Taunton School Committee...November 5th, 2025

001Good evening. The uh finance and law subcommittee shall come to order. Start out with roll call. Mrs. Shaves >> present. >> Mr. Vieira >> present. >> Chairman Dlo present. Uh first item on the agenda. We have use of facilities. See attached memo. Mrs. Monahan please. >> Thank you Dr. Dlo. Um it's outlined in the memo the various organizations and the facilities, the dates and any of the fees that we are charging the um the group. Any if you have any questions, please let me know. >> Mr. VR. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd make a motion to receive and place on file. >> Seconded. >> On discussion uh so for the public at own home, they don't really get to see these uh memos. I just want to point out that uh for example the

002thank annual Thanksgiving uh celebration that takes place at the Mali Elementary School that we wave all fees uh for the organizations that uh are so grateful enough to help all these families. So I think that's important for the public to know that you know we have community partners but we also are a good community partner uh to make sure that uh they still have a great facility to do what they do. All in favor? I >> I opposed. Eyes have it. Next up, we have the special education expense services. See the attached memo. Back to you, Mrs. Monahan. >> This is the month of August for Lion's Law Group. This is the an the item that we always do bring to um to school committee for special education legal services. The memo looks a little

003different. Now, what I have done is I added last year's budget and last year's expenses compared to [snorts] this year. So, as you can see, comparing to last year of August, we spent $8,100. And this year, we're just shy of $5,200. Bringing our balance right now through um through the month here is $33,851 last year and we are just above that. So, we have spent a little bit less at 38,64946 is the balance for this fiscal year. >> I like the comparisons. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Yeah, >> Mr. Mr. >> I I do too. I thought that was really nice to >> get us ahead of time. So, uh if it's appropriate, I'd like to make a motion to uh receive the memo and place it on file. >> Second. >> All in favor?

004>> I opposed. Eyes have it. >> Next up, we have the Chamberlain Solo School Solar Inspection Catched memo. >> That you, Mrs. Monahan? >> It sure is. Um so, I won't read it to you, but I will provide you a brief update. So on October 17th, JRB Electric inspected the solar system um that is located at Chamberlain Elementary. The rooftop arrays were visually inspected for damaged wires, loose material, and damaged panels. The solar inverters were tested for DC voltage, AC voltage, and proper operating ranges. The AC panel board and AC disconnects were inspected for water intrusion, wire connections, and proper AC voltage. And then each paragraph will go ahead and explain how each one was tested. It will see there on the second paragraph, one of the um head units was found to be faulty.

005And so a new unit will be shipped out and replaced. And then if you look to the bottom there, the last paragraph, it does state after a full system review, the system is found to be in good working order, the rooftop arrays are secure and free from damage. The voltage ranges that were tested were all in acceptable ranges. 2477 to 480 volts AC. All the optimizers and DC strings were found to be reporting and producing proper voltages. 16 volts for DC safety voltage. the inverters, [clears throat] excuse me, were operating properly. Disconnects and fuses are all working properly. >> Mr. Vier, >> thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, assistant Superintendent Morning, how could you remind me, how long have the panels been active on the school floor? >> It's only been active, not even a year

006yet. >> All right. So, how many inspections have been conducted since the panels have uh been active on the facility? >> I believe this is the first time. Um, so yes, this this is and they will provide a report once they do inspect the rooftop units. >> Okay. >> I think they went live June >> in May. I think it was the end of May. >> May. >> Okay. >> Thank you. [clears throat] >> Um, the left head that was found faulty. Is that under warranty? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yep, it is. So, that will be shipped out. They'll replace it and it'll be all set. >> Do you know how long our um the equipment is under warranty? that I do not know but I can check. Is it one year? Thank you.

007>> One year. Okay. So, good. >> Then after the warranty, the city assumes all liability. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Uh so, just a comment or question, I guess. JRB Electric, what is the relationship to the folks that installed it? Because I don't remember seeing this name before. >> I believe this is we can we can confirm, but I believe this was an independent inspection with no relationship to the contract. >> Okay. Because it was my understanding that they were supposed to be doing the inspections. The installers, are they still around? Are they still in business or >> Yeah. So, but they hired somebody to do it the inspection. So, it would be uh no conflict of interest. >> So, now you have that third party. >> Okay. >> Mr. Chairman, if

008I Mr. um are these inspections, are they going to be conducted regularly going forward? Yes. >> Do do you know how often? >> We can get the schedule. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Anything else? >> Motion uh to receive the memo and place on file. >> Second. >> All in favor? I opposed. Eyes have it. Next up, we have disposal of surplus equipment. First item is Taton High School turf surplus and two Hamilton Street is the second item. >> There are multiple items for each one. The first one is the attic stock uh for the turf field. As you'll see there, that's a estimated value of $200. The next one is um 30 pieces of turf shock pads at $30 is the estimated value. The next one is

009crumb rubber 2,000 lb super sacks. This is I went to go ahead to confirm what it was. Crumb rubber is made from ground up tires and it's used for the infield for the turf fields. So, there's that. Um that was purchased in 2019. We have three of those and the estimated value is about $500. And then the following items are from two Hamilton Street. We have a um a piano that is from 1906. The estimated value is $250 there and the condition is considered to be poor. And there's a picture of that piano. The next item are 22 um fold 8t foldup tables. And please like as I'm saying these two I should have referenced to was we did go ahead and ask all of our principles and their and their assistant principles and staff

010to see if they wanted any of these items before we came to school committee to declare any of these items surplus. So please know we did have some of those items that um the the that the schools wanted. We did go ahead and take them out of two Hamilton Street and brought them over to um to the high school and to the alternative high school. And just so you know I know Mrs. shops. You always love the desks. Multiple desks went into the high school, so it's great to have those. So, again, these here we have 22 of these fold up tables, about $200. >> Um then we have uh 23 of these looking these um peach colored chair, student chairs. Then we have a very um old desk um and it is definitely in

011poor condition as we there it's not really it works but not really nice. Um, the next item is a bookshelf with sliding glass doors. And then we have a three metal desks about $30 each. And then the last few items, the next one are 3 feet by 5 ft wooden tables. We have six of those. They're about $100 average each. And then we have 36 wooden chairs that go along with the table, about $250 total. Then we have an very old wooden conference table and that is considered to be in poor condition. We have three of 8 ft tables and they are in fair condition. And then the last item are shelving cabinets. They are poor. They're really not they're really not to be used. It's but again it's one person's trash is another man's

012treasure. Um so those are the items that are currently at from ths and also to Hamilton Street. Excellent. Uh, Mrs. Shuff's >> question. If someone is interested in one of these, how do they contact Mark Freighus? >> So, what happens is when the school committee deems these surplus, Mark Freighus goes ahead and uploads them into what's called Gov deals. It is um it is a platform where many people gain access to to see things and they bid on the items. So, we've actually have sold them and I could provide um a district I could provide the school committee with how much we have. Um, I believe we have just about, we just sold a big one from Taunt High School, all the old U machinery that was deemed surplus a few weeks, a few months

013ago. Um, so we're almost reaching about $15,000 in revenue of selling some of our items. So, it is um so what happens is once they do the the bidding closes, the person who gets the um who wins the bid, they will reach out to Mark Freighus to have a date to pick up the items. And then that's it. We just sold all of our cafeteria tables to another um another private school in a different state. So it was really great to see. >> Can can an everyday person did >> Absolutely. There are a plenty of everyday people that do. >> Yeah. You don't have to be an organization. So you said gov deals. >> Gov deals. >> Yeah. Okay. Deals. >> Superintendent. >> Yeah. And um so obviously Gov deals has been great as assistant

014superintendent Moan mentioned. We generated about 15,000 in revenue. But the committee also has the option if you want, we can also see if there are local organizations, nonprofits that would like this material before we put it on government bids for people to bid on to. You guys have done that in the past. Like >> I was just looking at the uh the um the piano >> and figured if there was a you know a former student from Coil that that had some sort of memory to, would someone be interested in in buying it? How would they go about doing it? So, >> so you can make that potty a motion as that could be something that's donated by the community by the committee. >> Yeah. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Beer. >> I I just

015make a motion to dispose of uh the surplus items as presented in accordance with TPS policy and procedure and uh the city of Tin. >> I'll second that. uh on discussion. So, there has been some uh local interest on a couple of items and uh to to the committee, there's some items that have been out on the turf or turf materials that's been out there for quite a while. Um and there hasn't been um any movement on it. And there are local organizations uh I will not name it now that have done a lot of good for the community especially our teachers, our EMT, our fire, our police that uh there are two items I think I would like to pull out and give this organization an opportunity. I mean we're talking about uh attic

016turf stock >> and turf shock pads. Uh so anyway, uh if the maker of the motion would amend to include these two items come out of the gov deals and like the superintendent suggested. >> So moved. >> Second. Okay, great. All in favor? I opposed. Eyes have it. Thank you. So the two items that will not be in go deals addict turf stock and turf shots. >> Noted. Thank you. >> Thank you. And next up we have uh bills payable. Uh first one is FY25 in the amount of $52,375.50 wishes of the committee. A >> motion to approve the bills payable in the amount stated. >> I second that. >> All in favor? >> I opposed. Eyes have it. Next up we have bills payable for FY26 in the amount of 1,636,17052. >> Motion to

017approve the bills payable for FY26 in the amount stated. >> Mrs. Sh. Seconded on discussion. >> Am I up? >> Yes, Mrs. Sh. >> Thank you. Um >> I know you're gonna ask a question. >> Of course. [laughter] Um so Mrs. Monahan, page four, Bay State Sewage Disposal. It says um 1500 approximately for equipment repairs. So what it really is, it's considered to be the grease trap. Um and it's their cleaning that that happens quite a bit. Um you'll see that coming through um year after year. multiple times in the year. >> Okay, thank you. Page five, um food truck builders. It says other student activity supply [clears throat] 6300. >> So, this is their new freezer repair. Um their um H2O tank was um there was an problem with it, so we had to

018repair it >> on the food truck high school. >> Yep. Exactly. >> Page 12. um Phale linen supply for 625. >> These are to clean our chef coats. Um the linens that our students wear. So that's the cleanings that that we um send out to this company. >> Oh, that's nice. They look nice in those too. >> Um page 29, schoolboard enterprise 17,000 17,764 >> I believe. Sorry about that. Hold on a minute. I believe scoreboards. Yeah, mine is a little bit off. Uh scoreboard. These are the video score tables at for the high school athletics. >> Video score tables. >> Page 31. It starts on page 30. Solient Health LLC um for 13,840. So, this is a vendor that we use to help um provide us with special ed teachers since we cannot fill

019um those positions. This is an contracted service that we have. >> And the last one I have is on page 32, Gopher for $24,936.37. These are um health and wellness um items, equipment for the high school. Um and then they are also the other ones towards the bottom, the the um $300 one and the 10,000 one, those are for Martin School. But the ones at the top of the um for Gopher are for the um high school's health and wellness equipment and the other ones are for Martin Middle School. >> Okay. And the last thing is I have 34 pages, >> but the last thing the white book corp um vendor total so I didn't know if I was missing a page. >> You are missing a page. So you're actually missing pages 33 and

02034. So 33 the white book we had a total of $2,444. So, those are um whitebook flip traps that you will see again that's used all throughout the district. And then the last item that you do not have on your on in your packet is uh Worthington Direct Holdings and that item was for $87,99 and those are that's the purchase of the Freriedman new cafeteria tables. >> So, the cafeteria tables, >> can you give me the the white book total again? 20 >> $2,444. >> $4444. So, were you guys missing that also? >> Okay. Okay. I didn't know if it was just me. >> Is that >> Yes, I am. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Vieier. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >> I have a question on page 27. Rugby architectural building products

021in the amount of $13,692. These are the 13,000. This is wood shop wood supplies for the high school. >> Okay. One of our chapter 7, >> right? Chapter 74 programs. Correct. >> All right. Thank you so much. You're welcome. That's all, Mr. Chairman. >> Thank you, Mr. Beer. So, the motion was made and seconded. I do uh would like to um be recorded as voting present on page 25. Uh it's for Pride Inc. in the amount of $4,68. Uh since I serve on the board of directors and as co- treasurer, so to make the motion to kindly amend to include that. >> Yes. So amended. >> Second. All in favor? >> I I opposed. Eyes have it. And that concludes No, we haven't. Have we did we did the second one? Yeah. >> Motion to

022adjurnn. >> Yeah. Good. All in favor? >> I We are adjourned. Thank you. >> Good evening. The first regular meeting of November for the taunt school commission come to order. Please stand for the national anthem is star spangle banner. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisibley andice for all. Oh, say can you see by the dawn early light [singing] what so proudly we held [singing] at the twilight last gleaming who brought stripes and bright stars through the perilous [singing] must fight or the ramparts we watch [singing] were so gallently streaming and the rockets red. The bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night [singing] that our flag was still there. [singing] Oh, say does that star spangled

023[singing] then wave or the land of the free and the home of the brave. >> Kindly remain standing. Mrs. Feel Secretary Fe. >> Lord, as we begin this session, let us acknowledge your goodness and mercy and ask your blessings on all our deliberations. We thank you for this opportunity to be of service to our community and to the young people entrusted to our care. >> Thank you. Secretary Fagan, roll call, please. >> Yes. >> Mr. Enus, >> present. >> Mrs. Shav, >> present. >> Mr. Powski, >> present. >> Mrs. Fagan's present. >> Uh, Miss Santos, >> present. >> Mr. Mr. Vieiraa >> present. >> Mr. Laura >> present. >> Dr. [clears throat] Dlo chairman >> present. Thank you. Uh first let's start off by a quick note of congratulations to all our members that got

024reelected. Mr. Enus, sorry you won't be joining us next January, but we'll have a going away party. [laughter] If my if my colleagues are not opposed as we have in the past, uh bring in the new member that will take office in January, Miss Carrie Mullen, who is in the audience. So, if my motion could be made, please. >> I would so move it. >> Second it. >> All in favor? >> Please join us. Oops. Does she have a packet? You have a pen? >> I do. >> Good. >> And a noteaker. >> So, uh, first item on the agenda is approval of minutes of October 15, 2025. >> Mr. Chairman, move approval of the minutes for that date stated October 15, 2025. >> Second the motion. >> All in favor? >> I I opposed.

025Eyes have it. >> Next up, we have the student advisory committee report and we welcome Mr. Isaiah Wendell. Thank you. As Dr. Dlo said, my name is Isaiah Wendell and I am part of the Taton High School student advisory committee. Some updates I'd like to share with you from Taton High School. As we move deeper into the fall season, many of our fall sports are beginning to wrap up. It's been a great season overall, and I want to recognize all of our student athletes and coaches for their very hard work and dedication over the past few months. This Sunday, Taon High School will be hosting its annual MDA walk from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. This event brings together students, staff, and community members in support of the Musculardrophe Association, and everyone is welcome to

026attend or participate. Academically, report cards closed on Friday, October 31st, and grades are expected to be available for viewing in the community portal by November 10th. This marks the end of the first quarter and gives students the chance to reflect on how the year is going so far. Looking ahead, the homecoming will take place on November 21st, and planning is already underway for what's sure to be another exciting night for students. Our fall musical, The Little Mermaid, will be performed on Friday, November 14th, Saturday, and no Saturday, November 15th at 7 p.m. with it also appearing again on Sunday, November 16th at 2 p.m. The cast and crew have been working incredibly hard and shaping up. It's shaping up to be a great performance. Also coming up, Taton High will host the the student mini

027summit with select students on November 14th, followed by a larger summit like we did last year on December 12th. Both events will focus on student leadership, collaboration, and creating opportunities for students to voice their opinions across the district. That concludes my student advisory report. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Isaiah Wendell. wishes of the committee. >> Motion to accept the report. >> All in all in favor? I >> opposed. Eyes have it. >> We have public input. >> Secretary Fagan, do we have any public input today? >> Sure. >> No. >> There's no one signed up for public input. Moving on. Superintendent report. Junior Achievement Day. >> So, as uh I'll ask a CEO Jeffrey Pelier to make his way to the podium. And before Jeffrey, CEO Peltier, addresses the group, I just want to

028uh make a quick comment. It was probably go a good 10-15 years ago that Will Mandanka, who many of us know, helped bring introduce JA to the Tom Public Schools. Unfortunately, Will is usually at this presentation, but please keep Will in our thoughts and prayers as he's dealing with a with a family matter tonight and he can't and he can't be here as he's caring for one of his parents. So, with that being said, I know Jesse McFale is here as well. I don't know if Jessee's part of the presentation here for moral support. >> All right. All right. So, I'll turn things over um to Jeff Pelleter who's going to talk about one of my favorite days at EOL Elementary School, which is J E Pole Day. So, Jeff, the floor is yours. Thank

029you. >> Well, thank you so much, Superintendent Cabraw. Thank you so much everybody. Great to be here uh once again. It's an honor to be here once again. Uh Jeff Pelleter, the president CEO of Junior Achievement of Southern Massachusetts. So when I talk about JA just just high level uh really quick contextually uh we we work on four big goals uh education, youth development, economic development and workforce development and we and we work on those goals through three core content areas of which we call them financial literacy, career readiness and entrepreneurship. Right? really critical things that we all know uh are so important. And what we find is when we build partnerships with the local business community, with other community organizations, with schools, with school districts that we can bring to young people both in

030school, uh we also do this work out of school. So our organization itself, uh our service area, we're one of the 99 junior achievement chapters in the country. So we serve from greater Attabaro all the way through the Cape and the Island. So, greater Edboro, Greater Totten, Greater New Bever, Greater Fall River. Uh, so a big catchment area. We we serve anywhere between four to 5,000 young people uh each year with this work. Uh, one thing we're really proud of, the work that we do, thanks to our partners and all of our supporters. Everything we do for schools and young people is 100% free. So, we're we're able to bring this work to our local schools, to our districts, to our young people, uh, without cost thanks to our partners. And uh as Superintendent Cabal

031mentioned, one of our favorite days every year uh is our JA day uh here at EOL in our partnership with Taton Public Schools. Uh as Superintendent Carell mentioned with with Will, who's a board member of ours, an amazing board member, uh we've been in front of uh the school committee several times reporting on our work together. Uh we we've we've been at this work together for a few years now. what we've built is a partnership with Totten High School, Totten Alternative High School, and certainly here uh at uh at at EOL. And so today, uh we served every single classroom in the school. Uh we had a lot of our core partners here. Bristol County Savings Bank, Santandere Bank in particular, were two of our major supporters today. Uh and then we're thrilled to be

032joined by a couple of what we call in Jay World, our high school heroes. uh so students from Totten High School which are going to share uh their experiences from today uh as well and and this this is really just one item uh that we are working on this year in partnership with Totten public schools uh we had our e- pole day today we've already started our JA company program work at Totten High School that's our program where we fund support with curriculum with our team uh with mentors uh we support uh high school students starting their own businesses. They're actual real life businesses. You might have supported them before. We've had some really innovative ideas here in the district. Uh we've got our Titan business challenge program where we bring folks to UMass Dartmouth

033as well for a business competition. We've had winners uh in the district as well. We give out about $8,000 of scholarships each year. Uh and then a firstofits-kind new effort for us this year which uh we're super excited to have the district involved in is our regional youth summit at UMass Dartmouth on May 7th. We're bringing together 4 to 500 students, business leaders, thought leaders from all across the region. Uh we're thrilled that Superintendent Cabral is going to be a part of that. He's going to be a speaker is a thought leader for us there. Uh and really to help gather regional young people and business leaders to think about what's happening now and also what's happening next. And so we we have a really exciting agenda in store this year between the partnership between

034Junior Achievement uh and Totten Public Schools. Uh but none of that is possible without this partnership. And so a sincere thank you to each and every one of you. A sincere thank you to Superintendent Cabraw who's just an amazing partner supporter who both is there to support us and also on behalf of all the students in the district always asking us to raise the bar. what can we do next for TPS students, for TPS schools? What can we do that's new? What can we do that's innovative? Uh, and so we can't thank Superintendent Cabal enough for for this partnership uh and collaboration. Uh, and that goes right down into uh the schools, the principles that we work with. Principal Jones, uh, assistant principal today Paul just just the best, just amazing to work with. uh

035and very much so to Jesse McVale of which you know the best part of my job right running a nonprofit you do all kinds of different things by far and away my favorite thing is when you get to work with right the educators the students uh that's why you get into this work is to do that work uh and I just can't say enough about Jesse uh is is just someone who just he has the talent he has the skill he has the drive and and just an amazing partner with JA and so what we're really excited about uh in particular with Jesse and and a couple of the amazing future leaders that we have here today. So, we've already started our work with them on the company program. Uh as part of our e-ole

036day here today where we served the entire school, we we incorporated one of our programs called high school heroes where we trained up taught in high school students who we've been working with to actually deliver the curriculum to elementary students uh here today. And so, not only are they already working with us to build their businesses, uh, which we're going to fund them on Friday. So, they're I told them that news before, so they're excited, uh, about that, right? They're going to get their funds, but but they were actually, uh, in classrooms today, uh, doing an amazing job bringing their skills, their energy, uh, to elementary students here, uh, at EOL. And so, from all of us at JA, just a sincere thank you to all of you for being able to collaborate, for being

037able to partner. Uh we're honored to be community partners with Totten Public Schools. Uh we we we truly uh we we appreciate it and we just want to keep doing more here as well. And so uh with that, I might ask Jesse if you can come up and and just make a few remarks. >> Absolutely. I'd like to bring up >> Thank you, Jeff. And uh thank you everybody for being here. Also, congratulations on your campaigns and welcome to school committee again and for the first time. Um, so I brought up here a couple of students and shining examples of what we had in class today and what we actually did at e- pole. I'd like to introduce you to Taylor SA [applause] and Brody Almeida. And my piece is going to be very quick

038because Jeff did a wonderful job of explaining it. I just want to share a little light on the evolution of JA. So I think I started with Junior Achievement a little bit before COVID and the shutdown and we just used my classroom and I would see his associate Edith come in and train up the kids on the company program that we have now but it was an after school program. I'd also see a former uh JA person who retired Lane Meredith who would come in and teach the kids uh basically what they did today. And so like everything always trying to raise the bar and uh with um the evolutionary nature of this type of education um they put it all into one day basically right and uh what we did is we've incorporated this

039into the classroom. So we are always in marketing we're looking for a realistic u exposure to real work in the community um in our school. We have the tiger shack. We have lots of different elements through DECA. But with JA, that gives us one more branch or one more arm to be able to reach more people. And so my marketing two kids who are primarily juniors, there were a couple seniors in the class. Um we're able to do two things. Number one, the company program, which he explained, they're very excited about it. And number two, what exactly happened today, which we had about three to four days to train on these company kits. And these guys ripped them apart, broke them apart, really tried to understand the lessons they had to teach. and not many

040of them had any teaching experience. So, you can imagine the nerves they might have felt going into classrooms of elementary school kids with seasoned teachers kind of measuring them. Um that it wasn't the most exciting thing for them to get into right away, but I am so pleased and so proud of the entire team. We brought in 22 students today. Um basically my entire class, one was absent, but the way that they rose to the occasion was absolutely stellar and it was really impressive. And more than that, when you saw the the uh shine in their eyes, the the just the excitement in their eyes to be able to go impress themselves, I think is what happened today. And I'm just going to turn it over to Taylor and Brody and um let them maybe

041explain a little bit about what they did and what they're doing and then open it up to any questions. Sound good? >> Taylor. >> Hello everybody. Thank you for um having me today. I'm very grateful to be here. So, my name is Taylor SA and I was one of the high school heroes today at this event. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to be here today. I absolutely enjoyed it. I was so just so happy and so pleased to be a part of this. I feel like it's very important for the children to learn about business in the way that we were teaching them, teaching them about the fundamentals of money and how it moves in a society and community and similar topics about financial literacy. And I believe that that is very

042important for children to learn even at a young age. And the opportunity I had, I'm just incredibly grateful for it. And it wouldn't be possible without JA. So I'm very very glad to have them. And in addition to this, I'm very, again, I'm just so thankful that we have JA because we're doing our own business and as Mr. Jeff said, it is funded. So we don't have to worry about that part to an extent because we have the money that they are going to provide for us for us to start up this business. I am the chief of marketing of the business called God First that we are creating which is a Christian apparel line and I am just so excited. I am looking forward to starting this business alongside Brody who will be Brody

043Almeida who will be our CEO of the business. He has done an amazing job overlooking it and overseeing how everybody is doing and I'm just so happy to be a part of it and I love the message of community that our brand is going to create and I love working on the marketing project and I feel like Taund is going to be a very big target market here. So, thank you very much for your time and I hope you have a lovely day. >> Thank you. [applause] Hi, I'm uh Birdie Ameda. I am a student at taught in high school and I was a part of the junior achievement at the uh high school hero program and it was it's a blessing to really be a part of this seeing the joy in those kids'

044eyes and the excitement they had um being taught such a complex unit. I mean it's business third graders and yet they they got the concept so well and it was it was great seeing them be so interactive and so joyful and so happy and they all connected with each other throughout these activities that we uh presented to them. It's like a it's a passion for me when it comes to teaching and it's a really good opportunity for me to um get like a good uh example, a good uh be a good word for this. >> Yeah. Good role model to these students. It's a good uh opportunity to have the experience for teaching. And like Taylor's mentioned a lot, uh I'm very proud to be working on the business I'm proud of every person that's

045been working on that business. We've been doing absolutely excellent. I didn't expect it to go anywhere near this far this soon. We have a name. We have the brand idea. We have the the image. We have everything set in motion. And it's just it wouldn't be possible without everyone that's been working on the team. and we get to with the JA project. We really get to bond together. We get to connect throughout this JA. It's it's a really great, you know, project and I love being a part of JA. Thank you. [applause] >> Thank you guys. Um, if you have any questions, we like to hear them. >> Thank you. Absolutely. Uh, before I open up to the committee, uh, Taylor and Brody, are you part of DECA also? Yes. So I am part of

046DECA. I am a now second year I think. Yes. I'm now a second year member. So last year I competed in districts and I made it to states. So I got sixth place and I got up. So I made it to fifth place in districts, made it to states and I went to Boston and I was able to experience that. And that was one of the biggest blessings of my life. I made so many awesome friends. I had so many business opportunities there. I made so many connections. Networking became very big for me and I learned how to do it and when to do it and the tips for it. And I just I'm very good at it now, I would say. Not in a selfish way, just in my opinion. Um, and because of

047that and because of Mr. McFale's help, which he's been an incredible role model in my life. Um, he has helped me seen the he has helped me see the value in DECA because I feel like a lot of people may assume things about DECA and how it's a business community and you know, oh, it's just business. But for me, because of his leadership and because of his role modelesque in my life, I've learned that DECA is more than that and that DECA is actually an amazing club and that everyone should be in it. Um, I've also learned a lot from DECA to help me with JA and to help me build the business alongside Brody. >> Excellent. I am a uh considered a first year at DECA. I wasn't too Would it be a first

048year? did be first in this year. >> Yeah, I wasn't a I was going to join it last year. I never did. I felt like I didn't have the time, any of that. And this year when I had this amazing teacher right here, he inspired me to really get into that branch. And I think it's I think it's great. I love the idea that I love everything it's for. And I really hope to make it far. And if I don't make it far, I hope to enjoy the moments that I will have in DECA. >> Right. >> Along with that, she also inspired me a lot. Taylor, >> she uh told me about like how good DECA is and all of that. And it really inspired me to really join it. And I hope to

049compete good in finance, really learn a lot more stuff that's important in my life and connect with who I really am. Thank you. Well, you know, I I I asked because I had a feeling that you were both in DECA because every time our students come before us, especially those that were in DECA that were before us what last month or two months ago, they're so articulate. They're not microphone shy. Uh they, you know, their thought process is on point and the energy that's at that microphone is just simply amazing. So, this is a great, you know, segue. Deca JA, I think it's it's really really great. So, committee, uh, anybody have any questions or comments? Yes, Mr. Laura, just to congratulate you on what you're doing, but it gets easier every time you do

050it over another time. Your confidence is built. And this is what it takes to know to have yourself ensure that you are secure, that you are comfortable speaking to a mic, speaking to a public, whether it's a student or an adult. Once you know your true confidence, it just comes natural. Congratulations. Excellent. All >> righty. Uh just Superintendent Cabraw. >> Yeah, just a quick comment. So, I just want to thank the students uh for being excellent role models today and for coming to the EOL Elementary School and giving your time, giving your time when you could have been in school studying because I know there's work to be made up, but so thank you for giving back to Jesse and to Jeff. Again, thank you for helping to bring our students and to help bring

051the community here. I mean, we always look for donations, but the greatest gift, the greatest donation is the gift of time. So, thank you for bringing the community in and giving back to our kids. It It was a wonderful day. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Thank you. >> Shake hands. >> Come on down, please. >> Congratulations. Good job. Excellent. Keep it up. >> Keep it up. Nice to see you again. Thank you so much. >> Next time you come through here, you're supposed to go around this way. >> Congratulations. >> Yes, sir. >> Thank you very much. >> You see what you've done? >> Isn't it awesome? I appreciate you guys and all this together. You know, it's beautiful. All right, next up on the agenda, we have the superintendence report. We I'm

052sorry, pass next uh MCCAST accountability review. Uh tonight with us, we have Christopher Barata, assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and Hillary u Brashan Brashahan, coordinator of testing and research. I'm sorry, Hillary on the last name. Please say anything. >> So, as Mr. Barado is making his way to the podium. Uh last month uh the state department of elementary and secondary education released our accountability ratings and our MCAST scores. So Chris and his team uh Hillary in addition to Hillary, he's also joined by Dila Mendoza, Danielle Kurt, and Elizabeth Palowski. They're going to provide you with an overview of our MCCAST performance and also our school accountability. and and there's also a lot of great news to share regarding one of our elementary schools, which I'm sure Chris will talk about in our in his presentation,

053but if not, I'll be sure to highlight it towards the end. So, Chris, the floor is yours, and thank you to you and the team for being with us this evening. >> Well, thank you very much. Um, it's very difficult to follow outstanding students like that, but let's pull it all together. What we're talking about here, I heard joyful interactive learning experiences. In our realm, we talk about student discourse and progressive or uh productive struggles of learning. We also heard what they mentioned themselves, third graders understanding difficult concepts, which means if you set the bar high enough, they'll achieve that. And we should always look to the students with the ability to learn at higher levels. So that actually dubtales nicely into our accountability report uh here we're going to have this evening. First and

054foremost, I'd like to introduce the team which consists of intelligent and impactful women in leadership roles. We have with us tonight Dr. Elizabeth Palowski, our director of curriculum for STEM pre-K through 12. Danielle Kurt, our director of curriculum humanities, pre-K through 12. Dila Mendoza, our director of multilingual learners and title one. And then Hillary Breznahan, our coordinator of testing and research. need a little help with a little clicker. So, we pause here for a moment. We always talk about this accountability. It's the annual review. We sometimes call it like referred to as an autopsy, but you need to know whether it's our strategic plan, our instructional prioritization, or our school improvement plans, one of which was presented tonight. We're always going to improve. And that's the goal of the district where regardless of where we

055are now, we're going to be setting targets for consistently improving our practices and our outcomes. So, first I'd like to start off with something that this board and others at home might have seen on a consistent basis. It's a quick review of what the accountability rating means for a district like TAN, in fact, 350 some odd districts across the state. What factors into the accountability system along the left hand side? And I'll break it down a little bit. It consists of two components. One is the normative component and the other is criterion reference component. I'd like to think in simplistic terms a normative component means in essence t public schools against other districts. Us versus them. criterion reference component really is us against ourselves where we actually or the state designates targets of improvements for

056our students themselves to improve within our own confines of our school system. So the normative it's ton public schools versus other districts criterion components is how do our students do amongst themselves within our districts and of course number two on the upper right hand quadrant talks about those elements that factor in the accountability rating system which will go in a little bit more detail in the next slide but encompasses achievement student growth high school completion English language proficiency and additional indicators primarily those are at the high school level. So next slide we'll hold here for a second. All right. So accountability rating is broken up to two components. Indicators for non- high schools. Those are grades 3 through eight. And I'll put a little aster bookmark at that. Then indicators for high schools 9 through

05712. Again our eighth graders are at the high school. And you would say well wait a minute. Is it measuring apples to apples? But when you look at the actual results of students whether we position those students in one particular building or another the data still is the data which owns so it's valid data so what I like to draw to the right hand side there are components over here that don't apply both sides look at ELA composite scaled scores both look at the mathematics what's different at the high school level that they get rated at was the four-year cohort graduation meaning when students come in in ninth grade, the clock starts ticking. Do they achieve graduation at the end of the 12th year, the four-year cohort? Extended engagement rate means do some of those

058students have to credit recovery and maybe takes five years to graduate. So, you track those students as well. Those students who come in and complete their graduation requirements within the four years or it takes some students more taught [clears throat] in public schools, whether it's Dr. Harrison, Cl uh Carolyn Bleno, Bert Robert Delaney, or Isa Rodriguez wants to make sure all students graduate. So for us, we'd say ideally four years, but if it takes you five or more, we're going to work with you until you achieve that. And that's something that Bert Delaney consistently talks about re-engaging of students to make sure they reach the graduation requirements. You also have the annual dropout rate. Chronic absenteeism applies to both categories. And the advanced coursework completion rate, which Taton High School really drilled down to and

059actually had their accountability rating altered last year because some of the courses could have been coded differently and when they submitted it to Desi said, you know, you're absolutely right. You should have had credit for those. So moving forward, Caroline Beno and her teams and guidance with Greg Gay are making sure that they actually categorize coursework that should be credited and then benefits the overall rating for the high school. And this slide goes back to how again the school comparisons that normative component us versus other schools. Now the big categorization of schools. This goes to a little bit about what was mentioned during the elementary subcommittee day when uh principal Peters gave her school improvement plan of hey how much state interaction do we have? This is the continuum of support and recognition that DESIE

060provides every district. On the far left hand side are those schools of recognition achieved high achievement rates made some global changes that really uh recognize them. Sometimes they call them the blue ribbon schools all the way to the right hand side broad comp comprehensive supports. You will notice Martin Middle School substantial progress towards targets. Those targets were set by DESIE over the summertime looking at those students saying here's the targets for those students. If you meet or exceed those, it'll move you along this continuum. Martin, which Miss Breingham will highlight that later in the presentation. Substantial towards the progress towards those pro uh targets. I'm sorry. Moderate progress towards those targets were all other TPS schools meaning Bennett, East Taunt, Gallagghan, Chamberlain, Freriedman, and Parker. Now we move over and of course you know Taon

061Alternative High School has such few students who take the MCCAST or took the MCCAST exam. their cohort of students are so small their data isn't uh represented in this. Now to the right, focus targeted support. I'll pause there a second. This is not like it was previously when we had stu a statewide system of support. This means one area potentially one area within those schools needs work focus. For example, malke, [clears throat] our students who are white, their performance needs to improve. poll our students with disabilities their performance need to improve. Taunt high school had low participation rate for students with disabilities which means 95% of those students who have IEPs we didn't hit that benchmark perhaps their attendance was lower. So it's almost a factor of attendance and participation. Uh, of course we always

062want to improve our performance of our students with special needs, but this is actually sitting down for the test and submitting a test. taunt public virtual academy low participation all students and again this is why we should be credited as a district of really diving into the data and I know it sometimes people's eyes glaze over a little bit but looking deeper at Taon Public Virtual Academy 25 out of 27 students tested for ELA that means 93% of those students they need to be 95 so it's not some huge global number All right, that's two students affected that 24 out of 26 tested for mathematics. So when you look about participation that that in some regards is lowhanging fruit. Of course we want all of our students to excel academic stuff. The first thing is

063are you here for the tests themselves? Those are easily achievable tasks because two years ago, Taon High School was recognized for a low participation rate for the Hispanic population and they turned it around in one year realizing the improvement of attendance where were students making sure they're in taking the test. So, we look at that as in some regard lowhanging fruit that we could definitely take care of that. So, what does that mean? We're going to have a light-handed approach collaboration with DESIE. It's actually not with the statewide system of support offices anymore. It's with the office of effective partnerships and impact. We already had uh one meeting with our team and the superintendent last week. We have another one scheduled this week. And they're actually asking us from before was hey here's the supports.

064We highly suggest you take part in. And when the state says highly suggest it basically says you're going to do that here. It says you've done a lot of data dives. You've presented it. What do you think? How can we help you move the needle? And those are the beginning conversations that we're having which will come out of today's presentation and ongoing of what type of support are we going to access with uh DESIE. And a quick look here of our student demog demographics. I'd like to point to you a few things about uh the differences between the state and Tom public schools. Tom public schools are black or African-American students are 16.2% 2% higher than the state's average. Our multi-race is 1.5% higher than states. Uh our white student population is on par with

065the states. Our low-income students 16.5% higher than the state. And our students with disabilities 8% higher than the state. So there are some differences between us that distinguishes us as an urban district. We're up for the challenges because obviously with those students come whether or not they're ready for school and again this school committee here uh put the financial investment in full day prek and the sooner we have those students in our building get them acclimated to school readiness and working with our content and our teachers uh we'll make that impact on our uh on our results. So now I'd like to call up uh Hillary Bezahan to uh provide the committee overall view of data highlights and moving forward some uh specific data points. Hillary, >> thank you. So before we move into um

066some specific MCCast data to share with you, we wanted to start off with some data highlights and some celebrations in the data. As Chris mentioned, um we started off with four schools a several years ago that were in the bottom 10th percentile when they were compared to other schools in Massachusetts. As of this year, we have zero schools. Um and that is really efforts that coordinated support for those schools as well as the efforts of the educators and the building principles in each of those schools. Um, I will get more into this later in the presentation, but we're also excited to see achievement that is at or above prepandemic levels in some of our grades, some of our content areas, and student groups across the district. We also this year saw an increase in ELA

067achievement by three percentile points, and math by two, which we'll highlight as well. And this past year, we've seen an increase in student growth. um seeing student growth meeting typical growth targets across the district. These targets are set by DESIE highlighting low growth, typical growth or high growth for grade levels and student groups. And we're encouraged by the growth students made in both content areas um on the MCCAST and also seeing that on our own uh district student achie student assessments as well. >> Hello everyone. So, in the last bullet, uh, English learners, which is awesome, demonstrated the highest growth in all subgroups, um, in the city. And I just wanted to bring it back to my presentation from last year. Some of the things that we've put in place where we're seeing, we're now

068seeing that growth. So, we have the same content resources in our newcomer academy, in our um, English language development courses as the general setting. That's a huge turnaround. I think I feel as though that has made a huge impact in student growth and also [clears throat] in our I Ready data we saw last year the amazing growth that English learners had. So and it's often I Ready is often compared to MCCAST results as well. So now this is um a great comparison showing that I Ready is an indicator of how the students will do. And some of the things um too is just to keep in mind the retention of our teachers in our department is absolutely excellent. No one leaves unless they're retiring which is awesome. And also um just thinking of our students

069and seeing this growth. They are learning language along with content. They're not a world language student where you're just learning the language. They have to learn all these content areas while learning the language. and they are the highest growth. So, I am just so impressed by them and what they've achieved. Good evening and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to showcase some of our ELA data that we're very proud of. Our coaches, teachers, and students are working incredibly hard each and every day. And the data is beginning to show that. As you can see, there's an upward trend in all of our data in all student groups. We can correlate that to our intentional planning, which is rooted in our high quality curriculum. As you may know, our curriculum in fifth or kindergarten through

070fifth grade is wonders and kth grade through 12th grade is study sync. Thanks to your contributions, we were able to update our study sync platform this year. So, I give a shout out to our sixth through 12th grade teachers that have been working extra hard to learn the updated curriculum as well as instructing our students every single day. Um, as you can see with our student groups, we're all in that upward um trajectory, but obviously there are some achievement gaps and we are working on those achievement gaps each and every day. As I had mentioned, we're going we are continuing to do intentional lesson plans which elevate potential misconceptions. As you know, we have common writing prompts from grades two through eight. And with those writing prompts, we have common graphical organizers and language which

071will allow all of our students to have equitable scope and sequence for all our students so that they're all learning the same things at the same time using a common language. Our common writing assessments are also being tracked on Open Architect, which allows us to be able to pull student groups in order to provide targeted interventions for our specific student groups in order to best meet their needs. Additionally, we've been working with our grade level teams at each of our schools and we're really looking at student work to figure out how exactly we need to meet each student's specific needs in order to raise not only their MCCAST scores, but also their literacy skills. Again, you can see that we are projected to go in the correct direction. We're very happy about that. As we

072look at our student groups, we [clears throat] want to think about different cultures, different races. We want to make sure we're selecting literature that is culturally responsive so that students can see themselves in the literature as well as others. Additionally, you may be aware that we need to continue to strengthen our foundational reading skills in our students. So, we were awarded an a grant that allowed us to provide Ignite reading tutoring to our students in first grade in order to start building some of those filling in some of those gaps with our youngest students, especially with phmic awareness. And just yesterday, we offered PD to our staff talking about progress monitoring and retaching opportunities to continue to really target interventions for our students, meeting them where they are so that they continue to close those

073achievement gaps. Again, although the data is treading in upward direction, our work is not done. We're continued to be committed to our systems and structures in order to continue to raise our student achievement. At this time, I'd like to welcome Dr. Pilowski, who will review our STEM data. >> Hello everyone. I'm happy to be here and congratulations to everyone on being um reelected. There we go. So, we're starting here with math grades three through eight. [clears throat] Again, we are moving in the correct direction. However, this isn't the type of data that really helps educators and coaches and myself understand what's happening. It does show a glaring disparity in our uh English language learners and our students with disabilities from uh the all student category and that has helped us uh really create systems and

074develop plans to support students, our English language learners and our students disabilities. currently in mathematics. We are breaking down the curriculum so that students are getting exactly what they need to achieve at that particular level. We are also yesterday we had some professional learning to support a uh an addition to our curriculum which is a lesser of mathematics um to help teachers really target specific interventions within the classroom and in the pullout setting. Uh this this professional learning will continue throughout the year. But each of these dots represent students across three schools with hundreds and hundreds of different standards that are kind of related and skills that do build upon each other. So the story isn't here. So when we look at the data at each school at at each grade level, we can see

075that there are specific subjects, specific things that we have to really cover. Our um one of them for instance is fractions. our students in fourth grade which are this are in fifth grade now as part of this this data are students that were in kindergarten during COVID I know we're not supposed to talk about it but this is going to be an ongoing cascade over the next over their career where uh they did not touch anything for two years of their learning and that has we have found has severely impacted their understanding of fractions because they didn't play with things to learn it. So we are remediating hard at this point with these students and with the educators who were who many of them are new educators who for the first time encountered students who

076were learning who had this little deficit. So we're working really hard with teachers in a um three different professional learning throughout the year. Right now it's uh we have teachers in middle school and in elementary coming after school to learn about just conceptual fractions. And then we also have a during the day series that's starting in two weeks with uh an outside partner, Suloney, to help teachers plan specifically for fraction Fridays. So we can catch these students up and help these teachers really give targeted interventions. [snorts] Uh and here we can see that there's we although our curriculum is known to be a welcoming curriculum, we do still have some work to do to ensure that all of our students feel welcome in mathematics classes and feel like mathematicians in science. um we are moving

077in the right direction uh but with our students with disabilities specifically uh I'm working with the department of education um desi to in a program to ensure that we are using universal design strategies in all science classes we'll be offering professional learning in the spring myself along with u members of the special ed department to help all teachers but specifically uh special educators really understand how you can take these science concepts and make them really accessible and actually when you look at the standard what is it that students need to know how to do and really really build that up in the classroom. So I'm really excited about that work upcoming and there is a some there is growth in with our multilingual learners because students are learning this with the same curriculum as their

078um classmates. [snorts] And the thing that's difficult here to look at as well is that we are looking at two snapshots. We're looking at fifth grade on a test that is is assessing third, fourth, and fifth grade. And we're looking at eighth grade at a test that's assessing sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. So, we're looking at experiences of students across schools and from different educators. So, in if you look over at 2019, that was the my fir that was one of um that was the first year actually that we had students having consistent curriculum from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. I remember that. Then we of course we we introduced open sed we had covid there's this like kind of wiggle here happening but um I feel it's been really difficult because although the state

079has supported us and given us funding to implement this curriculum and this this curriculum is matched to our vision for innovators and excited curious students students who are going to solve the problems of the future that we can't even imagine the Massachusetts state assessment is exactly the same as it was in 2005. The questions look like questions that uh were in my first few years teaching. So when the So I So we're sitting at this weird crossroad of do we go back to the old way and have students regurgitate facts back to us or do we continue to build their curious minds and support their ability to look at the world differently and solve problems. Fortunately, I do work with uh the the MCCAST um the people who develop it and they have assured us

080that over the next two years the MCCAST will change to um support this new type of learning. But it is when you see such great work in the classrooms and hard work from the educators and instructional coaches to support this type of planning to get students to um perform this data. I'm just waiting for this test to change so the data can show all the hard work we're doing. And again, this is the by um this is the data by subgroup and um we do still have some work to do. All right. So, as we get into um the next set of data and start to look at our high school data as well, I want to just call out a few specific um trends. So, while we are tracking our district data carefully um

081both MCCAST and our district assessments, we're also paying close attention to state trends. And there's three trends that the state has really called out this year. Um specifically, one looking at um identifying schools that are back to preandemic achievement levels. Two is highlighting um the continued need to support student attendance. and three is the high school MCCAST achievement um across the straight across the state across all content areas grade 10 MCCAST results noticeably dropped this year and this may be a reflection of the impact and changes in the recent graduation requirements and as we look at Taton we see similar results so this graph shows um performance of our grade 10 students in ELA in the blue math in the orange science in the green you can see >> [clears throat] >> that we were

082seeing an increase in student achievement prior to that change in 2025. Uh but in 2025, yes, our results dropped considerably um similar to state trends. I'm going to move next to attendance. Um this chart here, we're continuing to monitor and support improved attendance across the district. And looking at last year's MCCAST results across all grade levels, we saw a strong correlation between student achievement and attendance results. So in these charts, ELA is on the left, math is on the right. Each of those dots represents an individual student who took the MCCAST last year. So students in red, um each of those red dots represent a student who achieved and not meeting expectations on the MCCAST. um those in blue and dark blue represent students that achieved a meeting or exceeding um [clears throat] level on

083the MCCAST. When we look at this, we see that um students who had fewer absences h performed 20 points higher on the ELA MCCAST compared to students that were chronically absent. And in math, it was the difference was was 14 points higher. Students that are chronically absent are shown on the bottom um bars at 18 plus. So I show this to highlight our the work that we're doing not just in supporting students um in mastering standards but also in supporting students to be in school. Um, we know those attendance patterns begin early. They begin in kindergarten. And our edi ed educators are working closely across all grade levels and partnering with uh families to support strong attendance. So that third pattern that I noted that I noted was um looking at prepandemic achievement. This is

084one that the state has really called out and they have set targets for schools for achievement um based on either these two metrics recovery path or path forward. So schools that are identified as recovery path means that you are still working toward prepandemic levels. you're not quite up to that achievement level that you saw in 2019 versus schools that are in a path forward um targets have achieved their 2019 achievement levels and are meeting or exceeding that level. Um as we're beginning to wrap up our presentation for MCCAST and accountability, I want to highlight that we are seeing some of our schools moving toward that path forward. We are seeing um instances of grade levels, content areas or student groups where our students are meeting or exceeding our prepandemic levels. Example here shows Martin Middle

085School. So while the grade seven is still in that kind of recovery path, they are approaching that 2019 achievement level. Their grade fifth and sixth grade students are exceeding their prepandemic levels. As a team, we're continuing to identify where instructional systems and structures are having that desired impact and for which students and building on that moving forward. So this slide here is how we're going to respond to this data. And it really comes down to what are we doing with it? Are we looking at it? We've implemented structures and systems in place to monitor our student progress throughout the year as evidenced by Danielle Kirk talking about the lesson internalization and intentional planning. What Dr. Palowski mentioned of looking at the data we suspected early on through use of some of our formative assessments I

086read and such that Dila Mendoza talked about that fractions was an was an issue. I know prior to this meeting maybe a couple back during a school improvement plan Dr. Dr. Dlo mentioned or questioned what are we doing about math because a principal in the school improvement plan said we're focusing on that. Dr. Palowski with the assistance of some teachers in the district right because we learn best from each other are running this term time series where teachers are working on how best to instruct our students in fractions. So, we're responding to the challenges in real time because we've developed these systems and supports in place that regardless of what happens, right? Our most two natural resources in the district we want to protect is our students and our staff because the students will keep

087coming through. But it's the teachers regardless of what products we have. It's the practices that are really going to make the difference. and this team and the teams within the buildings, our building administrators, our instructional coaches at the K7 level, our curriculum supervisors at the 8 through 12, and our most important group, the studentf facing educators and support staff that touch those students each and every day with the content and responding to their needs is what really is going to make a difference. So how do we at the district level make sure that we're providing the tools necessary and removing barriers by making sure our reading specialists and high dosage tutoring programs are in place. You have Ignite and Amira is being um well Ignite is a live or asynchronous tutor as a live tutoring

088via the internet where we have two I think 262 licenses now that Danielle Kurt applied for a grant and we have that in the district where students log in with an individual tutor every day to have their phonics or their their basic skills reinforced. Data is going to be collected. Our teachers are going to review that. Amira is being piloted at Mohei. It's in its second year. Last year got a little funky. It's actually touring through an avatar. Last year it got uh impacted because of the network issues. So our collection of data on that was incomplete and as a result that's why we wanted to continue it again this year to collect data to see what's going to be most impactful of those. So that is taking place and of course the small group

089for interventions. teachers are engaging in target professional development. We just mentioned that for example the fractions the use of I ready data which is a great indicator of success of whether or not you'll perform an amcast or where you would be but also allows the educator the ability to assign specific targeted work to remediate those weaknesses so that when the student shows up in the class time they don't feel behind they actually can catch up. You have um instructional coaches and our curriculum supervisors that we heard this morning great work with collaborating with the teachers in lesson unit planning, collegial visits and databased interventions. That's K12 going on continuous work with that group which wasn't existent prior to Superintendent Cabraw's ascension to superintendency. That wasn't there. Which means the teachers weren't being guided properly. We

090weren't tracking data. we weren't putting implementation of strategies in place and progress monitoring. So, we've got all that taking place. Our schools are improving communication of student progress with families through family assessment reports, redevelopment of the elementary report cards. Two things part of our strategic plan because everything is our guiding document. One of those components is the improvement of communication not only within buildings but outward to families. Uh that most important part, the redevelopment of our elementary report cards. I think our elementary uh curriculum subcommittee heard about that yesterday's process was by grade level teachers examining standards first and the first draft of what our new report card may look like is underway. So we're responding to needs in real time taking feedback from our educators themselves on what makes the most sense because they

091touch it consistently on a day-to-day basis. And of course, the district's engaging with many partners, Lynch Academy, which is the high school component, and then the new teacher project, which is TNTP at the prek through seven uh level. And it's always great to have an outside perspective, and we're taking advantage of that both at the high school and at the earlier grade levels. And now I'd uh like to have if if if the group would like to go through the additional slides, superintendent, if that's Uh I I know we've had this packet at our home since last Friday, so I'm sure we've uh gone through them, but uh we'll open it up to the committee. Absolutely. >> Go through. >> I would like to see it presented. >> Yeah, sure. With you. Absolutely. All right.

092So, Danielle and Elizabeth walked you through um our ELA and STEM data. This is a little bit more of a breakdown of looking at um our district trends, state trends, and then urban superintendence network trends. Um just looking at um last year's data 2025 compared to the year prior and then prepandemic 2019 data. So you can see here the percent of students that are meeting or exceeding expectations in grades three through eight and grade 10 and then the changes over the years. Um last year we saw a three-point increase in our ELA [clears throat] um achievement similar to the state trends. Grade 10, as I mentioned, we saw a dip um as did the state and our urban superintendent network. And the same data broken down by those student groups that we identified. And for

093grade 10, um, this breaks it down a little bit further. You can see the percent of students that are not meeting, partially meeting, meeting, and exceeding expectations for last year. for each of the student groups. Um, and then here's our similar math data. Ton public schools compared to the state and the urban superintendent network. Um we did see a two-point increase um which is a a statistically significant increase um in meeting and exceeding expectations a little bit higher than our state in our um urban superintendent network. And we also saw that drop in grade 10. And then you have the same results broken down a little bit further by student group for grades three through eight and grade 10. And then these are our student growth reports. And this is where I noted earlier that

094um we were falling within that typical range for student growth which is where we want to be. It's about um it shows that students are are making similar growth to their peers across the state. Um growth is not measured in grade three because it's the first time students take the MCCAST. So you can see that our growth um in ELA and math was in the 40s and 50s ranges for all grade levels including grade 10. Um the state target is always at 50. And then you can see the comparison for the urban superintendent network. And our growth was actually higher than our 2019. We were falling in that low to typical growth range in 2019. And we have um seen higher growth in recent years. And then here's our science achievement results. We don't have

095um science growth data because students only take it three times throughout their um student careers. We saw a very small change in grade five compared to previous cohorts and then a drop in grades eight and 10 last year. And then last year was the first year that our eighth graders took the civics exam. So we don't have any prior data here. Um but you can see that our Tong public schools, our eighth graders, 30% of them u met or exceeded uh uh expectations on the civics's MCCAST compared to 39% across the state and 22% um for the urban superintendent network. Any questions? We'll open it up to the uh committee for questions or comments. Mr. Powski, uh thank you Dr. Dlo. Um Chris, Hillary, Dr. Powski, Dila, Danielle, thank you so much for the presentation.

096Um there was something that Hillary pointed out I felt was really important. Um you spoke about like the trend between attendance and achievement and um being able to sit on the elementary subcommittee and seeing all the school improvement plan. There's a really strong um strong focus of all of our uh elementary principles on that um and and really speaking about how it builds into middle school and high school. So it's really great that you guys are working on that. And then um one other thing if I could go back to uh something that Dr. Powski was speaking about. Um, so I I was lucky enough to attend the MCLA conference with Dr. Powski a couple of weeks ago and although I was there to see her get inducted into the Mass Educators Hall of Fame,

097I was paying attention to what they were talking about there. And the uh the two ladies sitting at our table, they actually worked at Desi and they were presenting on you know what they're doing with with that test. And they they straight up the whole classroom full of science educators told them stay the course, keep teaching the way you're teaching because eventually the test will catch up to them. So it's it's two years. Two years. Yeah. They I mean they actually they they told us that it takes like five to six years for a question that they're working on to get onto the test. So it's how long it takes for that. But like you know all these different ways that we're we're we're teaching the kids and it's tough to look at the data

098and see the data go down but it's because the test can't keep up with everything. So I thought that was really really important. So thank you all for sharing. >> Thank you Mr. Dura. >> Just just a quick quick question if I may. Dr. Balowski, you indicated that MCCAST, their adaptation, their changes are making it easier for the diverse population throughout the Commonwealth. Is that a fair statement? >> Yes, 100%. rather than just having students recall facts. In science, um Delila once said all like all learners are mult like our are language learners and particularly in science there's so it's so vocabulary rich that it's difficult for students to recall or even understand the question. The new questions tell stories and they help the students look at data. They use simulations and they're able to

099connect science concepts and really make sense of something interesting. And you don't really need to speak uh English proficiently. You don't really have to have a strong understanding of specific topics. You just know have have know to think. And so the new test and I've seen the questions. It really does test your thinking. It's actually hard for adults because we just want to answer the questions. Um and the kids are really more willing to tinker with the simulations. But yes, I I believe in my heart more students be more successful. All students. >> That's good to know. And that information be assimilated to the students puts them more at ease knowing that it's going to get easier. just keep with it and >> it's only going to get easier down the road. >> I Yeah,

100we are talking about that. There are we have um we have purchased um applications that students can use that have tests that have questions that are sort of like that where the students are presented with a story and then they um use a simulation like let's put these different plants in different types of uh water or maybe different types of light and the students will like play with the toggles and they'll come to a conclusion and answer questions. That's a very simplistic third grade one, but we have them all the way up to 10th grade where students will use that program to try to practice that type of skill and they're very good at it. >> It's good to hear that. Thank you. >> No problem. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Mrs. Shves.

101>> Thank you, Dr. Dlo. Thank you everybody for your presentation. It's right up my alley. Um, question on what Mutton Middle is doing differently. I mean, they've made incredible strides. So there has to be something going on special there that we could try to replicate in other schools. >> Um yes, they have uh the front office has incredible systems in place to ensure that learning is happening and students are ready to learn at all times. Um if you walk through the hallways there uh I don't I'm not going to use the word control because I don't like that word, but it feels calm. So that is to the that is a kudos to uh Mrs. Pereira and her her team to have to really have that school feeling safe. Secondly, um the instructional coach um

102Mrs. Fernando has really um committed to supporting her teachers in intentional lesson planning and looking at student work and really digging into the curriculum that we have purchased for teachers. And she is like a dog with a bone. She is really has learned so much about that and she won't let it go. and she's broken it down for teachers in such a way that and then connected what they're doing to their I Ready and then connected it to MCCast for them. So they have everything in their hands to accelerate learning. So uh it's the teaming structures as in those meetings have been it's amazing to watch. >> Well, I'd like to see that replicated in other schools. >> We're working on it. >> You t they and all of you have talked about attendance. So

103is the attendance better at Martin compared to other schools? Yeah, it's so not to downplay what Martin's doing because it's amazing. There are amazing instructional practices happening there that um Elizabeth mentioned. Um I could pull up any of our schools and show similar data. So Mkei is back at prepandemic levels. Um English learners, we are seeing huge growth in our English learner population. So I shared Martin because I thought it this is a great example and I wanted to celebrate the work they're doing. Um but each of our schools we are seeing pockets of um success high achievement or high growth for different students um and different groups. And so what we're trying to do is you know identify those as you're saying um and then kind of grow those experiences so that we're seeing

104it across all grades all student groups. Mhm. The other question I have is looking at um English 3 to 8, mathematics 3 to8 um we're obviously having gotten to pre um the pandemic um numbers that's there. I know that we've gotten new curriculum. Um Melissa and I serve on the curriculum subcommittee. I I know math happened during that time. What about science and English? Were those new during that time also? >> Um, math began right at the pandemic and open sed was right before so teachers the professional learning they received was all online and the students were learning online as well. Additionally, there's I mean it's there's quite a bit of turnover at those like in eighth grade specifically last year there was a teacher out sick for the entire year and there was a

105sub in for the year. So there there are factors like that really do impact student learning. >> Well, just so that we're pointing out the fact that we we had a pandemic and we're also we've got a switch in in how [clears throat] we're teaching because the curriculum not only is the the curriculum has changed in so much that it isn't the actual curriculum that's different. It's how we're teaching the curriculum that is different. So that's been a shift that has happened during that same time. And obviously if you're saying that it's going across the state because if the state is paying for a lot of this curriculum, other districts are using a similar type of curriculum which goes back to what you said Liz about the test not catching up because I know mathematically

106the MCCAST test [clears throat] going to Deila's point it changed from a very concept mathematical number type of test to you have to read a lot of um information and so if you're an English language learner. You could have been a fabulous math student, but now you're struggling because you can't read it. And that affects you in science and obviously affects you in in English that is there. So, um you know, I I I am concerned that the test hasn't caught up because I'm not a lover of the current version of the test. I've you know, obviously with my experience, I've seen it across the board and it's it actually isn't a I don't think it tests well what we're teaching our kids. So, I like what Nathan said about it. Hopefully, it will catch

107up. One last question I have now that the MCCAST does not connect to graduation. Do you honestly think that the 10th graders are going to take it seriously enough because their scores are going to impact us? Well, that that was a comment I was going to save for the end, but uh we had a we had the pleasure of attending a u urban superintendent meeting that was focused on urban schools that Rob Curtain from the state who who oversees all the assessment and testing. If I was going to take out my crystal ball, uh you're going to see that in third and fourth grade, fifth, sixth, and seventh, you're going to see a trajectory of improvement. But I do believe at eighth and 10th grade, because the test doesn't count, you're going to see similar

108results to what we saw today. simply it still matters or it's still I shouldn't say matters it's still important to the elementary school kids and the middle school kids but at the high school level with the with the recent vote uh bill question two I think you're going to see a continuence of what we saw this year and what's what we need to keep in mind is that this still counts towards school accountability >> right so that's the concern that I have at the high school level that we might be seeing some great work and seeing the high school move in the right But the high school may find itself in the bottom 10% if it continues if the scores continue to trend this way. >> Did we have a high absenteeism for the high

109school when taking the test? >> So two things uh no remember that's that one subgroup uh special needs students with special needs had low participation rates. So that would have been the attendance uh for that component. Uh but overall the attendance was good that sub that category of students was that to follow up on your other question our wonders and study sync our ELA curriculum was purchased between six and 18 months prior to co >> so when you look at the high school middle school and high school probably had a better chance of adapting the curriculum whereas wonders at the early grades teachers were not able to dive into the materials so you have all those students trying to learn that stuff and superintendent is correct you look at no no um valid test to

110measure science growth. So our learning is going on in grade 10 whether or not students take it they may take it not maybe not as seriously as but it still determines the health of our district and that's why we have to internally look and we have to keep the eye on the ball and saying what are we going to measure internally whether it's I ready our formative assessments to say we're moving along that path because we're going to be victim of that whatever labeling it is. So that's why those systems of support that we have built up in the district is going to really matter in our progress monitoring because we're now at the hands of waiting for Desi to come up with a science test. >> Thank you. >> Great. Um Mrs. I saw

111Mrs. Fagan's hand first, please. I'm also on the curriculum subcommittee and I've I've had concerns about the way we're teaching some of this because it seems a lot of times kids figure out things in all kinds of different ways and sometimes I think we could give a better foundation. You can't build a house without a good foundation. And I you know I even like math facts I think those are important. there's kids that don't know, you know, you say they're doing well, but when you go to a store and they can't make change, it kind of freaks me out. Uh, so I I think we have to to do a little bit more work on some of the stuff we're doing. But I don't think it's simply a matter of saying, "Well, it doesn't count

112anymore, so they don't care." Maybe they really don't understand it, too. You can also look at it that way. Just can't say, "Oh, it's well, they don't have to take the test, so they're not so it's not going to count, so they don't care." I I would hate to think that. I think they'd be more interested that it's some of them would want to learn a little bit more. I mean, I I I know I write read things and I go off into 20 different directions to find answers to things. I I wish some kids would do a little bit more of that and I think they might be a little bit better. Just my opinion. Thank you. >> Ed education is one of those field where there's no direct answer. You have to take

113things. So I know at the state level uh stat statistically significant difference in the number of zeros and off-topic responses for the 10th grade exam and off-topic could be I'm asking a question about apples but somebody wrote about oranges or what they also evidence is some people uh some students gave their opinion on MCCAST and some very colorful language. So when you see that at the state level which is a huge amount which means students sat for it and might have done one other portion and then we saw some of that here and we can only attest to whether it was zeros we don't know if it was off topic or not although we could look at some of the responses but we also saw an uptick of that so I don't believe every student

114just said give up on it but there was enough uh shifting of importance on maybe perhaps on the part of students that might have moved our ratings down that way. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mrs. Fig and Miss Santos. >> Thank you, Dr. Uh, I don't really have a question, just comments, but thank you all for your presentations. And this kind of really speaks to what Donna said about what Nathan said about what Dr. Powski said. Um, I think everybody here knows I'm not a fan of standardized tests at all. Um, I don't think that they do a very good job of um gauging a person's or child's intelligence. Um, I think what you said is a perfect example of that, right? That you're doing all these wonderful things in the classroom, but

115the test is engaging them on that. So, it's really setting up students to fail. um especially if we're looking at them as you said as these accountability numbers it it's really not fair to the students at all you know and just even um I mean I think it's great that the English language learners are doing great but I mean I think part of one of the reasons why the yes on two passed was also because students based on demographics don't test as well as other students and so this is a kind of goes to what Mrs. Peters talked about when in our subcommittee meeting earlier today about there's students that just don't see diversity in the content as well too. So I mean if there's no diversity in the tests either that's going to impact

116the diverse amount of students that we have as you've seen we have a very diverse body of students. Um but to the other fact to what Danielle had talked about because Mrs. Peters came and talked about this issue of literacy and and you're talking K through two that this is an issue already. So, I mean, the issue of literacy and I I don't think it's a pandemic thing. I I think it's I think it's a huge there's a much bigger problem. Um, 100%. And as I was saying to Mrs. Peters and Nathan was there and Louis was there, I teach at college and I see the issue literacy issue 100%. Getting students to critically read is like I can't [snorts] even tell you. You guys know, you know. So, it's just um so I I

117don't I think it's a societal thing to be honest with you. So I think thinking creatively about the way that we can it's the about thinking outside of the box not necessarily thinking about what the MCCAST is telling us what it's supposed to look like right that it can look different than what a no offense to desic but what they say it's supposed to look like. So but thank you for all your hard work. I know how difficult it all is so I really appreciate it. Thank you. >> Great. Uh superintendent want to close it out? >> Yeah, I'd be happy to. So one I want to first recognize the members of the committee. Uh when we started seven years ago it was uh Mr. Barata doing leading this work with people who also were

118teaching at the time or had other responsibilities. So I want to appreciate and really thank the committee for putting the support and the financial support to create a curriculum instructional team. And I believe the first hire on that team was Dr. Palowski as our STEM director. Mrs. Mendoza had been working on on that team and then we brought uh Hillary and Danielle over. So we now have an instructional leadership team to lead this work in Tom Public Schools. So thank you for your fisc for your fiscal support. I also just want to mention too uh we're I think you're going to we're going to continue to see improvement. Uh last year we set a very lofty attendance goal of 93.5% and a chronic absenteeism goal of 19.5%. And we're also entering into three to four

119years of consistent instruction, steady staffing. So having consistency in the instruction, in the delivery of instruction, and the staff delivering it, I do believe that we're going to continue trending in the right direction. And I do hope when the next assessment or as the assessment evolves, I do hope that the state looks at alternative ways to measure student assessment who students who fail the MCCAST, whether it's through a portfolio or whether it's through another modality to demonstrate their learning because as somebody who's not a very good test taker, I completely get it. But I do believe that kids can demonstrate what they know in different ways. And I do believe there are assessments that can capture that and really demonstrate what all our learners know. That's why I'm super excited about AI and how it's

120going to impact um the world of education when it comes to really demonstrating with students who cannot articulate their thoughts, students who struggle to put their thoughts on paper, but having these new tools uh to support students, we're really entering a fun time in education. So, outstanding presentation and I appreciate all of your hard work, team. >> Great. Thank you so much for being here. Have a great night. [applause] Next up, we have administrative uh business. First item, staffing reports, the enclosure wish to the committee. Receive and placed on file. >> Second on that. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Eyes have it. Next up, Tom Public School staffing updates. The closure. Just real quick, you'll notice that we are 99% staffed. All our district positions um will be filled because we have two pending.

121We have one vacancy at Martin Middle School and two at Taton High School. So I'm very very proud of the work of our hiring managers and the work that's being done in the human resource department. >> Received and placed on file. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Opposed? Eyes have it. Tarant public schools enrollment update. >> So I just wanted to provide you with the numbers that were certified through the October 1 report. So we reported 8,256 students to the state. So these are the numbers that will be utilized when we uh when we start looking at our chapter 70 numbers. And again on the foundation uh the the chapter foundation report it's not going to appear 8256 because some of these students especially in the prek they only count as part- timerrs.

122They only count as a half. So these numbers will will change when we look at our foundation budget. But these are the current enrollment of students in our school and we'll provide you with a monthly update for the rest of the year. >> Received and placed on file. All in favor? I opposed. Eyes have it. Follow up on question regarding federal special education office reductions. >> Yeah, this was just in response to a question I believe Miss Santos brought at the last meeting. So you see I reached out to Secretary of Education Tutweiler and MASS executive director Mary Burke and this is the information they shared with me. >> Same procedure. >> Second. >> All in favor? Opposed? Eyes have it. Uh next up we have field trip requests. First one is Skills USA C

123and closure. On this one, we're looking at an overnight trip going to Marbor, Massachusetts. Uh happening on the 23rd of November, overnight returning on the 24th. Uh it seems like all the eyes have been dotted, all the tees have been crossed, and this is uh is this a couple weeks from now? >> Yeah. Okay, great. Wishes of the committee. >> Move approval. >> Second. >> All in favor? I I opposed. Eyes have it. >> And the second field trip request is Martin Middle School to New York City. Uh on that one, that one's next year, I believe. Let me just open that up. Give me a second. Uh yeah, May 9th of 2026, a day trip to New York City, one of my favorite uh cities in the world, visiting Central Park, points of interest,

124including the zoo, as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Um, and yeah, it's a long day, Mrs. Fagen. That's right. Yeah, >> super long. >> The zoo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That's a lot to do in one day. But anyway, good luck to them. Uh, I think we should bring this back for a 90-day review as we usually do. So, what are the wishes of the committee? >> So, moved. Second >> with a 90-day review. >> Yes. >> Okay. All in favor? I opposed. Eyes have it. And the next item we have the South Coast Education Collaborative Quality Report Superintendent. >> Again, I serve as a board member representing the town public schools as we have students who attend South Coast Education Collaborative. So, this is just for your information. >> Excellent.

125>> Same procedure. Place on file, received and placed on file. >> Second. All in favor? Opposed? Eyes have it. And now we're going to subcommittee reports. Am I skipping something? No. Uh subcommittee reports. Uh first one is the curriculum subcommittee chaired by Miss Santos. >> You're welcome. >> Um the curriculum and instruction subcommittee met on Thursday, October 16th. The meeting was called to order at 4:30. Uh no, I think that was wrong. I think that's four. Um 403 I think dyslexia sometimes. Uh attendance is Dr. John Harrison, Miss Carolyn Ubernau, principal of Martin Middle School, Jamie Pereira, principal of Mohe Elementary School, Katie Duda, Christopher Barata, Superintendent Jo Cabal, Donna Shaves, and Christine Fagan. The meeting was convened to learn more about and discuss the Taton Public Schools grading and artificial intelligence policies. This was

126a very informative and robust meeting. Um, as I say, often it was really difficult to get all of the information because it was a lot of conversations going on. So I just wanted to highlight some important points that came out of that. Uh there were general consensus that consistency of rubrics and grading assessments is of of utmost importance across the district and school systems including elementary, ed, and middle school. There was also an emphasis on the continued need to calibrate student work so that all educators remain consistent in how work is assessed. In regards to the high school, Superintendent Cabraw noted that the Bristol County schools use the same curriculum which assists students that may move between districts. Uh there is also a consistency in how homeworks uh how much homework students are given and

127how that impacts their grades. It was clear through all of those in the meeting that there is a concerted effort not to overload any students and therefore parents with assignments at home. Example, no more than an hour in middle school and a half hour for elementary and high school. More than 10% of the grade can be based on homework. The importance of communication with parents was also discussed. Um, students assessments are available. School brains >> is different than parent portal. >> Same thing. Okay. I put it as two separate things, but I wasn't quite sure. Uh, but it was discussed how important it is to have consistent communication with parents so that they all have a better understanding of what these assessments mean. Um, and as mentioned, the elementary school is going through a whole

128uh new um, grading system. So, that was discussed as well too. Uh because of how detailed the conversations were in regard to grading, we did not focus much time on AI policies. However, Superintendent Cabraw provided the subcommittee with a handout laying out guidelines for ethical use of AI in the classroom. The packet included policies of other mass districts. He also discussed meetings he had with other consultants, uh Greg K, oh my goodness, >> Kawick, uh and Jeff Riley, who cautioned against creating a policy at this point since AI use and impact is constantly changing. One additional point that was made regarding all the policies discussed and that was to focus this was from Chris Barada to focus on developing the craft of teaching to current and future educators which is also something that came up

129in the curriculum um subcommittee we had well the elementary ed one that we had this afternoon. Uh the hope is to continue this conversation and I will be reaching out to the subcommittee for additional meeting dates so that we can learn more about these important policies and impacts on our students. This is also important so we can further discuss um the Edward analytics. So Dr. Harrison actually provided us with a very big packet of uh analytics as far as whether they go on to postsecary um school but they actually emailed us and I think you all got it received it after the meeting about actually retention in higher ed as well too. So we didn't have really a lot of time to um discuss all of that. So the hope is to continue that conversation

130and the meeting concluded at 506 and that concludes [snorts] my report. >> Thank you. >> Motion to accept the report. >> Second. >> All in favor? I opposed. Eyes have it. Next up we have special programs and projects. Uh Chairman Shaz. >> Thank you Dr. Dlo. >> The special programs subcommittee convened on Monday October 27th at 5:00 pm. attendees were myself, Louisie Laurel, superintendent John Cabraw, assistant superintendent Brenda Monahan, Jennifer Ashley, the director of technology, and Cynthia Johnson, communications coordinator. The purpose of this meeting was to review and compare three leading software vendors for a new district website and district-wide communications platform. This initiative aims to modernize the district's website and enhance integration with existing communication tools. The three vendors evaluated were Apogee Final Site and Parent Squares Smart Sites. In addition to providing a

131financial overview, Miss Johnson presented a summary of each product, highlighting key strengths and important considerations. The committee dis discussed concerns related to security, data protection, and robust accessibility and compliance, particularly in preparation for the upcoming ADA regulations taking effect in July of 2027. Discussion also focused on the back-end usability, user-friendly experience, multilingual support, scalability and future growth, ease of integration with existing communication systems, and the potential for significant user adjustment if the selected platform differed substantially from the current system. Additionally, Miss Johnson showcased several school websites that have utilized each of the proposed platforms. From a financial standpoint standpoint, Taton Public Schools currently allocates 55,000 annually to maintain its website and district-wide communications. This includes 11,500 for edilo edilo >> edo. >> Edio tongue twister. >> Yeah. And 44,000 for parent squares totaling 275,000 over

132five years. I five years cost comparison of the proposed three vendors show Apogee at 314,000 Final Site at 305,000 and Parent Square smart sites at 285,925. Although Smart Sites and Parent Square presented the most costeffective option, Mr. Laurel and I wanted to ensure that the selection was not only financially sound but also met all of the Taton public schools operational and communication needs. Both Miss Johnson and Miss Ashley confirmed that Parent Square smart sites has a strong reputation in K through2 family communication platforms with newer and evolving tools. The system offers a comprehensive multilingual translation and accessibility tools and she demonstrated a drop-own list with all of the um different languages that it could do. demonstrated the scalability and the security and seamless integration with the existing parent square communication platform currently in use. Mr.

133Laura made a motion to recommend Parent Square smart sites to the committee as a whole for consideration at an upcoming school committee meeting which will include an overview of our presentation and demonstration of the product. The motion was seconded by me. Upon approval, the timeline for design and development of the new district website is proposed to begin on January 1st of 2026 with the official launch planned for July 1st of 2026. The special program subcommittee adjourned at 5:58 p.m. >> Motion to accept the report. >> Second >> on discussion. So, uh this is adopt the recommendations on >> We just accepted the report, >> right? That's all. and then they're going to come before us. >> Okay. >> Yeah. We've given a recommendation of this one, but we would like you guys to see it

134before we make a before we accept it as a whole. >> Committee the whole Okay. Great. Thank you. >> Because it's a big change and um we want to make sure that you and it's we you're talking financially. Um so we want to make sure that you guys get to see, you know, a summary of the presentation that we saw um before we move forward with it. We do think that that is the the best selection, but I'd like you guys to see it first. >> Absolutely. Great. So a motion was made and seconded. All in favor? Opposed? Eyes have it. Next up, we have the Tessa Collective Bargaining. Back to you, Chairman Shves. >> Thank you, Dr. Dlo. So, Tessa Collective Sub Bargaining Subcommittee met on Tuesday, October 28th, 2025 at 4:35 p.m. This

135was the fourth meeting. Mrs. Fagan and I were present along with representatives from administration and the bargaining team. Miss Santos was absent. Negotiations is still in progress. The next meeting will be Tuesday, November 18th, 2025. The meeting adjourned at 6:55 p.m. This concludes my report. >> Motion to accept the report. >> Second. All in favor? I opposed. Eyes have it. >> Next up, we have the M&A collective bargaining. Chairman Laura. >> Uh the meeting is uh have been twice we've had the meeting most successful. Still in negotiations. Uh we have two other meetings scheduled for this month and so looks good. Very positive. Thank you. Motion to accept. Second. I'll second you. >> Motion made. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Eyes have it. >> Uh, elementary subcommittee. Back to you, Mr. Laura. Chairman Laura.

136>> The elementary subcommittee met this afternoon with the presentation of the Chamberlain School Improvement Plan. Myself as chairman, Miss Santos, Mr. Palowski, Superintendent Cabral, and Mr. Barata along with principal Jennifer Peters. Miss Peters provided the subcommittee with a long with a look beyond the numbers truly articulating the partnerships and commitment that exists amongst the teachers, leadership team, and most importantly the families. Principal Peters stated that academic excellence and emotional well-being are inseparable at Chamberlain Elementary. We are a school grounded in purpose where teachers know their students deeply leaning. Our learning is intentional and joyful. Our improvement work centers in a simple idea. Where students feel feel seen, they engage. Where instruction is meaningful, they grow. Uh two of the priorities that were presented by Miss Peters uh included uh one of rigorous instruction. Uh all

137students will experience daily learning that promotes deep understanding, curiosity, and academic growth. instruction will emphasize meaning making, critical thinking, and evidence-based communication across all content areas with an [clears throat] initial focus on English language arts. In grades K to two, students will build a strong foundation, the phamic awareness, decoding, and word reading through highfidelity implementation of Wilson foundations and data-driven intervention using dials. In grades three and four, instruction will extend this foundation to a deeper comprehension, vocabulary development, and evidence-based writing. A particular focus will be placed on ensuring ensuring that students with disabilities, SWD, and multilingual learners, MLS, receive instruction that is both accessible and intellectually challenging, embedding scaffolds, language supports, and explicit modeling that enable our learners to be fully engaged in rigorous content. Now in priority number two in student culture all students

138will experience a school environment that nurtures emotional safety, belonging and self-regulation. Daily routines and relationships will emphasize empathy, respect and collective responsibility as essential foundations for learning. Social emotional learning will be intentional embedded with classroom instruction and community practices to promote self-awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. A particular focus will be placed on ensuring that historically undeserved subgroups, including students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and economically disadvantaged students experience equitable access to the conditions that support engagement and success. This includes consistent res restorative practices, culturally responsive representation, and proactive family partnership. Through these efforts, Chamberlain will cultivate a student student culture where all learners feel known, valued, and empowered to thrive both academically and socially. Chamberlain's improvement plan exemplifies a thoughtful and deliberate roadmap for success using data and the assignment of individual of teams

139or teams or of individuals to progress monitor the work. All of this work is is to guarantee that each and every student is achieving at high levels. Principal Peters presented her SIP in a very positive fashion. with much enthusiasm, dedication, and commitment to her position, detailing the plan, utilizing a multitude of resources and techniques to ensure that her goals and objectives are fully implemented. This according to her has created a more effective learning environment which offer greater results to the students. The meeting ended at 3:30. This concludes my report. >> Wish to the committee. Motion to accept the report. >> All All in favor? I opposed. Eyes have it. And the last item uh is finance and law. That's chaired by myself. Members of the committee include Mrs. Shavez and Mr. Vieiraa. First item was

140the use of facilities. Uh assistant superintendent Monahan went through the list that's uh in your packet with surplus materials. All items except two were referred to the gov deals. Is that the correct one? Gov deals. And the two items that were not referred to the gov deals were uh surplus items uh attic turf stock and turf shock pads. And the reason is that there was a local organization that's been uh very good to the community including our teachers, our first responders and so forth uh that could have use and uh should stay local and that was also accepted. Um that passed unanimously. Uh next item was the special education expense services. The attached memo explains that we're running a little bit less than what we did last year at this time. And if I can

141find that. All right, I lost it. But anyway, um we are running a few thousand less, $5,000 less at this time. And that's that $50,000 budget line that we usually do for special education services. and that was also voted and passed unanimously. Uh the next item was the Chamberlain school solar inspection. There's a memo in your packet. Uh the inspection reports that everything is good to go and safe. Uh it's a third-party uh electrical contractor that did not install these solar panels on Chamberlain. And besides a inverter that was replaced, I believe it was, uh, everything is is all set and back online running. And once again, that was, uh, voted unanimously to accept that report or that memo. Uh, next item, we have disposal disposal of surplus equipment. Uh, the Taton. How did I

142get on to that other one? Okay, that was that was weird, huh? [laughter] Uh because I know because it was use of facilities. Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha. >> Use of facilities now. >> So I'm going to go back to use of facilities. So I already covered the surplus items, use of facilities attached memo. It was a long day yesterday everybody. I apologize. Uh the use of facilities were uh at the normal procedure where we wave some fees. And I did point out that there was uh one uh organization that we waved completely the fees which is the Cronin's family Thanksgiving dinner which takes place at the MLK elementary school which of course serves so many of our families and students especially uh and of course we do wave those fees completely. That report was also voted

143and approved unanimously by the subcommittee. And the last two items was bills payable for FY25 in the amount of 52,375. Couple of questions were asked and answered by assistant superintendent Monahan. Uh once again that was voted unanimously in favor to pay the warrant. And the last item was the FY26 bills payable in the amount of 1,636,17052. Uh again that was a few questions were asked by Mrs. Shave and Mr. Vieiraa. Uh, and one amendment to the motion that was made to approve the bills payable was a item on page 25, which I just want to be recorded as voting present uh for Pride, Inc. in the amount of $4,68 because I serve as uh Pride board directors member and co-reasurer. And once again, that was voted and approved unanimously to pay that warrant in the

144amount stated. And that concludes my report. Motion to accept the report and adopt the recommendations of the finance and law subcommittee. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> I >> motion passes. >> And next we have new business uh the Matthew School Building Authority Accelerated Repair Program. This is excellent news, superintendent. >> Yep. So great news uh for the Ton Public Schools in the city of Taton. And again, I want to commend uh the school committee, assistant superintendent Moyahan and Mark Freighus and Superintendent of buildings Chris Carmichael, one for developing the SOI. Uh two for the school committee authorizing and approving us to submit the SOI. And last Wednesday, we were one of 48 communities that was accepted into the accelerated repair pipeline. So to Hamilton Street, we'll be receiving brand new exterior windows

145and exterior doors. So, if you haven't driven by the Bennett Elementary School or the Gallagan Elementary School or Martin Middle School, take a drive by and you'll see the quality of the windows that will be installed that will be we will begin to plan to install very shortly at Hamilton Street. So, again, thank you for the for the support and I again I need to thank our partners on the city side for their support as the city of Taton will be reimbursed close to 80%. So that that this is an outstanding project for the city of Tai. So thank you. >> Great. Thank you, superintendent. Wishes of the committee on that >> motion to accept the report, the good report, >> and place it on file. >> All in favor? I opposed. Eyes have it.

146I have two items on the new business. Uh first was a postcard received uh from our student Melissa. What's that last name? Superintendent >> Torino. And it says, "Dear school committee, I am writing to thank you for the wonderful opportunity that you have provided me with. This conference has been a powerfully enriching chance for me to share about Taton High School and in return acquire diverse knowledge to bring back to our community. Thank you, Melissa Torino." And the next one uh was also received uh by Secretary Fagan, addressed Secretary Fagan. Dear Taton School Committee, I appreciate this opportunity that you guys have given me. It's a wonderful experience to check out other schools and learn about their ESL program to help and make ours better. It is also another way to help upcoming ESL students

147like I was. Again, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity. And that was Jillian >> DOS race. It's always nice to receive thank yous from our students. >> Yeah. So, those were those were two students who attended a learning excursion to Washington DC that I was uh able to participate with and they just wanted to thank the committee because these are former multilingual students who were in the country less than four years and they got to see uh two um two international schools. One was a middle and one was a high school. So, they were they were very they were very thankful for this opportunity as this was the first time they actually visited DC. Great. And one other item that was received uh by the school committee. Uh dear Dr. Dlo, thank you and

148the members of the school committee for voting to dedicate the leadership center to Joe. He would he would be very honored. It was a very special day for his family and friends. The ceremony was heartfelt and very special to the family. Each speech was very nice. The wall depicted stages of his long career in Taon and the culinary department certainly prepared a special lunchon. Diane Martin want to pass that around. Thank you. Uh that's all I have for new business on unfinished business action item updates. We have the food services government shutdown update. Superintendent. Yeah, this is just a copy of the memo that I sent to the group via email and I also believe I shared with the committee that funding was extended for an additional month a day after I shared the memo

149with you. >> Excellent. And wishes of the committee on that just receive and place on file appropriate. >> All in favor? Opposed? Eyes have it. And the next item we have a joint meeting with city council request letter followup. Uh C and closure superintendent. No, this is uh just I believe this came up at our last meeting too and with the request was it Miss Santos to put it on the agenda for discussion amongst the committee regarding uh what next steps the committee should take. >> What would you like to do folks committee members? you want to >> I mean I so I just I guess this was part of obviously our consideration of what to do with Hamilton's Drake and since that decision still hasn't been made. I still think this is important information

150and I I I I I'm not sure why there hasn't been a response seeing that it is now Octo November and we sent this out in April. Um, so I don't know if we can resend or >> is that in the form of a motion? Sure. Absolutely. The motion's been made and seconded and all in favor. >> Thank you. Excellent. >> And just state nicely, hey, we sent this to you in April. Can you please respond to it? >> I'll make sure to share a copy with the committee at the next meeting. >> Excellent. Thank you so much. And let's see, action item update. >> No updates at this time. And do we have any press in the audience? I see I see no press. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Uh motion. Hold

151on one second. >> Mr. Laura, please. >> I take back my motion. >> Well, it never it never made the table, sir. >> No, I I have one thing on unfinished business. Um Mr. Cabraw, the that outside fitness center that is opposite the tennis courts. We had a conversation about the color that was there was no divine defining color. Has any attempt been made to address that? >> It's in progress. >> We actually discussed that not too long ago during one of my facility meetings. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> And before we conclude, Miss Mullen, did you enjoy your time tonight? >> I did. >> So, it's been a long-standing tradition for the first meeting in May to bake your favorite dish for the school committee. So, we welcome your favorite >> the

152best baker, but I'll give it a m secretary f give you some nice tips. >> Thank you. [laughter] A motion to adjourn be in order. So move >> all all in favor. >> Opposed we are return. Thank you everyone. Good night.