're a standalone school district right now. We're the second smallest in the state.
176What do we do moving forward is like what I was like so if [clears throat] we stay as we are like how do we survive financially with the you know what I mean like what do we do that's what I was looking for >> yeah and I will present options about what we're doing and what we can continue to do to help with that question [snorts] >> sounds good if anyone doesn't have anything else we can I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn Just to clarify, as of right now, just just to make No, just to make sure for the purposes of everyone watching at home, um the next school committee meeting, we will not have like all the numbers put together. We will have an update on our progress and we will set up a
177separate meeting to address the numbers and funding that we reconcile. >> I like that for updating. We need to be flexible. >> Yeah. And if something comes up that requires a meeting in the meantime, >> we want quickly. >> Yeah. We can always call a special answer. >> I will be there. >> Sounds good. >> All right. I move to adjourn. >> Second that. >> Any discussion? Sorry. All right. All those in favor? All right. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you everybody for attending.