School Committee Meeting - 10/23/2025

001Uh good evening, Hollist, and welcome to the October 23rd uh meeting of the Holl School Committee. Is that all set? Um okay. Uh at [clears throat] this time, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. So move second. All in favor? That passes. And we'll start with um a report from our students. >> Okay. Um first off, we've had a lot of senior nights recently. Um girls soccer had their senior night Tuesday. Volleyball had it yesterday and boys soccer are having it tonight right now. Um the homecoming game and dance was last Friday. Um, most people in our little committee or council said it was successful and they said superlatives were definitely a highlight of that. A lot of athletes are being recognized right now. Daniel Deara is going to play for the

002deaf national soccer team in Tokyo for the deaf Olympics next month. Um, freshman Lucy Downin was the Tri Valley League champion for girls cross country and Nikki Martin was Metro West player of the week last week for boys soccer. Um the chainsaw presentation went well last Wednesday. So um that's uh green the machine came and talked to the freshmen. Um and then also seniors were able to use that day for um postgrad graduate exploration. Um the senior class is hosting a dumpster day this Saturday. Um, you can sign up for getting your junk uh, sorry, the sign up for getting your junk picked up has ended, but you can still drop stuff off at the high school and the volunteer forum has also closed. Um, tickets went on sale for the fall musical this past

003weekend. Um, Into the Woods opens in a month. >> Um, the NHS trick-or-treating canned good goods event is coming up soon. Um, we'll go around to many houses in Holl. Um, and it's one of the biggest collections of canned goods for the Holl Food Pantry all year. >> Uh, in terms of clubs, the Holl Environmental Club is building a pool for the ducks in the courtyard with more to come. Seniors have their senior pictures due tomorrow and their baby pictures due November 7th. Um, and the yearbook club is hard at work producing the yearbook. Uh, senior Jay Patel just published a book called Money Bleeds: The Cost of Silence about how economics helped shaped his mindset and overcome mental challenges. The class officers for the freshman year have been selected. Um, and then finally, we

004are sending out feedback forms for uh student opinion on the new DSP rules and school start and end times. Um, trying to get some statistics for that. Um yeah, that's all. That's all we have. Thank you. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you so much. Um comments from school committee members. Joe. >> Yeah, I just wanted to uh thank everyone for attending town meeting on Monday. Um it's really great that we live in such a civically engaged community. Uh specifically, uh thank you to everyone and I think the vote was unanimous uh for supporting our schools. Um, you know, I don't think it's fair that our students, staff, and educators have to work in an environment where it could rain on them. So, uh, you know, it's really important and, uh, I look forward to seeing

005the project get underway to repair the roof. >> I totally agree with that. Um, great town involvement. Um, won't repeat what Joe said. Ditto. Um, a pretty, um, just to call out, uh, one tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that. at Rams. >> Nothing for me. Nothing for me. >> Well, I was going to talk about town meeting, but I ditto. >> That was great, Joe. >> Always a fun time. Um, but thank you everyone for for coming out and came out to uh to support our capital. Um, we are definitely making great strides and uh towards you know, maintaining our buildings and uh hopefully uh you know, a lot more to come. >> And no additional comment. on all that. So, um I don't know I don't think we have any public comment tonight. Is

006there anyone on the Zoom that would like to speak? >> No. Okay. With that, um I think we will continue on to our first our presentation which we're going to start with the elementary. And I'm sorry everybody if you could move down to the microphones. I'm sorry. >> Yep. >> Your name tags are there though, >> right? Yeah. >> I didn't realize someone rejecting the community tonight. If you are speaking, you could move the microphone to who is speaking cuz if you're not >> people really hear me though. I know >> you're good. You don't need a microphone. Okay. But if you are speaking, you can move the microphone to Yeah. Once in a while say can you speak now you're Danny is the microphone. [clears throat] So this is now our part two. We

007did um as you recall at the last meeting we had our data and assessment presentation followed by school goals for the district middle school and high school. And this is part two with our two elementary schools. And I think you know them all but we'll have them introduce themselves as they speak. >> Hi everyone. I'm Seny. I'm your plasticino principal. Cheryl Cordderero, the assistant principal. >> Dave K, principal Miller. >> Brenda Mororrow, assistant principal at Miller. All right. So, we're going to start at Placentino. And um I think you heard from Mrs. Manning and Mr. List and Dr. Kusco about how we're really all focusing on MTSS, which is the multi-tered systems of supports. And I I think that Dr. Kusco talked about the drivers around leadership, data, instruction, and family partnerships. So, when we

008think about making sure every student succeeds, we're not just talking about academics. We're talking about behavior. We're talking about social emotional success. We're talking about being able to come to school and have access. So, we're thinking about that whole piece when we think about MTSS. And at Placentino, all of our goals are really embedded around MTSS. I know there's a lot of words on this page and I apologize for it, but we're doing a lot of things. So, um I'm just going to talk briefly about this slide. So, when we think about communication practices, we're still using our social media platforms to try to tell the story at Placentino. We're still having our newsletters that are going out that Mrs. Cordderero um really is authors them [clears throat] and gets them out to our families

009to make sure they know what's going on. our classrooms are still communicating um at least um at least every other week. We encourage weekly around what's going on in their classrooms. But when we think about communication practices, this is the clear consistent communication that is the foundation of MTSS. It ensures that families, educators, and students, they work together and they understand how we're going to support every child's growth. So when we think about communication this year, we're working on having and building consistent and transparent communication across all tiers of MTSS. So um in tier one, you know, having families know what's happening in the classroom with curriculum, how they can support their children at home, um within the school, having teachers being able to communicate so that we are all on the same page of

010what we're teaching. When we're thinking about tier two and tier three, this is where we're talking about how do we support all students and how do we help communicate among our staff members of how to be able to support them by looking at data, being able to communicate data, but also around how do we support our families whose students are getting interventions um so that they know what's happening in those interventions, how they know how they can support and what progress they're making. So, um, something that I'm going to talk a little bit later is in our student success team, and I think Mrs. Morrow and Mr. Kim will talk about that as well. We changed the name of it, first of all, from student assistance team to student success team because we really want

011every child to who's discussed to be able to come out with the idea and the goal that they're going to be successful. So, one major piece that's a change to our process, uh, Mrs. tomorrow actually designed um a uh almost like a letter head that's going to go onto all of our meeting notes to remind us of which driver of MTSS we're talking about. So we'll be using that at Placentino and at Miller. But when every child who's get brought up to our student success team, they're going to our teachers are going to leave not just with a list of things to try or data to collect. It's going to be an action step goal. Um it's going to be measurable. We're going to be able to come back in four to six weeks. Did

012they meet it? What do we need to do? That piece. So, um it's going to be that communication is going to be very clear. When we think about MTSS, our families, they know about interventions, they know about curriculum, but we're going to do a little bit more education about what MTSS is. So, in our family newsletters, we're going to send short, manageable little bites um to let our families know what's happening there. When we talk about social well-being, when students feel safe, seen, supported, they're ready to learn and connect and thrive. Um, we're going to be still focusing on Ruler and PBIS, creating emotionally safe environments using those strategies. Um, for tier one, we've been working with um, Jariel and the May Institute. Cheryl's been working a lot with them to create lessons to build

013off the lessons that our teachers have already built. We have our PBIS structures, we have our care structures, and we have ruler. And how does it all come together? So, making sure that um we are explicitly teaching those routines across our our school so that when students move from grade to grade, classroom to classroom, it's the same language. Um, [snorts] for tier 2, we are embedding goals, social emotional goals when a child comes to our student success team or when they are receiving tier 2 interventions. What measurable goal are we hoping that um, our students are going to be able to meet and what supports do our teachers need? We're going to be partnering with our families to extend our social emotional language and strategies into the home. Um, these are the words that your

014the emotions your children are learning. um those emotion words, these are the strategies. These are the way that they're learning how to regulate their bodies and um things that they can help at home. Teaching and learning, that's what we really think of for MTSS. Um but we're really focusing on using data and evidence practices to meet every learner where they are. So, I'm going to talk a little bit more about this later, but how do we strengthen our tier 1 and three instruction [music] through datadriven decision-making? We've made a lot of strides in this area. Um, we're using a lot of progress monitoring tools and we're going to be looking at how to [clears throat] increase our progress monitoring for our students both in math and reading and then what to do with that data.

015How are we going to get our teachers um our families all the the different um uh members of the team to be able to really know what's happening and how to support our students. We're going to continue with professional development for using target targeted data to change in target instruction. Um, and like I said, we're going to have those measurable outcomes of our student success team, which is going to help us know is what we're doing working. Um, does a child need an increased dose? Does do we need to maybe move to an evaluation to see if there's a specific learning disability or a disability that we need to support them? But we want to do all those other things before we get that. We want to help it within that tier. Talent and resources.

016Um when you think about MTSS, when we invest in people and we align our resources, it builds our collective capacity to help all of our students be successful. So when we think about this year when we're thinking about talent and resources, we're thinking about systems and process and communication and how we can build capacity across our staff and make sure that we're able to give all of our students equitable access to those supports regardless of what program they're in and regardless of what grade they're in. So that's what we're really focusing on for talent and resources. So um a strong MTSS framework starts with access. If a student's not there, they're not able to access it. So, Mrs. Crdera is going to share with you um some of our data and practices and goals around

017attendance. So, um I have some great news to share in our absenteeism, which you know, for a few years we weren't able to say that and so it's great to um be able to say that now. And I actually updated the graphic on the bottom because uh we went a little deeper into our years of data to really give you a better picture of where we were to where we are now. So as you can see comparing chronic absenteeism over the last um three years including this year we used October 15th as a measuring point for each of the years. and those statistics, 12% in um 2023, 10.3 in 2024, and this school year we're at 6.5% for chronic absenteeism. So, it's quite remarkable. Um and it's really a testament to everything that our school

018is doing as a whole. Um families are hearing communication about attendance. They're receiving um their monthly attendance reports, so they're able to monitor that on a regular basis. Um, as you can see from the graphic down below, we are back to prepandemic numbers for our attendance. Um, which was hard to even imagine a few years ago when you can see back in 2022, we're at a 22.6% chronic absenteeism rate. And, um, at this is state data. So, um, last year we were at 11.6. And so our target goal for this school year is to be down to 10%. So we want to keep lowering that number. Um and based on our trends, I think we can do that. Um, and one of the ways that we're reaching that goal and potentially our goal is by

019not only is our parent communication and we're talking about it at faculty meetings, but we also talk about it at our weekly sync meeting, which is a meeting with our school counselors, our school psychologists, administration to really talk about students needs and concerns across our building. And attendance is a major factor of things that we discuss and delve deep into to determine is there a barrier to this child getting here? you know, it could be transportation that we're not aware of. It could be so many different variables. So, if we make those contacts and reach out, sometimes we learn, you know, some very basic things that we can help with. On the next slide, um, tardies is another piece. So, we want our students to be here on time and ready to learn because when

020you can start your day with the whole class um in a slow a little bit of a slower move into the day instead of you're late, you're rushing into your classroom, it feels, you know, you don't feel as calm. So, over the last few years, we've done a great job. As you can see, our tardies are decreasing and our goal this year is to decrease it by another 15%. Um, and we did a nice drop the year before. I think it was about 25%. Um, we are on trend, but even with the new school start times, you can see that our um, tardies this year, they're right on par with where they've been previous years to start. And what you'll notice in that top graphic is you see a quick distinction between the gray line

021and the light to green line. We started a pilot at Placentino with some automated contacts home to families to let them know that their child was tardy that day. And the data shows the impact of those phone calls. We started to see a drastic reduction in those tardies cuz sometimes parents just didn't realize that their kids were, you know, those couple minutes really add up um to their school day. So that we have seen um a wonderful addition to our numbers on that. If I might just for a second because I think you made a very important point though we've and I think the community should know is our tardies and absenteeism is down still significantly despite the significant change in start times. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. >> No, just I mean this is because

022there was concern as we were going through this that moving those kids >> to such an early start time would have a an issue. What we're seeing is that the data is now saying that >> we're going to I've actually worked at a school that had these similar start times and our kids were awake and ready to learn and you know that's what we're seeing now. So I personally didn't have that concern that a lot of our community did because I'd lived it before and it's great to see that in action this year that we're not seeing any impact >> and I love it that it's in numbers. Yeah, >> you can actually see it, right? >> And then real quick, just for my own knowledge and tardies represent nonschool bus late. >> Yes. If

023your bus is late because of traffic or something like that, you're not tardy. You were not you were on your bus. Um it's like the car drop off that sort of thing. Yeah. >> And many times people will benefit from that if a school bus is late because everything is later so we hold attendance altogether. >> Got it. Yeah, for instance, like yesterday with the lovely >> rain that we had that some of us are still drying out from, um, we held attendance about 5 minutes because we knew traffic was, you know, delayed and things like that. So, we try to also be, you know, human beings about it too when we know it's an impact to everybody. >> Thank you. >> Great. So, with stronger attendance and engagement, students are better positioned to grow

024academically. In the next few slides, um, we're going to talk about our MTS framework and how we're using this data to strengthen teaching and learning in both literacy and math. So, in the area of math, um, last year we really focused on number sense. And, um, this year we are focusing on algebraic thinking. So, when we think about algebraic thinking, this is the foundation of our K2 students. They're learning patterns and relationships and how numbers work together. Um, they're beginning to recognize number patterns. understanding symbols, explaining how to do um how to solve problems, and all this is teaching them reasoning and flexibility to help them with algebra down the road. Um I'm actually going to show you I'm going to hop ahead for one second. So, I wanted to show you this. So, if

025you look at the top, this is the same cohort of students. Okay? So, on the top, this is end of year of kindergarten. And then this was on the bottom, it's beginning of the year of grade one. So for the most part, unless we had students move out or move in, the same set of students and you might look at this and go, "Oh my goodness, they decreased." So I just want to really stress that I Ready is not like MCCAST. Okay, so MCCAST is given the same time of year. Um it's looking at mostly it's towards the end of the year. Sometimes we wish that we get more content in on MCCAST that is being covered. But what's really important is this. When we look at I Ready, it's looking at the skills that

026they're going to learn in the grade that they're entering. Okay? So, I think it's really important when you look at our data um that we know I'm going the wrong way. Sorry. We know where um our students now need to go. And we use this data to see, you know, what do our students already have as strengths um but where we really need to work. So, Nope. I want to just talk about this one a little bit. So, when we think about algebraic thinking, um the vast majority of our kindergarteners, 71% were placed at one grade level below. What that means is they're like at the beginning entering of kindergarten. They don't they don't have those skills. Um for first grade, 60% were placed one grade level below u with a total of 33 that

027were already at grade or above. And then grade two um we have 47% in the beginning of the year are testing one grade level below and but 43% were already at or above grade level. So we can tell that the work that we did last year with number sense in first grade is already supporting that algebraic thinking in second grade that these aren't standards that they've been taught yet but they they're already having a strong foundation. So that's really encouraging of the work that we're doing. So sorry to interrupt but just to so when you say the one grade level below that means >> they are as first graders it's not that they are performing as kindergarteners but they just haven't met the first grade skills that they haven't been taught yet. >> Correct. >>

028Okay. Correct. >> Because when I look at this graph it looks scary very concerning but >> absolutely. So that's why I showed you that last slide first because I wanted you to see that as they learn the standards, that's where they grow. Um, and it's a different data point than in MCCAST or that piece. So >> that's why this year though, this should be flipped, >> right? That's why it's giving a year. >> Okay. >> Right. We want to see that growth. >> Okay. We'll move to the next slide. >> So where are we going? Um we want by the end of the year for 80% of our students to be at or above grade level and all of our students to make at least one level of growth. Um students who begin the grade

029level who are already above grade level we want them to not only maintain that status but when we look at their growth profile we want to make sure that they're having growth too. So we don't want our students who are above grade level just to remain stagnant. We want their um growth percentiles to grow as well. So, we're going to be continuing our specific math PD um for student for our teachers around number sense and algebraic thinking. Um we designed a goal for our educators. It's optional if they want to choose it. But we found is that what we do is we write optional goals, educator goals, both professional and student learning goals for our teachers and say, "Hey, if you want to use these, they're here for you and this is the PD we're

030going to be providing." So, it will support these goals. And usually about 80% of our educators actually adopt those goals. So, um it it helps kind of build and and support our schoolwide goal. So, we're doing it around um modeling with math. It's a math practice standard that um we're having our our teachers really think about how we can intentionally use hands-on materials that at our young age of our students, they need to be touching manipulatives almost in every single math problem so that they can build more of a concrete understanding. They don't have that abstract understanding yet. And in order to get to abstract thinking, they need to move through that process. So, we're going to be doing lots of PD on that. Um we're going to continue the use of I Ready. Um,

031so Frank, like you said, hopefully throughout the year we're seeing those numbers um, flip over to green and blue and um, we're focusing on number sense and algebraic thinking data from our diagnostics. Okay, so now moving to literacy. Um, this data is from Dibbles. So this is our beginning of the year and um just to kind of orient you to this chart, we look at predominant measure for our students. So in kindergarten that's letter naming fluency. In grade one that's nonscent word fluency, correct letter sounds. And in grade two that's oral reading fluency, words correct per minute. So dibbles um and some of these change throughout the year which get a little their predominant measure but that's what they feel is the most important indicator for how a student is doing is that measure at

032that grade um in in that age. So our kindergarteners right now um 31% are coming in in the intensive support category while 53 are already at the grade level. So that is really great to be honest with you. Um we're actually seeing that's that's that's that is an increase of what we've been seeing with our kindergarteners coming in. So that's pointing to we might be moving past some of that um pandemic piece with that they're um accessing that learning. Um grade one a total of 77% of our students are at core or above. So that's incredible. that shows the work that our kindergarten did with our students and we actually saw a huge jump um from end of the year to the beginning of the year. So, we're trying to figure out what what everyone

033did over the summer. Um but it was really incredible. Um and then in grade two, we have 36% of our students in that intensive support and 64% at or above. So, what we're going to focus on is zones of growth because we feel that if we just focused on students that were proficient or above, our numbers are already pretty good in those areas. What we really want to focus on is that every student is making growth. So a zone of growth um we will designate for students if we think that they should be making average growth, if they have to make above average growth. Um so for instance what we found was some of that our students that were already at um grade level or above when we actually looked at their growth profiles it

034wasn't as high as we wanted it to be. We need them to continue moving as well. We want to be able to measure and we can specifically measure if an intervention is working. So we could do that by setting specific growth target um goals in different areas that they're working on. So this is going to help us do that. So by the end of the year, we want 80% of our students to meet their zones of growth goal. How do we get there? We get there by um using that data to create flexible and um groups that are very specifically targeted on their needs. Um we're going to progress monitor for students who are not meeting their goals. Um every two to four weeks and then having that data, having teachers look at that data,

035changing what we're doing if they're not making progress. um having data meetings with all of our staff at least three times a year and then more frequently with um our our um our interventionists and then of course continue our professional learning. So that's it for Placentino questions. Um, for a minute. >> They're not. >> Yeah. Tell me which one. >> I'll write thinking ready results. >> Oh, I knew you were going to like >> this one. >> Okay. >> I was just Yeah. Um, so I'm really curious about what this looks like at the teacher or classroom level for planning. So, like as teachers look at this and they see, okay, I've got kids in the red who have skill gaps, kids in the yellow that are ready for grade level instruction and kids in

036the green who have mastered some of the grade level content and may be ready for more. How do they take that information and um or what are they doing right now to use that to plan for instruction? >> Yeah. So, what we're working with is using the lessons that that tier one lesson that all students are getting and how to build access points into those lessons. So, like I said, um we already had a professional development um from ALN. They came in and talked about how to use more how to model more with math for students. So, for instance, like if we have a student who's in the lower end of yellow or red and they have they're really concrete, they have no abstract thinking of that piece, how they can have those students really

037use manipulatives in that piece. We break it down into smaller pieces for them. um and maybe they're just doing kind of that first part of the lesson but hearing the whole p piece so they're still having access to it. Our teachers are doing small groupoup math with our um with all of with our students who who need that piece and also how can we um we're we're Kristine Marino. She's our fabulous um STEM person. She also does a number sense um assessment with each of our students. So that's shared as well of what do they need to be able to do to be able to support building their number sense and she's helped build um activities for them to be able to do um that's either like after their what's that part of the lesson

038called the >> launch the launch after the launch piece that they're able to do but we're also really trying to utilize my path in I Ready um so that that is customized to where the student is to help them learn. All right. Ready for >> Here we [laughter] go. >> All right. >> Hi everybody. How are you? So, we changed ours up a little bit uh this year. We wanted to focus on each goal. Then we're going to dive into the data. Um, so you know, just briefly going over our goals. We want to strengthen our communication as well. We want to be consistent. We want to make sure our um communication is multilingual. Um, and and we're communicating attendance, behavior, and academics uh to the families. How do we do that? Um, as Cheryl,

039uh, Brenda sends out a weekly, uh, email to family, uh, and it's both, um, she does a voice over on it, uh, and she also, um, um, puts out an email form of it, so they can either listen or they can, uh, read it. Um, we also send out our monthly communication uh, on attendance. Uh in a few weeks, both schools will be communicating with families our new report card uh and what that looks like. Uh it's going to be a new standardsbased report card. We've been working on it for about a year now. Um and we're just about we're going to roll it out in December when the the new report cards coming out. So we'll be sending out communications to families so that they know how to access it, read it, understand it.

040We're also working with our teachers on that as well. How do you report out on a standardsbased report card? So, some of our PD that we're doing this upcoming November is looking at that, create creating new rubrics. How do we understand that? Um, and so we'll be communicating that out. Um, we're trying to we're always trying to improve our translations with families who come to us with different languages. Um, we actually the other day had a great MLL night where we had families came in. We had a dinner. We linked it to our unified arts night so that we could get more people to the unified arts night, but families who often would not access the unified arts night meeting their specialist teachers. Um, and it was a great evening uh for all. Um, going

041to jump over now to um our SEAL uh PBIS ruler. We're really trying to um improve how we're reaching all of our students at Miller. Um as um Jamie said, uh we are ensuring um all of our meetings have the MTSS domains and focus areas. Um we changed our PB PBIS over to care. This year we were rise uh and before that we were shine. Uh but now we are uh doing the same as Placentino and Adams. Um this year um we worked with the May Institute to provide extension uh lessons uh for our ruler curriculum uh that we rolled out last year. Uh and so that was um that is work that's being um rolled out uh as we speak. Um we had um Victoria Briggs come to our meeting and work with our

042staff on deescalation strategies for all of our students. If you see a student in the hallway, we all carry, you know, this little thing, little picture cue on, you know, it might not be a student that you work with, but how do you work with a student who might be disregulated at the time? you know, wait time or, you know, prompting things, but it just gives you a little reminder of some strategies that you might use even if you're not familiar uh with a particular student. Um, we are continuing to monitor and support our attendance and we'll talk about that later with some of our attendance data. Uh and we are continuing to work with our student advisory um committee. Um next um as Jamie talked about the my path just a minute ago, we

043prov we had data at the end of the year last year that our students who use my path more did better. Uh and so we are encouraging, we are monitoring how often our students are using the my path uh during the year. We are sending out um you know email reminders about which classrooms are using it and and that sort of thing. So that we are really trying to get our teachers to use that because we saw proof in the success uh that it had. Um, we're also, you know, we've got our literacy review that's happening. Uh, we've got, um, uh, our multilingual curriculum review that were ha is happening. We had, um, 19 students this year that came to us that we have success plans for multilingual learners who had zero growth on their

044access test. So, we have already identified those students. We've met with the teachers. We've met with the specialists to see how do we support those students early so that we can see success over the year. And we these plans used to not come out until like November and December. And we're like, "No, that can't happen. We these are our most vulnerable students and we've got to do better at uh making sure that they have um access to that." We are in our second year of the Eureka Math Squared. So, you know, year 1 implementation, year two, we're still going to see a little bit of that implementation gap. That first year, it's kind of a struggle to get through the curriculum. This year, we're well on our way. uh teachers have and and our STEM

045uh Ashley Buchard, you know, we're we're narrowing down what we don't need to necessarily get into and how do we speed up but make sure the students are getting what they need uh with the curriculum. Uh you talked about what are we doing with some of those? We're working with the students who are struggling during the win time. We're helping teachers create menus of things that the students can do during that time. They may have reading things that they may need to work on, but they also may have math things that they may need to work on. So, it's having that balance between the week if they're not being pulled out for tier 2 support. What are we doing in the classroom to provide those supports? And some of the PD we did last year

046was creating these menus of activities that you can do to support the students during that time if they're struggling in certain areas. Um, and let's just >> Can we stay on that just for one second? I just I just wanted to make sure to point out the goal statement that's on the slide because it directly links to a lot of what Placentino shared in terms of their percentages and growth and what their expectations are to show some alignment. Um so I'm just going to read the go this goal statement and the measurable outcome just so that we can see the connection. Um, so at Miller School, we'll ensure all students have access to highquality instruction and targeted supports across academic areas. And our measurable outcome that we will be committed to doing is by June

0472026, all students will make progress towards their growth targets in math and literacy with 80% of students meeting or exceeding their targets. as measured by I Ready and other district assessments. Special attention will be given to the following domains of numbers and operations,formational text and writing. And we'll talk about why in the data conversation, but just holding on to that idea of 80. And the reason why 80 is there is because last year we had students um in the in the same measuring of either meeting or exceeding their growth targets. We had students at 60%. So we want to raise the amount of students that are meeting their typical growth. >> And we've picked numbers and operations and informational text because we found that through I Ready those were weaknesses. And we picked writing because

048when we look at our MCCAST results, writing was poor uh across the board. And so those were the why we're focusing on those specific items there. Um and then our last goal, Miller will build and refine school systems and support staff collaboration, clarity, and consistency. Um we're updating our handbooks uh to reflect um the current practices. Um we are creating and utilizing a substitute handbook. when substitutes, we don't have a lot of them, but when they come, right, [laughter] when they come in, we want them to be able to, you know, get a Chromebook, be able to log in under the teacher and be able to do use their Google Classroom. Exactly. [laughter] When it's just not handing it over the one when we're subbing, we use it, too. And you know, we we want

049to continue to use our school climate survey to monitor key factors in in um what's going on into the school for teacher satisfaction. So, we're going to get into the data now and where we are with all of that. So I am not the intention of the data conversations is not to um make us feel like we are in a pit of despair because we're not but we just want to surface the data that helps us know there's a priority in a certain area. So there are lots of celebrations about who our students are and the growth that they've shown but we are pointing out the areas that need work. So I just want to frame that before we start digging in. Um, so we've been working with our grade leaders, our curriculum team, our

050support team, special educators, and general educators to review our spring 2025 MCCAST results and our beginning of year benchmark data to identify goals and priorities for our school. The goals that Mr. K just reviewed and I'm going to share some of the analysis we've done that has informed our goals related to strengthening tier one instruction, monitoring all students in all subgroups and ensuring that all students and families have support when students are having challenges attending school. The first set of data on this slide um summarizes the areas of the MCCAST accountability where we declined which means we performed below the target the state set for us and for our students which is not what we want for our students. One theme we see is the achievement growth and chronic absenteeism has declined for students with

051disabilities. This subgroup is a priority in our goals. Their attendance is monitored weekly to ensure interventions are in place when needed. And we are working closely with all educators to identify tech and non- tech ways to remove barriers for students in the classroom. A special thank you to Ally Curley for her leadership on the tech side. Another theme we see in the decline is the decline of our multilingual learner students on their progress towards English proficiency, which Mr. Kim mentioned briefly um on one of our goal slides. This is measured by the access test that's given in January. And so we had a decrease from 53.6% rate of progress to 33.3% rate of progress this year. We have worked since then uh and knowing in anticipation that we were not feeling confident with the growth

052before we even saw this data. We built some teams to start the year that really allow allowed us to align our practices and get more brains in the work so that we could be sure we carried these kids through and made make sure that they would show growth. So, we've worked with our ESL teachers, our support team, um our student um success team, as Jamie mentioned, rebranded, and our classroom teachers to build comprehensive targeted success plans for 19 students, the 19 students that um Dave mentioned, not making progress. We're also integrating the curriculum resource imagine learning which is an online resource um for our foundational multilingual learners which gives them the chance to learn in their native language which we can't provide otherwise be because we don't have the language capacity. So they can we

053can program it to to start a lesson in Portuguese. It's aimed on helping them learn how to speak English and learn all of the nuances, but they get the instruction in Portuguese and can practice in English. So, it's just an added piece to grow that um proficiency. And we're also, as Dave mentioned, forming a district-wide multilingual um curriculum review so that we can get together and figure out even more issues and solve them together. So, that's the first data set that I'm uh sharing as ways that we've incorporated and then you're going to talk about attendance. >> So, our data look, we're showing ours a little bit differently. We've got the accountability data from the state where Placentino doesn't have that data because they don't have the MCCAST score and they're not tracked that way.

054So, an area that we saw significant where we were really low and we really honed in on was our multilingual learners the year prior. They had declined significantly, but last year they met their target. Uh and so that is something that's good to highlight there. But there are some areas that declined that we are worried about. Our high need students, our students with disabilities, our Hispanic and Latino families, and our multi-racial families all declined. And so those are, you know, areas where we are going to focus on this year. But we also talked at the end end of the year last year, you know, when we look at attendance, some of our students who may be on IEPs or high needs may not want to come to school because school is hard for them. And

055so, how do we change that narrative where they want to come to school and they want to learn? And that's something that we've got to try and figure out. What's on the right is what we send to staff weekly uh in letting them know how we're targeting uh the attendance. Uh the top part looks at, you know, the the chronically absent students. And we talk about these students weekly at our um student assistant um uh support team. And thank you. I know student support team. And if we've got students, okay, they were they weren't even here the first 5 days of school cuz they were still on vacation. You know, we we may track those guys out. That person had tonsillitis. They were out for 5 days. We know about that one. But there might

056be others that we're worried about because we don't have a story. And so we do talk about who's going to contact the family to try and figure that out. The next one in the middle is our um multilingual learners, the families that we were focusing in on last year and how are they doing? And you know, you can see a significant improvement [clears throat] uh there. And then at the bottom, one of the ones where we want to focus on this year are our students on IEPs. And you can see I've got, you know, five that are up there in having absences. And we've got to figure out why. Why why is that occurring? And as Plentino showed our at beginning of the year this year, our attendance is up. We are not seeing, you

057know, a majority of of the students out. And just to clarify the chronically absent, like the students that are named chronically absent in the middle part of that graph, they aren't truly chronically absent, they've been out for the amount of 10% of the amount of days we've been in school. So, it's not like that's a true number, but we track it because two absences a month can lead to being chronically absent. So, that's why it's important for us to look at it. There are there is a student that's already at 18, though, and there's a story to it. So, it's not we're not concerned. We're concerned because we want them in school, but we know why. So, just to point that out as well. Um, so related to the ELA standard priorities for the MCCAST,

058we reviewed priority areas related to English language arts, math, and science standards that were measured on the MCCAST to identify the greatest need for both all of our students and students with disabilities given the information we already shared about students with disabilities to really look closely at the student experience. We also looked at the standards because they will help us prepare for the implementation of our new standardsbased report card. So it it will help us gain clarity related to that as well. So you'll notice that in all grades three through five and in both populations, our lowest standard area was writing. This is measured by the percentage of points we received for these specific tasks. If we look at grade three, students could receive up to four points for questions related to this standard. And

059students earn 22% of the possible points they could earn, which is less than one point on average. And so that's how to read the chart. But just knowing that the outcome is that this is a priority area for all of our grades in in ELA. We're integrating writing into the grade level student learning goals and developing strategy lessons taught at all grade levels to address this. A special thank you to Caitlyn Kinsky, our humanities specialist, for her leadership in this work. We are also engaging in a comprehensive elementary ELA curriculum review and identifying other content areas to intentionally embed writing. So, it doesn't rely just on the literacy block to to strengthen this. It's cross content. Moving on to math, you do not see the same consistent areas for each grade like you did in

060ELA. In grade three, perimeter recognition is a focus area in both all students and students with disabilities, which kind of lends itself to thinking about possibly uh strengthening tier one because it's seen in both subgroup both the subgroup and all students. In grade four, fractions is a primary need for all students and geometry is a focus for students with disabilities. And in grade five, geometry is a focus for all students and measurement conversions is a focus for students with disabilities. So each grade level is addressing these needs through their curriculum development. For example, noting the need for review and revision of fractions for our incoming grade five, last year's grade four students in the curriculum scope and sequence as a focus during win time when needed. We are also using our benchmark data to identify

061students who need targeted support during our windblock, whether it's from the classroom teacher, an interventionist, or a specialist. We recognize that some of these domains received less attention last year due to the placement in the scope and sequence and the implementation of our new math program. And our summer curriculum work has addressed much of this issue. So we're hopeful that this year that will be corrected related to um science, technology, and engineering which is only assessed in grade five. Um our grade five students performed above the state in the physical science standard that's identified as a focus area here. But this standard received the lowest percent of possible points for all students um and for students with disabilities. So we look at it as a focus area. Our team is working with our talented and

062resourceful STEM STEM specialist Ashley Bashard to look more closely at the curriculum to identify ways to enhance content. And in addition, we're being very intentional about the kinds of enrichment experiences brought in for students, like yesterday's energy academy performance for grade five students where students learned about renewable and non-renewable energy and how to use energy in our daily lives. We're also bringing in the Discovery Museum thanks to our PTO over the course of the year to provide standards aligned lessons to each class in each grade. Finally, I will quickly review the I Ready benchmark data in reading and math schoolwide. While I don't have this data available um by subgroup subgroup like we did for MCCAST, we have created report groups in Ire that allows us to pull that data in that fashion and we

063monitor this we are already monitoring this data weekly to ensure students are progressing towards their individualized learning target across all grades in reading. informational text comprehension is the clearest common priority. In addition to looking more closely at our curriculum and instruction in this area, we're prioritizing student usage of IRA's online instruction called My Path that was mentioned previously, [snorts] both in reading and math because it provides individualized learning experiences for students. We encourage students to use my path 30 minutes per week in each content area and attain a pass percentage of 70% or higher which has a direct correlation to meeting growth goals over time. And as Mr. Kim mentioned before, we do publish that information not with student information but just our past percentages and usages each week. So staff are all on the

064same page about where we're headed. As you can see, our focus area for mathematics is numbers and operations and weaknesses in this area can create barriers in algebraic thinking, geometry, and measurement. So, that aligns with what we were talking about with our MCCAST data earlier. Our interventions in tier one focus um will emphasize place value, fractions and decimal sense, operations fluency, and we will closely monitor student progress by reviewing the math, the my path usage, unit assessments, observational notes, and formative assessments like exit tickets. In addition, the I Ready diagnostic at the middle and end of year will help us monitor student achievement and growth in the standards identified through MCCAST and focus domains in IRA. >> That's it for Miller. >> So Hillary, one of the things you talked about over No, no, no.

065At Placentino, what um how do we use that that grouping? Um, I Ready, um, will do a classroom grouping and will help you, you know, build groups in your classroom and give you ideas of what to do with those those groups. Uh, and so we are still getting our teachers up to where they need to be in utilizing that data, but I Ready does do that for them. >> Where is the IR usage? Um, does it come from the u math time during the school day or is it in addition to the direct instruction from the teacher in the math time? >> It could be when they come right walk in the door. It could be during their win time. Uh, it could be during instruction after they finished something in the classroom. So, you

066know, they're trying to figure out where to get that in. >> And also in like small group instruction, it could be a learning station for that. And in grade five, because they do take them home, it could be at home. >> Okay, that was my next question. Is it just group five? Grade five is the only ones right now that take their Chromebooks home, >> but they could could the younger grades plus new as well have access to it with the shared like >> they can access it through Clever >> uh at home uh but that not on their own device. >> We just encourage parents to help them get on, not solve. Um, I know that sounds silly, but it does impact their path when it's not their thinking and it's just really well-intentioned

067families that are trying to help them. Um, but then we notice they struggle on their path when they're on school and we have to kind of readjust a little bit. >> Can I ask one more question? Sorry. Um, with the my path I one of the goals was to increase the amount of time on my path. That's at school though. We're not >> It could be either for >> It could be either one. >> Especially fifth fifth grade. Fifth grade may assign it as homework. >> You know, make sure you do 10 minutes tonight because the goal is 30 minutes per week. So, they could assign some of it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Going back to the attendance targets and current data. So, I'm understanding the top left. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. Is

068that 2024 rate based on full year or year to date of last year? >> It's the state uh that was what we was published by the state last year. So a full year. >> Okay. So the 2023 2024 school year and then the 2024 2025 is the second column. >> Sorry. So 24 is full year, 25 is current year. So the first column is year 2023 2024 school year. >> Got it. >> Second column is 2024 2025 school year. >> Yeah. >> So last year >> last year last year. So the last two years. >> So we don't have our the data that we shared in addition on the slide that is on the right. >> Y >> that is our current data. We track it through open architect. We don't the state won't have

069our chronic absenteeism um accountability information until next summer fall. Okay. So, it takes a year for us to but we try to just monitor it in real time so that we're ahead of it and know putting interventions in place to support kids. >> I'm guessing the the the data from last year and the year before are kind of giving you pointing you in the right direction in terms of what groups to really >> Yes. D it fed our focus on multilingual last year >> because we knew that was a a big concern and so we use this data to inform not to let other students slide because we review all students but we are very intentional. We're also adding all the students on success plans. We're adding them like starring if they show up on

070attendance because that's another piece to make sure they have access. Um and the state will send us a target for our attendance in all other areas of accountability. I think it's usually in February. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we get a something in our Dropbox that tells us like what is going to be our target for the summer by the end of the year. And so we use that as well. But we can anticipate from the targets that are here, what they set for us this year that they're going to increase the target or look decrease in attendance. They're going to decrease it in every subgroup. And I think that's where we have found Open Architect really helpful because now we can look at kids that maybe weren't struggling in

071the last two years and all a sudden you see a decline in real time and now you need to dig in because that kid was never in that situation before. >> Right. Yeah. And we don't have accountability data like this at prek to 2. >> Exactly. >> Um I appreciate you highlighting areas that you're digging deeper into because when I looked at your data there's a lot of celebration. I mean, fifth grade math was just amazing. >> Um, and a lot of other areas, too. Um, but one area you're talking about is the multilingual learners, and I see that's that's an area you're drilling down deeper based on their attendance and their access scores. Um, so a challenge with access, as you know, is they take the assessment in January. You don't get the data

072till uh May. So, as you're thinking about monitoring their language um acquisition throughout the year, what are you using that's more timely and actionable? >> So, the success plans now, I know it's only for 19 students and there are other students who are um showing progress in their English proficiency. So, it's not quite as an involved process for them as they're going through their learning. Um but we have set specific targets and measures in those success plans and we when we built them we built them with the ESL teachers and our student success team. So the members of our team that talk about all students who may come to the table who need some kind of intervention whether it's from the teacher or otherwise. So they're all on board our our speech and speech and

073language are a aware of the speaking goals that certain students have and gave us feedback. But there's measures within that that in December we're doing another all call meeting with those with the teachers and to review the students progress on those success plans. So it's not a specific tool that we're using but it's more at this point because we're going to go through a curriculum review on all of the resources that we're using for our multilingual. it's probably going to be more of a work sample and also leaning on some of the dibbles and other things that if we're focused on a specific skill related to that that will help us. So, it's not going to be a concrete like tool measure that we're looking at, but more work samples to determine progress. >> And

074one of the things you guys did for us is we increased from 1.0 FTEES to 1.5 FTEES. And we can definitely see the number of students that are getting the service that weren't getting it before. We can see that um with the I see them with the kids all the time. >> Um I see one more question. >> Yeah. So, I noticed I I can't remember where which slide it was or if it was one of the attachments, but um you noted that implementation of Eureka is a key action in your improvement plan. Um so, I was wondering like what are the what supports are the teachers receiving this year and how are you monitoring um the impact of Eureka in I think we're in year two or three? >> Two of the >> two

075still very early. Yeah. >> Yeah. I think one of the things that we're we're working on is making sure everybody is consistent in what they're doing. Um the slides the there used to be like big slide decks of what the the the Eureka comes with and they've narrowed that down uh so it's more manageable uh for the classrooms and so that manageability is part of some of that. um they are now inputting their assessments online [snorts] uh so that we're tracking them online that data can also get into open architect which will also help us to track the students uh per se I again it's it's we're early in this phase and I think it's going to have to get through another year of going through it but those are some >> and in addition

076like because again we were identifying all of the needs of our special education subgroup as well in that data and our special educators are working closely with Ashley Buchard our humanities to look at modifications and accommodations and how to note that and interpret that and there's been designate a little designated time we need more time but they're starting to have those conversations because one thing that came out of last year's implementation was a challenge with that like how do we how do we accommodate when we're learning the content at the same time as teaching it. So, we're trying to identify times to allow for that to happen as well. >> I also wanted to add both of their STEM curriculum specialists have been doing a really nice job with working directly with teachers on a

077regular basis about Eureka >> and supporting them. So, it's really nice to have those two people and those roles to go in there. So, and that's on a regular ongoing basis. So, >> thanks. >> Any other questions? Thank you so much. Thanks everybody. >> Appreciate it. >> So I know you've probably seen as we've been shifting and really trying to bring the data that you know that you've been asking for, but we also don't want to overdo the data. So let us know if you feel like adjustments would be helpful as we go into the midyear report because we'll be doing a midyear and an end of year as well. >> Thank you. Um okay, so I move on to policy. I'm wondering is Mr. List for um the competency. Let's do that one first.

078Yeah. >> Yeah, I can bring that up. >> So, we're going to do the the competency determination policy first so that you can [laughter] not spend all night unless you choose to. As I pull that up, can I just say one thing is because when we wrapped policy of it the other day, last week >> I didn't have um I received this week some language from the from accept and tech some of our collaborives that we work with and they have done as a a larger collaborative group a recommendation for students with disabilities with incompetency determination. So I just forwarded that to you Hillary today so that I think we can still do the first reading but then we would want to go back as before reading two and see if we need to adjust

079any of that. So I just wanted you to see that in your emails later. >> Mr. Le, do you want to do you mind just um talking a little bit about why we have to do this policy? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um so with uh the removal of MCCAST as a graduation requirement, the state required each school district to come up with their own competency competency determination. Um this is different than graduation requirements which is determined by each district as well. Um the competency determination um was just passing the MCCAST which included um the equivalency of up to geometry and math up to grade 10 English and then um biology and physics. So the state um sent out um the instructions to come up with our own competency determination that minimally met certain standards. Um and

080you can see throughout the uh policy here um that it talks about um the English requirements, the math requirements, science requirements, and then the state added um US history requirements as well um to to what we were required to do. um this was a minimum um and that that they set um but most districts chose um to keep the competency determination um similar to what the MCCAST tested for um and then use their graduation requirements to really lay out sort of the values of the district and and what they believe students should be doing in order to graduate. And this policy is based on um kind of a draft from of recommend uh of requirements or recommendations from the state and then added on to based on Mr. List recommendations. And when we get to

081the bottom, you'll see that um there's a lot of discussion about uh different students who might have different pathways based on if they're um a student with disabilities, multilingual learner, if they're entering Holliston after their freshman year, and how they might meet the competency determination. >> All right. So, as a first read, I guess I get to read through this really long talking >> [laughter] >> If you get tired, if you get tired, just say trade. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> Well, there's one of four policies tonight. [laughter] >> Um, >> okay. >> Some volunteer. >> I'll volunteer, so you should say. >> Thank [laughter] you. Um, in addition to meeting the course requirements described in IKF graduation requirements, credit and subject specific criteria, in adherence of the Massachusetts Education Reform Law of 1993, GLC691D,

082all students must meet the competency determination standard in math, ELA, science, and beginning with the class of 2027 history to determine a diploma in Massachusetts. New statute states, "The competency determination shall be based on the academic standards and curriculum frameworks for 10th graders in the areas of mathematics, science, and technology, history, and social science, foreign languages, and English, and shall represent a determination that a particular student has demonstrated mastery of a common core of skills, competencies, and knowledge in these areas by satisfactorily completing coursework that has been certified by the students district as showing mastery of the skills competencies and knowledge contained in the state academic standards and curriculum frameworks in the areas measured by the MCCAST high school tests described in section one uh administered in 2023 and in any additional areas determined by

083the board. That was a really long sentence. [laughter] For students in the class of 2026, a student who has earned their competency determination prior to January 3rd, 2025 in the areas of mathematics, English language arts, and science through a passing score on the MCAST subject tests or retests will be considered to have met the competency determination requirement in the relevant subjects beginning with the class of 2026. A determination of competency shall include satisfactory completion and full credit earned of relevant coursework aligned to the standards measured by the high school English language arts mathematics and science MCCAST assessments administered in 2023. This includes the following: English 9 and English 10, algebra 1 and geometry. One of the following, physics, biology or chemistry, one year of United States history beginning with the class of 2027. Demonstrating a

084mastery of skills in English language arts, mathematics, and science in accordance with the district's grading policy on the final assessment, capstone, portfolio, or equivalent measure. Seniors in these courses are not exempt from the final assessment, capstone, portfolio, or equivalent measure regardless of their overall course grade. All courses listed above are taught using standards from the current high school Massachusetts curriculum frameworks and are equivalent to the content and skills previously measured by the 2023 MCCAST exam. Competency determination, ELA, satisfactory completion of coursework requirements. Students may have earned their CD in ELA by passing the ELA MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025. If a student did not pass the MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025, they required to take the equivalent of two years of high school English language arts courses in grade 9 and 10. Mastery

085of skills through assessment or capstone portfolio. Students may have earned their CD in ELA by passing the ELA MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025. If a student did not pass the MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025, they are also required to pass their final assessment, capstone portfolio, or equivalent measure. If a student fails their final assessment in English 9 and/or English 10, students will participate in a portfolio review of prior assessment data to determine if they have met 60% of the frameworks included in the summitive assessment, portfolio, or equivalent measure. For math, students may have earned their CD by passing math MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025. If the student did not take the MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025, they are required to take the equivalent of two years of high school math courses,

086algebra and geometry, in grades 9 and 10. Students may have earned their CD in math by passing the math MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025. If the student did not pass the MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025, they are also required to pass their final assessment capstone portfolio or final assessment or equivalent measure. If a student fails their final assessment in algebra 1 and/or geometry, students will participate in a portfolio portfolio review of prior assessment data to determine if they have met 60% of the frameworks included in the summit of assessment, portfolio, or equivalent measure. Science students may have earned their CD in biology, chemistry, or physics by passing the MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025. If the student did not take the MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025, they are required to take and

087pass the equivalent of one year of any of the following disciplines: biology, physics, chemistry, [clears throat] or technology engineering. Students may have earned their CD in biology or chemistry or physics by passing the MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025. If the student did not take the MCCAST prior to January 3rd, 2025, students may take and pass their final assessment or capstone portfolio or equivalent measure. If a student fails their final assessment in biology or chemistry or physics, students may participate in a portfolio review of prior assessment data to to determine if they have met 60% of the frameworks included in the summit of assessment portfolio or they have may attempt to earn their CD in science in their next sequential class. History beginning with the class of 2027, the equivalent of one year of United

088States history. In addition, students must take and pass their final assessment or capstone portfolio. If a student fails their assessment in United States history, students may participate in a portfolio review prior assessment data to determine if they have met 60% of the frameworks included in the summit of assessment portfolio or they may attempt to earn the CD in US history by taking the next sequential class. Anyone else want to jump in? Thank you. students with disabilities. The HOL School District must provide a free and appropriate public education to students with disabilities and must also determine that the student has met the competency determination and local graduation requirements prior to graduating that student. Students with disabilities who have been placed in out of district placements must meet the requirements of the competency determination policy of the

089placing school district. Discussion of the competency determination must be part of the IEP team's transition planning. English language learners. The Hollston School District shall on a case-byase basis determine appropriate courses necessary for English language learners to both achieve language proficiency and meet the competency determination requirements. Late enrolling students students who enroll in a Massachusetts public school after their nth grade year may be granted a determination of competency by the Hollist school district in one or more of the following ways. Transcript review by school counselor and building administrator. Additional course requirements as determined by school counselor and building administrator. Meeting the standard for a substituted equivalent that the district certified certifies satisfies the same academic standards. Current or former students not earning their competency determination may participate in the following appeals process. Students enrolled in the

090Holston School District in the classes of 2003 through 2024 that did not earn a diploma due to not passing the MCCAST may appeal the decision and request a transcript review to determine if they have met the competency determination requirement. Students enrolled in the Holston School District in the class of 2025 and beyond may appeal the competency determination by participating in a transcript and portfolio review to determine if they have met the competency determination requirement. Exceptions to these graduation requirements providing for individual student programs may be secured by submitting a written request to the principal for disposition. You should read it one more time so you'll have another read. >> Why did that one part have or tech engineering that was just in one part? >> So there there was a MCCAST test. >> It used

091to be that you could pass physics, biology, chemistry or tech engineering. >> Then they got rid of the tech engineering and then they got rid of the chemistry. So it kind of just covers it would be like if like one of the >> it really covers if someone from 2007 wants a wants an appeal >> we could be like oh you passed the tech engineering MCCAST and that counts. >> So it's it's kind of like a well it covers that 2003 to 2019 >> time. Thank you. That's why >> they got rid of >> refer to the class of 2025 now that there is no the class of 2025 >> they're last students >> it's for 2025 it's like if a kid didn't graduate last year they could now request the portfolio >> so they're

092still technically the class of 2025 it >> it's well it it's more for someone who like um got a certificate of completion last year because that then ends their They can continue on as the 18 to 22 program, but they get a certificate of completion. If they wanted a diploma, then they would request a review to see if they've met those um the standards. Okay. And this changes, this policy goes into effect as of January 3rd, and we're supposed to have it by December 31st. So, I didn't apply for a waiver yet because I feel like we should be able to meet that timeline, but just need to make sure we get it voted on and up. I'll have to upload it. >> But there's no vote tonight. >> Just a first reading. >> Yep.

093>> AI read these things. >> Look, I'm seriously computer just can read them out loud. >> But if we're getting tight, we can wave the third reading if we needed to. So just depending on the timeline when the holiday I'm just saying when the holidays end up next. >> Yes. >> I didn't realize the reading was like an actual reading. [laughter] >> We only have one meeting in November. >> Welcome to yet another interesting feature of >> school committee laws. >> Right. >> Any other questions about this policy? >> No. >> Yeah. the state h the state uh um the group who's putting it together has has to have a new one by next year and that's their piece. So wonderful >> there's a graduation task force and the think tank I mean this is

094where the >> the timeline was a little skewed and wasn't thought out well unfortunately. So >> I guess just I know a lot of work went into this but could you tell us a little bit about like was there feedback from high school teachers on it as well? Have they had a chance to review this or >> it's it's so this is the this is based off of basically what the state gave like a template um the things that were add that we added in there are really the the safeguards and the things like that about like that that science tech and engineering since 2003 really this is kind of the >> okay >> we didn't really mess with it much um we just kind of aligned it to to Hollist really so it um

095most districts are putting together something like this summer choosing to just write it out differently, but it every day because we're changing it in a year. >> Yeah. And he's meeting with his principal groups and I'm I'm meeting with my superintendent round tables and tomorrow I have another followup tech. So, this is on that topic from assistance. >> Yeah, they're basically all the same at this point cuz we spent hours on this then and we don't know what the state's going to put out next year. So, >> great. Thank you. Um you want to go to the social media policy next? >> So this is an update um to an existing policy. >> Yes. So what happened is when we saw a lot of things happening um after recent events with Charlie Kirk and there

096were a lot of um there were some dismissals of staff because of social media posts. I immediately reached out to Andy War and asked him to review our policy to see if it would be if we had any similar issues. Does our policy address it? And these are some of the changes that he recommended for us. >> So, we need to read them or >> I think to read just the changes. >> Just the change you're required to. Yeah. So, in the first paragraph, we added the line, "While the district recognizes that employees retain first amendment rights to communicate outside of work, employees should be thoughtful in how they communicate on matters of local, state, and national concern such that their communication do not disrupt the workplace." And then below that there are some additional

097clarification um bullets here including um all electronic contacts with student contacts with students should be through the district's computer and telephone system except in emergency situations. All contacts and messages by coaches and faculty adviserss with team members should be sent to all team members except for messages concerning medical or academic privacy matters in which case a message will be copied to the appropriate administer administrator. Sorry. Um and then later down staff will not give out their private cell phone or home phone numbers without prior approval of the district. pertinent content from coaches, faculty adviserss, and other staff leaders that must be done via teachers personal phone number should be sent to the whole group and must be school appropriate. Um, so that was all language that was recommended by the district's lawyer. >> So I

098have some concerns. Um, what is an emergency situation? >> Um, in E we say you can't give out your phone number without prior approval, but then in F we say and here's a situation. So, we're essentially pre-approving everything. Um, I'd like to look into I know a lot of like uh club teams have um an app for basically communicating with with with all the members of the team. Is there a way we can I don't know if it's cost prohibitive for for us to look at, but I mean I kind of I think in essence I mean I don't think that that teachers and staff should be communicating at all with with students. So, this is actually a good point because um we have a feature in Bright Arrow where um the staff can actually

099chat with families through Bright Arrow. you're talking more about the student piece and it's like for the parent piece if they exclusively are communicating through that it will cover that piece but not this if >> it seems a lot of the issues are around sports and I I get that because they're the ones that are you having to sort of set things up outside of of um >> we also have a capacity within our Zoom phones for all staff to put the Zoom app and use a school-based phone number on their personal phone. >> Um I think it has the capacity I'd have to check with Dan as far as texting as well. Let's check that >> we then that we then have we can track. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> That's okay. That's I

100mean that's >> that would solve if they're employed by us and have a Zoom account. It wouldn't solve coaches that are not um a teacher or other staff member. >> Think about all the um plays and things like that. Same thing like the directors are communicating >> too. So you need to think about their outside people. >> And then the last question I had, sometimes I do think um coaches communicate with like the group of captains perhaps and not the whole team like messages then get disseminated from the captains to the team. And I don't know if we want to say that's okay or not. >> Yeah. For the captains to run something, right? So they might be communicating with three or five of them so that they're running a practice or communicating out to

101the the rest of the players. I also >> over summer well sometimes over summer they >> How often does your your check email and what what do you do with the scenario where you have 130 kids at the Reggie Lewis Center all spread out at a track meet and something happens. Do you think they're going to grab their phone and check their email or do you think they're going to see a text and get a communication that way? And it could be something like, you know, you're missing three kids and the bus is trying to leave, right? I mean, it's part of how we reach out to them. So, I'm not sure that email is I think there are I I guess have we talked to the athletic director or some of the coaches about

102some of the real life problems that we have that this um because otherwise I think that it may be worked around in some way. So, I feel like >> you got 130 kids and you're missing what I mean you're going to have one captain with you more than likely if you multiple captain why can't the captain reach out to those kids? I just I I just I just >> Ask a kid to do it. I just I you know I don't I don't love >> Yeah, I I hear you and I I see the problems with it. But um >> because at the same time it's just sort of like it's if you can I there are a lot of situations where I can understand it but if it's if it's black and white you're

103not comm you know then if you have a kid's phone number on your phone or you know it's just >> I I think the part on D is helpful because of the fact that you also have to copy the administrator. So if we found out that they weren't copying administrator that would help with that piece. Um it's been it's been a challenge in the past and that's why we really tried to strengthen up this. We had a lot of confusion about what kind of contact we making and what you can't and I think it's really gets back to this has to go out and it should be discussed. It would go out we we send it out to all staff once we revise but then we would also have like Matt Baker bring it into

104his next meeting and things like that as well. >> Would Matt Baker be the appropriate administrator to copy on all >> for the coaches? I would say yes. But I, you know, >> if we have access to the virtual number that coaches can use and then actually text, >> but that's actually techn that would actually be a text to the to the kids. It would just be something we could then monitor. >> I'm curious. I I haven't asked this stuff, Matt. But I imagine similar to the apps that all the different club sports or whatever have have is there's a a protected system with you know parent and then admin access to be able to see all communication that is just an app on a coach and a athletes >> the way like >> like

105team snap or >> yeah team snap or all the different like I mean I bet if you open up our phones we have like seven of them on our phones right now >> and then we also have uh you know drama clubs are quite large and they have those people are not also staff members. >> Drama snap. >> No, I mean I mean you know you could probably use team snap. >> We could use it for all of those but >> um >> I think the bigger issue we were trying to address is when does your social media posting infringe upon your school >> life? It wasn't I hear you on all that look into it further. But most of the changes were, you know, >> Yes. >> Yeah. Thinking about the contact between >>

106Yeah. >> I mean, I'm okay with the first >> the first part. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> It's it's the the rest that I think I just would like to put a little more thought and time into. We've got great staff and and coaches and and adviserss and everything, but >> I think it's important to protect >> everyone. I just want to make sure they see a way to still do the communications they have and have an ability to give some input. I think, you know, maybe we can't work around it, but it would be before we make this type of change. >> At a bare minimum, I do think it would be appropriate to say there should no shouldn't be any one-on-one, >> right? >> It should always be coach, >> teacher, whatever, and

107some group of kids. That makes sense. It's like not just a random group of kids either. Like if it's your captains, your whole team, your whole um all of your actors, like >> I could see that when they're sending out the group message, but then it also could be a child like could be sick or something and want to just tell a personal situation, >> but then copy the parent then >> something like that, right? >> Parents number or and that could be an email. >> Um >> can we have Matt Baker come to the next policy meeting? >> Yes, good idea. We have a date for that already. So, >> I believe so. >> Yes. >> And and I think I'll run it through the >> particularly the middle school and high school principal

108as well because I would want to see if they want to come speak to it. >> Thank you. >> And then if we could add just, you know, any, you know, impending classified military strikes, all those should go through signal. I just, you know, just group chats there. >> Take the microphone. >> All right. for pay. >> Do you want me to read that one? >> Sure. So, this is a new policy. Um, it is one that was recommended by MASC and I um we don't have it. It does some of the language does overlap with um the ethics training that teachers do, but um MASC recommended that districts also adopt a policy as well. I think we had something that covered some of this like not using school resources for for tutoring and things

109like that. I was wasn't there >> it falls under ethics because within the active >> you can't tutor your own student um even like if you have a student in second grade that summer you couldn't tutor them or you can't tutor them while you're >> but also you can't use school resources including your classroom to do that >> can't benefit monetarily and things like that. Yeah, that's already under the ethics policy. I know we've slightly moved on, but can you can policy also just look at JND's Welssley's policy on it where there is something about district recognizes that in limited cases use of cell phone text messages and they sort of they give a you know more limited they give some guard rails on it. I just think it might be good to reference it

110too. >> Okay, so tutoring for pay it's policy GCD. Definition tutoring means giving private instruction or help to an individual or group for which the teacher receives I'm going to pronounce this wrong remuneration >> remuneration other than this through the school committee. A teacher cannot recommend that one of his or her own students get tutoring and then be paid to tutor that same student in a second job. A teacher may not tutor students who are currently in their class. Even if the teacher does not recommend that the current student receive private private tutoring, the teacher should not tutor current students. Teachers and other public employees may not approach a student or the students parents guardians seeking private tutoring work. A teacher may provide tutoring when the relationship is initiated by the parents or guardians or

111a student. But if the student is or in the future may be under the teacher's authority, the teacher will need to provide a written disclosure. A teacher cannot use school resources such as classrooms or materials in connection with the private tutoring business. A public school employee cannot use dis school or district website to advertising priv to advertise private tutoring services. Schools cannot send home brochures for a particular tutoring service with the ch with children. Tutoring is not to be recommended for a student unless the appropriate teacher of the student involved is consulted and agrees that it will be of real help. If tutoring seems advisable, the principal may give the parents or guardians a list of persons who are willing to tutor. This list may be may include teachers but not the students teacher of

112the subject in which he or she is to be tutored. You say they um tutoring for pay is not to be done in the school building. Note a teacher can tutor in their own district if the district approves for and pays for the tutoring and hires them according to the provision in the teachers collective bargaining agreement. source MASC reviewed 2022. Yeah. >> Any questions? >> Two. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> I think that was all. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Last one. Okay, this is middle JC middle school pathway exploration. Uh this is a new policy based on Desi's request for middle school uh career pathway exploration. So um students understanding what pathways they have o open to them in high school whether it's at Hollston High or one of

113the um vocational or agricultural schools nearby. Um, students in the Hall public schools have multiple opportunities available to them for exploring and pursuing their future careers and is a priority of the district to continually expand these opportunities and align them with regional workforce needs. Residents of Hollist have access to career technical pathways and the district should identify the indist regional and agricultural schools offering CTE and explain how they may connect to students secondary and post-secary academic and career planning. This policy outlines a pathway exploration process for middle school students in Hollston public schools as they and their families make decisions about high school middle school career exploration. The Hollson public schools implementation of college and career planning for students directly connects the exploration of CTE schools and programs to a student's broader academic and career

114goals. Hollistston works with students to explore their interests, skills, and values starting in middle school. This self-discovery process guides students as they re research high school pathways and make informed decisions about which school environment, whether a traditional high school or a specialized CTE program or vocational program best aligns with their emerging goals. Informing students of available pathways. Holl public schools will take the following steps annually to ensure students are informed about their high school options. Information sharing. Annually, middle schools will provide member CTE vocational schools with the names, addresses, email addresses, and primary language spoken at home of all enrolled sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students. Onampus assemblies. Each fall, all eighth grade students will have the opportunity to attend assemblies on campus at the middle school and hosted by the CTE vocational school. These

115events will provide students with information about CTE programs and the application process. School tours. Each fall, all eighth grade students will have the opportunity to tour their regional vocational school. Transportation expenses will be covered by the vocational school. These tours will be scheduled during the school day and will be considered an excused absence. Promotion of events. We will share information about vocational school openhouse, career night, andformational events on the district website and through regular communication channels such as school newsletters, application interviews. We will provide opportunities at the middle school during the school day for vocational schools to schedule in-person informational interviews with students who have applied. Online resources by October 15th each year, the district website will publish pertinent information about vocational school options, including links to admission applications, admissions policies, and openhouseformational event schedules.

116Providing admission records to CTE schools. Middle schools will provide relevant information to member vocational schools for students who have applied. This may include documentation of student interest, attendance records, and discipline records in accordance with the vocational schools approved admissions policy and DESIE guidance. Student high school transition. The middle school team will work with representatives in the vocational school to support the transition of students accepted in planning to enroll to ensure the best possible transition. This may include invitations to team meetings, connections with middle school counselors, forwarding important information regarding course placement, and specific student needs. Maintenance of records. The Robert Adams Middle School will maintain a record of all on-site presentations, assemblies, and student tours to CTE schools along with other relevant information about collaboration between the district and member CTE vocational schools. These records

117will be made available to Desi upon request. So >> sorry, where did you say this one came from? >> Desi, >> they're mandating it. >> Dr. Custom, do you remember? So, the DESIE is requiring that districts are going to have to upload their policy on middle school pathways and they I had to apply for a waiver already because November 1st was the deadline, but they didn't tell us till August. So, I've already applied for the waiver for this one. The other one, we have one more time. Um, and then we will have to prove that we have done this. But then this policy, if we don't have it done by that deadline, wouldn't go in effect until next year. But they want it done this year. And I I so I I put a date

118of late January just to make sure we got the policy complete. >> So the Keith Tech Novag, I mean, these are these are great options for for for some of our kids, and I think that it's great that we have them. I personally hate the idea that we promote them. I mean, I I don't want to hide them, but I just it it just it I mean, they get slick brochures and, you know, all this kind of stuff and then we bust them over miss. I mean, it's just it I mean, we should also do this, I guess, for for our own high school, but um I >> I don't know. I'm just going to vote against it, but you know, vote against what Desi wants, but I I just I it's nothing against the

119schools and the options. We should make sure the kids who who want those types of of career pathways get the information. But this >> just so Dian just so you know prior to this we every year we have already been required to send out >> No, I know now we're just codifying and putting it on and they've been doing the tour for a long time too, right? >> Yep. I hated that. >> It's not really going to change our practice to be honest with you. But now we're just >> putting it right >> and I think some of this is just coming up the recommendations from the federal level as we've heard about related to career tech and I think you know >> I think I agree I think we all would agree the value

120of this in the perfect world we'd like to have a CT vocational pathways and that's why we're trying to create some of our pathways at the high school to hopefully encourage some kids to stay and not um go out and be able to have more offerings for them I just have one tiny picky comment. >> Can we define CTE somewhere >> for your tech education? >> Yeah, >> it's always helpful when you're doing it. >> Thank you. Any questions on that one? No. Okay, then let's continue moving on. Um, central office updates. There's a lot that's been going on. You obviously heard about homecoming and events there and you heard about all the drama offering is coming up. So, we're just very busy with um all of the staff events. Joanie is going to talk

121about the November 4th PD in upcoming um sessions as well. The I think the biggest challenge that we found is the number of um and I think this might address some of your conversation later. The principles and I when we met the other day had talked extensively about the those how many short weeks we've had at the beginning of the year. And I know that's been challenging for parents. It's also disruptive for the students. So I don't have an answer to it. It is the way our calendar is laid out. But I just thought I'd point that out that the principles and staff aren't, you know, talking about this. This year in particular just seems like we had a real heavy um frontloaded a lot of those days off and it's been challenging for the

122kids to get in the rhythm and hopefully um well well the next one is November again. So uh and then we get into the holidays as well. So it's just been a that's been challenging, but all in all the schools are off to a great start. And actually um Dr. Jordan and I had um a joint labor management meeting with our HFT president and our par professional representative and we had some good conversations there as well. And I think we've we're still overall hearing a lot of good things and I know David might mention that as well about the the lack of disruption as far as the earlier start times. It's actually been much smoother than we would, you know, were hoping and um it's it's a good thing. So, I think in general, nothing

123is ever perfect, but we're feeling pretty good about how the school year has started despite these shortened weeks. It's been a little bit fun. >> Great. Thank you. >> While the two of them were meeting with the union, I was um participating in our second elementary ELA curriculum review of the year, which is going really well. Also, Jenny man, myself, and Caitlyn Kinsky have been meeting with the Desi coaches on a regular basis. We just had uh last week our third new teacher institute meeting of the year. Great group of new staff. Um we have 10. We've completed three for the year. Also uh trained all new mentors for our new staff that needed it. Uh David Liss and I attended the project lead the way conference last Monday. Was great to interact with a

124lot of different districts and get some great ideas on how they handle their project lead the way program. um PD council meetings up and running again. We had our last meeting October 15th. Remember that's when both the union and admin have equal sides. We're very busy planning our November 4th PD. I am thrilled that my grants finally got approved. So, uh just to remind you guys, uh in Hollist here, we have title one grant which is only for Placentino. It's $58,674. a title 2 grant which is for PD $29,925 title three three which is for MLL's a section has to go to supporting students within the classroom um community events PD for our MLL teachers and supplies and materials it's $13,214 title 4 $10,000 is also for PD and just to remind you we have

125the prison grant uh 224,200 and we also got approved the genocide grant for the second year $7,499. So really excited that those finally got approved. That's it. Um we there's some discussion as far as the town meeting um and some of the requests that went through there. uh kind of the immediately the next morning uh Mark Frank uh reached out to to me and in a group to kind of start the process of putting together the bids for the flag field. Um and the roads um the timing of that needs to be at rocket speed um in that uh we need to complete kind of the field before we start the road and then the road needs to be done before school starts next year. Um so we'll try to get out to bid on

126that as soon as we possibly can. Uh we're still we're meeting uh tomorrow um to just have a preliminary conversation of whether we're doing one big project as far as the combination of the flag field and the roads and the parking lot and anything that ties into that as far as companies bidding on that. Um or we split uh split that up into uh a couple a couple bids um potentially different contractors, but you're just going to weigh the options as far as the cost benefit um of that. Um, I don't know if this is going to be mentioned with kind of the S soi update, uh, but also just because as an FYI, um, there is kind of some timeliness to some work that we're trying to do within the solar project, um, and

127some updates and some communication, um, that we need to kind of make some fast decisions on by October 28th, uh, of this month. Um, so I didn't know if um now is the time to expand upon that um or whether we wanted to look at that at a later point in time. Uh but um that's something that I want to think about um doing um and what you all wanted to do with that. >> Yeah, we can talk about quickly right now. I forwarded out an email that uh Beth Greenblad, our um solar consultant sent us today. Um a few steps. basically we need to sign some things essentially locking us into the to getting allocated kilowatt at whatever the state has and so the application period is like October 15th to the end of

128the year. Um if you read it it's basically non-binding is all contingent upon this is not the actual lease agreement where we really need to review it. Um, and so I think that she's going to have the town manager sign it probably for the for the select board. Um, since it's not on our agenda, though it wasn't known before the agenda was posted. You know, I I'm fine if if Dr. Kusker or Dr. Jordan wants to sign on behalf of the schools. We've already it basically reaffirms kind of what we did when we when we um when we sponsored the the Warren article. So, it's not anything major, but it it was I didn't realize that there was need to be actioned so quickly. Yeah. I mean, if you're okay with that, I'd be happy

129to sign it and get it back. Makes >> sense. We voted on this as a committee before and it was passed by town. So, I think it's the understanding is that they'll sign on our behalf. >> Yeah. I mean, I we we will have a real vote review of the of the lease agreement, the contract before we do that. But I think for this just to keep it moving. I don't know if we want you want to vote on that or or we just kind of put census and just that matters. I don't I think just because it's not on for a vote, you probably don't want to apologize. >> I don't think we need to because I think they knew they could sign on our behalf based on the town, >> right? But but

130I do think it's important that someone from the school signed it in addition to someone from the town. So >> Okay. >> Yeah. Okay. Sure. >> I'm sneaking in here even though I'm not on your list. >> We got to add you. >> Yeah. >> We just didn't want her to feel pressured. I know you had asked to attend the meetings. We're fine with that, but we didn't want you to feel pressure. >> I have a little list. I'll be quick. Uh I just want to say that we've been working on the November 4th PD coming up and trying to align with what the district is doing right now. Um today I met with uh Jerry Elene and trying to see how we can crosshatch what we're both doing and make it more beneficial for

131the entire department so that we have the counselors and the psychologists now integrated with the special ed staff because we both have our niches of what we're doing. But we want to make sure we have a way that everybody's working together. That's particularly critical because we're making sure this year with the law about the testing and IEP meetings happening in the 30 days and within 45 days. We're tracking it already to try to see how we're doing. It's not that the state has asked us to, but if we're finding that we're having some backups, we want to investigate and try to figure out how we're making all our commitments, our legal commitments to the state. So, that process has begun. Um, for me, I got to be a guest chef in the high school sore

132program and that was really exciting and I brought Michelle a May along with me and together we made the um old Bergs and poundake sundaes that we both used to enjoy as kids. So, we had a chance to work with the class on that. Um, I've been working closely with the CPAC and I think it's well known, but I'll reiterate that the um, trunk or treat is coming up and we hope everybody can support it this coming Saturday uh, for the students. It's a really great event. I also know and I'll come back and repeat that we will have a unified basketball fundraising activity coming up in November, but that's uh, more details to follow. The big one right now is the trunk or treat. And uh I just want to talk about the fact

133that we're also looking at our timeout spaces because the laws are changing in the state and I've been working with Dr. Kusk and talking about when they come in this spring because it's our review year this year that they'll look probably at our spaces and trying to figure out whether we need any grants to uh make sure everything is in order according to state regulations. You actually just from walking around you're in really good place already compared to some other places I've been in. So, do we have to do some tweaks? Absolutely. But are we more than where we need to be? Yeah, we're really far along. So, I think a compliment to the district for doing some good planning. That's it tonight. >> Thank you. Um, so next is personnel and it looks like

134we are going to potentially vote on a new Miller Club. >> Yes, there's my tab. Oh, that is the right time. This should be it. All right. So, normally I don't bring you um stipen approvals this time of year. We usually try we have a whole process. The first year of a stipen, there's a pilot year and the staff members, they pilot it and then the administrator determines whether they're going to move forward and then the beginning of that next year, I'm sorry, by the end of that first year, they then move it forward to me and we negotiate the factors with the um HFT um and you would have voted on it in the spring. This one's a little bit unusual just because we have at the Miller school right now, we have a

135jazz band stipen and we have a um what's the other one? a regular just a band just a band stipen and then a jazz band. But we don't have a chorus stipen because it wasn't necessary the way the coral program was running before. But now with shared staff at the building which is actually making this program much stronger having the students have the chorus teacher and also the band teacher follow them up from Miller all the way to middle school. There's really the numbers are growing. But because of that, what we found, what they found at Miller is the coral instructor also needs to be getting a stipen for some of that after school time. So we mirrored this. I reached out to Jamie Gone and said, "Would you consider negotiating it even though the

136timeline is off?" And she was willing. So we mirrored this right off of what the jazz and the um regular band are getting at Miller, which gets us to the factors here that you can see. And an overall um one, 1489 be the statement for that. I think it it's important for us to the program's already starting but it would be important to initiate this and it's it's not a lofty amount as well. So, I don't know. I I see that you both signed this now and so I don't know how you want to handle it, but the the compound factor is is wrong. Um, with the new contract, we could it floats. So, it's supposed it's $312.87 for this year. Uh, so it's $1,564.35. >> You have that template, right? >> Yeah. >> Okay.

137We do you agree that >> you want us to vote on it before you change it or you think >> if you're okay with the factors David put this together then he'll fix that and then I I'll just ask Jamie to fix it. It's in the Yeah. >> Yeah. The factors were negotiated with with the union. >> Yeah. So as long as you're okay with the factors that you can vote on the factors and then >> you can get me the updated one David and we'll just I'm sure she'll be fine and we'll just get that resigned. >> I'm sure no one's going to find something for you. >> Okay. I'll entertain a motion. >> Thank you for catching that. >> Yeah, >> sure. >> To approve the Miller School Chorus Advisor Stipen. >> Second.

138All in favor? >> That passes. >> Thank you. >> Sorry, should I clarify factors? >> As amended. Um, okay. Um, reports from subcommittees, communications. Um we met [clears throat] this week um to discuss kind of the planning to discuss the planning for communications for the superintendent search process. Um we did discuss and I don't we need to vote here. We can't at this point but we did discuss um being able to our messaging community around the forums following up to November fourth and fifth. >> Yeah. So we're just firming up the dates. So, I'll have firm dates and probably a Zoom link. So, we will have a community forum. Kind of jumping ahead a tiny bit, but since you're talking about communications, I'll say it a couple times so that people can catch it multiple

139points of this meeting if they watch it. Um, we will be having a community forum at the upper town hall on November 5th at 9:00 a.m. That's in person. That's a Wednesday. And then Thursday night or evening um November 6th at I think at 7:00 we'll do um a Zoom community forum so people have the option of joining either way. Um >> and so I'll get you a Zoom link and the details of all of that. >> Okay. So we communication um to have a number of communications out regarding those forms and once they do firm up um leading up to it including >> probably three two or three we said leading up to so this hopefully this week we can get one >> uh or early next week at this point um and then

140obviously leading up to it and as well as following up to we said with the survey that's out um combining with as well um so yeah um that is the plan at this point and uh we know we did say we'd plan to meet tomorrow but we are no longer after I did meet with Sarah or we discussed with um at this meeting so obviously missed the deadline um so once that's um firmed up if you could let me know and then we'll emails out to community on reminders >> thank you policy feel like you did lots of reading ready. >> Yes. Um, yeah. So, we met in October. We have the four policies. We're going to meet again in November to and we'll look at that social media policy and the competency determination one

141again as well as a couple others. >> Yes. >> Budget. >> Um, we have not met. We I was going to do the uh uh um solar under under this but uh probably better under Dr. Jordan's update. Uh but we are getting into the beginning of of budget season. So um I know Dr. Jordan's working on on part one of that. We are there already. Yes. Um and so uh we will have to have some meetings a meeting at least uh in between now and and uh and uh >> November 14th. >> November 13th. So >> 14th and 13th >> 13th. Um but yeah, we are uh and as uh you know the chair of the finance committee uh stated at a town meeting current the current look at uh the town's budget is now

142uh the shortfall of a million dollars for the overall town and and that is with three and a quarter% for for the schools. Last year after all was said and done we were at 600,000 in the whole but that was at four and a quarter for the schools. So um it's a pretty >> it's going to be a tough year. Okay. >> And I can continue to go on. >> No, that's okay. Stop right there. [laughter] >> No, that's fine. Um, Superintendent Yel. >> Yes. So, uh, Dr. Kuster had indicated that she has drafted her goals. So, we will be uh meeting on October 28th at 6 p.m. in the central office. >> Okay. Great. And then math advisory. >> Uh, we met last week. Uh we'll meet again next week. Um it's it's a

143really great group of people, very engaged and and uh really contributing to the process. >> Okay. Um so just I kind of alluded to a little bit of the supern search um activity that's going on. Well, we've been scheduling um working with HIA, scheduling lots of individual u meetings for them to receive feedback from various um you know, PTO. So, anyway, lots of people um should have most of those invitations done by tomorrow. Um that's the goal. Just a couple things. So, we've got the two community forums that will be um we'll be talking about those more. Um I did want to have a vote on the screening team. So, the general process will be um we've got the survey open through November 5th. Is that correct? No, November 7th. Sorry. >> To the four

144or just us. Um, HYA will be using information gathered from the survey as well as the various um, focus groups with the community members um, to put together a leadership profile. Um, they will present the leadership profile to us on at our November 13th meeting. Um just wanted to kind of gauge people's um they are willing to come in person or they could do it via Zoom. So they would have a strong preference either way. >> My preference would be in person but but well but but again it depends on how far away they are. This is you know if it's if everyone lives within an hour that is one thing. If they're 3 to 5 hours away then Zoom is fine. So if if Zoom is okay, I will leave that as an option.

145>> Of course, they're always welcome to come. >> Um I'd like to vote on the screening team. So once once the leadership profiles put together, then they will help screen resumes as they come in. they will put together a slate of candidates that the screening team will take a look at and kind of evaluate in terms of who shall be they'll kind of come up with the semi-finalists. Um and then the screening team will actually interview those um semi-finalists in person. So, um, we've kind of named we've got a group of seven that we are going to be working with. Um, two school committee members, two school administrators, um, a select board member, um, an HFT representative, and, um, Keith Budet. I don't know what to call him, but retired. >> Yeah, he's just Keith.

146Um, so, uh, the plan is to have Hillary Bushan. Depending on the times, it will Can we vote on either Don or me still? >> Not really. >> No. I mean, sure. We We can >> How about we can we do Don as >> Yeah, we with an alternate. Yeah. >> Yeah. Just depending on the how the timing works out because we both have stuff going on. >> I can't do in one weekend. Sarah can't do. So, it really depends on what weekend. >> That's right. >> So, it will be done as a school committee rep with Hillary and I'll serve as a backup. >> Sure. >> Um, and then David List and Jamie Slaney, Ben Sparrow from Miss Lickboard, and Alex Strum. So, does that sound okay to everyone? >> Yeah, I think that

147that sounds good. I know we discussed um having a a another parent representative on there. I think maybe just discuss briefly the the thought there. Um just so that we >> I mean I think the intent with all of these various forums is really and the survey is to use those as the vehicles to express your desires and concerns and thoughts on who um what type of leader we're looking for. Um, so that really is the the way that we're kind of gathering most of that feedback. Um, with this group, we've got three parents. Um, you know, we've got the two the two school committee members are definitely parents and then Ben Sparrow also has a child in the district. So, that's kind of how we're covering it that way. >> That makes a lot

148of sense. And I think Hway was also when I met with them anyway, you know, they talked a lot about how prospective applicants really like to ensure confidentiality early on in the process. So the smaller the group is u the more comfortable applicants are for it. So this helps keep the the group small. Um >> they conveyed the same thing to me when they spoke with me about how it widens the applicant pool if you maintain a smaller group. In fact their recommendation was even smaller than this. So as as stated by Sarah that's seven. I think that they had even mentioned a number as low as five to but didn't want to go above that. >> But I think Sure. No, I'm just going to say I mean I think that we are going

149to ensure that there's tons of of community feedback opportunities even as we go through the process and not just the community forums, you know, different group sessions as we are being invited to um the survey. Um but then also even I think maybe a lot of I've seen other districts when you get to the finalist they then have a further survey once that people have been publicly so that you know it's not going to be this we want to hear from the community. We want to hear as much as they they want to provide us with with information >> and we've reached we've got student groups meeting um they'll students will be met with in person. Um the t uh the community will also be in in person. We also have a um session scheduled

150at the senior center or the center um in person. So there's a number of ways you know via zoom. Please fill out the survey. Um so we we are looking for feedback for sure. Um the final thing I wanted to cover with this is the um the timing of when the screening team would meet to actually interview the semi- finalist. The way um HYA does it kind of in the middle of the week they would meet with the screening committee probably over Zoom to kind of cover a few things like confidential agreement. Um just the process that would they'd be following with the interviews. Um, and then on Friday, like later evening, like 4 to 9 or so, they would be bringing some applicants in to interview and then probably an all day session on

151Saturday. Um, and then we would be presented with finalist to interview the following week. So, sometime during during either our regularly scheduled school committee meetings or possibly an additional meeting. Um, so the timing we were kind of thinking that made sense was to have the screening team meet on Friday late afternoon, January 16th, and then most of the day on the 17th. Um, but there's a little bit of flexibility if that really doesn't work for people. And then we would try and do interviews like around January 22nd here. So, I guess we'll kind of pencil that in as a date. Um, and I can um have HYA communicate that with the screening team and we can see how that how that flies. >> Okay. Does that make sense? >> Should we send out another communication

152to the community about all this? >> Yeah. >> We can outline the dates and the process a little more if you want. Y makes more sense to >> in that perspective we get the updates around the forum first keep it very focused like get your feedback and then follow up quickly with the dates that we align upon especially if they change >> I I don't >> yeah and this cuz this is still a very smaller small group that >> but we need to make sure people are available and that that >> yeah once >> and if it doesn't we need to be able to adjust >> we could say something like we're anticipating interviews in late January Hi Joanne, this is K. >> Sorry, >> we already have we've sent out an email regarding the

153timeline. >> Okay, >> like high level months at that point. So I think that was sufficient as we get and we said we'd follow up with as we get closer with dates. Um but again most important is getting the feedback from the community on the >> um leadership profile. Go from there and then making sure we publish that because that's will get published too, right? >> Yeah. >> So, do we need to take a vote on the actual selection team members? >> Sarah's proposal. >> Okay. So, I'll entertain a motion to approve Hillary Don. >> Sarah as a backup. Um David List, Jamie Slaney, Ben Sparrow, Keith Buy, and Alex Drum to serve on the selection team. >> And they've been earning more. >> Yes. Yes. Surprise. [laughter] >> No. No. They've been Yeah. >>

154Okay. Anyone want to make a motion? All in favor? Second. Moved >> by Joe. Second by second. Did I? >> Yeah, I'm too. Sorry. >> Yeah, >> I didn't keep up. >> Um, okay. And then do uh updates on the SOI? >> We don't have any further updates. Um, [snorts] I we've gotten letters from both uh Senator Spoka and and Reparina D. Rosa that we're sending in or have been sent in. I just got another email uh from Susan Nickel asking for some information because they want to send a letter quickly about the roof repair program. Um so I got her some of that stuff, but we don't have they've not posted anything yet online. Um >> meeting is the 29th for the roof. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Hopefully we'll know something soon. Um

155but then we'll let people know. Okay, moving on to calendar. Do we want to talk about calendar? >> No. Um, >> I know. So, we have received some community feedback. We have received some teacher feedback. Um, that there is some interest in bringing this discussion back. It's something that other districts and our neighbors are kind of mulling over as well. Um, >> so I think there's a lot of work to go through. >> There is a lot of work to that needs to be done. It's it's a tricky It's a tricky um thing to think about, I guess. Um I I one thing I feel strongly about because I've been on the committee since we've had a group come in and advocate for Javali and we had a group come in and advocate for Eid.

156I think we many of us here even saw them come and tell us why it was important and celebrate the decision and follow up after various meetings. I want to make sure there's a lot of transparency and those same groups that came before us have the opportunity to come back and express um how they felt about us um honoring those holidays and how they feel about the consideration to now remove them. Um, so I think a really important part if we start this is the communication piece that maybe personally rep you know we have the emails from the folks that reached out to us before making sure they know that we're considering this and and um you know getting a lot of communication out there on it. >> So roll it back a little bit.

157>> Yeah. I'm not I'm not looking at at any sort of look at the calendar as a looking at the holidays and just looking at the holidays. So, I think it needs to be a holistic review. We've done some some surveying of the community about moving different uh you know um vacations around and that wasn't wellreceived. But we never also sort of >> at least since I've been on the committee haven't really pulled to see you know where people would favor cutting things back. Maybe maybe they don't want to lose the the the the vacations, but they want to lose their religious holidays less. So maybe they would be more in favor of like we haven't sort of looked at things um holistically in different ways. We haven't looked, you know, consistently on how we

158deal with PD and and whether, you know, we've had conversations, but we haven't, you know, so so this is not about get rid of the holidays in my mind. This is this is about like looking at everything. >> Now, do you care about recency bias? Um like yes this will this could impact every it could impact everybody but looking at those that are that have come last to look at to give them a heads up versus others that you know holidays have been happening for decades at this point um should be equally looked at >> well I don't think it's not like we would get rid of the more recent holidays that we just hadn't >> exactly this is the one the one the one probably get shot for this but the one the one

159the One positive thing now that with how many holidays we have is that if we did remove the holidays we would you know be you know removing [snorts] them for for every religion >> agree almost not every religion but but but most of the representative religions that's that's not to say that's where we should go but I mean at least we we've got to >> part of the discussion >> that's part of the discussion but we've got to look I mean we've got to see what our neighbors are doing because and where our our staff uh live and reside because if we're going if our neighbors are, you know, not going to move and they're going to maintain these these these days off. We won't be able to staff uh the buildings even if we,

160you know, remove them and we'll end up in the same position we're in with those snow day type of type of things and that's not good either. So um there's a a lot to be looked at and um what I would say is I would be willing to sort of help lead the sort of creating a group to to to look at it but it would be under the condition that this would not be for next year that this is something that would be a long process um that we would have to look at you know a lot of different things because I think this is a very important decision and we we there going be a lot of people with a lot of >> you thoughts on it. >> I think you laid out

161the fact that we do need a larger group outside of us to really look at this holistically, not just take it a singular approach and and will require not just one-time feedback, but over overtime feedback from what our neighbors are doing to what our community feels like, how our community is made up. This is going to be future to put out some type of survey again and also maybe additional forums. >> We hear feedback from the survey or feedback that was the community le feedback at this point. I think it would be good to start there >> the petition other than the >> had a few hundred signatures. Um, but I think it was also not very clear what exactly it was saying, which which days it was talking about. So, I mean it's >>

162it was not a survey. It was more of just seeking interest in having the conversation supposed to look. >> There are definitely a a large group of people in the community that I think would be okay removing the holidays. I also think that there is a large group of people that will not be okay removing the the holidays. Um >> can we table this till after the um the community forums and the survey that are currently >> scheduled >> too many surveys too. So, so as far as I mean my thought would be if you want me or me and someone else or whatever to do it would be to come up basically do sort of what you sort of did with the math to come up with a plan to come back to them

163present the plan to begin these conversations that would then take through the end of the year and maybe even over you know over the summer to then have sort of something to discuss at the beginning of next year. So, I mean like this is this is not >> where I would I'm thinking of sending out a survey anytime soon. Um >> yeah, >> it's also like what's on the table like what are the options? >> Well, let me get all the data. Where are our staff located? You know, talk to reach out to other school committee uh school communities surrounding towns and see what what they're doing has been more active recently on the on the holidays, but maybe other school districts are looking at different different solutions. there are also um contractual implications. Not

164you know some of them are smaller but then there are you know we have um well in any event there's there's a lot of things that go into why our calendar ends up being the way that it is. >> The good news is next year's calendar schedule or calendar is is reasonable. >> Yeah. So we have a little bit of buffer but every year I think also comes into the case that it could be very challenging to follow a year. So, >> right. So, if you want to start if you want to sort of table this and then not start it until or not officially sort of do it until December or something. That's fine. I'm just saying I'm not pl I would not plan on >> That's fine. I just didn't want to confuse

165people with which survey or get people engaged in one thing but not another. >> Yeah. Right. But then I think capturing starting gathering that data is important now so that we have >> and I think that how we how this is communicated is important as you said it's important not to look at just the holidays and to make sure that different people have voices in this but think about how that message is conveyed with everything that's going Yeah. >> Yeah. No, absolutely. >> Given Yes. I think we should though not say table but pause and for the next few months. >> That that that's fine. I mean >> but quickly move. >> But I think also to be clear like >> we've been talking about this for a couple of years now too. Like it's

166not like this is >> but we've been talking specific things for the last few years like should we get rid of the March or February? Yeah. Holiday. No, but I mean the holidays were already always >> 80 days looking there was a question last year about the placement of professional development. >> Are there creative opport creative solutions potentially? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Could I just >> Saturdays >> could I just suggest that I know that part of this was to get the calendar done earlier this year than in the past. If you're not planning to change for next year and you're going to get some communication out that you are going to look at it, I just would ask that you might consider trying to vote on the calendar >> sooner because that will

167affect, you know, the planning for PD for next year. The sooner we get that, it's easier to plan for those days. >> Sure. >> Like we weren't even looked at last year's or next year's calendar. Let's I think let's solidify that and then we can >> Okay. Just so they're not where we were last year. We're halfway through the year. We're like, "Oh, we got to think about this next." >> Okay. So, we'll just pause. We'll >> bring it back. >> We'll bring it back. Yeah. Um Okay. So, we wanted to just quickly talk a little bit about the SSC job posting and just kind of the process for we've got interm right now and we're just kind of thinking about when to post. >> Yeah, I think when you and I talked briefly that

168I I think for the timeline you have a superintendent search, you want to get that underway. So I think January posting the original posting would still give you plenty of time. That's a good time of year to start a search for um you know you know the last few years it's been challenging for many of these roles to you know find strong candidates but I feel like January would be a good timeline going into February to start doing those interviews. So >> if you want I could put together sort of a timeline like I've done in the past and >> well could I mean posting it is one thing and then you start sort of the the interviewing process. Could we could we post it sooner >> um and with a with a note in

169the posting saying open till >> January 31st February 15th whatever >> something like that which would align with where we're looking at um interviews by the end of January and decisions pretty soon after that. Um, so they'd be able to give some input if we were to be closing closing applications, say early February or late January. >> I get to post as soon as >> Yeah, that would be my recommendation. I don't know if that's [snorts] technically our goal, but um at least >> Do you want me to sort of draft out a timeline based on past searches that we've done and then bring it back to the next meeting? >> Yeah. or or should we discuss like the job description and the posting at our next meeting, the November 13th meeting, and then and

170we could get it up, you know, we could discuss whether it goes up in November or December, what we're thinking, but with, you know, the intention of closing it, a timeline that would allow us to have some clarity with the new superintendent. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I think we should ideally I'd like to get it up in November. Okay. Um, then we just have policy subcommittee minutes. >> I I think that was in there by mistake. >> I was going to say I was like I don't know. >> Yeah. >> I didn't notice that until now. [laughter] >> Um, is there anything else? >> We don't have executive session. >> No executive session. >> Schedule. I know. If we do it now, we'll be early by six minutes. >> Okay. Well, let's give it for

171a little bit. >> No. >> What are we talking about? >> Entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All in favor. >> Or does that have to be roll? >> No. >> Okay. Great. Good night. Allison.