NMRSD School Committee 10/19/2023

001see David Jess here June here uh Lisa Bloom yeah Miss Martin yes Randy yes Susan yes Tom I don't see Rebecca our student rep yes awesome and I'm here so thank you um our next schedule meeting of the North Middle sex Regional school committee will be held at 6 pm on Thursday November 16 2023 first order of business is our consent agenda uh we have a series of minutes accounts payable warrants payroll warrants and two donations totaling uh eight air conditioning units for ashb Elementary second CH all right so this is approval the consent agenda uh Jess yes June yes Lisa Bloom yes Miss Martin yes Randy yes Susan yes can you hear me okay yep and I'll vote Yes so that is unanimous thank you everybody um next up we had uh public Communications

002and we have three uh residents of the district who submitted to uh to speak a public comment this evening um I have Shelly Jones Melissa boan and Karen Stewart so if they are on um which I believe they are in the attende west um Jones is in is in the the panelist okay so we'll start with uh we'll start with shall we first if you could just give your name and address for the record and then um you have three minutes to uh to let us know what's on your mind Shelly Jones 820 r Road and Ashby MK thank you very much for allowing me to speak um I am a parent of a fifth and sixth grader that both go to Hawthorne Brook um on October 31st I emailed the district and requested that

003our bus stop be moved from down the street from our house to pick up at our house due to a change in work schedule for my husband who was previously on second shift um the district denied that request stating that um for several reasons it was just not possible um the biggest one being the timeliness of adding to an already late bus stop getting to ashb Elementary for pickup um the desie website states that a bus stop will be assigned within a reasonable walking distance uh within a mile from the home a busy hight trffic road with no sidewalks or even a shoulder does not meet those guidelines um it our road is a very very busy road but it is paved it is it is definitely within reasonable accommodations for the bus to come

004and pick up at our location there's a lot of different options um and the fact that none of them are being looked at and we're just being told no is very discouraging um you know I'm in over two months and I have no resolution and I'm I'm left struggling to try to get my fifth and sixth grader to school every day of the week um and in my opinion due to the untimeliness of both hawor Brook and AES buses both to school and picking kids up from school it to me it sounds like an additional bus needs to be added to the Ashby routes to alleviate all of that extra time that's being spent for these drivers to get to towns and and back all of the roads in Ashby and to get these kids

005where they need to be on time and you'd be able to accommodate the few parents that are asking for changes that we've exhausted all of their options I'm not taking this light-hearted I I am very thankful for our bus driver but I have left with nothing we have no way to get our kids to and from school except for reaching out to community members and and other parents in town and dropping my kids off for three hours every day five days a week and that's just not something that I'm comfortable with doing nor should any parent ever have to do um and I hope that there is some sort of a resolution that can be put in place for myself and the other parents in town that are struggling with this is thank you thank

006you sh appreciate your comments and and appreciate you being here this evening um we do have uh just for the entire audience we do have um a discussion on ash Ashby busing coming up on the agenda um so the committee will be able to talk about that in a little more detail as we get through the meeting um next we had um Melissa boan [Music] and I believe I can find my attendee lists I can allow her to talk yeah if you don't mind Robin I just did my panels are disappearing I know mine was too so yeah you're all set to go all right welcome Melissa hi um can you hear me yes okay I don't see myself on the screen so I was just checking um thank you for the opportunity to speak

007tonight regarding busing from Ashby I'm a parent of a kindergartener um at Ashby Elementary as well as a middle schooler at haam Brook um to be completely transparent I did file a complaint with the Department of Ed um through Pro uh res problem resolution system um so I have been working um with Jessie and Mr Morgan um through this process however um and that process did help my middle schooler um start to get to school on time for first period um he still misses home room um often um in this week alone there were three days where um the bus was late and he arrived into first period um while there's been positive progress with this complaint process um there is still a remaining issue at dismissal for ashb students in both schools buses are

008late to pick up students from haon Brook um the students are older SO waiting the extra 10 to 15 minutes at the end of the school day may not be as impactful at the middle school but the trickle down um has a tremendous impact on Ashby Elementary School my kindergartener waits for approximately 25 to 30 minutes at the end of his school day to ride the bus home while our youngest Learners are still sitting in the music room at school their same age peers are at home having a snack and decompressing from their day in the other two towns additionally this is beyond staff's contractual hours what if there was a medical emergency is the nurse even still in the building in the morning my son's bus arrives to Ashby Elementary around 8:55 I was

009told through the resolution process that the school T start time was changed to 9:00 a.m. has this been communicated to families is this districtwide all three websites indicate an 8:45 a.m start time District leadership recently responded to an email that is is anticipated that buses will be impact by an additional 10 minutes because there are a few Ashby families pushing hard to have their children picked up in front of their homes due to safety issues that's a quote I find this offensive that the busing issues are being blamed on parents wanting their kids to be safe this is a district leadership and budget allocation issue I hear over and over again about the district's commitment to a sense of belonging and Equity arriving late to school does not give anyone a sense of belonging nor

010is Ashby being treated Equitable nothing about what is going on with this busing represents us I'm hopeful that the school committee and District leadership can help come up with a solution thank you thank you Melissa appreciate your comments um and we'll get into more discussion later as I've said um next we have Karen [Music] Stewart Robin do you see her okay thank hi can you guys hear me okay yes okay okay sorry no worries that I have video either but I can hear you guys so I'm gonna go ahead with this if that's okay please yep we can hear you all right cool um I'm here tonight um my name is Karen and my son Trenton um is currently in his first year in the district um attending Ash elementaries kindergarten um I also have

011two other kids that will be attending Ashby Elementary um I hope um throughout um you know their school career as well um tonight I'm speaking um in consideration of what the district is also considering Safe Transportation for my children to and from school um we built our home in 2019 on 462 Davis Road right next to the home I grew up in on 468 Davis Road um when I attended ashb Elementary School uh we had buses from amadon which I understand is different um but they had no question um that our road was not safe enough for children to travel um we had pick up directly from my home throughout my school career from kindergarten to high school until I got my license from where they still drove up and down the road um after

012um dbus took over the department busing um I'm not sure exactly what year that was or whenever that happened um and contrary to what everyone's trying to tell me um debus did in fact travel Davis Road pre-co um there's multiple children on this road that they picked up um that were um picked up pre-co so I'm not sure why that changed or what happened when that all happened but it did um so I'm not sure why I'm being lied to about that but it is true I live on the road and I saw the buses personally um in fact travel Davis Road um oh sorry sorry sorry um um travel on Davis Road um simply ended because no kids resided on the west towns inside of Davis Road um I completely understand that obviously um

013if I can do a quote directly from debus in towns and that times change um and that was negatively against me um they are correct times do change and there's children now on the towns inside of Davis Road that do deserve to be picked up so I really can't um understand why that happened um when I talked to dbus um in Townsen I was hung up on I moved forward to speak with the owner of dbus um out of their location they were involved and did come in to look at our Road apparently is what I was told um with that being said they were told for Ashby to run properly they should have seven buses which they were offered they did not take the district only accepted five buses this is why I know

014this is a budget issue and that's where this all comes in it's clear that it comes down to money everything is being disregarded such as the safety for my kids but budget problems within the district are not my problem and I will not stop fighting about it I've been given the excuse every excuse in the book uh lies about the bus never going down the road like I mentioned worries about the time con restraints um on the road if the bus route changed they told me um that there wasn't enough time to do so but I will say that I again live on Davis Road I do travel preschool and I do see bus three parked on Wheeler Road before it's supposed to start its route so I know there is more time needed um

015personally also I was told by towns and's DBS manager that the bus um drivers aren't comfortable driving Davis Road if that is the case I worry about who were hiring in these tough times Davis Road is paved with 20 foot width 10 per 10 feet per Lane that's way bigger than a majority of the roads in Ashby and I was told a list of reasons why the bus couldn't travel such as sharp Corners steep hills and dangerous shoulders if a bus made of metal plastic and rubber finds Davis Road unsafe then why is a child safe to commute that road I've been told by the elementary school to switch my son to Townsen school because I live closer to Townsen I'm disgusted by that and I couldn't be more Angry it means a lot to

016me that my kids attend Ashby Elementary just as I did back when I was their age due to the budget there's a lot of oversights Davis Road is a safe road to travel and I hope that this is something that will help you guys to reconsider again come take a look and hopefully change the bus route another perk to me living on Davis Road that many people who live on Davis Road don't know because most of them are new families I person personally know that the current bus stop of the Pines Campground is known to house sex offenders these sex offenders have lived on there they don't have to do anything because they're there camping I grew up in this road used to get letters in the mail about how constant sex offenders were regularly

017being there and I will never in my life allow my kids to be on that road alone besides anything else that's one of the biggest issues I think it's disgusting it was chosen to be that and I really hope that you guys will open your eyes to understand that Davis Road is a safe road for my kids to be picked up on by the bus it is not safe to walk there's no shoulders there's sharp Corners steep hills and drunk drivers who fly up and down the road throwing nips out all day so that's all I have to say I'm sorry for all the hype but I really take this seriously and I hope that you guys will now take it seriously as well thank you Karen I appreciate it you're welcome all right I

018think that was um what we had for public comment um again appreciate those that uh that did submit to speak and um again encourage others to uh to do the same it's it's add an email the ways that we get to hear from from the citizens so definitely appreciate the participation um next up under reports and information items um the only piece I'll say under the uh chairperson's report is um I guess as we uh as we come into a busy season for the school committee um negotiations starting um budgets uh discussions uh also starting um I just want to make sure that uh that as a group that we're we're getting input from our from our stakeholders but also keeping Communication open between us I've got a couple comments from folks this past week

019um and I just want to make sure that as a committee we're we're working together and if um anybody needs help with anything you don't have time for something please just put your hand up and uh there's nine of us and I'm sure we could find someone to to lend to hand if needed but uh it is uh it is seeming to get busy pretty quick so I certainly appreciate everybody has has day jobs to worry about as well and other responsibilities so um don't be shy if uh if you're not able to to meet a commitment um reach out to myself or the committee as a whole and we'll see uh what if anything we can do to to help uh or needed uh superintendent Morgan your uh your reports the only piece I

020have outside of the as busing piece that we can take on later on in the agenda is I just wanted to let the committee know that all of our schools um prek our elementary middle and high schools have all done their off-campus evacuation Intruder drills at this point they were wrapped up this week everything went very well the only thing that we're looking at now is whether or not some of the rally points are are the best locations for our students but outside of that it's the smoothest that they have gone um in a number of years so very excited about that and all the staff are trained so I'll leave it at that for now and um hit the rest of the report later on on the agenda excellent thank you all right uh

021we have a number of items under new business um the first being the district strategic plan from Dr Reese good morning good afternoon evening everyone what time of day is it um let me share my screen with you um if uh Mr Hansen can you give me permission to share you should be all set now you should be good now okay see are you able to see the Strategic plan so as you know um the Strategic plans are developed for a five-year time period uh we look at kind of setting our goals for that time and establishing the benchmarks of how we're going to meet it over those five years this is our final year of the Strategic plan that was put in place in 2019 um so we're continuing just to give everyone who's

022here in the audience a background um there are three strategic objectives so three main buckets that we look at the first is around curriculum and instruction which really involves just looking to ensure that we're continuing to implement a rigorous and relevant curriculum while strengthening instructional practices that promote purposeful student engagement in learning and then underneath each of those objectives there are the priorities that we have in the steps that we're going to take during that current year so this plan is actually posted on the website so uh the public can go in and see it and see the different types of action steps we're going to be taking um but really this year as we kind of finalize this plan in the the bucket of curriculum what we're really looking at is just making sure

023we continue to have um common assessments uh some of our Specialists we want to make sure that the experiences that our students have say in the elementary schools where they're um coming from three different communities that they're getting similar experiences and that we have the same assessment tools to make sure that we're we're assessing students in the same way um the other big areas that we're looking at we're continuing the implementation of our k to8 math program um ill illustrative mathematics as well as going into our third year of implementation of our K to8 English program um El education so we're continuing to work with teachers around profession providing professional development and support for um Quality implementation and um what we call implementing with Integrity making sure that we're everyone again is getting the same

024experiences across all grade levels across the three communities um the second bucket that we have is around meeting all the needs of all students and that's really about making sure that all students are exposed to and have the opportunity to make success um with the educational experiences that we're providing to them um the three the areas priorities underneath that um are about providing targeted programs and interventions that meet individual needs and provide increased opportunities for inclusion so really in that area we're looking at how are we using data from different common assessments different interim assessments and benchmarks to to make sure that we're identifying students that might need extra support and then also providing a robust intervention system so that all students are able to to meet those high expectations that we're setting for for

025each student um providing Learners with educational programming and Leadership opportunities that meet their individual needs this is where we're starting to look at and I know this year um I believe one of the areas the superintendent's looking at is what are we trying what can we provide as additional opportunities such as financial literacy the opportunities for students so making sure that the range of programming is robust and we're providing opportunities for students to demonstrate leadership in the school so some of the the work that we'll be doing this year really was driven by some of the Civic action projects that students presented last year so we're bringing them into the fold to help establish opportunities for them to to to have an impact on on what happens in the schools um offering minimum of three

026districtwide parent information opportunities um we have a schedule set up for the year we had one earlier in the year unfortunately um the weather wasn't great that evening so it wasn't as well as attended as we would have liked but that was one around Internet safety and um just anti-bullying practices um and then the final priority under that area is just guaranteeing that racist practices are eradicated diversity equity and inclusion is Ed really the focus on that is making sure that all students feel included and feel like every student has an opportunity for Success so as we look at curriculum development we're looking at how do we just um use tools to make sure that we're looking at equity for all students within there within the curriculum the third bucket area around culture climate and

027Community um creating a variety of opportunities to Foster distri rewi and cohesive climate culture and a sense of community um the three areas under that the first is around develop branding and marketing opportunities and you know kudos to miss iy who has really spearheaded a lot of this effort and um to to Really promote the good things that are happening in the district um I know for myself I went on the website recently on Facebook and was just looking at how many posts have been made this year from the schools compared to previous years and it's it's an incredible the difference um you're you're seeing posts almost daily from different schools about the positive things that are happening in our schools um as well as looking at other ways that we can promote and Market

028NM as as a community that people want to live in and the schools that they want to attend um looking at the um excuse me inter School opportunities um for students and staff to promote a positive district-wide culture really looking at what are we doing as kids are transitioning between schools as well as between the schools to promote a sense of involvement and inclusion um one of the activities that we did recently um that was promoted in this area was just the skeleton con or scarecrow contest um so that was a nice opportunity for kids to do something that was enjoyable and to demonstrate kind of their enthusiasm and excitement and involvement in the community and then the final priority is really looking at how do we Foster Community Partnerships with local businesses and organizations

029um and an example of that recently and we'll continue this type of work was the high school having a career fair and inviting in opportunities for um members of the community to come and speak to the students about employ employment in their field and it was very well attended by our students and um really some positive feedback in that area so as I said this is our final year so a lot of it is just kind of making sure we're continuing the tra trajectory of um meeting these objectives and then we'll be working throughout this school year to identify the Strategic plan for the next five years which will really involved getting members of the community students staff involved in giving feedback input into the development of the plan um and while we're still while

030it's still in the infancy phase um certainly looking at how do we incorporate concepts of portrait of a learner or portrait of graduate um and embed those Concepts into the Strategic plan which looks at kind of what are those core competencies that we know beyond just academic skills that students need to be successful as or we believe that they need to be successful as they exit North Middle sex and how do we how do we teach those at the high school but also what does it look like in the Middle School in the elementary school so that there's a for students to be able to demonstrate and and develop those competencies thank you Dr ree any questions comments from the committee all right I guess everybody is good thank you very much um what uh

031what I'd like to do if the committee is agreeable um I give Dr Rea rest as well because he has the next few items but uh I know we did have a few people on from uh from Ashby that spoke about the busing if uh if there are no objections from the committee I'd like to move down to that item next all right um so I I think the committee has seen uh a number of emails um and and obviously we've heard from a number of residents uh about some busting concerns in ashp I think there's two core issues that i' I'd like the committee to just talk about to make sure that um again we're aware of of the current situations aware of why certain decisions have been made um and then can discuss

032and decide if if anything further needs to be looked into any other options presented or or evaluated uh so we have the bus stop locations um I think the the most uh one we heard about tonight around the being on a busy road no sidewalks um and the bus stop is uh number of hundreds of feet I think from uh from the house and then also the morning arrival uh and afternoon pickup times that uh there's some concern there that that students may not all be arriving uh on time or or with enough time um to to get to get in the building or have breakfast things like that so I wanted to open it up for the community discussion I don't know if folks had questions uh based on some of the emails or

033if there was anything that folks wanted toh understand more or have investigated more so uh June we start with you um I have a just a couple questions to start um regarding start times in the morning um what would happen if all of the buses just um like the high school buses and middle school buses went to school five minutes earlier would that potentially get Ashby students to school on time um if just everybody went to school that just you know that five minute difference could we get our students to school on time um so that's one question and my second question is is probably for Brad but um I'm wondering in particular about the bus stop on ringe road just because I'm very familiar with the area because it's just right down the street

034over here um that area is set up sort of on a triangle and right now the bus turns around kind of at the edge of a triangle so it picks up students at at the bus stop and pulley turns around there and then comes back this direction where there is a pole triangle um and the house in question is kind of at the end of that um road which is only I I forget how many half mile third of a mile away um has a Time study been done looking at just driving that triangle you the bus would have to drive into Ashburnham for a minute but then could pick up directly in front of um Shelley Jones's house and come back around so we would be avoiding the current turnaround we would be avoiding

035a potential additional turnaround and just do a loop and it seems like it wouldn't take any extra time to do that and it potentially even save time where the bus wouldn't be turning around where it is currently um so I don't know if that option's been looked at yet but um if not I think that would be a good idea um but honestly my biggest comment is that we pay the bus company an awful lot of money to get these kids to school so they can't really I can't understand how they can pick and choose which kids they're going to get to school and which kids they're not going to get to school because we're contracted and they that they have one job you know they just need to get the kids to school and

036back um uh and I guess of to follow up with that question is we do get paid a good percentage back um I know we we were getting it was lower before and higher last year like in in the 90% or so so where we talk about the cost of an additional bus what would the true cost to the district be once we get reimbursed um so I guess that's all my questions okay so let me try to answer those I'll start first with with the start time um and I'll address the Elementary start time first even though it wasn't a part of your question um the 845 5 to 9 to 9:00 a.m. window is something that's been ex it's been in existence for many years it's something that is consistent at all of

037our elementary schools and it's really in place um you know again to provide students the opportunity to get some breakfast and if they get there you know right up against Home Room to get breakfast and go to home room um so it's it's more in place for breakfast than it is for anything else the the 9:00 a.m. to 3:05 um is really 9:00 a.m. is Home Room 305 is the end of the school day and that still obviously puts us well within the time and learning aspect if we were to address the start times at either Hawthorne brook or the high school that would um that would that would definitely be subject to collective bargaining um it would be a change in working conditions uh most likely so that's something that we would have to

038talk about in the next contract it's not something that we can just um that we can just change because again it would be a change in working conditions U but certainly something we can look at in the next round of um collective bargaining which is what we're starting um officially next week after just doing the ground rules this week um ringe Road I I actually spoke with the bus company uh this afternoon um with with the owner and as I mentioned in an email to the committee I've been out there a couple times myself um Nancy Haynes has been out there the problem with ringe road is that um it to to find a safe turnaround they would in essence have to go into Ashburnham to do to to turn around safely according to debus

039and that would add five to seven minutes on to the arrival time um at at the next location so if they were dropping off a middle school student um that would add five to seven minutes on to the arrival time at Ash Elementary which was already late so that would certainly be a problem um I know that it was mentioned that a that a driveway close by could be used for the turnaround um but when the bus company tried it the bottom of the bus scraped because of the incline on the driveway so that's not something that the bus company is willing to do so the only concern again I'm I'm just sharing the information that I have is that we do have many students um that are not picked up at home and obviously

040they have to get they have to find their way to a bus stop ringe road is a busy road I absolutely um agree there it's it's it's dangerous um there's no sidewalk it's not a great situation and that that's certainly not something that I'm that I'm arguing I'm just sharing that if we change the stop it's going to add five to seven minutes on to the arrival time at ashp elementary um the final piece and I think this is the last part of the question is in order to be reimbursed for a school bus um The District in essence has to prove that buses a full um Elementary loads can carry up to 77 students our largest bus in Ashby right now holds 40 40 students and that number drops significantly at the middle and

041high school level um so we I mean right now we're being reimbursed for buses that you could argue aren't reimbursable and adding another school bus would to me be completely on the district to cover a school bus would be about $80,000 per year to add on to the to the budget so it's it's a significant amount the other piece with that is at this point in time I don't know if D has another bus because most bus companies lease their buses and then you have to find a driver which is extremely difficult to do in this market so just sharing that information now again uh the reimbursement rate is usually around 75% for those that live live beyond a mile and a half from the school um but adding another bus at this point in

042time I I don't see um I don't see how that is feasible um or doable at this point in time especially where we just got a warning from the state last week saying that if we did have money and revolving funds that we wanted to pay very close attention to setting that aside uh because things could get very very tight the second half of fy2 24 did that answer all of the questions um for the most part I'm still absorbing some of it but um my question about ringe Road would be to actually do a loop to eliminate the current turnaround and eliminate the second proposed turnaround that would add five to seven minutes and just go straight up Crocker Road Loop into Townsen not Townsen excuse me um Ashburnham and then turn back on

043to ringe Road it's a very small triangle like I I pick up eggs from her Farm actually and sometimes instead of backing up I just drive that Loop because it's easier to just do the loop so it seems like it would it eliminating those turnarounds would would it would kind of break even TimeWise so I I hate to put um Nancy Haynes on the spot but she's very familiar with Ashby and she has had more regular communication with with dbus and I I would have I'm going to guess that this has probably been looked at but I I can't say for sure if um rerouting that particular bus has been looked at around ringe Road do you know if that has been looked at yeah I think um we did speak about this um and

044I'm trying to remember the name of that left turn see you're if I'm looking at it you're you're proposing a left turn on to um not Crocker what's the the road um June that we're talking about straight on Crocker turning onto Russell Hill and coming back down wilker wilker that's it that was the I'm sorry I was having trouble remembering that I think um you know the I believe the issue was the left turn the angle of the the wilker road turn but um I'm certainly able to reconfirm that if that's my memory about it which which is you know it's a longer bus to make that left um so I think they were hesitant about that especially in the winter down wilker and then back down Crocker um you know I don't want to

045I don't want to speak to it but I I I think I think that's something we could relook at um I'm always willing to reach back out to them about it um but I think it had to do with the angle onto wilker okay that I just wanted there but I mean I if somebody could look at it you know and and maybe just do a Time study on it I think it would be worth it sorry about I oh no problem I and I did speak again with with the representatives from D today they are more than willing to continue to look at this um the problem that they're saying they're going to encounter is a late later arrival time um which which is obviously um makes an an already difficult situation certainly more

046difficult I did want to um possibly because I don't know if it's going to be brought up bring up the Davis Road piece as well I don't know if now's now's a good time I'm done my questions for now whatever Craig thanks yeah yeah I I don't know if I know Jess and Randy and I don't know if it's related to that or or if you want to share more information question all right Jessica um my comment was on Davis Road I do agree with the public speaker that road is not okay for students to be walking up and down it's the shortcut up to Country Mile where they sell a lot of liquor and I agree with her that there's nips all over I used to have a friend that used to live on

047that road and it is a very dangerous road I don't know if any of you have been down that road but it's not something where I would want a student walking much less an elementary school student walking down that road so the only thing I can add to that again and this is just a followup um where ringe is more like a five to seven minute um delay uh this road would be about a 7 to 10 minute delay um D fully recognizes that they have traveled that road in the past but previously the the routs made sense for it to travel the entire route for it to travel the entire Road um Now it only makes sense to go up to the to go up to this bus stop and turn around which which

048is not possible according to D um again i' I've driven up the road a couple times myself I've never driven a bus um you know it it is um you know it certainly can be narrow in certain spots uh it can be hilly uh and again this is during a time when there is no snow on the road um there aren't snow banks on the side of the road so that is something that has to be considered and the other piece we have to consider really at both locations is that um really two things is that we often have substitute bus drivers um you know that is that is a regular occurrence um so we have people that may be um unfamiliar with the roots covering on certain days um and those that are more

049experienced may be able to do a better job at this but again right now there's no way to turn around on Davis Road you'd have to actually travel Davis Road completely and in order for that to happen they would have to reroot at minimum two buses so that would change a minimum of two buses pickup times and potentially some bus stops as well D's willing to do it um but it is something that the committee needs to consider because it it may very well um create some other issues the only other piece that again and and I would agree with Jess Davis Road is a dangerous road um the uh the location I believe between the house and the bus stop is 7 miles where ring is3 so it is a longer distance um but

050the issue remains is that we still have a large number of students in the district that have to get to bus stops every day that are not um that may or may not be close to their homes so just sharing that and I don't disagree with either parent I I think both locations are very challenging thank you br Randy uh so my my original comment that I raised my hand for was uh not necessarily to address these particular roads I'm not familiar with each either one of them uh you know personally I've probably been down one or two of them couple of times but nothing uh to be able to speak to these roads um my thought was is there any way that we can set up a safe um bus stop for the kids

051to stand at um like the superintendent said there are other places where the students go to the end of their roads uh to get picked up or different bus stops I don't know if there's a safe place on these roads at least in the meantime until we can figure out everything for these kids to be standing and waiting for the bus and then to be picked up um again I don't know the roads um that's certainly um at least an interim solution to keeping these kids safe um if they can be driven to a safe place to to stay um as far as what was was just recently said about Davis Road's bin before um I would take a look at or I'd be willing to take a look at um rerouting a couple of

052buses um if it will still work um if if Davis Road has been used before and can still be used if there's there hasn't been any degradation of that road that would say that they can't um just to see what the effect would be on everything um um just again um trying to keep you know balancing out uh what we can do what's safe for the bus drivers and what's actually really safe for the students so um the only thing is um as far as rerouting we can certainly if the committee would like us to have D look at that that's certainly something we can do um and you know we can certainly try to figure out what that impact would be um not in having been to both locations is the only viable bus

053stop for ringe road is the current location that it's at right now again it is.3 miles from the home but it is a busy. three miles uh Davis Road if I remember correctly the only the next Road off of Davis Road is West Meadow I believe which ties into Townsend I don't believe there is any other Road off of Davis Road so any other um Lo any other bus stop on Davis Road would still require a turnaround at some point which um the bus company there is not comfortable turning around anywhere on Davis Road as of now they would have to drive to West Meadow and turn around there and then come back down or start the route at the top of West Meadow Drive down Davis and then and then do the rest of

054the route from there the problem is it's kind of the way that the the roots are in that area it's kind of doing a lot of backtracking um is is as part of the route so it's not a smooth would not be a smooth route um the other thing I don't know quite honestly is um what impact um D said there is an impact but what impact the closure of Turnpike is doing to the arrival um times of buses at the schools um D is saying that that is having an impact um because they have to avoid Turnpike altogether um is part of the um the the daily trips uh to and from Ashby um so so that's certainly a problem as well and I'm not sure what the time frame on that I thought

055I heard the end of the month but um that was a while ago and I'm not sure if that has been if that has changed thank you sorry yeah I could just speak to turnp Quick it is slated to be finished in November um and going through recently it it appears to be very close to done um so I do think that would change things a lot once that road reopen I hope so thank you J David sorry uh so this is just for um especially people who are watching um but uh how many um bids did we get for our most recent bus contract one and how many times did we put out for it we put out for it at the side of every contract so we're putting we're preparing to put it

056out again now because our contract is expiring for both special ed and and regular education right and we put it out twice the last time too right um I believe so is that correct Nancy didn't we didn't we try to follow up and get additional bids I I don't it was five years ago we had a number of uh companies pull the request the the bid documents um and so we were we thought we might get multiple bids but in this case we didn't um so I I we did not do more than one bid it's a kind of arduous process to uh get the whole bid process done so no we did not yeah so um I guess just the point that I'm trying to make is that every time we do one of

057these you know bids for buses we only ever get back one bid and we're really left to the whims of of D and and everybody else and so it really puts us into um you know we don't we don't have any other options um not that this makes it any easier for the parents your concerns are incredibly valid um you know and and they're not lost on us um I know that doesn't make it any better but I want you to know that you're being heard at least so and and I do want to add that um the D has has been working with n myself and in trying to come up with a solution unfortunately all of the solutions seems seem to have other um other effects um so there's there's no easy solution

058if there were it would have already been made um so I just wanted to point that out as well um you know I've been dealing primarily with um with the two owners at D I know Nancy has as well and and they've been trying to come up with ways to fix this um that the problem is is that it's a large land area um which which we all know um there are four buses um and all of the homes are pretty spread out um and there are definitely challenges when it comes to um you know a lot of other places are able to call on neighbors to help out and things like that and a lot of the locations in Ashby that's really not a viable option because it is so spread out um and

059you know in some cases they may not be a neighbor nearby um with a school AG child where you're able to help each other out so just just putting that out there BR how many um these are two different routes correct the the the two streets we've talked about are two different bus routes yes A3 and A4 so there are four Ashby buses A3 and A4 also also different years ones in Ashby Elementary um delivery and one is to hawor Brook okay um I know we talked about uh bus capacity at the start do we know approximately how full these two buses are for I guess there I go what's the maximum capacity of of any route that those actual buses do sure so the maximum capacity is 77 students A3 has 40 and A4

060has 35 and is there a I think I know the answer to this but is there a smaller bus that could be used and have that be maybe at capacity but smaller footprint so it's easier to turn around um so I that I'm not sure of I I will say that um you mean using a smaller bus or one of those buses I don't know if it would hold um I'm not sure if it would hold the appropriate number of students okay because they happen to be um you know again 40 and 35 I can check with D um I'm also not sure if they have a a half bus um under lease right now that that's that's up for use yeah Brad they're using one in uh West toen for some of those roads

061which again are are s of similar I believe it's I believe I I need to double check that it's the what does go up to West Meadow does just not sure if they have another one yeah they probably don't have one sitting you know sitting around not being used but yeah that's maybe a future choice for one of the routes okay um and then my other question is around the I know I know the the high level guidelines um that were referenced earlier um are set by the state but who who actually makes the determination on where a bus stop is how far it is from the students being picked up um is that dbus makes that to termination when they do the routes is do we have a part in that or we can

062we can influence um where the routes are and and help you know I usually use um their advice because they they're the ones making these navigating these roads and it's not it's not easy to find the right um to keep reducing we've reduced buses over the past five or six years I think we've gone down two buses across the district not not all in Ashby um so you know they do try to make adjustments every year but and we can we can influence you know in our contract we're allowed to have some control over the roots part of um team effort yeah and part of the issue too is is that we did have a we we were part of this year's budget was included a reduction of another bus um and we were looking

063at where that reduction could be made and ultimately we could not reduce it so the bus would it never came to fruition um so so that bus is still um is still in operation and it's still being used but it's uh it's certainly a challenge every year when it comes to Transportation because the bus stops change often we you have new kindergarten new kindergarten starting in different locations and it certainly it certainly is a challenge um um and then just my last question before June we get back to you is around the the cost of buses um is that a shared cost across the districts or does each town is that like part of the regional agreement where each Town covers the cost of the buses for their students or is it just split evenly

064across the district I guess I I'll take that one so the total cost of the busing is um calculated in full both special ed and regular Ed then we re we subtract from that any the state estimates on what we're going to receive for state aid and um the difference is split based on enrollment so the it's not a per bus per Town calculation it's the total the total remaining due is split according to enrollment so theoretically that works that it's by town they pay for their buses I guess we'd have to do the math specifically but it's about that um all right I guess just the last thing I'll say I mean I spoke to a couple parents I've spent a lot of time on Google Maps and navigating it I mean and I'll

065Echo Dave's comments that it's it's a very difficult situation hopefully we can um find some path forward but uh it's it's a balance of safety convenience and in budget unfortunately and those are those are three hard things to to all satisfy so um we'll have to we'll have to continue the conversation June um yeah maybe somebody could refresh my memory because I know when my students were at AES they were on bus A6 did we have six buses in Ashby at the time or was it just numbered differently like did we reduce Ashby buses in the last few years I just gonna pull that up um give me one second okay June no problem I'll just move to my next C for a minute um so I hadn't been thinking about Turnpike Road until somebody

066just mentioned that um and I'm sure we have students on both lower Turnpike and upper Turnpike which can't be passed through completely right now so I'm assuming it's two different buses or maybe the bus is going a very long way around that so where someone talked about um looking at routing all of the buses and now would be an ideal time if that road is opening um within the month or so anyway would probably make a lot of sense to look at rerouting um to maximize our our time on the roads where that will should be opening up very soon um and then my last comment I know public comment is over but I Karen Stewart has had her hand up for a while so I don't know if there's any other information that maybe

067the committee should know um so I'm just going to leave that up to you Craig if you want to call on her but I wanted to point that out to you okay yeah I didn't notice that if there's no objections from the committee I'm I'm happy to to allow that all right um all right Karen it should be good I hope I did that right yeah can you hear me we can okay awesome I know you guys are busy and I apologize to take up another moment of your time even though it's over but I think what's important to address is um no one has um addressed this again since the road has been paved which was just recently um which is where now the road has the width and the ability to definitely handle

068a bus much more safely if supposedly it wasn't before um I will also say that me and my husband out of our own Pockets have paid for the end of our driveway to be paved um just recently as well to accommodate a school bus because that's how important this is to us and our family um we didn't pave the entire thing we paved only the end and enough for the bus the length of the bus and we actually spoke to the highway department um Steve to um find out what the length should be for that to be accommodated if supposedly the bus cannot um travel down Davis um I did provide June with my old bus route and the reason I did that is because I reviewed my old bus route um which I remember

069obviously I wrote it for years um I did review it with the current bus route that bus route hits every single stop that is currently on the bus instead of it going down wheeler it goes back down Davis like it used to so the only thing is for people to actually take a second to run that route and just see that it does actually hit everything um I'm trying to cover every single one of my bases because this is how important this is to me I understand budgets I understand everything but the safety of my kid is not going to be not taken into consideration by the district just because of money um I don't have the ability to drive my kids to school every day just like anybody else I certainly am not going

070to send my kid to towns and I think it's disgusting that that was even an option um I just want to mention real quick that when we did um pave our driveway we also have a 40 foot fifth wheel trailer that we back up our driveway so the consideration of width was already um there um because we safely are able to do that um and lastly my old bus route um where we were so concerned erned about turnarounds even though we did pave our driveway for that to be an option if they did actually take a second to go down Davis Road um first instead of Wheeler there would be no turnarounds for that bus anymore that bus would go down Davis pick up everywhere and go straight to the elementary school with not one

071turnaround anymore and that's all I if I could also um I did obviously I know um everyone was kind of mentioning as well what they did um I was encouraged by desie to file a complaint which I did um our to our state um representative is informed of this um and they were very supportive as well um our local police chief Town Administration and the highway department were all a very big part of this with me um and I have been trying really hard and I just want to make it known that they were all very supportive and disgusted with the fact that anyone would allow a kid to walk Davis Road thank you thank you Ken anything else from the committee all right um so I guess we'll continue to oh um I'm I'm

072sorry I know Nancy was looking to see what Ashby buses have been cut in the past years I just sorry about that the um I did pull up the the bid specs we did have six buses when we started the contract um running for Ashby students uh what I need to do is go through and make sure that all six we're running an ashb elementary a three- tiered route and going to the high school middle in ashb because if you look at the bus routes today there which are on the website right down at the bottom on the furry on the homepage you'll see that um we actually have five buses in Ashby but only four routes that go to Ashby Elementary so depending on which school we're talking about um would depend on if

073there's four you know four buses going to that school or or a different number so I just wanted to bring that up not all not every bus does a three- tier route right now and that was we had we did some of that to alleviate um when when buses were adjusted so that for instance sometimes they might do just the high school and Ashby Elementary and and skip the Middle School run so depending on what we're talking about I think that's I guess my short short answer is um and I what I need to do is go back and look when in 2019 when we went out to bid last time whether we were running three tiers for all schools or not it's G just and and I can get those to you probably be

074the easiest way is just to give you that information so you can look at it I did just want to add too to just to the um to to the writers ship comment as far as the number of buses that we've had and I'm sure everyone knows that the district population has dropped uh significantly in the past 20 years um so certainly um you know buses have dropped but one of the reasons we've been looking to drop buses um and why it was a part of last year's discussion and it's something that you can really see every day at our elementary and middle schools is the significant number of um parents who are driving now um and that's something that um that certainly ticked up during covid um and has really not gone away um

075we thought it would drop off um I'm not sure if students got used to their parents driving them but that's one of the reasons why our buses are um aren't filled anywhere near capacity in some cases just because of the traffic going in and out of our ele elementary and middle schools on a daily basis um with student drop off so that's another thing that the district does have to consider is if the ridership continues to drop off and we're not filling up buses then reimbursement could be could be a bigger problem down the road thank you br um in terms of next steps what um I guess what are the open items either for this committee or the administration to to be looking at with us or we holding where we're at or or

076is there some actions for for followup to to talk to the bus company again or well we can certainly um check uh with regard to Davis um check out Miss Stewart's driveway um they have D take a look at that to see if it's U possible to turn around as I mentioned earlier um D um D certainly used to drive the road prior to it being paved uh but again that was just driving the complete Road there wasn't a turnaround involved um and that's not unfortunately that's not necessary at this point in time unless A Change Is Made um to accommodate um the kindergarten and again I fully agree with what everyone said it's a it's it's a dangerous road um it's it's very difficult so we can certainly look at that um and we

077will also look at um whether or not we can reroute it um and what the impact would be now with Turnpike opening up the end of the um at some point in time in November will that alleviate some of the issues in Ashby uh with Turnpike being reopened so we can examine that take a take a look at that and as far as um um ringe road goes um again we can look at um possibly that triangle piece that June was talking about I know nany's a little bit more familiar with it than I am as far as which roads are involved um and also look to see if a smaller school bus is something that's available to us and would that hold 40 element school students I'm not sure what the capacity is on

078the smaller school buses uh to see if we can switch to that but again that's going to come with um I think any solution is going to come potentially with a delay um but Turnpike Road could alleviate a lot of that especially with the Davis Road situation so those are things we can certainly take a look at all right um Shelly I'll give you uh 60 seconds if you uh if you want and then I would do want to wrap this up thank you very much I just want to make it clear that everybody on this meeting understands that right now my husband and I both are due at work before our children are supposed to be picked up by the bus and we don't get home from work until after they get dropped off

079by the bus our only option to get our children down to ringe turn uh ringe crer and Piper is that my fifth and sixth grader Walk This Road I urge every single one of you to go on Google Maps and look at it or drive this road it is not an option to say that my kid safety is not worth figuring out a five to seven minute difference in a bus route is a polling because I know none of you would ever ever want this done to your children it needs to be resolved it's 5 to S minutes and there are so many options they're just not being looked at I cannot ask my kids to walk to that bus stop and I am not going to ask my community members to get my kids

080on and off the bus five days a week for the next eight years while my kids are in this District thank you sry I might have been muted so thank you Shelly uh any last comments from the committee lisaa yeah is there any way that we could switch possibly the smaller bus in Talon to the Ashby like can give Townson the bigger bus to accommodate everyone least I think the reason the smaller bus is being used is because it's the only bus that'll fit down that street in Townsen um it's not been used because of capacity it's used you know exterior dimensions for the town in also okay okay may do you think that's again just looking into if the bus company has another small bus or if there's options there because if turning around

081is the big concern that might alleviate that all right seeing no other questions comments we'll continue to uh to work on that and again appreciate everybody's um feedback and input into this I wish there was an easy answer um but um we'll continue to to look into it um next up we had the do you have a question June sure um I was just wondering if we'll have this on another agenda again or just expect um like an email followup from the superintendent or how will we know what kind of closure happens yeah I would I guess I'd ask that's a good question I'd ask the um whether Brad Nancy I'm not sure when when the team would look into that but just to send the committee an update and if the the committee wants

082to pursue something that gets presented or it's it's not what we expect to ever happen to be then we can we can certainly put it on a future agenda [Music] um but uh yeah I I we'll just have to see what what comes out of the the ongoing conversations uh next I do want to jump um and it's not on the agenda so I'll I'll yield back to my chairperson's report and yield my time to uh Miss Rebecca Sylvester our student rep to provide a uh student report uh and then we'll get back to the uh the new business on the agenda so welcome Rebecca we'll uh turn it over to you for a minute hello so recently we had our homecoming dance in our pep rally at our school to kind of raise school

083spirit and everything and it was a success um most of the school was at attended the dance so that was really good to get everyone out there and our next big event is Veterans Day where we're doing a presentation in breakfast for veterans on November 8th at 8:30 and invitations have gone out and are still going out this week and then after that we're having our annual Powderpuff game on November 14th at 5:00 pm for the community to come to thank you thank you Rebecca I appreciate it I can say my son had a lot of fun at the homecoming activities so it was it was good um okay 2023 mcast results and accountability back to Dr ree yes thank you good evening again everyone um Miss camo is going to project the presentation for

084me I had to switch to my phone so if you can just let me know when that comes up there we go we can we can see it now excellent so um as you know each year we share out um both the mcast and this year the accountability results um M if you can go to the next slide next slide please so and I'm gonna just so 2020 3 was actually the first year since 2019 that the accountability measures included both an accountability percentile which is a comparative measure with other schools in the state as well as a progress towards targets which is more about an individual look at how schools are performing uh in various indicators um Statewide this year the results showed continued academic recovery from the pandemic so as as you know

085we've talked about the past couple years there was the dip that we saw in our scores um last year we talked about how we started to see them flatten out and um this year Statewide they're starting to see some sense of recovery back to um pre 2019 test results um 83% of schools in the Commonwealth have an accountability designation of not requiring Assistance or intervention I'll talk about what that that means and where our schools are um 62% of schools met exceeded or made significant progress towards targets for the accountability targets and that's that second indicator the progress towards targets and then we did have 66 schools in the Commonwealth that were identified as schools of recognition um for their either their overall growth Andor their overall achievement um Miss K you can go to

086the next slide so the progress towards targets um it's a measure of the district's performance towards um Improvement targets so each year the state takes a look at our data and they have for for the different indicators which you see below anywhere from Achievement to growth um El proficiency for our English language Learners absenteeism Advanced coursework which includes both AP courses but it also includes uh courses such as the progress uh the the pltw projectly the way program for Science and Tech technology um and then High School there's some additional indicators they look at both the four-year graduation rate The Five-Year graduation rate and annual dropout rate so what they do is based on our performance from the prior school year they set targets for us um to work towards um to achieve for the

087upcoming school year um miss you can go to the next slide and basically the the targets we get point value for the different targets and as you can see they range anywhere from zero points or earned up to Four Points earned and over to the you can see the reason anywhere from the decline in the score no change in the score that we improved but we didn't improve um to to meet the target we met the Target or he exceeded the target next slide next um and what they do with those is they total them up and then they wait them out um to to to identify what our um progress towards Target score is um so as you can see on this chart for non- high schools um 60% of the waiting is on

088the achievements so are the scores that students receive on their mcast for math Ela and science technology 20% is based on student growth so we have growth measures in math and Ela and what a growth measure is it looks at where the student was the prior school year and it measures their progress on the following school year of mcast testing to determine did they grow how did they grow compared to other school students that had similar scores to them the previous school year um El proficiency is not something um that we have an indicator for um at the at our level because um we don't have individual school um ratings for that because we don't have enough of a population of El students at any one school to get a rating but we do get

089that rating for at the high school level and then the additional indicators that I mentioned earlier um and as you can see you can look at their the different ratings or um um waiting for the high school school schools once they do all those calculations they look and say how how are we meeting working towards meeting our growth targets and you can go to the next slide Miss K so as you can see um for this past school year of testing all of our schools um except for haor Brook Middle School um received an overall classification of not requiring Assistance or intervention um hawthor Brook did receive a requiring Assistance or intervention um classification and on a further slide I'll talk about why that why that happened and what steps we're taking um so first

090I want to do celebrate um ashre element school because as I said earlier only 66 schools in the Commonwealth were identified as uh schools of recogn recognition ashb Elementary is one of them so um I know the superintendent put out something earlier to celebrate that but we certainly want to recognize the accomplishments of both the students and the staff um and Miss Cromwell Gap as the principal for for leading the work over there and the the hard work that was done and for them to have Reed that recognition um as I mentioned hawor Brook was identified as um for targeted Improvement and that account classification was based solely on the low participation rate for one subgroup our Hispanic Latino subgroup so that subgroup had 31 students and because some families or some um opted their

091children out of testing uh we had three students that were opted out of testing we fell below the required participation rate for that particular subgroup and as a result we the school got the designation so it wasn't related to their scores or any other data Beyond just the participation rate uh for that particular subgroup um what the challenging part is when you have a subgroup that that's that size so small one or two students uh really has the impact of making us drop below that participation rate um certainly we take that uh seriously and we we put in some action steps in place so we applied for a Family Partnership Grant um this is a grant through desie and um there's two Pathways that the grant could um fit for one was increasing the pipeline

092of um Vol parent volunteers bringing parent volunteers into the community into the schools and developing a program where they then we help them to become substitute teachers in the districts and also paraprofessionals so trying to increase some of those shortages and challenges that we face in the district but the other pathway was really around targeting a specific subgroup and helping to look at how do we better involve and increase par parental involvement and support from from different subgroups and so for if we do get the grant we're going to focus on both both Pathways but the second pathway will be focused specifically working with hawor Brook to how do we better engage U families from different subgroups um Miss omstead has also um working she's working on reviewing and updating the school Improvement plan to

093address specifically uh student attendance and participation for mcast testing and what actions we can take when families do um Express the interest of opting out um we also are participating as a district in um an English language English learner education and World language education leadership Network and this is really um driven by desie but it's an opportunity for us to meet with and learn from and share practices with other districts who have similar populations of elel students and how do we support those students um and finally we're we're looking at the pr the practices that we have for working with families who opt out of mcast test so we do have each year um some families that do opt out their students and we provide them a letter following the their opt out but we

094just want to make sure are there any other practices that we can put in place when a family does Express an interest in opting their child out of the testing what can we do to support them and help them better understand the implications that it may have for their children as well as for the school for example um opting out the implications that it may have for for their ability to receive scholarships um later on such as the John and ab Abigail Adams scholarship um so it might impact their ability for their child to get that scholarship when they're in high school and when there is the the graduation requirement to take the mcast testing so we just want to look at those practices and make sure we've got everything in place to best identify

095and support and help families understand those decisions that they they are making um so accountability percentiles um this is a normative component it's compared to other schools their grade um and basically the way the best way to think of a percentile is if you had a hundred people standing in line where like for example if I look at ashb elementary it has an accountability percenti of 63 so that means that their performance and their data were better than 63% of the schools in the Commonwealth um at that had similar grade levels um it's important to note that with accountability percentiles um elementary and middle are clustered together into one group and high school is its own grouping so now if we take a look at the actual data for this year for mcast results this

096first slide and I won't go through Reading each of the numbers but you can take a look basically what the slide shows is the performance of our students at each grade level from 2021 the students that either met or exceeded um expectations on the testing Al the and then 2022 2023 looking at the change between the last two years um for both North Middle sex and North Middle sex data is in blue and then the state data is in that kind of orangey type color um so you can see how how we compare in terms of both both the percentage of students that are meeting or exceeding the standards as well as the change from the prior year to the current year have sorry I have a quick question on that could so I just

097to be clear so that when it says in 2021 third grade those become the fourth graders in 2022 so it it continues to move up the scales correct correct um and then where would our students who were I guess would say most impacted by covid where do they fit in this band at this point like what grade would they be so you know I think what what we're finding is this you know obviously Co had an impact on all students but I think the ones that had the greatest impact were those students at the lower grade levels um that didn't get the opportunity to come into school and learn those skills and strategies that get taught so well by our kindergarten first grade second grade teachers so those students would be we'd start to see

098them in probably that 22 23 data for grade three um is so really that that first band that first uh row of scores is is where we're most seeing the students that um I think had the greatest that were impacted the most by covid okay I appreciate that thank you welcome and so the next slide just takes a look at um our subgroups because we always want to look F first at how all of our students of Performing but then as we dig deeper into the data we want to take a closer look at how is how are our various subgroups performing and so this this slide presents the data for where they were in 2019 in terms of meeting exceeding expectations and then 2023 and then again the change between the years um so

099as you can see we're starting to make some gains um from we've kind of hit that Plateau where it's leveled out and we're starting to see a little bit of recovery from the scores and then the same thing um I just broke out so grades three through eight the subgroups in this slide shows the subgroups for grade 10 in terms of ela so student growth scores um when we talk about student growth scores again um growth scores are a reflection of the level of improvement that a student makes so what it is it's comparing the student to other students that had a similar profile um similar score from the previous year and measuring the level of growth that the students made and then again if you think of kind of putting a 100 students in

100a line if a student gets a growth score of 50 that means that they've performed their growth from last year to this year year what was better than 50 students who had a similar score the prior school year and as you look at our growth scores um that L bull at the 2023 Ela student growth score averages as you can see they range anywhere from 42 up to 56 when you look at growth scores as a statistical measure anywhere from 40 to 60 is considered to be within the average range as you get to the higher end of that 60 it's like um High average as you get lower to the 40s it's a it's lower average but they all fall within the average range all fall within expected growth so just in terms of

101key takeaways from that Ela data um what we're seeing is some of the shifts are consistent from our school with the state results uh we're seeing some plateauing as well as the signs of recovery towards the 2019 score scores um in 2023 North Middle sex students performed at at at or better than the state average in eight in eight out of the 10 um excuse I'm sorry grades three four seven 8 and 10 and within all subgroup categories um when we look at action steps um as we started to analyze this data both at the district level as well as um individual School level uh we want we're working on just the continued implementation of the el el program um we've introduced the early literacy skills block um part of eel this year so that's

102something new for our K2 teachers and we think that it has a strong connection with the English language arts program they're currently using and it will address some of those foundational skills that we're seeing some of the kids struggling with um we're using greater use of assessment data to drive instruction so we've had the I um we've hadl and now we're spending more time really digging deeper into that with teachers and looking at how to use that data to inform your intervention groups um and this year through the curriculum office we are also having a focus on high quality instructional practices and making sure that it's a district-wide conversation so that as students are learning these as teachers are applying these they get them every year rather than just being focused within one one GR

103level or One content area so our math scores as you I you know I'll give you a second to look at these but this is the same setup uh it shows the from 2021 to 2023 the students that met or exceeded their standard the expectations on the testing as well as the change from 22 to 23 um both for North Middle sex in the state um one of the grade levels I do want to highlight is grade four which looks like from 22 to 23 um there was a a significant drop but I think if you look at 20 thou I think 2022 for whatever reason for that year for that grade level we saw like a a big increase so if you look at from 2021 to 2023 um it's it's not as much

104of a drop um but it's still something we want to look at um go to the next slide um we did the same thing looking at the subgroups uh both for grades three grades three through eight um and we did the same going to the next slide uh for grade 10 so some of the key takeaways um that we did see a slight decline in overall math scores from 22 to 23 in grades 3 through 8 I think that was largely impacted by the the drop um on the grade six scores from last year um we did see a decline in the math scores from grade in grade 10 from 22 to 23 um so some of the things we're looking at um you may recall last year I talked about when we were implementing

105the E program I shared some information and some research about the kind of the phenomena of an implementation dip and really what that speaks to is when implementing a new program there's there's going to be a dip in student performance while teachers become comfortable with the program while we adjust practices and while students develop new strategies and understandings so we had we' actually anticipated going into the school year that the math that there would be a dip we we were expecting actually that it would look that that there would be a greater dip based on the research around implementation dip um implementation diffs and we didn't see as as strong of a dip so we're we were pleased with the progress that students made this year um in terms of the action steps the continued

106implementation of IM um a high quality program for grades uh K to8 we as you know are piloting the openup program in grades nine and 10 um and we feel like it's going to be a greater consistency and Alignment between teachers but also greater greater alignment from the strategies and skills students are developing through the IM program and K to8 as they move up to the high school um access to highquality instructional materials for the grades nine and 10 and then we're providing some professional development for those teachers um as with the El we um are looking at how how do we better use the data that we have to drive instruction for our students and to drive our intervention groupings and also looking at um the districtwide PD that we can provide to support

107teachers finally we have our science results and as you know that's only implemented or assessed in grades 5 eight and 10 but again you see the performance from 20 21 22 23 and the change um and just as a note there 2022 was the first administration of the Next Generation science mcast for students in grade 10 um so that's why we don't have the score for 2021 again I broke down um the subgroups for grades five and eight and for grade 10 so that way you can take a look and for grade 10 I just have the 2023 because you don't have the the history because of the the testing um some key takeaways for in terms of the science just grade five and eight scores a flat compared to 2022 so we're not seeing

108um the improvements that we we hope to see um but we we're continuing to take a look at what areas that we might need to have greater focus on um the scores continue to be at or above the state average um grade 10 did have a drop in scores from 22 to 23 um and in 2023 the North Middle sex performed dat or better the state average um one of the things we're looking at for science um as we move forward Bo we've had started implementation of project lead the way there's there's Pathways up at the high school or middle school educators are using it um and we're looking at um we had started implementation at the elementary school and we're expanding that implementation going into this year um finally we just we we asked

109our principls at each um grade level span to take a look at the data holistically uh for their for their grade level span and identify strengths and supports as well as areas in needs um for continued work and so our elementary te staff identifi just the continued support um for the staff around the implementation of both our El and IM program so our English and math program um use of intervention time which they're calling wind blocks uh to provide targeted support enrichment opportunities so that's where we're really digging into to our data and looking at which students might need specific targeted support how do we provide it and using that time to to provide those both intervention as well as enrichment opportunities for students that might not be struggling as much with particular Concepts um

110we're trying to be more um mindful about our PLC time this year and really looking at a six to eight week week cycle um to review student progress adjust intervention supports accordingly and really targeting it around looking at kind of problems of practice so what are we noticing for these students at this time period and setting a plan both for the students individually as well as for grades that are struggling with specific Concepts and identifying a plan that we then progress monitor during that time and evaluate at the end of the 68 week Perry to see what what next steps need to be taken um we're using our curriculum Monday time for continued PD on programming training and data analysis um and then the elementary principles really wanted to highlight the return of social skills

111groups and lessons so really placing a greater focus on the social emotional learning and the uh skills and competencies that students need to be successful across content areas that aren't again just academic specific um what they identified as kind of needs that we need to continue to be thinking about and working on uh figur out how to get more time for writing support across all grade levels and while it doesn't say there I would say across all content areas as well so teaching students that it's not just about narrative writing but how do you do different types of writing based on the the class and the subject that you're you're working in um continuing to develop the foundational skills for Reading Writing and math um and we're seeing the implementation as I said earlier of

112the skills Block in our El programming um identifying PD for continued training in the IM program the math program and then social skills groups and lessons providing student supports and areas that might impact academics so it's no surprise to anyone that you know in you know we can go back to maso's hierarchy of needs if those basic needs aren't being met if the need for Safety and Security and sense of belonging aren't being met it's going to impact a student's ability to make the academic progress that we'd hope at our middle schools the areas that they identified again the IM curriculum and just supporting the teachers around the implementation of that similar to the elementary the use of patriot time which is their intervention block time to provide students with targeted assistance professional development for

113eval um time to evaluate student progress and interventions so some of the similar things which is nice to see that through line between Elementary to Middle um and one of the things they identified as a strength as supporting the neediest Learners um and middle schools have implemented an advisory program so this year they're spending time um at the middle schools doing an advisory program to identify some of those skills again that we saw um the elementary principles identify as an area of strength and support that we're providing our students in terms of needs um need for more professional development or support for next year regarding Im so again we're in our second year of the math program so just continuing to get feedback from teachers about what they need in order to effectively implement the

114program and continue to refine their intervention model so that Patriot time how it can best be structured to support all students and providing time throughout the year to reflect on upon and evaluate data and we're trying to we're continuing to play with our PLC in curriculum Monday time um to make sure that we're giving staff or providing opportunities for them to do that finally at the high school um some of these we saw last year in terms of strengths but it's a continuation um because it's always a work in progress um But continuing to use the flex block as a mean to offer students support and Remediation um using the curriculum Mondays to give departments time to review scores and discuss interventions and best practices so one of the things we've really been thoughtful about

115this year is a lot of the when we talk about high quality and instructional practices those were things that were introduced initially through our El program so our English language arts program for K TOA teachers and we started to look this year at those are really high quality practices regardless of the content area regardless of the grade level and so being mindful of how do we bring that up and elevate it to our high school staff to be able to implement um and then continue to monitor the impact of the math curriculum pilot in grade 10 um some of the areas that they want to continue to be working on is just how did the curriculum coordinators work um effectively with the department heads to identify areas of intervention planning staff PD um focusing some

116more time around our special education Liaisons and providing them opportunities to work with the general education teachers in all content areas to identify where students are struggling the most and how do we kind of embed some more scaffolds to support student learning in those areas and the final area I've talked about this before is that portrait of a graduate and we're really investing a lot of time this year particularly with our high school staff to engage in conversations about what are those skills and competencies that students need to have um as they exit North Middle sex and how do we develop those competencies for students so not just looking at academic content skills and competencies but what are the overarching competencies that cross domains and also cross just the not just the academic domain but

117when students enter the workforce what are those types of skills and so that's a quick as quick as I can be overview thank you Gary Susan do you have a question I do I was just looking for how to unmute myself um I just wanted from my understanding I know what Ela is I know what El is but where does elel fit in I think I missed something so that is our Ela program it's called Expeditionary Learning e it's actually the full term is El education so that's the program um okay that we're using so it's the curriculum that we purchased for ELA that's correct and we're in our third year of implementing that okay okay I thought there was a change to the eell language at some point but they're not using the term

118elll anymore and yes so so they they now have shifted um you know once we get used to an acronym the state finds the need to change them um yes so now they are referring to um our English language Learners which we used to call Ells they are now calling them eel's L's so so there's a little confusion with uh that our Ela program El education versus L's which are English Learners second language Learners yeah correct okay okay thanks I I'm relearning or unlearning we all learn and then they'll tange it for us so yes thanks Gary you're welcome than U June I just wanted to say thank you for walking us through all of this because I've read through it prior to the meeting and it made a lot more sense listening to you

119um going to the details about it so thank you for that um and I also wanted to say congratulations again to ashb elementary school and to recognize that Mrs C has been the Principal there for over 20 years and I believe this is the third time that Ashby Elementary has been recognized as top in the state in the time that she's been there so um that's pretty significant but congratulations to the whole team there and um it's awesome so that's all anybody else questions or comments all right well I'll Echo what you in said I appreciate you walking through this um it's very uh very insightful and provides a lot of a lot of data to digest so appreciate that Lisa would you have a question or comment um this just a quick question um

120I didn't realize that parents could opt out of mgas so it's at the high school level there's a requirement for students um because it's part of our graduation requirements yeah um it is something that um there is flexibility for student families to opt out um from a school perspective we we don't encourage it because it's an opportunity for for parents to get a glimpse into kind of how their children are performing at at the grade level it helps us in terms of identifying our best practices and how we might need to modify curriculum and as as you see from this year um it impacted our accountability rating for one school because of um three students that had opted out so why would parents want to opt out of mcast I you know I think different

121reasons some I'm I'm I think that's one of the things we need to explore more with families that do requests to opt their children out to get a better understanding of of their reasons and maybe it's just an an issue of us needing to explain things better to them okay all right yeah no it's good question thank you Lisa Susan do you have another comment no I was trying to take my hand down sorry all right all right um and I think we'll close out on that one thanks again um for the good discussion I do want to jump down again uh if no objections to uh item number two under old business the town representative to attend negotiation meetings I know um I believe Eric slle is on and uh does want to carry

122on with the rest of his evening soon so if we can jump over to that um I'd appreciate that um and I don't know superintendent if you want to give a little background on this Beyond just uh looking to have uh the Town Administrator from Townsen to attend as an active participant of upcoming negotiations sure so um at this point we have had three budget meetings with the um three Tas um from our from Member communities uh and um Mr slagel who is a town manager from Townson has been um selected by the uh select boards in ashb Townson and peil to be the um Community representative or your Municipal representative excuse me in in this year's um collective bargaining uh negotiations with the Teachers Association um honestly I think with the budget challenges that

123that we are facing um it would be very helpful to have Mr slagel at the table um when we're actually doing the negotiations and be more involved than the mun than the municipal rep has been involved in the past I I know my my last time going through this we did not have a a representative uh participate and I believe the first year I came into the district we did have someone who was uh essentially um voting in the executive session meetings to either approve the contract or not approve the contract but I think um again I think it would lead to a greater understanding among our three member communities um help with transparency and allow everyone to get a fuller picture of what goes into the negotiation and what how it plays role in

124our um annual budgets this is something that that does have to be approved by the committee is um to my knowledge y yeah I just had uh I guess two things um first of all uh Mr SEO thank you for for stepping up to participate I this is uh not going to be a an easy or a fun year so you if you and the rest of the committe is going to have their work cut off for them for sure but I was wondering just for for the committee's my own benefit if you could just provide a little bit of background on kind of any experience um on negotiations and and why you think it'd be a good addition I know I did reach out to Andrew um McAn from from Peril um and he

125uh spoke highly of your background but I think it'd be good for the rest of the community to hear that as well sure thank you very much Mr chair and and thanks for uh for taking being will to take this a little bit out of order um uh so just a my name is Eric SEL I am the Town Administrator for Townson um I've been there for about 18 months now um a little bit about my background um I I I'm an attorney by practice I I uh I've been practicing Municipal law for uh about 20 years um uh I worked for copelan and paage just out of law school um and then worked for seven years in um the law department for the city of L um during which time I participated in multiple

126collective bargaining sessions for the L not school side but for the for the the Cityside uh unions um I I uh after that I spent about a decade um on the policy side for the city um uh running the code enforcement and um land use uh and planning staff um uh during that time I I also did participate in uh collective bargaining negotiations and um in my 18 months with Townson um uh We've uh had uh Collective bargain negotiations with um uh four of the town's five unions um which have gone um uh mostly successfully I Jess could probably comment on that um uh so so I I I do have some experience being on the management side of uh the table for collective bargaining over the past 20 years um uh I feel like

127you know it I've been working with uh both Andrew from peil and and and the fire chief from Ashby who's their acting Town Administrator um on uh kind of the collective uh budget piece for the towns in conversation with Brad and his staff um when we're talking about the the Regional School District budget uh so I feel like I I I have a good handle not just on on towns and finances but the finances of of all the towns to the extent that they're known right now um and I think uh it would be uh helpful and Illuminating for uh all of I think the the uh the administration of the towns to have someone um in the room to talk about the town's perspectives on these uh negotiations so I I I would uh

128I would appreciate the opportunity to do it I agree with you Mr chair it's going to be a challenging conversation with the teachers um and and um uh I I look forward to doing anything I can to try to help the the sides come to a an agreement that works fiscally for everybody over the life of the contract Craig Susan yep Susan I would like to um move that we accept Eric schel as a member of the negotiation uh Team for our uh collective bargaining agreement um negotiations with the uh Teachers Association second I do believe just to maybe update that um to uh have him as the district towns representative to attend negotiation meetings yes yes yeah Eric as the uh the municipal representative thank you all right and we have a second all

129right second R did you still have a question I see your hand is up or I I did just want to add that our legal council um also recommended that Eric partici be a full-fledged participant in this as well excent thank you uh Randy um I just wanted to add that everybody understands um with the municipal rep being um a voting member uh during negotiations before negotiations with Eric being at the table um he does count towards quarum there um so we cannot have uh say well that makes 10 so is five still qu no it would have to be six would be 10 um so at the table we can have no more than five not that we're at risk of um going over that but just wanted to make everyone aware that he

130does count towards Quorum there Thank you Lisa Martin is this just with the Teachers Association or is he doing all of our contracts with us our other bargaining units that's really up to to the committee I know previously um amarie and myself have have um at least the last contract um did the other four um but that's you know certainly that's completely up to the school committee as to how you want to handle that moving forward because the ter the Paras are also MTA yes and secretaries are they MTA also I don't believe the secretaries are no secretaries uh are not but nurses are yes oh well nurse I thought nurses was the their own yeah they they are uh they have like basically two they are in the MTA contract but they do have

131their own Union um representative that's not MTA okay so I think that would be subject to further discussion we generally start the um start the teacher ones first and right but um I I do think it it it may be different this time around okay so what we're voting on with Eric is strictly the um North Middle sex Teachers Association negotiations that's my understanding yes but if the entire group is going to do the other four cbas as well um it may make sense uh you know to bring that to the table when that time comes as well right because the other thing to keep in mind is scheduling the more people you have you're trying to accommodate their schedule the more challenging it get so right which is one of the wees we used

132to split teachers separate the subc commmittee from the school committee we'd have you know teachers and then we'd have a second committee that did everybody else they met with everybody else I should say so just for clarity so the motion I mean the suggested motion was to attend negotiation meetings Susan are you saying this motion is just for teachers um that's what I was saying yes that was um what I understood to be the request and the ability would be to again would be to come back once we start with the other four groups and take them as they come to determine if it's going to be um you know I think we have to look at what the landscape is looking like right um and I don't think we've Sorry Brad I was just

133going to say um again it's very possible that we may have to approach the other four groups differently this time around and have the full negotiation subcommittee engaged and I I would like to see the full school committee approve or not delegating I know sometimes um like am Marie was saying um we have um superintendent and HR I would like the full school committee to be making that decision not the subcommittee I don't know how anyone else feels about that for the other four groups yeah I would yes are we leaving that in the hands of the subcommittee or is the full school committee going to determine who is negotiating with those other sub groups I think I think that's up to the school committee yeah I think it has to be the full committee

134that right committee appointed a negotiation subcommittee to handle the negotiations not to then further delegate that responsibility so this the full school committee would have to decide on that in my I wanted that's why I wanted to try and clarify that right now how much the school committee is delegating to negotiation subcommittee how much Authority I mean as far as Eric's participation goes maybe we say that Eric is a full participant um when the full negotiation subcommittee is engaged in negotiations with any of the five cbas so if the full negotiation subcommittee is going to engage with the power professionals and Eric would be involved um maintenance and custodians nurses secretaries Eric would be involved and before this statement you just made we were going to um take it as it comes I'm just say

135I'm just saying that if the subcommittee is going to participate in all five groups maybe we just say that Eric we just add Eric to the negotiation subcommittee for negotiations I wasn't suggesting that um that the negotiation subcommittee participate in all five okay I was suggesting the school committee have the final determination for each group who's going to negotiate it okay um if if if I'm not considering something please speak up Brad or um and that's just a suggestion we haven't voted on that but I was was opening up for conversation I don't know if the people on the negotiation subcommittee what their thoughts would be on that Rand do you have a comment I I was just going to say I think um for right now it's most likely going to be um just

136the teachers for a little bit before we even start to engage the other um the groups so we can kind of revisit this and decide at that point uh when negotiations open up with the next group on whether it's the current subcommittee if it's a different subcommittee that will uh approve um or if it's going to be uh like it was last time with just anarie and Brad um so I think for right now I think we can just see how the teachers are going and then revisit so then the motion would be that the um before beginning negotiations with a new Association Union [Music] um bring it to the school committee to aign negotiation um team are you changing your motion that's on the floor uh what did I have no I think the

137only motion I had on the floor sorry was Eric participating in teachers I forgot we hadn't voted on that yet no I was I was putting a new motion out there regarding all the other groups all right so let's on this one first I'll hold on that yeah so Jess do you have a question comment um so the only thing that we're doing right now is the teachers nothing else is started yet so it's just purely the teachers right now and I think that Eric can bring a lot to the table I've worked with him for the past more than a year now and he does have a lot of knowledge and insight into all of these things and I think that he would be a huge help to us as the subcommittee thank you

138Jess any other comments on the appointment all right so this is to um approve the district town representative to attend teacher negotiations for on behalf of the three towns um Dave yes chess yes June yes Lisa Bloom yes Miss Martin yes Randy yes Susan yes can you hear me we can and I will vote Yes so that is unanimous thank you very much for the opportunity I appreciate it oh thank you all right talk to you guys later all right have a good night um all right back to uh Dr ree again for the homeschool report so you get to see me one more time this evening um I do promise this will be a a very brief presentation I just want to share as we do annually The Homeschool data as of the beginning

139of October um as you can see from the chart that's projected uh we have 150 seven homeschool students uh coming from 78 families um this is a decrease of 4.27% from last year so um if you go back you know what you can see there is kind of a 10-year perspective um obviously during the time of the pandemic we saw a spike um from the previous year of 1920 school year of 95 students to 215 students and we're slowly decreasing those the number of students that are participating in hes school down to 157 students for this school year um all those families have submitted the required paperwork have um for those families that are returning they've also um submitted progress reports or some other measure to to demonstrate the academic progress that the students their

140children made the prior school year that's it Dave did you have a comment are you good sorry hand no I just misread something all no worries all right um good to see a steady decline since uh since the co year so that's uh that's good to see yeah all right any other questions from anybody all right okay thank you everyone very appreciate it uh next we have the superintendent goals superintendent Morgan yeah so I'm not sure if you want me to read through these I did share them um I want to say about a week and a half ago um and they they have been a part of the packet but I do have um three goals I I obviously do have to go back and assign them uh standards and elements uh which I

141can do which I can do and obviously send back a final copy to you but prior to doing that I just wanted to make make sure um that my goals were acceptable with the committee um and you know certainly have discussed these with with Dr Reese to make sure that they are in line um in line with his goals and in line with our strategic plan both this year and a new one that that we will be presenting at the end of this coming school year because we start a new one but again just not sure what level you want me to um present these or would you like me to answer questions I'm I'm not sure what the what the best way is to do this I know in the past I've just taken

142questions on them and happy to do it either way I'll I'll pull them up if folks have specific questions but um if everybody's seen it I don't think we need to go line by line okay questions from anybody uh Lisa yeah um this a question I was gonna actually email Brad but I got so busy withing these stuff um so on your where you just created a superintendent advisory that's comprised of six community members two of each member Community how did you go about CH choosing um those six members I asked the elementary principles at each level for recommendations of parents who they felt would be engaged um and I did that primarily because the the coffees that I had been running um both in person and virtually I had had become ineffective they were

143just I was essentially getting one person to come so I needed to make sure I was getting people that were engaged um so I reached out to the principles and each and each one basically asked them if they if for recommendations um and also looked at um the looked at people that were communicating with me on a regular basis okay yeah because I do remember through the summer we talked about the co coffees you haven't had any attendance at them um when I spoke to you possibly about finding about out about the on table so does this um how do you go about communicating with the the six members so we meet monthly okay um I send out um usually an email to them I actually sent out an email this evening to them looking

144for agenda items we have a a meeting next week the agenda is driven by the six community members and I bring in they out in the community um you know keeping their ears to the ground about potential issues and bringing issues to me and then I'm bringing those issues to the leadership team um for a discussion and then reporting back to the advisory at our subsequent meeting uh but we we've been meeting once a month since July I believe was our first meeting June or July um we had a meeting in August we had a meeting in September and we we will meet throughout the the remainder of the school year and then evaluate the value of those meetings okay so um why did you um only choose parents of the elementary schools um so

145I I actually reached if I said Elementary I I I I I made an error I reached out to the principles and asked for recommendations so um in in one case um we have a Community member that doesn't have any children in the school um it's actually um a retired teacher um from another school system um in another case it is a a resident that doesn't have any children again in the district but is very much involved um in the district very much involved um in the community um and again just just built it off of what the principles were recommending to me and wanted it to be as as long lasting is a I mean they for the most part they ended up being Elementary and Middle School parents but ultimately that's also going

146to hopefully provide some longevity to the group as well right a to keep a group in place for period of time and and hopefully you know keep them on for a number of years does this advisory um do the advisory members do they communicate with the whole Community or just with the students in the school and parents so I I've asked them to be out in the community not not necessarily with students but bringing issues that they hear about out in their Community um that they hear about from other community members that they hear about from parents and in some cases from students uh to the table for discussion on how to problem solve to get their recommendations their thoughts I kind of update them on what's going on in the district and again I

147bring it back to the leadership team for discussion okay um then I had one other question um well I was happy to see that you have um provide students with the financial literacy because we spoke about that when I met with you um but um is it possible to possibly add in there like um students need life skills as well and like cooking and different like shop classes or different things to be able to when they get out of school do those things as well so it it's something that we can certainly consider in the future future but keeping in mind that this is going to be a likely budgetary expenditure because it it it is going to potentially require um another teacher possibly some professional development training I want to start small um and

148you know it really does come down to um you know I I I'm a proponent of House Bill 327 that's called I I I wrote um a support letter that I'm happy to share with the committee uh that was brought to the floor last week um I've notified the superintendent Association of the importance of it and you know I continually hear as an educator how important it is that we are uh preparing our students to compete in a global economy when in fact we're sending students to our schools and they don't have any exposure to finances or how to um operate their own budgets um when they leave school but they're expected to compete in a global economy so um you know I certainly think that that there are things that have been removed from

149the curriculum such as home economics and things of that nature that are very important um but we've become you know the the curriculum as we all know has become very standardized and life isn't standardized so it would be great to see if we could start adding some of these things back but there are restrictions on what we're able to add in order to get through the the core content right well I was happy to see that you added the finances because I think that's very important because a lot of us a lot of the students don't even know how to budget a checkbook right so okay thank you you welc thanks Place J um just a quick comment um I was impressed to see that um two of these both um maybe not stemmed from

150but um had something to do with with the students Civic action projects because there it it was pretty impressive seeing what the students put together and what they wanted see for change um so I really like um that you paid attention to that and that you're incorporating that into your next steps so um I appreciate that anyhow just wanted to say that no thank you and um I am actually working with a group of three students on the financial literacy piece and they'll be presenting next month at this meeting um because they're very passionate about it and they're passionate about it knowing that it's not something that they're going to get to experience because they're all seniors now um but in my conversations with them last year they they wanted to see this um come

151to fruition and they committed themselves to working with me during the school year to um you know to make sure everyone knows how important it is to them as students um and I think that you know it's certainly something worth listening to if the students are bringing it Forward saying that this is something that's very important to us to you know to really provide us with a life skill um and again that ability to compete in that global economy that everyone's always talking about so it's been a great experience working with these three individuals so far you'll get to meet them next week and I plan on working with them um throughout this process I I told them that they would have their fingerprints on this as well if we're able to get this through

152excellent thank you Brad um the only thing all I Echo what what others have said I think these are these are good goals um on the third one for the collaborative budget process um it it understatement of it being a challenge a challenging year but um appreciate the work you've already started Brad to engage the towns and and have those conversations early and uh again I think getting uh Mr slel involved uh in negotiations is another good step there um I think the only thing I would ask there is uh um and I know you will but just to make sure you Leverage The the committee as much as possible and i' ask the committee members as well to make sure that we're keeping an ear to the towns um to make sure that we're

153we're best balancing the needs of the the students in the district with the capabilities and Capac of of the towns to to support the financial aspect of it um there's a lot of pressures I know at least in peil um on their budget outside of just the school so it's going to be it's going to be a challenge on all fronts unfortunately right and and something that we um we actually had um Jordan from guilfoil um come our PR firm last uh to our meeting on Monday and excuse me on Tuesday and we really want to make sure that um that we're messaging this the right way that we're using the pr firm but also working in a in a manner in which uh we're presenting a budget that this is what the towns need

154um this is what the town sides this is what the towns need as part of um you know their Town services and this is what the school district needs and how do we present that together so it's not um you know one gets something and the other doesn't how do we work forward work together to make this this is the budget that North Middle sex needs that Peril towns and and ashp need to provide the services to the three towns that the citizens deserve great I appreciate that thank you any other comments from the committee all right then I'll take a motion to uh have the school committee approve the superintendent's goals as presented so moved second I think we need to let Susan back in too she's hanging out in the is she yeah

155we should be outside all right thank you my zoom is really slow all of a sudden all right so Susan's back any other questions comments on the superintendent's goals right then we will go on the list so Dave yes yes yes June yes Lisa Bloom yes Miss Martin yes Randy yes Susan yes can hear me yep and so those are approved superintendent Morgan appreciate you putting those together thank you look forward to positive results um next up we have the FY 2023 final general fund expense report and excess and deficiency for Miss Hayes I I'll be quick I know you it's been a long meeting for you but I did want to update the committee on the F the results of the final FY 23 budget we did um get our excess and deficiency funds

156approved recently which I'm I'm guessing some people are notified I believe school committee is notified but that's in the packet it's $2,674 and the um the detailed expense and revenue reports are also in the packet for your review and essentially the excess and deficiency was added to by about a milon 500,000 from unspent expenditures and another 600,000 from revenue and the difference being what was carried over from a prior year so that's uh where where we ended the year I think it went pretty well we finished our audit we're just waiting for the final reports should have those um coming up soon um maybe for one of the future meeting next future meetings and I didn't know if there was any specific questions I'm happy to address it I'm also happy um I haven't offered

157this but uh prior to the start of the budget season if anybody would like to have me walk through the the different sections of the budget and how it's put together I'm happy to do that um if if there's any interest thank you n sure anybody have any questions for misses all right that was quick I appreciate that um moving on to the masc delegate selection so we tabled this or continued this from our last meeting um I think we were unanimous and agreeing with Randy that she should be the should be the delegate but she was going to come back to us yeah I just uh having a hard time getting the motivation to go out there for that many days y um they have a Friday only but it doesn't help with the

158with the delegation meeting on being on Wednesday um I wish they'd do a hybrid option that meeting at least and allow people to uh to join remotely it's unfortunate they won't do that yeah no definitely um you shouldn't have to pay all that money to participate uh in a group that we're already paying to be part of and have a say in agree um is if you're not able to go Randy or we can continue this again but I don't know if anyone else was interested or able to attend I am unfortunately not but um or we'll take a motion to not appoint anybody if we want to go that route as well whatever folks are agreeable to I move to not send any Representatives second I mean depending on whether Randy wants to go

159or not but if it might not work out and I mean we could yeah we can not send anybody or Randy if you're on the fence we can appoint you and then if you can't go you don't go and no harm no file at that point but if you're pretty sure you're not going to go then I think we should make a decision and move on sorry I'm just checking my work calendar it's the is it the 8th 9th and 10th or is it the first second and third I forget um I I think it's the eth I thought so yeah it sounds familiar but y it's yeah it's usually that first week I think it's the eth you know what um yeah something got add to my calendar on that Thursday that I definitely

160cannot go okay all right so then we have a motion to not send anybody any discussion on that all right so we're voting on not having a delegate so Dave Jess yes yes Lisa Bloom yes Martin yes Andy yes Susan you're muted if you're talking all right I will vote Yes and we'll take Susan as an exstension okay well thank you um next we have a subcommittee updates um Lisa any updates on accelerated repair or Finance this is trying to unmute sorry my screen kept disappearing um no updates we'll probably schedule a finance meeting for next week sometime after we have our first negotiations like true meeting and not the ground rules okay um thank you June any update from Ashby building committee uh no update our next meeting is Tuesday the 24th okay um

161Communications somehow my name is there with Robin I you sent a couple emails on this topic yeah I just wanted to um to give the committee members a reminder that uh we really want our um our website to um to reflect the professional group that we are and in order to do that we do need a bio and a picture so I'm I'm really pushing for this I'm I think I sent out dates uh for a picture days and and you can come in for those or you can um come in for the retake days I'm happy to to actually take your picture myself you know iPhones are pretty good quality these days so um and I don't need you to write your bio if you can just send a little blur belong to me

162um if you need some um question questions to prompts I'm happy to provide those for you as well um but just a little something and um and you know I'll help write write up the bio um June mcnail has a a beautiful bio uh Jess has a really nice bio um Craigs is nice as well so if you need um you need some ideas you know you can look on the website and as you can and you can see that several of us have the new um NM Patriots um Zoom background so um if you didn't receive that just let me know and I'm I'm happy to send that and the directions along um again again it's just you know we're trying to take it to the next level and always uh present a professional

163um uh um sorry I have a little dog who's um scratching away at my feet over here um you know we always just want to present um being professional and you know having the bio and pictures um you know I think that's going to go a long way on the website Robin um R Randy and I do have a plan to go to one of those um school photo days together I don't remember what day it is so awesome yeah that's that's great I see that Lisa and um Gary their photos came through this week and I they came out really nice so um you know any help you need just reach out and I'm happy to help can we keep retaking the photo from the different schools I'm I'm sorry can we keep retaking

164the photo hit each photo session you can I'm sure that I'm sure they'll work with you I just uh I'm just gonna screen grab from Zoom if uh don't geten so there's motivation I'm trying to get away from that I'm trying to get away from the the selfie that we really need professional head shot so yep I agree all right thank you Robin thanks everybody um I'm going to skip down to policy Randy you want to give a rundown on the policies we have uh yes we have was it one two three four five for first reading does anybody have any problems if I make a motion for all of them at once since they are all first readings and they're just going to go out to the public uh these are all part of

165our five-year review um so these were most of these were very small changes um in some wording um that mesc had from what we had back in on a couple of is I think 2012 2013 um so not big changes uh but we did change them enough that we're bringing them forward so I move uh that we uh that the school committee approve the following policies for first reading so it would be ecaf security cameras and schools Ed recyclable materials EA student transportation services EAA Walkers and Riders e a student transportation and private Vehicles June can have it yeah I also want to let you know I haven't had a chance to go over all of them um but late and I didn't have a chance to go through it uh we did get some

166um some couple small U suggestions for changes from the attorney on these I don't think there are big changes um I will put them up and I will highlight them um and this will be up on the website for everybody to see with the changes all right seeing no questions or comments and just Clarity Randy I just want to make sure you just did the five E policies for first reading not the did you do ADF no I'm taking separate because that's that's a second uh or second reading or ad option okay all right so seeing no questions um so this is to adopt the five policies for first reading David yes yes yes yes Miss Blom yes Miss Martin yesy yes Susan yes and I vote Yes so that is unanimous will go out

167on the website for Community feedback and we'll review those at the next meeting for uh any changes and adoption okay and next uh we have policy ADF Wellness it has been up for a number of weeks uh for public review uh been through a first uh reading I have not had any feedback on this policy um this was a policy that uh there was a full um uh committee uh led by Miss hamson um the director of health services in the district um that help put this together um so I move that the school committee approve policy ADF Wellness for adoption as presented second all right any questions or comments from anybody all right this is policy for adoption it's been out for inputs so we're adopting as presented Dave yes yes Jun yes Lisa

168Bloom yes Miss Martin yesy yes yes now vote Yes so that is unanimous as well anything else from policy Randy uh that is all um we we are currently at this point in time meeting twice a month is what we've set up uh one meeting for the fiveyear review uh cycle to make sure that we go through all of these policies at least once every five years to keep them updated and don't get into that same situation of having you know 2025 years of not looking at them um and the second one is for all current um things that come up whether it be the masc has updated because of new laws or regulations or changes that we're looking to make uh that that seem to have worked out this month and look forward to

169uh next month thank you all right thank you um anything from negotiations and person Dave or Lisa I know we have some executive session stuff but I don't know if you have another update yep uh ground roles were set on Thursday and the next meeting is Monday all right thank you uh any update from the liaison to the towns June Dave or Jess um just a quick announcement for Ashby we do have a new select board member Jessica Kalen so we have a full select board again which is great yay anything from Townson or Peppo or NOP all right all right any other open business that I may have overlooked if not I will uh take the motion to enter executive session some moved you gota [Laughter] read all right that would take me a

170minute to look it up does anybody else have it in front of them move to meet an executive session pursuant to mgl chapter 30A section 21A for the following purpose to conduct strategy sessions in prepar in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with nonunion Personnel director of pupil Personnel Services purpose three to discuss strategy with respect to and in preparation for collective bargaining with the North Middle sex Regional School District's Teachers Association because of open discussion may be detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the committee purpose seven to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or Federal Grant in Aid requirements approval of executive session minutes dated June 29th 2023 September 7th 2023 September 24th 2023 September 28th 2023 negotiations

171October 16 2023 negotiations the committee will not reconvene an open session all right motion has been made is there a second second all right thank you Lisa for reading that just for a second uh so this is to enter executive session um and as a reminder to the committee there is a separate link for that uh Dave yes Jess yes June yes Lisa Bloom yes Martin yes yes yes can you hear me yes and I will vote Yes so the committee will now meet an executive session pursuing to mgl chapter 30A section 21A for the following purposes purpose two to conduct strategy sessions and preparation negotiations with non-un Personnel or to conduct Collective baring sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel the director of pupil Personnel Services purpose three to discuss strategy with respect to

172and in preparation for collective bargaining with the North Middle sex Regional School District Teachers Association because an open discussion may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the committee purpose seven to comply with or act under the authority of any any any general or special law or Federal grant and aid requirements since for the approval of executive session minutes dated June 29 2023 September 7 20223 September 21 2023 September 28 2023 and that's from negotiations and October 16 2023 also negotiations the committee will not reconvene in an open session um so thank you to those from the public that were here and uh the rest of the committee I'll talk to you