Plainville School Committee Virtual Meeting - October 12, 2023

001okay recording all right welcome everybody to our uh October 12th school committee meeting this is a remote it is recorded um so for those who are um guests on our meeting tonight joining us we thank you um you will uh have the opportunity if there's questions to raise your hand we'll allow you to unmute turn your camera on um be part of that um for now you can enjoy listening to us and watching us um but we will make sure that you um have the opportunity to um raise your hand so raise your hand feature and we'll make sure we acknowledge you and uh we'll also have a comment period at the end as well um so with that we get started with our agenda um so um in new of the pedge allegiance because

002uh it's a challenge tonight and all us standing up um uh we do that every meeting and that's important um but I am going to take a moment just to say that um I know we have some of our community members that are affected um by what's going on in the Middle East and in Israel right now um and it's it affects our families here and and their families there so I just want to let everyone know that um if there's anything involving their families that we can be of help with we want to be supportive of those things and uh you know we thoughts and prayers to that all those involved out and Israel Middle East as a whole it's a challenge right now we want to be supportive of our families that are

003impacted by that so um if anything is just reach out to the schools and we'll do our best to help um so with that we're going to get into our agenda um so we have some minutes to approve um so we have miss our regular session minutes September 19th uh as submitted I a motion to approve our September 19th regular session minutes to be approved as and released as submitted moved motion I have a second any discussion all those in favor signify by I raise your hand that thank you and I will be abstaining due to absence from that meeting right I think for the purpose of um any few further votes just because we're on remote it would be easier if we just we'll just roll call the rest of our meeting so I'll

004just go through and each of you can just say I and your last name that would be thankful appreciated um make things a little clear uh okay so we have um let's see October 12 do we we don't have any executive session minutes correct correct okay all right so that's going to take us right into our committee meeting committee reports we have King M sharp okay um we had our last meeting on September 25th we had gone over the superintendent and uh had finalized the goals and we had uh approved the superintendent's goals and in the superintendent's report um he had talked about coming to planville um with yourself Justin and also with um Miss Parson and I believe also with Steve with the uh Comm Commissioner of education and talked a little bit about

005that visit and also um that was on September 22nd and we also got the news that the Thanksgiving game for King Phillip versus Franklin will take place this year on Tuesday November 21st and it is at 7:30 and it will be at Fenway Park so it is $20 per person for and it's good for both games there's another game that's scheduled I think it's boss in TCH that's right before that and so that's quite uh different than years past so uh we're really excited about having that opportunity and uh we also did have a presentation from the assistant superintendent um on the curriculum and the professional development and their plan for the year um and what they've been doing on their PD days excellent thank you you're welcome so budget SubCom I'm sorry did I

006get my B I got my that page is messed up there I apologize get back to the right page negotiations is M plant uh nothing to report all right communication subcommittee superce M money plant yep so um just one thing so I did get um the computer here and I did set up an Instagram but I think to maintain the Instagram account for the school committee that we want to start up we'll need I think it'd be best if we can create a I don't know if as possible so Stephanie like a joint school committee email to then be sort of the uh the administrator of that Instagram page and so anyone then it can just transition um from school committee to school committee no matter who's on it so maybe we can talk about

007that next time we're in person yeah sure that sounds good okay anything else there uh that's all I have thank you sickly Bank uh nothing to report Wellness Miss sharp are you muted oh there we go all right sorry about that uh we had a wellness committee meeting last week and um the committee had uh do Pearl uh David Murphy Christine jassid Christine scon Megan Nickerson uh Tracy delgo and Lisa loose and we had talked about the grants um that they were applying for and we also talked about the uh policy that you all passed and I was able to bring that information that the wellness policy had passed and they were very grateful for that and now that they have the policy in place we can start the planning of the different events this

008year um one of them being another event in place of our typical uh walk to school event and so once we have our next meeting I'll have a little bit more to report on that thank you sub committee Mr Albert sorry about that can you all hear me we can nothing to report on the budget front uh keeping in touch with uh Mrs Parson on uh some of the things we'll be discussing later that do have an impact uh on our budget and I appreciate the communication and uh we're on top of it but I have nothing to report from the budget subcommittee thank you uh policy subcommittee we're g to do you want to table that one until November yes let's table that because we've been waiting till we get the other policies before

009we move on to more policies sounds good right um we did have a memo under resignation transfer's appointments and retirements anything on that Mrs Parson no I think it's pretty self-explanatory unless the committee has any questions any questions excent nothing heard superintendent report back to you all right uh oh all right well thank you for handing over the mic I assume everyone can hear me now yes okay great just get this little thing out of here okay to the bottom actually okay um so as Michelle said the commissioner and U one of his colleagues anarie Stronach visited planville on September 22nd and you'll see here um a welcome sign that our students and Mrs Duran put together for us and um we were able to display that right on the wall right kind of right

010in front of his face as he sat in the conference room and listened to to um some of our experiences with welcoming our new students and um we had also an attendance Brian Noble Our Town Administrator Jeff Johnson chair of our select board and um our entire administrative team and as Michelle also referenced some of members of the king philli administrative team and the purpose of that meeting and I think I shared this with the committee um prior to the visit was really to share some of our experiences with the commissioner um most specifically and we'll talk about this a little bit later when we talk about staffing needs in terms of our ability to effectively welcome new students given the size of our town and some of the capacity challenges that we have as

011a district and um you know Steve or Justin if there's anything else you wanted to add about that meeting please feel free but I I think we found the commissioner to be very empathetic and very understanding and um quite supportive of where we are in fville right now Steve did you have any comments on that Oh I thought that the meeting was very uh very informative I I think he came at uh the whole issue from a a place of understanding and I think he left uh the meeting with a more clear picture of what we're going through in planville uh and of course it's it's kind of a microcosm for the other communities that are impacted by this um I thought it was very worthwhile I was glad I was able to be there

012uh and hopefully we'll be able to keep an open line of communication with him now that we've establish that relationship I think that will pay dividends in the in the long run as we all navigate this unknown territory here yeah I agree I think he understands the situation we're in and that we're doing the best we can and and and the staff is doing an amazing job and he saw that in action um and we're thankful for that and but I also understand that that some of this is out of his control as well so it's he he presented well he seems like he want to be a good communicator and good partner and we'll uh keep endeavoring to keep that like you said Steve keep the lines of communication open and work through it

013the best we can right great thank you I will add in addition to that that um superintendant meet monthly by what they call roundtables and those are groups of superintendant who meet with other colleagues in our similar geographic area so our Round Table was held earlier this week and um new students and um families living in shelters was a significant topic of conversation at this past week superintendent round table and we were visited by secretary Tut Wier um the Massachusetts education secretary and um again he was very eager to um kind of capture our some of you know our our our growth and some of the celebrations with our new families and certainly our challenges as well um likewise today the commissioner hosted a zoom meeting for all of I believe it's 61 districts right

014now who um have U new families residing in their school districts and desie put forth a number of um offerings for us that we hadn't um previously had access to so for example we're now going to have access to uh free of charge translation and interpretation services and we're going to have access to um some other sorts of support that desie is putting into place for us so they they truly are trying to listen um to the needs so for example one of the other supports that they're going to put out for us is kind of some emergency trainings for teachers who haven't taken the um the elll class that we're all asked to take not everyone has had that opportunity yet and if you kind of missed the first wave which was quite a

015while ago there can tend to be a substantial fee associated with those courses and so they're looking to put resources like that into place for districts so I think more will be coming as they're really listening to us and trying to very quickly um allocate resources to us all right oh goodness okay all right so I wanted to just highlight a little bit um thank you to Justin Justin was the first person who actually shared with me the article that was in the Boston Globe last week and um the Boston Globe is highlighting literacy and the challenges in terms of our students acquiring appropriate reading and writing skills and um as we know and I've talked about before with this group um this is not just a planville challenge it's a nationwide Challenge and um

016our selection of wit and wisdom really is where we think we're going to get a lot of traction in terms of Shifting our curriculum and making some really great strides with our young readers and writers so this you have before you is an example of something that came out of a fourth grade classroom that I was able to visit um I don't know last week or maybe the week before and in the fourth grade the current curricular unit is called a great heart and the students were writing an essay um that had to do with some things that they had learned and read about regarding the heart and this is the kind of template that our students are working on that it's called writing a painted essay and this is a fairly common uh structure

017that a lot of schools and curricula use in terms of actually color coding pieces of writing to help students really make sense of how do I make a piece of writing um make sense refer back to the top and really capture that reader um with with good language and good evidence especially when they're referring back to text so this was something that was front and center on the the board in the classroom and likewise what's also going on in grade four is some of our students are delving into text features and what what these classes did was they created a simulation for students where they actually were looking for text features through kind of a medical Viewpoint so the class was transformed into um kind of a medical lab and the students had certain uh

018materials and tools that were laid out for them as they went through various um examples of text and started to really pull out in detail the text features that um comprise different Fe different um pieces of text that they're studying so here you can see I mean it gets quite involved in this classroom with students actually dressed as medical professionals and digging in and um kind of adding all of those text features to what what's on those papers on the table is actually a sketch of a human body and they're kind of filling in the body with these various text features and what I think is kind of important to State here is that what the research is now telling us is that knowledge is very very critical in terms of students building their ability

019as readers and so all of this background knowledge and the vocabulary that our students are interacting with um I see it on the boards in our class classrooms I see the students using it um our principales obviously do as well and this is just a great example of you know really helping students bring this knowledge to life so I wanted to share just a couple of updates in mathematics um as you know we've talked about um our acquisition of stmath which all of our students are working on and stmath while it engages in um multiple multiple layers of math um standards and and and um kind of areas for students to learn um it's all based on a puzzle kind of a format and so students are challenged to create a to accomplish and solve

020a certain number of puzzles Each of which is related to a specific math um standard and one of the really great things especially with a number of new students joining us who are just beginning to learn the English language is that stmath relies on visuals and not text so a lot of times we see that students will suffer in mathematics as a result of a reading problem not as a result of a math problem and we're finding that a number of our new students especially um are really really taking to stmath very nicely and this is going to give our teachers a really nice way of measuring our students ability in mathematics that's not reliant on um their English skills we've also just heard that we've been awarded a grant from desie it's called the

021highquality instructional materials Grant and this year that Grant is valued at $87,400 and we have allocated that money to work with a consultant uh firm called teaching lab um teaching lab came to our attention because we were partnered with them through desie last year when we um received this grant for the first time so we were just kind of getting to no teaching lab last spring when the grant was awarded and we really felt that um their attention to detail and their true understanding of how to move students forward in the area of mathematics was um incredibly high quality and Incredibly valuable for our students and our teachers so we are going to be using the majority of that funding to bring them on site several times this year um they're going to be be

022providing on-site coaching and feedback for our teachers and our administrative team their first visit with us was on October 6th and they'll be returning um three times over the course of the year what I just wanted to highlight a little bit about teaching lab and their philosophy they talk about head heart and habits and these are all areas that um you know we haven't necessarily done as much work in as as we can in terms of our work of involving all of our students and making our schools areas where all students belong and can succeed so some of their philosophy we're not going to be teaching separate lessons and saying oh this is your Equity level lesson today and here's um a math lesson they're trying to help us understand how all students need to

023have access um that whole idea of Social Capital which is highlighted in the heart section you know how do we get to know our students how do we know what's important to them and how do we leverage that to help our students um achieve success in the classroom um so that's just a little bit about who they are as an organization we we um intended to have thermofisher come and kind of do a number of things at once in one meeting but um due to some of the shifts in our meeting it didn't quite work out that way but so now um the the good news is that we get to celebrate thermofisher in their um generosity twice both tonight and um when we return in person at the beginning of November we will have

024some representatives from thermofisher and some of our students as well um together to talk a little bit more about this so um as I think many of you know because we've talked about this multiple times Andy Dalton who is actually pictured on the far right of this Photograph um really spearheaded originally through work with Ann dargan and Robin Roberts Pratt he really spearheaded this amazing mentoring program that spanned the school year at the Woods school and at the very end of the year at kind of their celebratory pizza party or whatever it was at the end of the year he came up to me and said okay what's next what can we do next and we we love that we've been able to work with your students um we want to continue doing that but

025we think there might be some you know finances that we might be able to provide to the school in order to help you do even more so that really coincided very very nicely with the Inception of the stem position and you'll see K Caitlyn nun is our stem teacher on the far left in this Photograph and um she partnered with Andy to come up with okay what what do we really need what would be helpful and she has identified some kits called um engineering is Elementary which um they're instructional um curricular kits that are put out by the Boston Museum of Science and so these are pretty um highly regarded materials in the educational world and um we're very very fortunate to have them and um Andy really didn't want us to wait much longer

026to receive the material so we agreed that we would propose the um the acceptance of the donation this evening and um he would bring the cartons to are building so Caitlyn could start to really dig in and and bring some of this to life um but we look forward to having them coming um early in November to talk both about the engineering curriculum and to have some students report out to you on their experiences with the mentoring last year on um I believe it was September 25th or somewhere thereabouts we um invited Synergy to come and join us Synergy um and we were able to um received some support actually from our chairperson Justin Alexander who's worked with Synergy in the past um as well as other District kind of people with more history than

027I have in the district because the district has also partnered with Synergy in the past and they agreed to come to planville and they conducted an audit um of our two facilities which we'll be reviewing with our Safety Committee and the Safety Committee um is not just made up of planville personnel planville School Personnel it's also um inclusive of our police chief our fire chief and and others um who lead the charge in town Safety so we'll be going through the audit that they prepared for us they were on site for a couple of days in the summer and the safety training that they offered us at the end of September and you can see um our trainer there and a number of our staff members that really focused on um you know what what

028do we do in the event of an emergency uh we went through a number of kind of tabletop scenarios it it was not the kind of training where you know we we had loud noise and people really feeling that F first kind of Frontline level of anxiety and the response that we received from our faculty has been very favorable people thought it was very informative very helpful and um you know after a number of years now where we weren't really able to get into some of these kind of closeup train I mean a couple years ago we certainly all wouldn't have been sitting in an auditorium the way people are pictured in in this um photograph so um you know we we feel better prepared this point to kind of address anything that um comes

029our way hopefully something that will never come our way we talked about this really being the insurance policy that we hope to never have to access I wanted to touch on just a couple of facility updates for people it may be a little bit challenging to see this in the photographs here but this is the the field at the wood school and um the facilities department has done a really nice job of getting that lot seated um they've cordoned off a portion of the lot that was primarily really um very much just dirt and soil infused rather than grass infused and we've got sprinklers out there now that the Water band has been relaxed a little bit and the next plan is that um we are working with Jenna Meritt our facilities director to install

030a well in that area so we will not have to worry in the future about maintaining the grass for our students in times of drought or water bands or things like that but that is definitely coming right along and right now half of the field is fenced off but the other half is still accessible to our students the other really kind of exciting thing that we have going on in the wood School playground is the introduction of a Gaga pit and um this kind of came to be through um Sarah our assistant business administrator who's been working fairly closely with Jim Merritt um we were talking about a Gaga pit and Jim had never heard of a Gaga pit but immediately um his interest was sparked and um the next thing we knew it was

031I can build a Gaga pit for you so Jim and his team have been working um for the past several weeks to put this um little pit together for us um it's got some safety cating on the top in green and a set of rules um the bottom of the the pit is kind of that rubberized mat um to hopefully prevent any injuries when when and if students fall down but um this is I don't know Michelle you look like you're smiling so I assume you have some experience with Gaga so um hopefully our our students will really enjoy that I think it's just about ready for its entree nice um Jen I just one complete digression for a moment um yes I don't know if there's somebody you or Stephanie maybe can just reach

032out to somebody to let open the door for the PTO I don't working tonight custodian wise oh open the physically the door yeah for the wood school yeah they are locked out sorry for the interruption there but I'm going to actually ask Christine if she can text um Tim for us over it would we are we are good at multitasking in this group all right uh the other exciting news is this is the back of Jackson which has not been accessible to anybody since um at some point at the end of the summer when the old playground was disassembled and this was work that was going on just today we um getting that whole area and by the way the those doing the work right now um pictured here are actually planville Town employees U

033people from the the DPW um between Jim and Sarah they were able to manage to have some of the the leveling of the area done by our own um Town employees which obviously saved us a little bit of money and um absolutely demonstrated this kind of continued partnership between the schools and the town so they were filling this area in with um Pebbles today and I believe as early as Monday we will start to see the playground um arriving and being put together so the playground will be installed first followed by the turf flooring and then we will be working on a plan to um get some better Paving in that whole area so we'll have a a really nice playground and smooth pavement and just hopefully a really beautiful place for our students um

034really thanks to the residents of planville in their voted town meeting that's great yeah and I I think that's it for tonight all right thank you uh just a couple points um I know uh I also want to thank thermal Fisher you know I know we're gonna acknowledge him again in a minute but great partnership um we it's a win all around for the town and uh our students are benefiting from that now and that's great so I'm glad you highlighted that tonight we'll definitely recognize them in November at our inperson meeting so thank you for that and then um yeah you kind of touched on a little bit the um the article I shared with you we're going to kind of highlight that as well that's that involves some of our curriculum materials and

035where we are at as a district and um compared to even our peers and I think it's worth noting um the strides we're trying to take with our students and uh helping our faculty help them as well so in November we'll have that as part of our U meeting to talk about that so worth highlighting great all right any questions for the superintendant no thank you great thanks so Mrs Clark could not join us tonight um so if there's unless there's any questions about um the two budget items uh we'll go past those tonight and table those we'll receive an update at our next meeting um Mrs spon we go on to staffing needs yes so you you do have um a sheet in your packets I'm just opening mine up and oh there we

036go so you know and um Kristen and an who are on this call you know please feel free it's a little more Awkward on Zoom too I can't just look across the room and say chime in but um please do chime in so originally I think people are aware that we welcomed um a cohort of 16 students who joined us during the month of September and I would say that those students are you know integrating quite well and successfully into our classrooms our teachers have done um really an incredible job um opening their classroom communities to our new students um we have a number of teachers who have made it their business to begin to learn the languages that their students are speaking um we have different resources that have been provided to us both

037by our elll team by our technology team um our principles have been extraordinary and it's it's really been and and not and not just that but you know I really should commend Suzanne Roberts our Jackson School um secretary she's been going to the hotel and really kind of overseeing registrations and and that sort of thing um but what we're finding and it it would been the case even with the original 16 students but now that we're finding that we have another 11 students who will be joining us um we're at the point where we really needed to make some very deliberate decisions about what sort of Staffing would really provide us the utmost support for these students and uh you know frankly to kind of keep the wheels in motion so you know when you're

038working on translating and PR preparing different materials and trying to help the student you know even even Robin was giving me an example today about a one of our students who lost a pink mechanical pencil and it was a very kind of challenging conversation that she was relaying her trying to figure out what does the student really need the student was in distress it was an important object and belonging for that child and she was relaying you know Well that took me a little while to figure out what the child really needed and that was a principal who was in the classroom an extra individual which is above and beyond you know what we might normally see in a classroom so now imagine you're the teacher and um you know that's just one teeny tiny

039um snapshot of something that can go on during a day so we know that we need to help build our student skills we know that we already had a cohort of students who are learning the English language and um with the new students who've um who will be joining us a couple have registered today and we've got a few more who have not yet registered but will be um our elll department has really um expanded by 100% And we had an elll case of around 30 students and now we're somewhere in the area of 60 students and those really are the students who are receiving Direct Services that that doesn't really even incorporate the students who are what we call former lingu former um English language Learners so that's another whole kind of cohort of

040students that our English language team uh is responsible for so you know in addition to things like the English language instruction we know we need classroom report things like I was telling you earlier when we talk about mathematics and teachers are trying to tease out what what are my students really know uh where where do I need to kind of help them and what's the starting place all of those kind of inquisitions take time and energy and uh we need assistance in order to be able to assess our students and get them the just rate supports so our administrative team met on Tuesday morning and we started to brainstorm um you know if we if we have this funding which we do from the state what sorts of positions really do make sense in terms

041of us being able to optimize our staff and really to be able to optimize the potential for our new students and all of our students so um what you'll see at the bottom of this proposed Staffing neede you'll see um an explanation of what we anticipate coming into the district from the state for our new students and so this was based on what you have in front of you was based on an estimate of 27 students which is where I believe we will be give or take um once we get all of our anticipated students registered who we know are living in Plainville right now and when you take that number of students and you calculate $104 per student per day which is what desie has committed to and you assume that we have about

042150 days left over the course of the school year and we add in the um grant that Des has also promised which is $1,000 per student that gets us somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000 that we will be able to allocate without touching our operating budget for personnel supplies um if somebody needs a winter code if somebody needs a Chromebook which we've already made an investment in some technology um you name it this this is really what what these funds are for so what we've come up with to this point um are a few things so we have a couple of things that I'll be honest I don't think I came to the school committee for approval on which um maybe I should have and in hindsight we won't be doing that again but I

043think the committee probably appreciates that we had to do a couple of things pretty quickly um so the first thing that we had to really deal with was was the bus and so we have put a bus monitor on the school bus each day and that has been working out um very very well um it's given us safety in the morning safety in the afternoon the students do need to cross um the entrance to a neighborhood on their way in and out of the hotel and we do need that adult there to support and the bus driver um also expressed need for you know if you've got um more than a dozen students who are brand new to school who've and Kristen will attest to this the number of our students are kindergarten level so

044they really have never done school before and we've we've got you know some language barriers as well um the bus drivers were looking for a little bit of support so we've um worked through that we have a morning and an afternoon bus monitor and we've expanded that just a little bit the bus monitor now we started with two but now we've got one person who will be doing the morning in the afternoon and that person actually serves as an elll paraprofessional already in our district she came to us last year and returned this year so she is now um we've extended her a little bit in the afternoon so after the students get off the bus she's going to be present for things like homework help extra tutoring and um doing things with families such

045as as if families need to register or we need to convey a message from school to home and she's um a multilingual person as well so she's able to communicate with families very readily um she's fluent in Portuguese which means she can get by in Spanish and she um has been doing okay with haian Creole um as well so she's been doing a really nice job with that um one of the challenges that just to kind of give an example um you know we always stress as school leaders when those buses leave here you're always hoping that there's someone at home to greet this the children and if there's not if there's an emergency or something those children are bust back to the school and then we call to family and say you know hello

046your child is here please come pick up your child and there has definitely been a learning curve of what to happen when you arrive back at a shelter kind of a situation and you have over a dozen students and there might be a parent who's not there and um there have been a lot of kind of kind of learning Curves in terms of our new parents expectations and understanding about what their role is at the end of the day and our policies in terms of safety and you know we're not just going to let a child go with anybody it's and so there there are a lot of pieces so that position has been very valuable to this point the other position that we um put in into place right away after the commissioner was

047here was an additional par professional because we were able to locate a woman who speaks fluent um Haitian Creole and she actually is from Haiti and she understands the language and she understands the culture and we felt at that point in time that was a very important position to capture we knew we would have the funding and uh haian creel was the language of all all that are spoken among our new families that was kind of stumping all of us you can't readily go to your phone and have speak into your phone like you can with Spanish and Portuguese and have the phone spit out um language in Haitian Creole it it just is not available so um she has joined us in a role that we structured I think we called it something like

048family student um support liaison so we've asked her to provide um in school support and she has a full schedule of working with students and we've also committed to tapping into her if we have translation needs and family needs that require someone who's fluent in Haitian Creole and she's been a wonderful wonderful um resource right away even in her interview um we we could just really feel her obvious depth of understanding of a culture that she um has lived in and we have not so she's she's been hugely helpful um on top of that and the things that we're looking for at this point in time we're looking to add an elll teacher um we we just simply can't take the one teacher that we have and um manipulate her to successfully work with almost

04960 children that's just not um a possibility so we do need to add there uh we're looking for two English language paraprofessionals um that would come to a total of about $36,000 $118,000 each and um we've had bits and pieces of support where we might bring in a substitute for the day um different people who offer to volunteer or come in and help out and we just see the difference when students have a regular individual um who actually is proficient in the language as well so in all of these positions we are going to be advertising them as you know multilingual candidates preferred it just it's it's not necessary that that they have that uh but if they do it's an incredible added bonus for us and for our students the other position that we

050are looking for to add at this point in time is something that we're calling a family engagement coordinator or director and what we're finding is that we have um not surprising to anybody we have a lot of very well-meaning people um we all want to do the right thing we all want to support students and because of that we have a lot of really important tasks tasks that are distributed in ways that aren't always sustainable so I've taken a little bit of something Kristen has a little bit of something Robin and our elll teachers and we're going really from having one elll teacher and a parah to really almost a team or a department and that's happening overnight and you know even little things like we realized um like I gave you the example of

051a student and not knowing who to call at the end of the day when a parent wasn't there because we don't the when the parents originally registered a lot of them didn't have emergency contacts and now a lot of them have an emergency contact who might be another family living in the hotel but we don't have that in our paperwork and we don't know who lives in room 255 and who lives in room 220 and things like that so we need someone who can kind of spearhead the work um and and help us create or adapt systems that other districts have already used or those that we want to put together for planville um and help us follow through in terms of the the right supports and making sure that every Last Detail is addressed

052um our families have lots of different things that we're hearing so we might hear something about a laundry situation or a transportation situation or you know how do we get a mom to the school when we really need to have a meeting but there's no vehicle and so we've kind of distributed on kind of an emergency temporary basis a lot of these tasks but we'd like to systematize them so we all know okay when this happens this goes into place when this happens this goes into place and um we believe a director will be able to a director or a coordinator will will help us to streamline our efforts so we're more efficient for our entire operation and um most importantly for students who are before us each day um so with that that's kind

053of the one cluster of there there are two different types of Staffing that I wanted to talk about tonight but that was obviously the the the most significant that we're looking at right now that I'm I'm looking for the committee's thoughts on and hopefully support with thank you so I know it was um shared out obviously we can have a point for questions here um from Members um I would like to point out that I think the analysis of the funds that are coming in um versus what we can expend has been you know they've done their due diligence with that to make sure that we're trying to stay within what we anticipate from the state um I would also like to acknowledge um you know our town hall Partners who met with us regarding

054um the situation and their support regardless of State funding saying we got to do what we got to do and we're here to support you and be there so thank you to those people who um you know Brian Noble uh Jeff Johnson were at that meeting in particular and uh we know that they have our back as we work through the situation so we're thankful for that as well so we know we're covered around what we have to do right now with these things so um my goal here tonight is to obviously you know have your hear your feedback members and also um uh it's a little gray because this is kind of an unusual situation we've never really been given funds in this format before um so regardless of where it lands um from

055a uh responsibility standpoint at nothing else I'd like to at least try to have a vote of support for what um superintendent Parson is proposing so i' open up to any comments and questions from any members uh yeah Jen thank you for putting this together um like we're all saying this is kind of unprecedented uh and we're having to adapt and assess the needs on a continuing basis I think the information that you put together looks fantastic and and I think we have to be aware that it might be subject to change um as the situation progresses and we figure out more about what these students need to thrive but I think this is a fantastic start I can't imagine how difficult it's been trying to coordinate and make sure that we're taking care of

056these new students just like any other students um so I really appreciate what you've done I just had one question and maybe you said it and I just might have missed it on the bottom of that chart the part that's highlighted in green I just wasn't sure because above it it says anticipated funding of 421,000 and then below it 448,000 I was just unsure what like what what's the reason for the difference in those two figures yes um so I took the 27 students based on $104 a day and calculated that out for 150 remaining school days and then on top of that funding desie is committing to $1,000 per student so I took a, for 27 students and added that to the original um okay that's that's where that came from okay okay it

057was right in front of me and I just I just missed it um and so my only other question is like do you feel and I know it's this is all brand new and evolving but do you think this is what we need now or do you feel like there's more but we just don't have the funding to cover it more that would be needed so I think you know you said it first Jen you talked about this being unprecedented and I don't think any of us who have done anything in around with public education have ever found ourselves in a position where there is money sitting there and you aren't kind of gulping every single time you go to to make a purchase or advertise a position and this is um it's just High

058unusual and especially there's just such a diversity within the state you know if you're a Lawrence or you know they had Salem on on a call I was on this afternoon or you're Framingham they're working with with this every single day they have systems they have processes they have staff they have infrastructure and we here in planville we just simply do not have that and so we are literally building that while our students are here so you know what I calculated out so far is an expenditure that would um constitute about half of what we are able to access and I think that it's only October so I think that we really need to assess you know what we have another whole group of students that we haven't even met yet but we know they're

059coming in so I think that we are looking at this as the beginning we really want to see uh we want to be a little bit cautious you know we know our hotels are booked through December 31st but there is not a person I've spoken to so far who have said that that they think this um anything's going to change on December 31st right so I think you know we in Kristen and an you can certainly um or Stephanie you can feel free to add anything you'd like so I think this is step one um the other real incredible challenge right now is just the ABS absolute um unavailability of of people for us to hire there aren't a lot of people out there so you know I think it's going to be a work

060in progress but I wouldn't tell you tonight that I think we're done okay I think you know I you know I was using this earlier in a phone conversation um that we're building the airplane as we go we don't we didn't have it and I think we're the staff you everybody is doing an amazing job of building an amazing um product for these new students but um different passengers get on and off at different airports and they have different needs and I think this will be a very fluid thing that comes back to us regularly and I don't think that that's means anything's wrong I think that we're um that's means we're doing our due diligence so J I think it's great Point both J it's great points and and to hold on to some

061of those funds for the unknown I think is is smart for sure for sure I totally agree yeah and Jen I just want to commend you I don't think we've been giving you enough credit um and the entire staff I mean it's it's really like you said there was an unexpected wave of students who certainly need our support and our help and I what a fantastic place for these students to land in because I think planville is a small district with a very very big heart so I just want to extend my thanks to you and the entire staff for being able to think on your feet and get these students the care and support that they need so thank you thank you for putting this all together thank you Jen and that that truly

062is the our administrative team our teachers our support staff it is it has absolutely been a joint effort and and and you yourself Jen were one of the first people to step up and say what can I do and all of a sudden there was a clothing drive so this the town really has been amazing Michelle uh yes I just had a quick question and and forgive me I may have not have followed it correctly so I see everything here I understand everything that's being budgeted I know the additional amount um Miss Parson you had mentioned prior something about and I again I could have this incorrect um some positions that were already posted or filled prior that I think are not on this list or are on this list I just want to make

063sure I'm clear no that's a good question Michelle everything is on this list so um you'll see on the list Creole student family liaison that person is already here with us okay the bus monitor is already here with us everything else on this list is not all right thank you because I I had a feeling you mentioned it and I I knew I was mix messing it up and I would Echo a little bit of what others had said you know this is unprecedent and it is building the plane as we go but um as Educators we've been here before and I'll just say that bad word coid because we were building the plane and flying all over the place trying to figure out and every day was a new thing so um I give

064the the uh teachers and the staff and the administration a lot of props they were able to handle that like Champions and I have no doubt that you'll be able to do the same in this situation too thank you Michelle thank you Mr reene yep I just want to Echo the same so fantastic job in handling it nice job on the recommendation and putting that together what you need at this point um and yeah as things come up we just we'll assess then and I think it makes a lot of sense too to um to keep money on the table and look at things as everything does evolve so nice work thank you you Mr robbert oh more of the same a praise for everyone who's had a role in this this very challenging situation

065uh from the top all the way down to the the students who I understand of being very welcoming and U of the new classmates and new friends that their meeting as they go along um I think in in a case like this everything is very fluid it changes dayto day the numbers are up the numbers are not quite what we thought or there more or there more people coming uh and so we have to have a very open door to address all of these situations and the communication has been excellent I felt as a school committee member that I've been informed all through this entire process and way by the superintendent and her staff and um let's let's just reme remember that uh you know this is what community is all about um but we

066have to keep a a very open door as I said the the visit from the commissioner was a huge step forward in my opinion that's something that uh very rarely do does planville get that kind of attention and I give credit for uh all the folks that put that together but the the communications has to remain very open and constant as you're doing that's very important we stay in close touch with the state that we stay in close touch with our local legislators uh for assistance and help and and just raw information so that we're not caught unaware of on any of this we don't want to miss a day because as you said we've only got 150 days left we're already into the middle of the school year and it's a huge challenge for

067the teaching staff for the par Professionals for parents in general to understand what's happening and uh to have a grip on the whole situation um and I think that the money what you've done with this uh the document that you sent us tonight showing where the money is going where it's coming from that's excellent there has to be a very strong emphasis on following that money and making sure that we know what the state has said they're going to supp supply what the town is able to to do for us and and thus far it's been an excellent team effort thanks Steve M sharp you have your hand up yes um Parson I was just thinking considering that so many districts are finding themselves in this position and needing these similar or same positions has

068there been any talk from the commissioner on people that are in current College positions university positions uh going through school fast-tracking some of these individuals or letting them do as you know you do steam teaching things like that letting them do real world in place of some of their courses to try to get more individuals out in the field to support the schools that's a really great question I don't think I've actually heard that question asked quite that way uh I've heard people talking about things like emergency licenses and things like that um but you know I am in close contact with them um with his office and and Marie who's in touch with us and I can absolutely um ask where they are with that it's a really good suggestion thank you appreciate it

069sure all right if there's nothing else on that one and uh the committee members feel acceptable I would entertain a motion to um of support uh to affirm the positions that super Parson has presented us tonight so she can go forward Jen so moved second all right motion of second any further discussion this will be a roll call vote in no particular order based upon where I see you on my screen uh Miss Maloney plant Maloney plant I Mr Bernice for nice eye Mr Sharp Shar ey Mr Albert I and I am an i as well for the chair and motion carries thank you and now um so I know we if those who have the document there's a separate section and that was done intentionally uh I was working with super Parson on this

070um because it doesn't involve the state funds so I think you're going to present that now yes um so the second piece of this is asking for the committee's approval to increase our band teacher by a point2 um FTE so our band educator Mr thiren uh joined us last spring very late in the game um due to the unexpected resignation of last year's initial band teacher and um the work that he's done is just you know it's been tremendous and I know Rob and you're on here now and feel free to to chime in um so I was able to have a chance to speak with um Mr thirston and with principal um Robin Roberts Pratt and talk a little bit about what's happening with band this year and where we are in terms of

071student enrollment and get a a grasp on um where we might have some shortcomings so really right now the only shortcoming that I can detect in the Band program is that we don't have enough of Band program and we um took a very very conservative approach with um reinstating band in the planville schools and I don't think there's anyone on the committee who doesn't understand why we took such a conservative approach we have a great number of needs we originally found some unexpected funding and we had a lot of different ideas very important things that we needed for that funding and uh you know I think that we kind of looked at last year as kind of a test Let's test this back out and see how it goes and um Sam thirston has proven

072himself to be um really nothing short of extraordinary and so what basically was um summarized in our meeting with him was that we at this point um what our worry is is that we have so many students and he's been very careful he didn't overdo it and Robin and I were very clear with him we're going to limit band to grade five and grade six and um we ended up having some scheduling holes because of just the way that the I mean Robin is a scheduling Guru but there's only so much you can do when kids have to go to lunch and they need to go to recess and they have they're just places they need to be and we weren't able to kind of get every you know square peg in a round hole

073so instead of Sam having blank spots in his schedule he opened band up to fourth graders and so we had a number of fourth graders that we didn't necessarily anticipate but we also have some fifth and sixth graders who either haven't been able to get themselves into a group because of some of the scheduling challenges because he's only here two days a week and the other challenge is in some of the groups where he's been incredibly accommodating um he's got up to 13 kids in a group so for example his flute players we have 13 students trying to learn how to play the flute all at once and what his worry is and I I really um I I looked at his data and listened to his description and he's a seasoned band educator his

074worry is that we're going to have kids who are excited to join the band and are going to experience um undue frustration because he's just not able to get to all of them we we would never have an academic small instructional group with 13 student students um we wouldn't even have a small instructional group for the most part with half of 13 students but we're we're asking him to do the same so our request is he provided um Robin and me with a number of scenarios and we we talked with Gail and we looked at our finances and we uh recognized enough Savings in some of our hires to Spring out of our operating budget or this fall um that we feel that we can cover an additional day um which would allow him to

075add um quite a few groups and reduce the the number of students in each group um Robin do you want to add anything to that no I think that you articulated quite well he is a phenomenal teacher his Charisma and enthusiasm is just outstanding and I know that with additional time he'll be able to better suit the students and separate the very large groups and give them the attention that they need and deserve to really excel in band it will also afford him times where he can put some more advanced players together uh separating them from some beginning players and I just think that this is going to continue to grow and we're going to see a need for more banded in the future because kids so enjoy going to see him and um the

076squeaks are now turning into sounds which will turn into Melodies which will turn into a wonderful concert and uh I'm really looking forward to it um question I think if I heard the numbers correctly um prior that um the interest in the program now numbers Wise by students is at the same if not larger than what it was before the program was cut yes I think if I remember correctly the interest in ban now is where it was when the band member uh instructor was full-time so so I think if if that's correct Jen I think that's what he had mentioned I do have those numbers in front of me Robin and what he shared with us was that in the 1920 school year we had 118 students in band with a 1.0 teacher and

077right now we have 105 who are already accommodated with a02 teacher excuse me a point4 teacher and um we're looking at 135 who want to be involved so there has to be somewhere in the middle between 1.0 and the point4 that we currently have so we really can meet the needs of the students who are are so very interested in this any uh questions or comments from Members my main question would be is this enough uh because um as it's been stated this this hire has been probably one of the most impressive hires that I've seen in my in my day at least uh the man is just doing wonders I have a fourth grader who's now making noises on the clarinet that I just can't get over that she's able to put already you

078know almost a Melody together and it it sounds like something other than you know the the beginning um so this teacher is really something special and I want to make sure that we have enough uh for him to do the job that he wants to do because I know he has a very high standard yeah I mean I I think the I don't know that I have a great answer to that so the the easy answer is no it's not enough that's that's the very easy answer the more complicated answer is we really are trying to be about as fiscally conservative as we can and I frankly I think it's fairly unusual for the district to come back and ask for more once the school year has started and I want to make it really

079clear to the committee that this isn't something that you know we are going to start making a habit of but this is it's just kind of an usual situation where we did have some a little bit of savings and we we really do have some students who haven't been able to participate in something that we're we're now offering but I think as we start to think about our priorities for next year um Steve you know we're really going to have to think about where does this where is this going to fit in and what what do we project for next year I don't think last year just because the way things turned out until April I don't think we had a great look into the potential for this and I think we have a much

080better sense of what this program can kind of be resurrected into I completely agree I think if pieces fell into place a little bit sooner we would have been better able to project the outcome of what was going to happen this year this a sharp hand up yes um I would just kind of echo on what Steve had said you currently if I have it correct you have it at 04 and you're looking to go to a0 6 yes okay I not going to put you on spot because I'm sure you may not or maybe you have have the figures if we were to go to a 1.0 what would be the the cost I know it's 10,000 to go from four to six yeah so essentially we're looking at um he's about or the

081position where it is right now is about $112,000 per day of the week so two days a week for the whole year we're at about 25 Grand so you add another day it would have been 12 but we're already now looking at a November kind of start so you know it would be another 30 um $34,000 or something like that and I know that this is uh slated this point too to come out of the operating budget but I also saw the role is being that the migrant class the group size issues due to the you know overwhelming interest overall so I wondered if we didn't have that extra fund to go to a 1.0 could we then be looking at taking some of that money from the state that had given it to us

082because it is to give the migrant children that opportunity also I know it may be a little gray there but I'm just asking you know um and and it it's personal for me because of the fact that I was a member on the school committee when we had to make these drastic cuts and nothing was fun about that at all and I know how passionate and how upset and the fact that everything I've heard about this new teacher that you've not new but came in at the end of last year has been really good and I know that when we had to even cut down a little bit there was no way we were going to hang on to Mr Sherwin because we couldn't pay him you know so I worry about that you know

083so I'm just kind of I'm echoing a little bit of what Steve said but I don't know if it's something that is we can look at for this year not even looking to go into next year oh I um I had a conversation um with Jen um about this and you my concern is he's such a talent that we don't want to lose him and that we make sure we do something about it so I mean obviously I like to hear from all the members but um I I I it makes me very happy to hear these comments um and if there is an appetite to look at maybe trying to get him up to 1.0 I think we need to take take a closer look at what we're doing um as a group um

084and and maybe something can be done but I think it's it's a decision we all need to make so I'd like to hear more from um Jen and Chris yeah yeah I was going to I mean everyone is kind of saying the same thing but if you talk to Mr thirston for 30 seconds you can see how passionate he is about this um I know Steve you mentioned how your daughter is in it uh my Danny just started and he has never picked up a trumpet before and now is busting into his sister's room at bedtime showing her all the the different sounds he's learned to make in just a couple of weeks yeah and I mean just what everyone else is saying he is so impressive uh so impressive in just a very quick

085conversation and the numbers speak for themselves I mean we have record number of kids that are interested and excited about this program uh when we were at the music box picking up the instruments a couple of weeks ago all the planville kids they were just so so excited to begin so I am fully on board with bringing him to uh adding another day for him I think it's necessary because we need to we want to get as many kids into this program as are interested in it and I really think it's just going to continue to grow I hope it does because what a gift we can give our our kiddos um so I yeah I am fully on board here and I would like to kind of keep it in the Forefront of our

086mind so as we're going through the budget process for next year um if we can start looking at that knowing that the interest is so huge thank you Mr reice yep so I'd like to to say the same so I mean I think definitely go with the point two stays within the operating budget I think we should take a closer look at bringing them to the 1.0 we found the right person for the job um and rotation is a big deal and we're just talking about other positions that are difficult to fill to bring people on board so if we found this know person who's really doing an excellent job in this role I think it is this is restoration too right this is bringing back a position that existed we're still trying to build

087back um so if we can find the funding for that this year I would say let's do it but we do have to consider next year as well right it'll become part of the operating budget so just in the right manner is the general feeling amongst the members that you know we should Target to try to retain move to a 1.0 I have some ideas I can work with M Parson to bring back to you um but I want to you know bet those first um but I want to make sure that I'm going down down a road that all of you generally are on board with I would be supportive of that I think that's a good way to uh to approach it I would just want to understand you know the cost like

088what's the cost of doing that but I'm I am on board with with going that direction but I think it is important to look at you know where ises that money coming from and what's the cost of something else we it's a limited budget so yeah I mean I just want to the idea of bringing something back you know I think maybe we could tackle the point six tonight um and then look at bringing the remaining point4 U Back at a future meeting to discuss ideas y but I to go through the exercise everybody if that wasn't their appetite yeah I'm definitely on board with that I just want to make sure um and I don't know maybe this was Michelle that said it I'm not sure um because everyone is saying the same thing

089he is really such a a treasure to have on staff working with our kids that I want to make sure if we say we can bring them back to a 1.0 that it's something that we can sustain because I think there'd be a lot of mistrust there if we say okay we can bring you back to a 1.0 and then a year or two down the line we're not able to hold on to that absolutely yeah a lot of I mean a lot of conversations and I think you know from from a long-term standpoint maybe short-term Solutions but from a long-term standpoint we need to discuss that internally our priorities we should include our town hall partners because obviously this would be a position ad we want to make sure it's easier to have everybody

090on board than trying to shoehorn it in so I think there's a lot of conversations to be had but I think there's been broad townwide whether it's schools Town Hall the the public support for this program to come back and I think it's success this is a product of its success and I think that everybody understands that and and can be supportive of that so um so that's I have no problem working on that and I think it's a great thing to do um so but in the interest of that if there's no other comments um I say a motion that we approve super Parson to um change the position to a point six based upon her presentation tonight followed by a uh future discussion about further Mich J second and M plant is a

091second any further discussion all right roll call Miss money plant money plant I Mr Bice Bice I Mrs sharp Shar I Mr Albert Albert I and Mr Alexander is an i as well and that motion carries uh go forth and grow band Yes so and we will continue to keep this topic on the front burner because it's uh not like great for the kids but this is something that Tru the community is behind and they really this is important to this community and and I want to make sure we are responsive to that so great all right thank you so much absolutely anything else on that one we're good okay so we're going to move on to uh gifts and donations um bear with me as we have to do a few different things here

092so I'm going to just pull up um the Motions because that'll be a little easier all right so I'm gonna so we've already heard about thermal Fisher so if there's no um and please verbally speak because I'm actually looking at a different screen so uh if there's no opposition to what has been presented I'm going to read a suggested motion for thermal Fisher all right so I would inate a motion to accept thermal Fisher's gift of STEM related instructional supplies for a value of $4,310.27 Mr Albert Albert I and Mr Alexander isn't I the motion carries and thank you again to Thermal Fisher and we look forward to hearing from you in person in November switch back my screens okay so we're going to go on to some PTO fundraiser um they have been in

093there requested is anybody speaking on those tonight uh one just one um backtrack for a moment thermofisher actually had two items in there um they might have gotten kind of mushed together but there is they actually also ran a school supply fundraiser for us D that should be in the back yeah I was looking at the recommended actions let me see here um dollar yes so we approved the 4,310 so we just have to approve the school supplies of 500 oh I read that in the motion yes oh was okay that was all in one motion yeah it was it was to accept it all clearly I wasn't listening carefully thank you I well I it's been a long day maybe I didn't I read it that way did I not or somebody confirm that

094please you may have said supplies I don't know if the the number the dollar amount was why don't thought you said 500 that's okay I I thought I did but you know what the beauty of it is it doesn't hurt to do it twice so just covered there's no problem so I would take a motion that we also accept thermal Fishers school supplies with a value of 500 $ Michelle Moon I have a motion do I have a second actually I have a second and we'll run through one more time oh one second there we go and Miss Melone plant Melone plant I Mr Bernice Bernice i m Shar shop ey Mr Albert Albert I and Mr Alexander and I and we are potentially doubly covered but nothing wrong with that so motion carries and

095we are going to move on to switch back all right so we have PTO fundraisers I see themiz those sure that'd be great thank you yeah so the so there are two separate fundraisers I don't know if the committee would like to vote individually on each or combine them together but I'll explain them at once so the first one is um an event called Photography in the park where they have contracted with a local photographer to offer student photos Family Photos what have you um during the end of this month and early into November which would give the photographer time to pull the photos together in order for families who so chose to use them for holiday gifts cards Etc and 20% of the proceeds um from that event would go to the planville PTO

096so that would be done entirely off of school property and um not it doesn't conflict with anything during the school day the second fundraiser um has a specific date already in mind which is no November 30th and that would run from 5: to 8:00 p.m. and that I believe they want to use the wood school for that and that would be kind of a combination of a number of activities that um children and families could attend that would be free of charge and in addition to free activities and I believe they would have some kind of a special holiday themed guest that um photo opportunities could be um taken with they also are looking to have some vendors and these vendors would be things like local small businesses we have a number of students in

097the district who have their own little businesses and they would like to maybe sell their wees at this sort of event and this would take the place of what I believe used to be um a holiday store where Stu students were able to come and buy some gift items during the school day um so they've moved it outside of school hours added some fun family events if you don't choose to buy anything you can come and enjoy those and it it gives some of our young entrepreneurs a chance to um have have a moment in in the spotlight as well the um PTO would that that is considered a fundraiser because they would be charging a uh a fee for each vendor so they would essentially pay a small fee to have their spot um

098at the school for that event thank you this I think is a um uh adaptation of what we used to do with the holiday Boutique that fell out of due to co and not being able to go to school and uh the holiday Boutique was just a well-loved part of our plane build educational tradition it uh in addition to being a nice way for the kids to get something for their families and U special people in their lives around the holidays it also uh uh I think it added a little bit of an educational model in that uh you know they they were being taught how to use their money correctly and how to you know keep track of their purchases and so forth so if that's the direction uh I guess the my my

099own feeling would be that's a great way to do it and to let the kids be vendors is is all the better so I'm I'm very much in favor of that if if I understand it correctly you do good any other questions comments uh I just have one question and and kind of what Steve just talked about where it used to be during the school day um some of the items I just worry about kids who wouldn't have the ability to go and if you know for whatever reason and then also students were able to get gifts for their family that were very low cost so I'm just wondering about the you know just that the opportunity and uh access is still there for all the students go ahead I could or Robin and Kristen

100you know collectively we could bring some of those questions back to the PTO my guess is they thought about some of those things but I just don't have that level of detail here tonight but I do want understand the things that you're asking about and i' I've never known and and you know Mr I know you you've been involved for a long time with it too I've never known the PTO to not take care of somebody in a in a situation I'm sure that they they've thought that through um and and I know the staff knows the students who are in those situations to help identify so but I do agree yeah we can definitely double check on that yeah I definitely I would Echo that Justin I'm sure that they did I just wanted

101to put that out there because that just came to my mind you know for that and um you know what would we do without the hammer that came home one year and the toe Clippers that came home I mean what can you do I still have the screwdriver in my toolbox I used it the other day still have that hammer any other uh comments thoughts on it I think this all sounds great I love the idea of the portraits in the park and I would be the first one to sign up and hope my kiddos will smile for the photographer because they don't for me so the Christmas cards that we send every year are very interesting but yeah I mean a huge thanks to the PTO when I went to the Jackson School about

102a hundred years ago I remember shopping at the Holiday Boutique so that we can continue that tradition and you know it's changing with the times but I I think that's wonderful so yeah this all sounds wonderful to me great very good Mr rice you're all set Y no I'm good I think sounds good I think it would be good to just understand what was considered for folks that may not be able to make to make it there at that time and uh and to keep have some kind of accessibility to low cost low cost gifts I'm sure uh I'll be hearing from some of the PTO members uh probably they're meeting right now actually I believe so I'm sure Le follow up so uh if there's no opposition to approving these requests we can do

103it as one is that generally okay with everyone yeah so then I would entertain a motion to approve the PTO fundraiser requests as presented so move so moved motion and we'll call Mr Albert the second all right and then we will take a r any further discussion all right so the screen moved a little bit so um we must have had somebody leave so if I change the names up sorry try to get it right so miss Maloney plant Maloney plant I all right Mr Bice nice I Mrs Shar shop ey Mr Albert Albert I and Mr Alexander is an i motion cares I think I got the order the same so we're done there uh legislative update Mrs pars sure so I think earlier today or maybe last night the committee received a draft

104of a letter that um I put together and um ran it by the chair before presenting it to the committee and it really is in line with some of the conversations that we've been having with the commissioner and um it came to mind after an email chain had gone um back and forth about some support for our new students and marusan happened to be on that email chain Senator Rous happened to be on that chain um I think some of the governor's AIDS were on there as well and the point that um trying to it's kind of a a balancing act in a tight RPP that we're walking right now because um in no way is this thinking to say anything at all um that's not supportive of our new students because we are and

105um they they are enriching our school district um and they're stretching us and it's it's a it's just a very interesting experience and we're growing and we're learning from our students as much and our families as much as they are from us I think the challenge for ceville is um I heard somebody um maybe even in this meeting today or in an earlier meeting I was in talk about the term capacity and right now I I do feel like planville is getting to the point where our capacity really has been stretched and you know you can certainly add new positions and I think we're incredibly grateful for the new positions that we're going to be able to bring in and for the state actually um and desie specifically really stepping up and supporting us and

106Michelle I think you made a really great point earlier when you talked about your your thoughts for band in kind of a creative way and I think this is the first time that we're potentially going to be able to experience that um economy of scale where when you're larger and you have more you have more resources and it's very possible we may have some students who are new to us who want to join band that may end up um helping us to increase our band Educators full-time equivalent because we have students um who he'll be able to support but they're not the only students just like our par professionals that we're hiring we're calling them ell par professionals they're going to be able to help all students because that's the way we operate uh my

107but my real question that I'm grappling with is when we get to a certain point where it's just going to become a little too complicated for us to continue to add to our roster so you know as I said in the the draft of the letter when you have your ell Department that's been increased by 100% And when you see your entire student body increased by 5% overnight when you hear the number 24 kids 27 kids those numbers are not startling but when you start um you know adding to that and amplifying it and saying well if you were a 4,000 student School District well that would look like 170 kids um joined your District overnight I think people stop when they hear the number 170 and so proportionally I think planville is in a

108place where um I feel as a superintendent it's important that our voices are heard in terms of just our sheer capacity for space for bandwidth and for ensuring that we're giving everybody what what they really need so my question really was there's there are multiple ways that uh we can continue on our path and one is that I continue to advocate in the ways that I am and working with my desie colleagues and my mass Association superintendent colleagues and things like that um but is there any interest on the part of the school committee to do a little bit of advocacy some of our our legislative um leaders and representatives so that's kind of was the impetus for this um not in any way to talk about changing or asking you know students to depart

109that that's not at all the intent the intent really is how do we preserve where we are and ensure that we're giving everybody what they need with the resources um that have been allocated to us oh you know the reason I wanted to bring it to you all tonight was um for you know be open and transparent and have everybody have an open discussion about it um and if uh the will is there then to support Mrs Parson um with this letter so open it up to discussion yes so I just I thought it was well crafted and I think it's fair to to state where where we stand today I don't think there's anything wrong with that you you should Advocate um for the school and and communicate our current position and if we

110need to do something differently then then we will but I think it's fair to make the statement I would I would agree with that and I think the word that you used gen was for all students so no we are opening the doors we are a community as someone I think it was Jen that said that has a heart that going to help but there's also got to be a certain not I don't want to say a limit but a point where we can't keep going because we're not meeting all the needs of all our students so um yeah so I definitely think that putting that forth and it was well crafted and putting forth that our concerns is is important because otherwise you might still get more and more children ated and then what

111because we want to be able to support all the children in play though I think another the important piece is is lead time right it's it's how quickly just like uh Justin had said building the air the aircraft at the same time that you're trying to fly it if you have lead time to to build that into the plan that's one thing to have you know a constant influx and not be able to catch up that everyone it will be detrimental to all the students to incoming students and students so I think that's an important piece get get up to speed to where we are and then and then you know and also for those new students they deserve to have the education that we would want to provide that we provide for our other

112children but if we can't have the funding or have the people to hire then we're not able to meet those needs so it's just it's an allaround you know piece so no I think it advocacy is definitely important yeah and I'll Echo what everyone's saying I thought Jen that letter that you drafted uh has all the information to be very transparent and very forthcoming with we are doing everything we can to support these children but if we were to get another 27 uh children in our schools like Michelle said we we might not be able to give them the services that they need um and I was very encouraged to see those emails with Marcus vaugh um and uh the governor's office and the town leaders and I think being able to communicate send that

113that letter and to communicate exactly what it says in those weekly phone calls I think is invaluable because from the top down everyone needs to be on the same page and I think that's exactly what that letter is doing and I would I would be very supportive if not every week I know that would be a lot but you know maybe once a month providing an update in just the form the format that you that you did with that first letter I think that would be I think that be really beneficial yes I I agree with I'd Echo what Jen and Michelle said um I thought it was really eye openening part of the letter and I can't see it right now but uh pointing out and what jenet said earlier pointing out that the

114English language Learners uh have doubled overnight overnight to gone from 30 to 60 um it's it's startling but I think it's information that we have to you know you have to say it and say it until it's heard so I'm all for uh increasing that communication and I know you're working on a day-to-day basis with the the state representative and the state senator and trying to uh impact some of the governor's thinking her staff's thinking on this issue I think that's crucial so I'm I'm supportive of that and uh wouldn't mind seeing more of it um I would everybody be comfortable with a a motion of support for Mrs Parson to carry on with that letter we all yeah absolutely right so entertain a motion that we um support Mrs Parson in the letter that

115she has drafted and to submit it as she has presented to us to our legislative delegation the governor's office and anybody else she sees appropriate for that letter to be sent to J so moved motion for Mr L plant ber second and Mr ber is a second any further discussion uh just one quick thing Justin should we be signing that with her well you know that's a good point you know this p and I actually would talk about that on the phone um it could be I I mean I'm I'm completely fine with that if everybody else would like to do that as well we can counter assign that does par you good with that yeah I think that makes s a more letter if you have the signatures of the whole school commit yeah

116no I've got that's thank you that's why we have these discussions so I'm perfectly fine with that so you know I commend the uh if we want to uh J I m I think you made the origal motion you wanted to amend that to include our signatures I yeah absolutely um I'm not sure the language I would have to use but add signatures with it our signatures yeah I'll just amend my motion to include all the signatures of the school committee along with Miss Parson Mr rice you good with that yep all right so the motion has been amended to include our signatures um any further discussion all those in favor we'll go through M Maloney plan Maloney plan I Mr Bernice Bernice I Mrs shop shop I Mr Albert Albert I and Mr Alexander

117I thank you and thank you Mr shop for your comment that was a good catch because it was a discussion point that I had forgotten about as well thank you all right um I I will um I don't know if this is too rushed I will be in the schools tomorrow um so I can always swing by the office to sign if if that's enough time it it will be I'll work with Christine and we'll get it we'll get it ready for the morning it's basically ready to go now yeah good um I do not have any items not anticipated the time of posting does anybody else all right so we have a public comment period if anybody would like to make a public comment you can raise your hand okay we have one public

118comment um Stephanie would you mind um bringing her on and let her unmute and turn on her camera and a minut we have I believe it was Molly it's not letting me turn on my video stand by one second hey changes Stephanie do you want to promote her as a co-host for now we're at the end of the meeting then she can turn on camera I don't need to do the camera if you don't care no we want to give you the opportunity we'll try one more thing okay there you are there we are welcome to our meeting um we're pretty we're pretty flexible generally um you know we don't start a timer on it technically it's three minutes with a maximum 15 but um we love to hear from you go right ahead very

119short um do I need to give my address I know some please that' be great Molly Rog 109 messenger Street um last year I was a member of the how to raise an anti-racist book group as a person actively involved in anti-racism activities and promotions I learned a lot and enjoyed sharing my learning process however last spring we were informed of the termination of the diversity equity and inclusion director this came as a disappointment as I had seen an Improvement in the school system in regards to addressing diversity and cultural competency with the lack of a Dei director our students can be stalled in pursuing a more inclusive educational experience I'm speaking here to encourage the school committee to reinstate a sustainable Dei position within the district to ensure all of our students feel welcome

120especially with the new students arriving I do want to mention however that I am really pleased by what I heard tonight um being proposed as far as positions and what's being done for these students however I do think having someone to lead this movement would be incredibly helpful to these kids so just putting it out there absolutely we appreciate your comments and and we strive to do all that we can and and we appreciate the positive feedback as well so thank you for joining us tonight thank you all right any other public comment I I might just want to add one um clarification um do you mind if I had a clarification um I Molly talked about the termination of the Dei director and I just wanted to clarify that last year that was a

121grant funded position and so it was in no way that what the other kind of use of the word termination it wasn't that scenario at all it is true that we no longer have that position but it had to do with the grant funding um which doesn't detract from the need for the work and mol's other comments but I did want to clarify that absolutely no clarification oh go ahead m y just add a clarification too just I I thought the same thing um that I wanted to say this came up at the king philli um meeting last uh meeting and it was because it was a one-year Grant and it wasn't uh renewed um from the state but the conversation started there and looking at the programs that were put in place and and

122the need and so that's being explored I know in the King philli which of course A lot of times King Philip Works hand inand with the three other you know districts at the elementary so I know that that conversation is being had thank you all any other committee members have any other comments on this or any other topic for the good of the school committee all right well hearing none I'm I'm G to pull out my calendar we were we we're going to try to have our meeting so our meeting is scheduled for November 2nd correct the first Thursday and the goal here is to be at Town Hall November 2nd at 6m for an in-person meeting um is that so at this point is that good for all members are the regular meeting I

123want make sure we're all we're starting there at that point now while we're in on the screen together sounds good to me yep fine with me then uh that that is all I have for tonight so uh with that I wish everyone a wonderful evening be safe and we'll see you at the November 2nd meeting thank you for joining us good night everybody thank you for your work on this you need a motion to oh I'm sorry good thanks you to no executive right click leave meetings take a motion to adjourn we don't have an executive do we we do not okay sojourn no executive all right so I know I just click I would have left you all if some that so moved I got a motion do I have a second we'll call

124Jen is the second so uh uh Miss Maloney plant Maloney plant I Mr pice pice I Mr Sharp Shop I Mr Albert Albert I and Mr Alexander is I and now I can officially say good night to you all thank you have a good night thank you everybody take care good night night who's left very left I'm still here I'm just trying to figure out how to shut it off thank you iate your work it went very well and much appreciated oh good I'm really glad yeah no it it went great and we weren't we weren't there was no influx or anything we did good so thank you very much you're welcome so yeah I just well I just want to let you know that there was an option to actually to to start the

125video because I had shut everybody off that's fine we adapted that's what we do I it worked beautifully it was fine so all right thanks again have a great night we'll see you later bye bye okay