School Committee Meeting - 5/29/2025

001All right. Good evening, Hollston. Welcome to the May 29th, 2025 meeting of the Holl School Committee. Uh we will call the meeting to order. Um we have a uh quick consent agenda with a bunch of warrants and two sets of meeting minutes from from last week. Um I think Tracy, you're welcome to abstain from those meeting minutes if you'd like. So what we'll do is I'll take a take a motion to accept the consent agenda excluding the minutes um but with the gifts uh that are mainly from from he and we may have a representative from them later to also present those uh to discuss those in a little more detail. Um so I have that motion. So move second by Don. Okay. All in favor? No you that that that you're Yes. Actually I

002I should take this. So okay that carries seven million but but first of all welcome Tra. Thank you to your first meeting. In my head, that's what I was doing and then then I didn't do it. So, uh, welcome. Thank you. Um, congrats on your first vote. Yeah, you just spent a lot of money almost a million dollars. It's actually already been spent. Um, all right. Uh so so now I'll accept a motion to approve the minutes for May 15th and May 19th regular sessions. Moved by Don second. All in favor? Opposed? Absentions? One extension. So 61. All right. Great. Um it is that time of of year where uh our our seniors have had their last day. They're they're graduating um shortly. So we have a a changing of the guard, if you will,

003for our student representatives. Um so um if you guys would like to introduce yourselves or or Masher if you'd like to to maybe give an introduction discuss a little bit more. Yeah. So um so my name is Jen Lasher um social studies department leader and student advisory council adviser. Um and I'm very pleased to introduce Adele Bojas and Luke Burgette as our incoming senior uh representatives to school committee. So they have served in the last year as representatives to uh the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Ed uh student advisory council. So at the state level um and as sort of their reward for doing so they get to be representatives for you for next year. So we will ask you that in a year right if you feel it's still a a reward punishment

004who knows but but I think it's a reward. So yes, welcome. Thank you so much for being here and your commitment to attend these meetings and keep us apprised of the community too of what's going on within the schools and please feel free to ask questions and bring all kinds of concerns. You also have our emails can always reach out and set up a time to talk too. So, but thank you for doing this. Um but with that, do you have anything you'd like to to to talk about because Yeah, we actually have a full list of events in every grade basically start. Um, so yeah, probably the first on the list is Art Saves Lives, which was the last meeting Thursday, May 15th. Um, and still you can see it up around the high

005school. Beautiful artwork from all the students. And then we had junior senior prom on Friday. And so that was a great night at the Kirk Country Club in Rhode Island. Um, the next thing kind of came up was the senior uh college admissions advice panel, which was Monday, May 19th. It was just like three seniors providing advice to juniors regarding college college admissions. Um, and we thought it was very helpful for sports. Um, on Tuesday, May 20th, the girls outdoor track and field team won the Tri Valley League championship and the boys team plays second. Um, and then going along with that, there are numerous athletes on both teams attending the state division 4 championship this Friday and Sunday. Um, we had the NHS induction ceremony which is also Tuesday, May 20th. Um, Mr. White

006was honored as the National Honor Society honorary member. Um, there were nine juniors, 35 sophomores who were inducted for maintaining excellent records in scholarship, exhibiting good character, and having demonstrated quality community service and leadership. Uh, 28 juniors were reinducted, and 42 seniors were reinducted. English and math MCCAST for 10th graders happened last Wednesday and Thursday and they're all celebrating now that they're done with MCCAST for the rest of their high school careers hopefully. Um also also on uh last Wednesday was the financial literacy event um organized by the senior NHS member Laya Terreso um which was 3 hours in the morning where all juniors participated in the fair in the fieldhouse. Um, Laya, who will be majoring in finance at the University of Tennessee, is passionate about helping students build real world financial literacy skills

007such as budgeting and taxes. Her goal was to ensure juniors leave high school with practical knowledge that will serve them well in college and beyond. Um, and the event was wellreceived by the class and we learned lots from it. And then at the end of last week on Friday, it was the last day of classes for seniors and the seniors had their senior picnic in the cafeteria. Um, yearbooks were distributed and there were burgers and ice cream and everybody had a great time. Uh, Saturday, May 24th, the boys varsity baseball team became the TVL champs with a win over Bellingham. This week, Tuesday and Wednesday, senior exams took place. So, Tuesday A and B finals and then um Wednesday C and D finals. Uh, this Tuesday there was also Mrs. Applefield's Holocaust presentation for the

008freshmen. um and they said it was very good. And then finally um last night in the library there was the service learning community celebration. So students enrolled in the service learning class at the high school were able to present their service learning projects um to the Hollison community and these projects are worked on throughout the semester with the goal of making a difference in the local and national community. So, lots of events happening um the last few weeks, but that's it. Excellent. Thank you very much and welcome and uh we look forward to working with you over the next year. Us as well. What's that? Us as well. Awesome. Yeah. Um, so I was so enthusiastic to get to our new student representative that I did um forget that I I promised Zoe Marorrow to

009that she could sort of be moved up uh to to allow you to give your presentation and then um get to your other commitments. So I was originally supposed to have students here with me, so I was making sure they'd be able to get out on time. Is it okay if I still go now? Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Do you want me to go here? Yeah, it works. Okay. This is my first one. I'm usually reaching out and and asking to do this because I think you know you do a lot of great work. So um that is why I'm someone bring up the presentation. It's linked in the Yeah, I was about to say um I believe everyone should have access to some slides that I made. Don't be alarmed. They're just pictures for the

010most part to follow along with some of the things that we've done. Um so hi. I've met most people here um on different boards and whatnot. Um, but to introduce myself, I'm Zoe uh Morrow. I run the Hollist Drug and Alcohol Awareness Coalition um or House at Youth and Family Services, which is a department in town, which basically provides like free therapy for any resident in town. Um, but my role is mainly to uh drive our drug-free communities grant, which was a 5-year grant given to us by the federal government. Uh, we're in year three of five right now. Um and our big goal is to reduce the substance use um among our youth and to do that with 12 sectors of the town uh which includes schools, youth, um police department, government, all these

011different um factors that really bring our town together. Um and obviously a really big part of that is working with the youth and the schools. Um so I was hoping to have some of my students here today. I have about 17 students that work with me weekly. Um, but they are all very busy, very busy students, um, who have sports and jobs and lots of homework as the end of the year is wrapping up. So, it is just me. Um, but hopefully you could see lots of their faces on the slides. Um, and pretend that they're the ones really giving uh, the power behind this. Um, so I wanted to come cuz I haven't really been able to interact with all of you at once before. I just passed my 2-year anniversary here in Hollist.

012Um, and I love it here. And so I'm very h happy to be here with you guys today. And I'm just gonna go over some of the stuff we did this year and show you just all the awesome stuff these kids are doing. This is all them. Um, they're always so enthusiastic to be involved with anything I throw at them. Um, and I know one of the mothers of a student is here today and a lot of you are teachers or admin of uh the other students. So be very proud of all of these kids. They've done amazing job. Um, so just to um explain, we are called the youth action team, call it the yat. Um, and it's a group of passionate high school students um trying to make a difference in Hollist and

013specifically within this building and some of the other schools. Um, and they learn lots of leadership skills, advocacy skills, ways to communicate um, within the school and the community. Um, and this is our first year running it. So we started in October and this was our first trial year and I think it went pretty well. Um so our first activity that we did was in December. Um it was we kind of called it the snowman positive messages. Um if you are controlling the slideshow you can move on to two slides. Um the idea behind that is that we have a broader approach to the idea of prevention and that the only way to reduce substance use is not just to go into classrooms or do large speaker events and lecture about the dangers. While that

014is a portion of it, we really believe creating an environment of positivity, reducing risk factors, uplifting protective factors is a huge part of that. Um, and so this first idea that we came up with was something that brought us joy to do and spread joy. Um, so we just put positive messages attached to little snowman figurines to kind of celebrate the idea that winter was coming and although it could be a very depressive month for some people. Um, we really wanted to just bring some positivity into the school. Final exams were coming up in January and things like that. Um, so that was our first idea to just get that out there. Um then we went straight into um doing some advocacy work. Um which I I didn't mention a little bit of my background,

015but I grew up in a program like this and that's how I got involved in this work. So when I was a freshman in high school, I joined a club in my school, got involved, did lots of fun things, advocacy things, data collection, different events. Um and it drove my passion for public health and prevention specifically. So, it was really cool to go full circle and start leading this group. And the fact that we got into the state house um just a few months into our start was really incredible. Um and I credit a lot of statewide organizations that we partnered with. Um but we went to the state house back in January. Six of our students went and they did some advocacy around um raising alcohol um taxes to help reduce um underage drinking

016because that is a proven best practice. Um, and we got to speak to both our senator, who is the Senate President, um, and our representative. Um, and that was really cool. All of them wrote speeches and they got to speak directly to both, um, the senator and representative and I think they had a really good time doing that and it made them feel very important and heard um, and powerful. So, loved going to that. Um the next week, that same month, um we had a conference with over a hundred other youth from around the state um with an organization called the 84 movement. Um their title comes from when they started back in the '9s, 84% of youth in Massachusetts were not smoking cigarettes. And so they created the 84 movement to highlight the majority

017of kids that were not using. Um and that number has since gone down to like 97 specifically to cigarettes. Um but we are part of that movement around the state and we actually went to the state house which I'll mention later with them but this was a conference that they held u where they got to interact with other students um and learned some things through the workshops and whatnot and that was I think that one was at Gillette so that was cool. Um then in February we kind of mirrored um oh no um in February we did our first candygrams. Um so this was an idea completely driven by them. Um we were trying to think of another like fun positive activity to bring into light as we were still in the winter season. And

018we decided to do candygrams that um students could anonymously nominate uh other friends um siblings even teachers uh or admin for and they could write a small like positive note to them saying like oh thank you for all you do or like you're my best friend. and they got to pick a candy and then we put those all together and we gave them out um to about 50 students um in the school which was really cool and we got a lot of great feedback from that which is why we mirror it later. Um in March we did a very quick scrapbooking event um with the beautiful minds campaign which is a mental health club in the school. Um and that was just to bring in some after school mental health kind of stress reducing activity.

019Um we had a small turnout but um it was nice to partner with other organizations in the school. We definitely want to continue doing that. Um into enough day. Um so enough stands for ending nicotine for the future. Um that was also driven by the 84 movement and it was our second day at the state house. Um where they advocated to end the loophole around synthetic nicotine um which is a whole thing happening at the state house right now in Massachusetts and I believe in some other states. Um, as the progression of ecigarettes and nicotine products continued throughout the last like 10 years, there's been loopholes on taxes based on the way they are creating basically fake nicotine. So, we've been advocating for them to close that loophole. And again, we had uh about only

020three students come to this one. Uh, but they got to write a speech again and talk to both our senator and representative. So, that was really great. And I love the pictures from that day. um of all of them outside the state house um chanting too um which was really powerful even just for people driving or walking by up on Beacon Hill the very next day which is why we had lower attendance at both of these events because they were backtoback um we had four students go to another conference um again where they connected with other students and got to learn through workshops about substances mental health and things like that just kind of strengthening those education training opportunities. And then just this month, um you might have heard or might have come out into

021the back of the school, um to see our drunk driving simulator. Um I know you guys mentioned the service learning, um uh presentation they did yesterday, the community event. Um so this idea was born out of two students that were in that class last year and we decided to continue it on. Um because most of my students are freshman and they had heard about it and they were really excited to learn what it was. Um so me and uh Kenny here at the school who was awesome to work with um got to organize this with the National Guard. Um the National Guard actually told me this is the only school they do it with. I thought this was something they did around the state and I was talking to them and they were like no

022we just really trust Hollist and we have a great relationship with them. I was like oh wow we're so special. So, that's really cool to hear um that we have that opportunity to continue that. We're hoping to make it even bigger next year. Um but we got to participate on this and uh or we hosted this. I believe we had about 200 students throughout the day come down and participate in this. Um they get to go on this like I don't know go-kart that they just like pedal with drunk driving or drunk like goggles to try to go through an obstacle course. Um, there are also like other activities where they have to like throw a ball. We did partner with the fire and police department and we had one of the police officers do

023the sobriety test with them with the goggles on which they thought was very interesting. And then after each block of students that would come down, I just do a very quick speech of reminding them prom season's coming up, graduation season's coming up. Let's all I know we had a great time. This was a fun way to bring awareness to this, but let's remember why it's here. Um, and I think that went really well. A lot of teachers brought down their classes, and I'm always super appreciative of the admin and the teachers who are able to partner on stuff like this. So, I think that was a great day. And second to last, um, actually at that day, we had people signing up for our round two, not candygrams, but we did mental health goodie bags.

024Um, very similar process where we had people nominate um, friends, and we doubled how many we gave out. We gave out almost a hundred this time. Um, and these are all bags filled with, um, just there's a little picture of like a little duck that they got, um, a green ribbon, um, textured stickers, a resource card, affirmation card, lots of just like goodies to help them through exam time, um, help them through mental health awareness month, um, all that kind of stuff. Um, so that was really great to give out and clearly we need to keep making more of more bags because it keeps doubling. Um, and lastly, something that's currently going on, we are filming um, videos for the middle schools um, wellness classes. So, I kind of started this presentation with while we

025don't only want to go into classrooms and lecture about substances, that is one thing we would like to do. Um, and based on schedules of the middle school and high school, that would just be too challenging um, for our kids to go over there and try to do that. So, we came up with this compromise to work with Hollist Hub right here in the school. Um, we've been using DSB blocks to go in there and try to do these filming um of like five minute videos for we have one for tobacco, one for marijuana, alcohol, mental health, risk and protective factors, and then we're going to have a skit of refusal skills. And all five of or all six of those videos will be given to the middle school wellness teachers to use wherever they

026see fit best in their classes 6th through 8th grade. Um, and our kids are having a really fun time doing that. It feels very professional with the lighting and the cameras and the green screen and I'm really excited to see what those look like. Uh, we filmed some today. We're filming more next week and we're hoping to finish at least half of them by the end of the school year and hopefully maybe half of them over the summer so they have it for the fall. And that is everything. I tried to make it short because I know you guys probably have a huge agenda. Um but I just wanted you to see all the great things we've been doing. Um they are my favorite part of the job. Um when I took the job, this

027was the end goal to have this group. Um and I just really really love working with them and should be very proud of Hollist. So it's great to meet you if I haven't met you yet and uh feel free to reach out anytime and if you have any questions I can answer. Thank you very much for coming. It's great and uh hopefully it won't be two years uh before the next time that you're here. I'm sure you work with our administrators a lot, but obviously if there's ever anything that we can do, um definitely don't hesitate to reach out. Um does anyone know any questions or or comments? Just to say thank you. Appreciate everything you do. Thanks for your kiddo. It just seems like you you have a lot of really good activities and

028engagement and I think it's just great. I've seen stuff around town and um I just really appreciate what you're doing. So, thank you very much. Thanks. It's easy when you love your job. Great. I'm very lucky. Very blessed for that. I just hope this isn't the end game. This is only a start, right? Yeah. I mean, I know we I said we're in year three of five, but you can renew for the grant. Um, we have other funding sources as well. And as long as no one kicks me out, I don't plan on going anywhere. Even with my hour drive every day. Oh boy. Okay. Well, then yeah, you should. Thank you. No, I don't know. I've been here later. Trust me. Thank you very much for coming. Yeah. And you have my email. Most

029of you have my email if anyone needs anything or if anyone knows kiddos that want to join. We're always looking. But, uh, thank you. Thank you. Have a good rest of the meeting. I always and you guys are welcome to stay as long as you want, but just also understand that you you are free to leave if you if you need to, especially if you have studying or you know, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Great to meet everybody. Bye. Have a good night. Thank you. All right. Um that my computer is okay. Um, we are going to get to individual comment from the school committee members. Um, Tracy, I don't know if you want to take a moment to introduce yourselves and uh, yeah. Hi, I'm Tracy Flecker. Um, resident of Hollist

030for six years. I'm really happy to be here. Uh, Hollist, thank you for trusting me in this role. I'm excited to learn a lot and excited to work with everyone here and the next few years should be great. Thank you. Welcome again. Thank you. You got any? Yeah. Um, just wanted to say congratulations to Don on her re-election. Um, you know, I think it's great that you're back. You you have so much experience that's invaluable to this committee as we steer through some really tough uh issues. So, really happy that you're back and congratulations to Tracy. Um, from my understanding, you are an educator, so um it'll really be great to get your perspective on certain issues from an educator standpoint. [Music] Oh, we have two in education and two lawyers. That's good. It's always

031two new lawyers. Two children. Uh, nothing for me other than welcome back, Don, and welcome Tracy. I just want to say congratulations to the um graduating seniors who are graduating in a couple weeks. Um, our next meeting, I know. And and all all of the students who were inducted to the um National Honor Society. It's quite an achievement. So, congratulations students. I'll just echo the same congratulations to the seniors, to the National Honor Society kids, to Tracy and Dunn. A lot of good things going on. So, thank you very much. And just uh graduation is Sunday, June 8th. Um, one of the really special things that Holl does about that is our graduating seniors get to select um, a teacher, administrator, someone from their um, 13 years or however long they've been here to hand

032them their diploma. And I think that makes it really special because we see a lot of the faces of Hollister public school me from the high school, but oftentimes you might even see a monastery teacher from first grade handing out the diploma. So that's really special. as well as next week our graduates cap and gown will go through the elementary schools and they kind of high-five um the younger students and I think that's my kids always loved that at the end of the year and this year they get to do it so something really special about Hollston and uh I just want to thank Joe again for sharing the uh the public comment from that parent last week the parent actually approached me and so uh told me a little bit about it but I

033also talked to somebody else who videotaped or taped and share it out amongst the administrators because of how impactful that that was. So I think it's just it's just it was a great statement and and um I think it's always great when you get that kind of feedback um of the positive things that are that are happening in our in our district. Um so thank you again for sharing that and for the for the parent who who wrote that. Um okay uh we now have public comment. We have one person in the room for public comment. I don't know if there's anyone on the Zoom. If there is, uh, please use the raise hand function and, uh, after we have a public comment in the room, uh, I will call on anyone on the Zoom

034who wishes to make public comment. Um, Barbara. Hi, everybody. Thank you. Barbara Ryan, 14 Irving. First, congratulations to Dawn and Tracy. ran great campaigns and I look forward to seeing how all of you will represent the community as a whole this coming year and looking to see and looking forward to seeing your priorities for school year 2526 and hopefully that'll come out um before school year starts and especially regarding budget and policy. Um Zoe did not mention two years ago when she came and became the um she she's the manager of the grant, the five-year grant. We have three years left and we don't know federal funding on drug and alcohol coalition for the next five years but hopefully there were zero student involvement and in the last 18 months she was able to build

035a solid coalition of 12 to 14 students who regulate who regularly participate and the younger students. So I'm really really she doesn't she won't tell you that but she went from zero to to what you saw uh this this afternoon. So I'm I'm just um proud to know and be part of that. Um, a couple of other things, communication. I know I look forward to seeing how this evolves and how school committee responds in writing or to public comment either if there are trends or how people comment and maybe that's policy or or something happens to that, but I know people come and some things that I heard on the campaign trail was how do you close the loop on public comments when there are large groups or just singular groups. So, that's something I

036look forward to to seeing. Heard a lot about transparency. Um, I know there's um there are rules that happen for executive session and then open meeting laws, but I'd like to see, you know, more of that and more constructive comments from the school committee as a whole. Um, I think that's a lot of what I heard out and and one of the reasons I ran. So, not a criticism, just an opportunity um to respond and just also to see from the subcommittee of communication going forward. Uh again, what will what and how will you communicate with people and and what's important to the community? How will you find that out? Um I'm really interested to see how the math leveling subcommittee or excuse me, advisory committee um starts to take off. I've also heard how

037what is the criterion and process for selecting. I know there was a large community um uh large large numbers of community members put their names in, but it's it's not clear to the community how those people were selected. So, I hope the school committee can share how people are selected or what the criterion were, but I'm looking forward to that conversation. Heard a lot from people about the upcoming um buses for the new school start times. There's a lot of concerns particularly with younger families, with younger students. Um, and I think Dr. Jordan could be an opportunity. Um, again, um, just from what I'm hearing is the earlier things can be communicated to to families and and and community members, the better that they can plan. So, um, also in your priorities for school year

0382526, I'd love to understand going forward before the school year really starts what your policies that need updating will be as well as what new policies may or may not be addressed. Um, I encourage anyone out there to come to to these meetings. They're really important, not only as a community member, but all of you work so hard to listen to us and to do what's right by students. So, that's one thing. And I'd also encourage people not to be so involved online and in community forums. Come to these meetings, meet with your neighbors, bring things to all of you if there is a concern. Um, I'm not a um online warrior, if you will. I like to come and engage people. So, I'm hoping our community will do that and give you the courtesy

039to understand what's important to them through this forum or in in writing. And I also encourage people to volunteer. There's plenty of positions open in our community and the PTO always has opportunity for people to get involved in our schools in that way. Thank you for what you do, and I look forward to seeing you all this year. And congratulations again. and to our seniors. Thank you. Uh anyone online on Zoom? Okay. Uh so we'll close the public comment and uh move on to our uh not that Zoe actually wasn't a main attraction, but uh to our to our other main attraction. Uh Mr. Fay. Okay. Um hello everyone. How's everybody doing? Feel like um I've been here a lot this year. Um I presented on different things. Um and this is the end of

040year presentation where I uh talk a little bit about what's the progress we've made and where we headed. Right. Um next presentation I think you'll get a chance to hear from our school leaders. Um so what I'll share today is is I'm trying to share a little bit about the global work while providing a space and opportunity for our schools to share a little bit about their work. Um, so one of the themes that I'm really sharing about is that the work today is a collective. The work and how far we've gone today is on the is on the the backs and the shoulders of educators, leaders, uh, students, parents who've who are passionate about this work. This work is not because anything in particular that that I've led. I believe yes I have skill

041sets that have supported this work but it's because we have amazing people who are passionate about this work and I think you're going to see some of that passion in this presentation. So um in essence at the heart of arch 2 right which is the strategic plan the work is a simple idea. Schools work best when people feel safe supported and connected. That is in essence what a safe and supportive school is. We're moving away from fragmented efforts instead of focusing on creating a shared consistent approach across the district. Right? When when when I arrived here in this district, we one of the things we we knew and noticed is that schools were doing amazing work, but they were doing practices here there. We weren't aligned. And we had to start by first strengthening some

042of those practices. But as years go on, we not we now have to move from strengthening those practices to integrating those, right? And that's where I brought in the beginning of the year that visual of that braided rope. We had to move from taking those individual threads and starting to braid them into a rope into a braided rope because a braided rope is much stronger. At any point a thread can be broken but a braided rope can stand the test of time. Budgets tensions um a system breaks within a building, an administrator leaves, an amazing leader um leaves to another district. But if we braid that inter if we braid that work together, it's a lot longer and a lot more sustainable over time. That is what this work calls us to do. Um it's

043about it's about alignment over time and it's about the value of the work over time. Um the last piece that I'll frame is and you saw this and I think I called it the mental health gumbo um because it looks like a lot but really what this is is that from the mental health team we created a vision for this work and this was a logic model and this was a logic model over a three-year span. This work this logic model that we created was for us to really envision where are we going for the next three to five years. this logic models what's leading our team and that team consisted of in my past presentation that I shared with you um we have educators from every from every building administrators from every building counselors

044from every building in that team that help put this together so that way wherever we go it has voices from every building it has administrators from every building participating and co-creating where we're going right so it's not a JL plan it's not a director of and equity it's a It's a plan. It's a logic model that was co-created across the district, right? That's really what this was. And it was a plan that is about integration, sustainability, and adaption long term. So, within this plan, and this is where we're getting to um in the long-term creation of the work, first, do we need to fix something? Okay. Just Okay. I just want to make sure um in the long-term creation of the work um you know one of the pieces in this right is um as

045I talk about where we're going one of the pieces that in my role calls me to do is to not only create spaces but it's it's about empowering the educators around me to help co-create where we go right so in that I wanted to create an opportunity that as I share where we're going. I wanted to literally bring people into the room into my presentation. So, there's no one here with me today, right? But I added opportunities where you can hear some of the voices of the people um who are doing some of this work. So, uh Ashley Bashard, who's a STEM curriculum specialist from Miller, uh wanted to share her voice and what this work has meant for her. Hopefully place collaborating with the safe and supportive schools team has deepened my understanding of

046the importance of fostering trust and emotional connection with our educators. Admissed the influx of new initiatives and professional development and reflected on how I can alleviate the burdens on our teachers. My goal is to partner with the leadership team at Miller to ensure that our educators feel empowered, not overwhelmed, enabling them to bring their best selves to our students each day. Throughout this journey, I've recognized the critical need to support teachers mental health and acknowledge the emotional challenges they face daily. From addressing students needs to supporting colleagues, it's essential to create an environment where their well-being is prioritized, fostering happiness and resilience. I plan to collaborate with Jarielle to introduce DOC wellness initiatives such as mindful yoga and sua sessions. These activities aim to enhance our collective mental health and contribute to a positive school

047climate. So that's an example, right, of where we started from creating that logic model to an educator who's at a building who's working with their team coming up with ideas of how we move the district and where we're going to go next year, right? Um, and even though her work and where she's engaged with every day is STEM, math, intervention in that piece, she's also engaged in what are we doing to build our resiliency? What are we doing around wellness in our buildings as well, right? That is what integration looks like and how we embed this work into other places. Um, how are we other anchoring the structures? And you're going to hear me talk about some slides. We we're continuing to make work around chronic attendance in our district. And that meant that we

048created a team that started um last year carried into this year. And what that means is that we're continuing to improve our structures. We're continuing to look at our policies and we're continuing to improve not how only how we're teaming at the district side, but that structure is being recreated at our schools. Our schools are are improving the way they're talking and the way they're talking about the work, but how they're looking at their data together, right? how they're looking at that data together and how they're engaging families is key of how we move the work. Um the data work and also the way we've engaged SSP for those that are not sure what SSP means because in education we use acronyms for everything. SSP is the structure um the teaming structure of school counselors,

049school adjustment counselors, school psychologist, BCBAS for for a lot of people there's like math departments etc. That's kind of the name of the department of of um those roles that they sit within. I support that department in the professional development and how I support them. Right? So they're called SSP. Um through the data work that we've done through the professional development that we've done SSP we've restructured in the way that we do the work in which we've recreated and restructured in which they have they're they're at the seat in which they can drive the professional moment that they need. How? by looking at the data together and saying these are the needs that we need and proposing the PD that we need together and I'm gonna have a chance to talk about that as well.

050So what does this look like in practice? So we did data dives together this year. So part of what we did was as you know we launched the data dashboards this year. We started the year doing data dives in SSP meaning for the first time um our SSP this year looked at data together. We looked at all the data we had. We then dove into asking questions. What does this mean for student need? What does this mean? If the students need X, what are our skill sets? What professional development do we need to meet that need? And what professional development do we need within our roles? Right? School counselor, school adjustment counselor, school psychologist. And then within the building that I work in developmentally then we said so then what professional development do I need

051and then let's propose that and then it's my role as their leader right as a school administrator to help find that professional development and based on that we were able to fulfill that right but talk about shifting how we do PD we started from a space of data to now a space where we're coming up with what we need together so Now we're owning where we go together. That to me is where we want to go and it's data informed. Right? This is what best practice asks us to do and we were able to do it in a year together. That to me is meaningful progress. But let's also hear about the impact that's had from Leslie Diamandis who's one of our SSP members. The data does and okay let's the high school and districtwide

052levels have been particularly impactful for me this year. Not only have I they helped us in the development of meaningful PD, they have helped us to pinpoint more specific interventions for students. In my work as a school psychologist, examination of student data at both the individual and whole group levels has helped to guide my ability to support students in a more effective way. So even though we did the data dice for us to narrow and provide PD as a district, it also was helping her in her own practice, right? To be able to think about so then how does this drive what I do with kids, right? It it's it's both hands. So that's one of the things we did. Also, um this was year one of rolling out ruler uh our SCCL curriculum with

053students. We're heading into year two of that work. And as we know, um, anytime you roll out new work, for it to be fully implemented, that takes three to five years. We're rolling into year two. Um, my future slide, I think you're going to be impressed with how we continue to move the work, but chronic absenteeism, we continue to drop those numbers. Um, and I took a little of the thunder, but we've already shared it before. There was 80 plus peer leaders at Rams this year. That's a lot of kids engaged. And we just heard Holl Youth and Family Services 18 plus peer leaders there. That's a lot of students doing peer leadership work meaning there's a lot of kids who are building skill sets around advocacy around leadership. That is impactful work right um

054and the last piece that I'll share in and that's a slide piece here. One of the things I just had a celebration and that's a picture that has a little balloon. I just celebrated with our SSP members. Um, and I just said to them, sometimes when we're in education, we feel like we can't cause a ripple, right? Or or that these the the problems in education feel daunting. And one of the things I said to them was that sometimes starting one little pebble like in the pond can cause a ripple. So from the data dies that we recently just did, one of the proposals that our school psychologist said was that we believe that we would benefit from executive functioning skill set PD and that came from the data that we saw from a proposal

055of our school psychologist saying that we would benefit from that. Right? So that led to our PD happening on one of our PD days. We then also did a family night. We had over 90 parents show up to that PD for an hour and a half on Zoom until almost 8:30 at night. I ended that PD with still 60 parents on asking questions, right? And I almost literally had to close it because the the it was running out of time and parents would have stayed on for probably another 45 minutes. And I got tons of emails from parents saying like, "Could we continue to do this?" And feedback telling us, and what that told me was my SSP members got it right. And then what that led us is they went back to their buildings

056and they told their buildings about how wonderful the PD was. And now all of our buildings want executive skill PD next year for all of their staff because this is tier one work. So, I just went back to my SSP members and said to them that this started from looking at data. This is causing a ripple where now we're going to be able to provide at the very least some foundational PD for all of our educators around executive skills and how we can build this to stronger to to build stronger foundations around all learning for all of our students, right? And and I just wanted to celebrate my staff to say an idea over here can cause a ripple down here. And it started by just looking at data. Right? So to me these are

057celebrations because it c it's causing an impact downstream for our educators. The last the what I just wanted to kind of highlight in this slide and I just think it's important for us to just stop and and and acknowledge data. One of the pieces that's important for us to to acknowledge is that the culture of data. One of the things that we've started to try to shift this year, and I think it's happening because I'm just describing it here, is that we are shifting a culture where we're leaning into data. But we have to acknowledge that data and education has not always been one of trust. data has often at times been associated with one of accountability that came in when no child left behind came in with MCCAST came in with accountability and sometimes

058was associated with negativity evaluative etc. So often times when you talk about data for a lot of people people don't lean into it they often run away from it. So, one of the things that I've been leaning into, especially when it comes to and mental health work, is that we have to lean into it from a space of continuous learning, not from a space of running away from. So, as a district and and and I think my last time I presented, there's a question that came up from the school committee was how can we help? And one of the things in this slide I just wanted to share was is this. This is a cultural shift. and as a community and as educators is to understand that we're trying to shift the culture to say

059we need to shift towards where we where where where data is not a thing that it's a um that is not a gotcha you thing that is a thing we want to lean in towards where we want to learn from it where we say what can we learn from this data how do we get better what can we try differently how do we lean into it and then try something and then learn from it again and learn from it again instead of accountability good or bad right and that's been the shift that I've been trying to do and I think it's happening but as you know anytime you try to shift culture that takes time right so I just wanted to name that because I think if we're going to get to the place where

060we are driving that work we need to see that that this is a cultural shift that has not always been easy for education to do so I talked about attendance um this is an attendance piece To be honest, this is kudos not to the dashboard. This is kudos to our educators. Um, kudos to the hard work of our educators, our student support personnel, our administrators, and to the work that they've had with our families, um, with our students because in order to move chronic attendance, in order to improve our daily attendance rate, that takes a lot of time, right? So once again this year we are proposed well we're projected to once again improve our attend our daily attendance by another 6.6% to 94.8. Um and then um our chronic abetism to drop almost 1

061percentage point to 11.2%. Um and then let's hear from Brenda Marorrow who's one of the leaders who's who is extremely passionate about attendance. Um what this work has been like for her at the school. maybe the assistant principal at Miller School and someone who is deeply passionate about student attendance. Um, we've built a district attendance task force this year to address the rising number of students who are chronically absent with members from both the district and school-based leadership teams. We've worked hard to create consistent practices across all buildings like unified messaging in our handbooks and to families, weekly building based attendance team meetings and um integrating the data dashboard into our work which has been essential and helped us to look at patterns and trends. [Music] So one of the things that I wanted to

062and I'm shifting over here so I can highlight it. Um and um in speaking to attendance, one of the pieces that I think I want to highlight is that so over the last four years, our attendance rate was 93.4% in 2001 and we're now at 94 point we're projected at 94.8, right? So that's continued to grow. Um but specifically, I want to highlight that in 2023, we're at 16.7% chronic and we are now at 11.2 too projected, right? And and what has shifted isn't the tool. The tool helps us talk about and and and quickly identify patterns, identify the data trends, identify students, identify numbers. But what really has shifted is to be able to quickly do that. But it's the practices, it's the conversations, it's the teaming, it's the work, it's the talking with

063families, it's the teaming that that that Brenda Marorrow just talked about, but then it's replicating the work at the schools working with the counselors and teachers and the outreach. The tool helps us do it really well. But it's the work, it's the hours, it's the time, it's the effort. And to be honest, it's also it's it's also to be it's our families also helping with that work, too. because our daily attendance weight doesn't doesn't raise if our families aren't getting their kids to school at a higher rate, right? So, it's all of that coming together, but these are these are celebratory pieces telling us that we're improving and and and of course our hope is this continues to improve every year. But this is also a focus of Desi and it's our focus nationally as

064well because chronic absenteeism is a concern nationally. We know um that students who are chronically absent have worse outcomes than their peers period. Right? That's been shown over time. Um, so speaking continuing on this um on our some of these data highlights, Car Solace has been one of those um support structures we've had in our district for a while. Um and in talking about data, if you look at Car Solace and Cartwheel, these are two these are two resources that we use with our community to connect students to counseling services. One is like a referral source, one is a direct match of counseling. Um, if you can see one, two, and three for the presentations, anxiety, depression, and behavioral mood are the top three, which tells us for next as I head into next year,

065some PD opportunities and some places for me to target and support staff in in in some areas, right? Um, but additionally, it also tells us this. We have kids in our communities who we're directly supporting, either connecting them directly or providing with them with directly teleaalth services within our community. And this does not include even the services that um Zoe was talking about on Holl Youth and Family side services as well, right? Um I talked about the tennis highlights, right? So we know we're connecting students to families family, but also I wanted to share with you with Lieutenant Barer as he wanted to share some of the highlights we're doing with our community partnerships as well. Barrett, operations lieutenant for the Hollist Police Department. I'd like to take a minute to express how wonderful it

066has been to collaborate with Jeriel Bernay over the last several years. As you likely know, Jeriel and I co-chair the Holliston public school safety committee. And during that time, together we implemented several important programs to support our students and community. First, we launched Sandy Hook Promise, which helps our school and public safety support our kids both in school and out of school. Sandy Hook Promise allows students to file anonymous reports when they feel unsafe or want to report troubling or suspicious activities. Next, Jiel and I work together to bring a true Handle with Care program to the district. I'm sure Jarielle can discuss how effective this program is. Handle with Care allows all of us to support students who have been exposed to trauma without violating their trust or personal space. I will truly miss

067working directly with the Hollist public schools as I begin the next chapter of my career. But I truly believe this meaningful collaboration and innovation will continue in the months and years to come. Thank you. So um so the Sandy Hook um promise we've had 44 um reports that have come through the anonymous reporting system uh since we launched that. Now um you know I want to show the community the honest reporting system in Sandy Hook of course that was through gun violence that doesn't mean that those were those four but anyone I mean those were 44 anything can be reported through that right could be anything from bullying to um you know um I've seen kids at a house party drinking right it can be anything that's come through that but what I would want

068to say is I know for sure um because we've we've had interaction um that that a life was at least saved at least once um in in the time that we've had it. And um for me that makes it worth it, right? Um for for peers to look out for each other in a way that um and the key about this is that that's staffed 24/7 and it's it's staffed at a crisis center, right? So it's a key safety net for us. Um and it's important and it works. um handle with care. We've had 89 handle with cares and and what that is is just a communication system between us and the police department where we get um just alerted um when there's interaction with with a with a student who's you know had something

069challenging happen and the thing is we don't know anything at all that's happened. It's just say, "Hey, Jeriel needs TLC and that is it." Because under the handle with care, which is a national model, the schools, we don't need to know what's happening with Jeriel. We just need to know he needs TLC. And if he's tired, that's okay. And if he needs food, that's okay. And if he didn't do his homework, that's okay. But just he needs TLC, right? And and what what that allows us to do is not to react, right? Not to respond, not to say, "Where's your homework?" not to say why is your head down um you know why are you grumpy right or whatever and just to offer TLC when someone comes through the door especially when the police have

070that information um and it's a national model that's being replicated all across the nation um and it's been extremely beneficial um and then we've partnered on a lot of family occasion we just recently did one on cyber safety here um where we had some really really really really um vulnerable and important conversations with families around safety um in the importance of parents understanding um and just having vulnerable conversations with a public safety official and myself around the challenges of of how to navigate online the online world with our kids and how um challenging it is no matter how close you are to public safety or not um to be vulnerable enough to have those conversations and and I and I will say that um I think it was an amazing conversation and it was 30

071parents and we're a district of a lot more parents and we were we left wrestling with how do we get more parents in the conversation because every day districts are dealing with kids who find themselves in vulnerable situations online and what do we do about that, right? So, um that's still a space of h how do we continue to navigate that and help parents figure out how to help their kids? Oh, hi. I'm Jim Barrett. Operation We're done, Jim. Um, and for those I saw some people wondering, um, Jim Baron is leaving us. He's going to be the chief of Norfolk. Um, and he's he'll be transitioning in the summer. Um so um so the strategic alignment and looking ahead um so you know as we think about where we're headed um into next year

072um you know you've heard you you've seen and heard some of the things we're doing on on you know arch 2 um and I think really what we're going to continue to do is build continue to build this momentum you know I think one of the pieces that I think has been successful we're going to continue um and I've heard the teachers say we're going to continue to meet next year right as as educators as the anti SS team is is 100% yes but one of the things I want to do is have a student group that's helping dovetail the teacher side right so as educators who's meeting to talk about how they're helping me build the trajectory for where we go with that it's umbrella of safe sport of schools I also want a

073student side that provides a board or like a sounding board for like what's it how's it playing out at the student side of the work that could just help uh provide almost like a back and forth sounding board of the work, right? Um the other piece is like everything as the work builds, it builds in momentum, it also builds in size. And like a lot of the work, I want to provide supports for our building leaders because they're leading the building. They're often times the ones leading the work at the school side. So I'm also thinking about how the grants I have can help support that work at the building side. And that could just be by using some of the grant siphons that I have to help build our educators up to help build

074some of the work on the building side as well. Um so it doesn't feel like it's a heavy load for our educ for our leaders at the building side and they feel that they have that building support within the uh buildings as well. Um we're going to continue to do the data work to help build and shift that culture of data. I think the the team that we have, they're leaning into that work already, but how do we continue that momentum? I also want us to know that next year is a Metro West Health adolescent health survey year, meaning early in the year we'll be doing the survey. Usually by mid spring we start to receive our first like highlights of the year. By end of spring, which is like early June, you get the

075full reports, meaning by summer we're figuring out like, okay, how do we roll this out? I would love to have some school committee members like join me in some data dives next year because what we did when I first arrived was we did our first ever data dives. Um it one of the pictures on this page is like our data dives with mask on at town hall. Um I think Cynthia was at a data dive with me when we did our first data dives. But I think it'd be great to have some school members part of that data dive. Um because not only do we want to see like has any of the data shifted, what has stayed the same, what has shifted and where do we need to align our work as we head

076into next year. Um and then we're going to continue to think about how we continue empower educators, right? Because I think that to be honest, the biggest the biggest win has been especially for the educators that I've been in work with, for them to feel that they're they they themselves own the work, right? Um, to me when I get emails from my from our educators, from administrators with ideas, can we do this? Can we try this? Can we try this? That to me is the most inspirational piece of the work, right? When you walk down a hall or you get an idea from someone else who's in the work, um, because we hear all the time, right, about the the toxicity of this or of that, but when they're passionate about this work and they're

077creative themselves, that to me is is the win of the work. So to me, my work is to continue that momentum and continue the passion that I see happening. Um, and to be honest, when you know, I I sit on the state board um of safe supported schools with Desi and and I was selected by our attorney by our lieutenant governor to be part of that board. I think we're becoming the model, right, for how to integrate the work. Um, we're not we're not the experts, but I think we're becoming the the model for like how to integrate it in a way that's thoughtful. Um, but also how to do it in a way where the work is hard, but it's being led by educators and not led by me. Um, so to me, you

078know, I'm excited for where the work is going regardless of the noise around us. Um, and with that, I'll leave us with the voice of a student. The last piece that I said, I I had a student intern this year. Um, and the student intern pushed me to be a better leader. They would ask me questions about like, I don't know what that means. So, I'd have to like rephrase it like, okay, how do I explain this to a student? Um, how do I explain this term or that term? And it pushed me to kind of like rethink a lot of this and it was it was to be honest, I wouldn't do it every year because like it's a lot of work to have an intern, but I learned so much and it pushed

079me to be a better leader. Um, but I wanted to kind of end today's presentation with a voice of a student. As a former intern, my wish for the Austin Public P public schools are that students feel seen, that they feel heard, that they feel safe in an environment that they have to show up to every day. I wish the students here would feel as successful as I did. That is my wish as we work towards safe and supportive schools. And I think when I when I when I hear what Crystal just said, I think everything from what Ashley, Brenda, Leslie, um, Lieutenant Barrett, all this presentation, what a safe and supportive school is in all of our efforts is so that every student can feel what Crystal just said, right? So that we can

080make this a reality. Now, none of this work is about perfection, but it's about trying to have this become reality, right? Um, so with that I open up to questions. Um, and thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Um, so Sandy Hook Promise that when did we go live with that? Two years ago. Um, about a year and a half ago. I don't have the exact date, but about a year and a half ago. And you say you you're crediting it for saving a life. At least one. At least one. That's that's incredible. I mean it's you know worth and we get so and the process it it has so many layers to it that it comes even up to me. So first if it doesn't the right person doesn't pick it up

081it keeps going to the next person and often times Jerry I've been texting him at 10:00 at night a couple of times just making sure that someone's got it because I'm getting the report and want to make sure that it's handled and then then I get a phone call that it has been handled too. So that's great. Yeah, absolutely. Better than great, right? You can't really put a put put a label on that one, but right. Um well, there's a lot to unpack in here, but uh questions, thoughts, question. Um you mentioned this, uh SSP team has a great voice in what type of PD you're doing? Yeah. Um does that extend down to the teachers and pair professionals as well? Are they also having a voice in what type of training um you're receiving?

082Yeah. Um so that's like a yes ands, right? So like the prep professionals connect directly with our SSD right out of just bey's office. But the yes and is is that because I work closely with just speedy when they connect with just beyond them connect with me. So for instance last year um they wanted additional ruler training um because their professional development days don't always align with our school's professional development days. So this year um and kudos to I don't know if they're watching but Brenda Marorrow um did a lot of my paraprofessional uh ruler PD training this year. Without her it would never would have I never would have been able to have the capacity for that. So they received ruler training twice this year directly for them because of their uh voice to

083say we want more ruler training directly for us because of just that sometimes the days don't align. Um so yes yes yes but it's yes and right because we have different departments um but yes can I expand on that so pair professionals have a voice on council also we had our last meeting of the year last night and one of the reps because we have to have an equal union and teacher and one of the reps is a rep for the pair of professionals so their voice is heard all the time there and she meets regularly with just speed2 to say what their needs are also so I have a question as well. Um, so thank you for this work. I I appreciate how much that you have kind of brought in people from across

084different roles, across different schools to champion the work. So it's really spreading out across the district um to not just, you know, the tier 2, tier three, but really across tier one supports. I'm curious about the data. So, um I can't fully see the logic model, but if you could talk about um what are some of the measures that you're using outside of the uh attendance and chronic absenteeism to monitor the impact and implementation of your work? Yeah. Yeah. So, um one of those we do TFIS, which are fidelity inventories. Um so, we do that across our uh PBIS systems. Um we also have been starting to develop some crosswalk tools that we can utilize for ruler. So our umcl um notclss uh safe and supportive team is starting to look at developing like a

085crosswalk tool that we could as we head into next year right as our year two is that like if we walked into a building what would we expect to see if we saw this living? Um especially as we as we're looking to like integrate this right we don't want we don't want our field to be this is PBIS that is that is this we want it to feel like one so if it was one in one field the penguin way at placentantino and it was the care model in which PBIS and ruler was integrated what would our learning walk look like so we're developing that crosswalk now um that's another tool Um we're also looking the other piece too is we'll you know we're going to be looking at our like for instance vocal data

086from Miller um uh you know and various other uh data pieces like that. our climate data um our Metro West Health survey data at our uh middle school and high school um are some of those pieces and part of the lodge model is which is the purple piece. I have another one that blows it up but it would it's too big for the slide. Um but um part of the purple piece is to further define other measures that would help us over time define some of that especially for the higher tiered but that would be working with our SSD to do some of that work too. A question on the um the districtwide data highlights where you've got the one with the three banners. Yeah. For Yeah. with Kerololis and Cartwhe. Um, so they're districtwide.

087Is there are they equally spread around like a centino all the way through the high school or is high school using it more? Which one? Like um carololis or cartwheel I guess. And so car solus is not a tool that I manage per se because when I pull the data it gives it to me as a whole. So I I I didn't uh pull it to be able to like decipher because Kolus is one that anybody pulls in and uses it. They're interface. So in other words like I reach out and they connect me with some right. Um I didn't pull data to decipher from that side like from what school are you from? Um cartwheel I could explore that. Um I didn't pull data from that side because cartwheel on the other side is

088um you connect with the school the school makes a referral. Um so on cartwheel I could explore that but I didn't explore it that way per se. Um yeah so like for carousol where it's 37 cases is that 37 the ser 37 cases that are directly receiving counseling. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And did you just mention the climate survey from Miller? Yes. Okay. So, is that something we've done in each of the schools then like a climate and culture survey? They're they're going to happen. They they will. But the vocals Okay. vocals happen. So, the schools that do MCCAST, there are vocal surveys that are built in already. Okay. For students. Mhm. Um for certain MCCAST grades, but not for all. Right. Okay. So, some have some. Right. Got it. Yes. The principles have all

089planned on working on those. waiting until after MCCAST to then do them to do them. Um and you had given an example of um a PD and executive functioning after looking at the data dive. Can you kind of I guess expound on what you mean by data dive? What were you looking at other than attendance data, right, for like what what drove what did you look at that drove the decision to do uh PD and executive functioning? Um, and what other PD came out of this? I mean, have to pull out. So, one, so the way we got to that was um, so it was like over three sessions, but um, the way we so we looked at a bunch of different data sets, right? Mhm. So, we looked at Dementia West health survey data.

090We looked at um climate and culture data. We looked at um behavior data. We looked at attendance data. Um did we look at anything [Music] else? Oh, we may have also pulled care solace referral data. I think that may have been it. So we looked at those data sets um from those data sets and however we compiled it. Um we also would have had protocols on how to look at that data and then also based on those data they either through those different protocols they may have gotten into into developmental levels had conversations around student need etc. They also then based on that got into groups to talk about um not only their needs but their roles. So the group that proposed executive skills got together as a group because in their mind they felt

091that that was a need either in what they were seeing as a high need within their population but also they may have gone into it because it was a need that they felt within their own skill gap. Right? because they were also proposing PD because they felt like they needed to develop that skill gap too. So part of the ask from the PD from part of the ask from the data dive was not only to identify what are the needs that we're seeing from our kids but was also to identify if we see need X what skills do we need to develop in us or within our team to be able to meet that need. So I was also asking them to almost like put together mini proposals to like propose to me um to

092say what kind of PD do we need and then and then they almost like did like mini presentations to me like in a fun way to be like we want this and we want this and we want this and I was just saying yes to all of them. Um because it was really more about them developing the skill set of looking at data and then putting it together in a way of like this is what we need. Um, and then I took that to and ran with it to like put together the PD for the year based on what the data said because it was more about the exercise of informing PD from data and having us own it. It wasn't so much about proving it, right? Um, so that's how we went from that

093to that. Um but it was the jour to to be honest the learning was the journey and to and it was the first time they had ever done that exercise as a collective of across schools and across roles coming together as all counselors, school adjustment counselors, school psychologists in a room spending time doing this together and having conversations about what we're seeing, what we're what we're not seeing across schools and then coming together by school and wrestling with what they're seeing. Um, and also even looking at what families are saying about them, right? Like families are like we see this but families are saying maybe we're not meeting the need and wrestling with that. So that to be honest is what a data dive looks like and then challenging so then what do we do

094about that, right? And then my role is to build processes to facilitate that. Right? It's not to say so now you got to do X. My role is to facilitate a process that gets us to a place of growth and movement to then meet the need for kids. That make sense? How does this work tie in with the equity steering committee? How do this was a lot about supporting students, which is great work. I mean, I should have started with that. How are we having students support each other um and build that peer leadership as you started off with? Yeah, I mean, perfect question. I mean one of the ways it ties in is that the equity steering committee asked us to do data work and part of the data work was is to equally

095look at because the data sets also come by subgroup and part of the work is to equally challenge so who are we not meeting the need for and they had to wrestle with who are we not meeting the need for and for parents to say who are we not meeting the need for and they had to wrestle with the fact that possibly the the Metro Health data says says that there's higher rates of depression in our schools, within our EL community, within our black and brown students, within our transgender students, within our LGBTQ plus students. So, what do we do with that data? Right? And to say there's not just one answer, but maybe it's about outreach. Maybe it's about the way we're engaging our students. Maybe it's about the resources we're offering. Maybe it's

096engaging other partners. Maybe it's working with Hall Youth and Family Services about the way we partner together. Right? So data doesn't give you the answer. Data pushes you to challenge what you're doing. And to be honest, one of the things that they would often arrive at is is saying it doesn't give us the answer. It gives us more questions. And I would often tell them absolutely. And I would tell them, you might leave here more frustrated or more like with more questions, but this is what this work challenges us to do. and we're going to do more of it. So, literally at our last SSP session that happened last week, I said to them, we're going to open up every single year with a data dive. Now granted, every year may not be this robust

097like three, four session data dive because we may not have like this huge amount of data that year, but every year we're going to inform what we do with some sense of data so that we know that we're being led by an objective piece of data and and everybody in the room was not in their heads like, "Yeah, let's do it." Whereas when we first did it this year, I I the culture was like, "Okay, let's do it." Right? There was almost like a all right and I when we ended it was like yeah let's do it like there there was a there was a a willingness and like a almost like an excitingness of like let's lean into that and I feel like the more we do it the more the better the better

098our literacy will be about it the the the better um the better they'll be at doing it for themselves when they see data in front of them they'll be able to do it and and be able to drive what they do for a kid when they walk in the room when they see data in front of them they'll to do it easier for themselves, too. What kind of opportunities for support do students have when the academic year ends? I'm sure that this work doesn't end when the school year ends, correct? Yeah. Um, well, one of them if we're talking about like mental health support. Yes. Um, so number one, Hosy Family Service is a amazing partner. They're here 24 I mean, not 24/7, they close, but they're here throughout the summers. Um, another one is

099is cartwheel. Um, is they work through they carry on throughout the summer. So, one of the things we'll be working with all of our counselors is making sure that if they have students or families that um, we'd want to get referrals in throughout the summer so they can receive some supports throughout the summer that we get those in before school ends because we could carry that in throughout the summer. Um, so those are two supports as well. Um, so those are two, right? Um, like any school, there are there are gaps in the summer, right? We're not in full session. Um, but those are two at the very least, hosting Family Services and Cartwheel is a is a two pieces that can support some of our families throughout the summer. [Music] Thank you very much.

100That was all right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, moving on to central office uh updates. The students presented most of what I was going to say earlier. I just uh but we did Joanie and I were able to attend the half spotlight on educator awards today and um it was really well attended. So, not only did we have six people that received the award at three different buildings, um there was also quite a bit of support from staff that attended to uh show their support of those awardies. So, that was an exciting event and last night we attended the um service learning. Thank you. Service learning. Every night has been different. Um and there were eight student eight groups of students that presented at that as well. So that's always a a positive

101event and we get to see some of the things we talked about today with the kids advocacy and and the programs they've done. So that was really wellreceived. And then my other update, I know you're going to be voting on members for the student supports um interviews. I did schedule those just because we're on such a tight timeline. So like we're ready to go as far as um having the nights blocked out. I had a lot of people volunteer, a lot of parents, and it was very hard to determine how many. Um, but we have two parents that are from CPAC as well as parents and then a third parent. So, I think, you know, just the CPAC representation is great. And there'll be 12 of us total, I believe, on the committee when we're

102um done with that. So, I'm hopeful and trying to run interim and permanent concurrently. So we may have interviews with some that are looking for interim and some are that looking for the permanent so that we have a plan if we don't find a permanent then we we have already done the interviews. I just don't want to delay any further. So people will be coming uh Monday night. We'll have the um we go through the process of what it's going to look like and then we'll do interviews on the 5th and the 10th and Dr. Jordan I've asked to lead it but I will sit in the room again just because of the time of year. A lot of times I just wait until candidates are sent forward. But just I figured this is so

103timesensitive that I'm going to sit quietly in the room and just um get to get a feel for the candidates so we can expedite if we have to if we select someone. So thank you Dr. Jordan. I volunteer. No, he was happy to do that. Happy to do that. Um I just wanted to talk about real quick just mention a lot of the amazing teaching and learning opportunities that have been going on um across the district the last two weeks. So, we had global citizenship projects, the national honor society induction, we had grade two showcase, um a Rams concert, band and chorus, Holocaust survivor presentation at the high school, monastery multicultural night, um high school service learning projects that Dr. Kusca just talked about. So, a lot's been going on. Um, another thing I just

104want to talk about real quickly is that we had our last I had said our last PD council meeting. Um, but the district on a whole, we're doing things a little bit differently this year and it's amazing the work we're able to accomplish. We have members um from central admin, building administrators, curriculum leaders, tech integration specialists, all coming together to have some really productive conversations about what PD needs to look like next year. We also informed the PD council about this all yesterday. Our theme for next year, I'm going to condense it. It's a longer theme, but it's really looking at strengthening our tier one instruction for all students to make it effective for all students, their experience to be more effective. Um, so we're having some pretty amazing conversations around that. Just had another

105one today. Um, and just a shout out to be on the lookout for our last teaching and new teaching and learning newsletter coming out in June. Thank you. Um I was happy and excited to uh attend um under different capacities. The eighth grade community service day uh was this past Friday. Um I enjoyed and usually a common practice of mine is pop around to all the different sites. Um I don't have the authority that I thought I'd used to uh anymore but um so I let everybody kind of do their thing. But it was it was fantastic. they've really kind of expanded. Sarah Peters um has really kind of spearheaded a lot of that as far as the work that she's done, expanded out further into the community as far as the number of sites.

106I know that's always been a challenge. So, uh we were able to um one do some decorating at the library. Um there's a group that was at the library uh coal court uh some delivery of some different things to our Coal Court uh families. Um we were at this our students were at the senior center um helping out at the senior center. uh fire station washing literally washing fire trucks. It was the happiest day of some kids life. The funny thing is I talked to Chief Cassidy. Um kids loved washing fire trucks. That's also used for uh like mandatory community service. Um but that the so that they don't like doing washing fire trucks. Watching the fire trucks. Um so watching Yeah. Yeah. Watching the fire trucks. Washing. Sorry, it's my Midwestern, you know, accent.

107Hard to understand. Um, Stoddard, Stoddard Park, uh, clean up at there as far as getting it ready for the different camps and uses there. Food pantry. Um, as well, um, Miller and Plastentino, some of our teachers kind of receiving our students to kind of be special helpers uh, out there. Um, we had a uh, duck issue uh, in the, um, courtyard, if anybody has heard. Um all of our courtyards have become homes to ducks. Um so especially at the high school, but now at uh Miller Placentino Courtyards. Um and it seems to be a safe place to raise little ducklings. Uh unfortunately uh they fell down the drain. Um but we were able to rescue all of them. Uh so that was but that was part of the the day as well. Um Ram's mulch

108kind of getting that out um there. So that was an exciting part of the day. Um, I did want to highlight and recognize uh DPW and Robert Walker. Um, they've done a really great job with their grounds and I know that that's gotten um critiques in the past, but um I feel like uh Matt Rob Shaw's relationship with Robert and that relationship has been really positive. Um so they've been pretty responsive to our needs uh when we when we've uh raised them. Um and so it's been a really good partnership including as much as some doing some of the uh long- aaited kind of root removal in front of the Miller school uh that uh they're working on a project and allegian alignment with um the work that we're doing within the the PTO um

109as well. So uh that I've been really appreciative as well. Uh lastly, just progress on the Rams roof. Uh they are uh st they've staged that. Uh if you go by the middle school, um you will see kind of all of their um stuff along the back side, the space between the um uh Plastentino and Rams area parking lot. Uh they have laid the initial kind of the most recent update is they are laid about 90% of the base coat of the fluid applied restoration system. Don't ask me what that is. Uh, but that they are kind of making progress on that. Great. And I'm sure it's totally unrelated, but I did hear there was a local restaurant that was having a special on the duck dish. Um, but uh, no kidding. Um, but what

110what is the stuff on the roof? The fluid applied restoration system. Uh, so 90% of that base coat is completed. Um, it's a grip polyester uh firm film. So, it's part of the roof. Part of the roof. Part of the roof. Thank you. Don't ask further questions. Thank you very much. That's the level of my understanding. Thank you very much. Well, that's you're you're not a roofer, so so you know. Um, okay. Um, not yet. Growth mindset. Uh moving very along to uh reports from the subcommittees communications. Not too much to report. We continue to do the house or require updates. Um I did hear Barbara's, you know, she had a number of things that topics that she would like some answers on. So we'll see what we can do to address those. Okay. And

111then policy and super evalu. But uh yeah, we did have a a budget meeting. Yeah, we had a brief budget meeting today. Well, we tried to be brief um to go over really staffing updates, FY26 budget update. Um I don't know. I think we'll be back next time with a probably some recommendations to to vote on for updates to to positions and and stuff. And we're likely to have one more budget subcommittee before meeting before um our June 12th meeting. So, and we'll come back to you with some recommendations. Um, okay. Uh, so, uh, moving on to old business. Uh, I guess we we did have a little, uh, mix up with the, uh, the the membership. Uh, uh, Mr. Mloud, uh, was, uh, very helpful in setting up the the Google form, but, uh,

112filled out the the survey a little bit too too well, uh, as a test. And so yes, we are very excited to buy. So and he loves so for the future just test test, right? So we we uh he he did ask I guess uh to to not be on the committee. So um he's got a busy busy job. We have a different um district/school representative that has stepped up to and so that is Carly Krauss. Okay. So, I'll entertain a motion to replace Mr. Mloud with Mr. Krauss uh on that committee so they can get uh get get started. Thank you. So, second. All right. All in favor? And then did you have an update on I guess starting that that work? Yep. We sent out an an email today. Um I think that

113members have already gone to town hall and started getting sworn in. So, we sent out an email today to schedule the first meeting which will probably be June 11th. Okay. Based on the response. Great. And and so everyone understands even town employees still need to be sworn in. It's you know. Okay. And do you want to update uh Liz Green? I will. Yeah. Thank you. I could but I'm happy to let you. Okay. Um so great. I look forward to to that progress and uh still an expectation we're going to have time to be able to make a recommendation hopefully in January. That's the goal. Um, excellent. Um, I did invite uh uh Heidi from from from Heft, but I I um to to present the awards, but um perhaps we got our signals crossed.

114Um so, but there were those half awards as you mentioned. Yes, they did. So, just to give you evident like they did individual presentations at the schools. I happened to be at the high school when Edith Nelson was receiving hers. I was able to attend that one. the other ones I wasn't able to attend at Miller and Placentino. So, they did the individual ones and then today the whole group presentation as well. So, well, congratulations to to all the winners and um we just, you know, great great awards and excellent uh excellent staff and teachers that we have in the district and it's always great to have an opportunity to to highlight them. Um so, I as Dr. Kusco uh sent out an email about the composition of the uh the search committee for our

115student services direct I guess I SSD director is redundant but um we do need to sort of um vote to sort of create liaison and you're looking for two two committee members. So, um, and the time commitment, I think, as I understand it, is Monday, June 2nd, 4 to 6, Thursday, June 5th, 4 to 8, and Tuesday, June 10th from 4 to 8. Yes, but we may be able to condense it to 4 to 7, but I wanted people to hold the larger amount of time just in case. So, is anyone interested in able to to to do that? I am. Okay. Nope. We have a conflict two of the days. So, it's so close. I apologize. But yeah, I am going to be uh uh out of state. You leave the state once in

116a while. I'm going to sunny Buffalo. So, you know, I'd rather I'd rather be here. Um Frank, I can't make this unfortunately. I want to be able to commit if I commit. Okay. Joe, it's the same thing. Yeah, just core clock is a hard time and and we don't have to have two. I just know that in the past sometimes the school communities asked for two. I mean I'd be very happy to be with us. But that's all I know. I trust you. Um I mean if we would it be room then maybe for another parent or someone from from CEC if we only were able to do one. Um I mean not close to what happened to David. I think that's reasonable. Yeah. Are these rounds one and two or like different groups each

117night? It'll be so the first night is going to be just going through the process of confidentiality grievance and then talking about the candidates and then um interviewing individuals with the other two nights. The only other piece that we probably should discuss is if you would want to do if we have finalists would you want to do a public interview with the school committee? The challenge of doing that is again time right. Um, if you wanted to do a public interview, ideally it would be the 12th, but my concern with the 12th is that we have a very loaded night with all of the presentation. That's going to be a really busy long night. So, we could discuss and potentially either do a special I think I would I think this is a really important

118position and it is one of those unique ones to where the school committee does sort of um have the the vote different from some other positions where it's more of an advise capacity. Yes, you'd want to try to find some night closer to the I mean, I guess no, we don't want to prolong things. So, I guess I would want to kind of know going in if we could kind of think about a potential date just because I'd want to be able to tell anyone that if you're picked, we need you to be available for next, you know, because we're such a tight timeline. We posted for both interimm and yeah, permanent. Say it again. We posted for interim and permanent. So, as we think about finalist, we could have finalist for both or no?

119So I think what we would probably do is what I had going on discussing Monday would be interviewing because we don't have a ton of a large pool. So but we do have candidates. So interviewing at least one interim possibility and then the rest permanent. Okay. And hope with the hope out of that that if we feel like the permanent isn't the right direction to go, we may have a backup for the interim rather than having to start over again. So I'll I'll pull out offline. One of the one of one of the things we can do offline and not violate OML is is to uh schedule schedule meetings. So rather than sit here and try to go through it all, we'll try to do the we'll try to do before the 12th if possible.

120But also I think it might be somewhat informed by how the interviews go because depending on the out we wouldn't know anything before the 10th. No, it has to it has to be after but it could be informed like if depending on how those go it we may need more time less time. I mean, you know, so so some of it is going to be I guess let us know the urgency. If there's really a good candidate, we feel like we'll move on then we'll talk to them. I feel like we'll make it work. And it could also be I mean the other thing in something like this, I don't think it would hurt us to do a Zoom interview for that where the public could watch too. I mean so that's to me since

121it's we could do it that might make it easier for everybody. So we'll talk about that and find a time. Um, obviously the 11th is not going to work. Or actually maybe 11th later could work, but that's a lot on one day. The ones you were for the second, fifth, and 10th you're talking about in person though, right? Yes. Yeah. The 10th. All right. Um, okay. So I'll at this point then I'll entertain a motion to appoint Hillary as our liaison to the SSD search. Um, thank you very much for for volunteering. Second. Thank you. All right. All favor. Okay. Uh then we have minutes from Superintendent Eval that have been approved and are there um for review, but there more items. No, we're not. We're just I'm just mentioning them. Um okay. So, that

122does bring us to the end of our agenda. Can I pause for one second? I apologize. I forgot to update people. I did send out today the save the date flyer with the link for people to sign up for the Hollist Coalition community forum um which is on June 17th and I also scheduled it to go out like three more times because I can schedule those ahead of Bright Arrow. So just please share it out if you're, you know, if you're affiliated with any other groups. And I asked all the people that have been coming to those coalition meetings to try to get out to their groups as well so you get some good um community um participation because we are going to be doing an ally pack that night as part of our presentation

123as well. Great. Thank you. That looked like a great uh a great event. So um I want to see if I can find what time my schedule if there is significant interest from the committee and there may be a quorum there should we might want to post. So just uh if you could let me know um if you plan on attending so we know kind of how many people might be there just to cover us. Not that we probably would have conversations and we can't attend public things but just in case there's enough conversation that it borders on um potential deliberations. All right. So with that, our next meeting is on June 12th. Um just for for Tracy's benefit and then everyone else's, we we will be reorganizing um as a committee at that time.

124So I will send out something just to sort of list the the the different committees um the different liaison positions that we have um and so everyone can think about what they would be interested in and for the for for the following year. Um, one thing I would like to say is that um, it has been a uh, a privilege and an honor to uh, to serve as chair over the last two years. I think we've done a a lot um, a lot of lessons learned. I would say there's definitely not everything has gone smoothly or as to plan and I think we could have perhaps done things a little bit differently and better, but I think in the end we have uh, we've accomplished a lot. Um, but I did just want to announce

125to give people time to to think about it and I didn't want to be presumptuous at the same time, but um that um that I will neither be seeking nor accept a nomination to be to be chair for the next uh for the next year. So, um we will have to find a another chair amongst us. I'm sure that we will find a good one, but um I did just want to announce that now and so it gives everyone plenty of time to to think about it. Um and thank you for doing it for two years, too. It's a it's a big lift. I I think people see it at the meeting, but you don't always see the behindthe-scene parts of all the organizational meetings and the uh responding to community concerns and and all

126of the outreach that goes behind it. So, not that I'm everyone here is very capable and you grow into the role and I've been lucky enough to be on here long enough to see a number of different chairs. Everyone brings their own personality to it, but I did want to thank you for for doing that for two years. Thank you very much. And I I do I think it is also good to get uh you know some some change and and different different viewpoints. We have a lot of great people and um I I just I look forward to continuing the the work um in a slightly different capacity however that may be but um but anyway I just want to let everyone know that. Um so with with that uh we will I will

127accept a motion to adjourn to executive session from which we will not return uh for the purposes of discussing strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares for the the last time I guess. Um and that uh motion is uh requires a roll call vote. So do I have the motion? So moved. Second by Don. Okay. Tracy, yes. Joe, yes. Frank, yes. Hillary, yes. Sarah, yes. Don, yes. And I am a yes as well. Good night, Hollison.