School Committee Meeting - 5/15/2025

001All right. Good evening, Hollston, and welcome to the May 15, 2025 uh meeting of the Holl School Committee. Um before we uh begin, we are going to be meeting in hybrid uh order because we have one member on Zoom. And so I'll read the statement uh pursuant to the govern pursuant to the governor's March 31st, 2025 act relative to extending certain COVID 19 measures adopted during the state of emergency suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law GLC 3A paragraph 20. The halls of the school committee will be using remote participation for this meeting. The audio of this meeting will is being recorded and will be posted to the town's web page as soon as possible in accordance with the keeping of the public informed um of actions during this meeting. At this time, a

002roll call of attendance will be taken. Joe here. Frank here. Sarah here. Cynthia here. Don here. Hillary here. And I am here. We are now uh in order and uh so we will be moving along uh to um we'll just do the consent agenda first. Um do I hear is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So second. All right. Joe, yes. Frank, yes. Hillary, nope. Yes. You put the Sarah? Yes. Uh, Cynthia, yes. Don, yes. And I have a yes. Uh, so that carries. Um, so Miss Mills, if you'd like to uh come forward now, we can. Yep. Sorry. With your crew. Um, we'll pull all that forward with the uh the global citizen program. I know. Thank you everyone for coming. [Music] Am I close enough to the mic? Okay. So, um

003I'm Caitlyn Mills. I know we've we've met before. Um I'm one of the history teachers here at the high school and I'm also the coordinator of the global citizens program. I'm here tonight with three lovely students that are in the program right now in um Shauna Frost who is an English teacher but also one of the adviserss um of the program as well. And just before we hear from our students, I wanted to just give you an update on um the progress and the success of the program. Um this is our third year um with the program um you know, it's been three years since it was launched and it is growing um tremendously. We've gotten a lot of student support and interest um over the past two years. This year we had about 90

004students actively involved in the program. Um we currently have 12 seniors that are going to be graduating. Um some are earning endorsement, some are are being recognized as participants in the program. Um and then the younger grades, the numbers just keep growing. Um right now we have about 70 plus um eighth graders who have expressed interest in the program and taking the intro to global citizens class next year. Um which will bring us up to aboutund almost 130 students in the program next year, which is really exciting. Um it's a little overwhelming because we manage all those students, but we're just so excited that the interest is there um and that there are students who are, you know, sincerely genuinely interested um in global citizenship. Um before um I move on, I I do introduce

005our our students here. We have Jax Vaughn. Um Jax is a current 11th grader. We have Ethan Neville, who's also an 11th grader. And then we have Braden Ross um who is a current um 10th grader in the program. Um they just went with us overseas to Italy and southern France on our amazing trip. Um I'm going to have Miss Frost just talk a little bit about the trip itself. Um she was our point person who organized the whole trip and then we'll hear from our students. So first of all I just want to acknowledge how amazing our students were on this trip. Um they represented Hollist with pride and everywhere we went we were complimented by our tour director, local tour guides, our bus driver acknowledged that we were the best group that he's

006ever worked with. Um and you know really really just loved our group of students. They were inquisitive and curious. They asked questions on local tours. Um they dove right in um counting spores under microscopes and learning about um sustainability and anytime there was an opportunity to participate and get their hands dirty, they did. They just stepped forward. Um, the best part was seeing our GCP students really, really get to know each other and students from different grade levels who um, generally don't cross paths other than our meetings were really bonding and just learning about one another. And the 36 students who returned from this trip um can easily tell you that they're now lifelong friends that they've kept their group chats and they're saying hello in the hallway and it just really nurtured that community

007within the program and those relationships. So um we're looking forward to more opportunities like this. It was really a specialty experience. Um, science, technology, engineering, and agriculture. We had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs. We were silly and goofy, but there was an amazing amount of learning and curiosity that took place. It was such a lovely blend that we couldn't have um, mirrored really, I think, anywhere else. It was it was really unique to Northern Italy. So, I'm going to turn it over to the students and they will tell you a little bit about their experiences on the trip. And before we do, we did um share a slideshow with pictures. Yeah, we put them up. I don't I don't know when any I don't know any of those places, so curious.

008I know. I know. I've never been there so much. It's making me really hungry now. Well, I do have to say the food was incredible. It was amazing. And it looks like you guys got to a cooking class. Yes, we did. We made pasta. Was it good? It was so good. So good. The make your own pasta was like the best pasta there. Yeah, I think. Have you replicated at home yet? I know, right? I know. You didn't bring samples. Come on. Okay. Customs. That's awesome. Thank you for bringing that up. Okay, Jack. All right. So, I'll start. So, um, my name is Jax Vaughn and I had the privilege of not only doing the Italy trip, but I also did the French exchange program before for four weeks and I'm one I'm the only

009student in the whole school that did it and I am so glad I immersed myself in both programs. I love I love them both. They were both amazing. But I will say this like this week in Italy and France was probably the best part of my like six weeks in Europe. It was amazing. I think the first day we were there, everyone was like adjusting to it. I'd already been adjusted to jet leg for a while, but we started with Easter there. It was one of our first days and we had the privilege to um walk around Trin or as they say, Torino. And there was the opportunity for many students to go to um the Catholic church to go to attend mass for Easter. We were like able to have that like cultural experience

010and then like explore foods we wanted to. I The best food I had was probably on Easter. I got a nice big lamb and it was delicious. Um, do you want me to? But yeah, and you can feel free to scroll through the photos as the students chat. The first night there we had lasagna and Yeah. All right. I'll I'll I'll jump right in. Um, we'll move on to to day two or, you know, and and so on because, you know, as uh as Jazz stated before, you know, we we kind of worked our our way into, you know, the the Italian culture slowly cuz we arrived, we were all very very tired, okay? you know, we all kind of made our own little little friend groups starting at the beginning because, you know, evening

011out, you know, who you're going to hang out with and who you're going to, you know, travel with in a foreign country is, you know, a little challenging, but then as we slowly ease our way into the trip, it's it was wonderful building all the friendships that we could because at the end of the at the end of the week, we were all connected somehow. We were in a group chat. We were walking with each other on the farms. We were building or making pasta together. You know, you stargazed together. Yeah, exactly. There was even a time I was I think Braden was there too, but I know it was me, Jackson, and like five other kids. We were out on this terrace at our hotel looking at the stars, and the sky was amazing.

012All right. I mean, it was a it was a fantastic time. Like, we got all the snacks there. We got to look at the store together and just talk about a week. Looks good. Amazing. That's the whale. And that's I like the blazer on your uh your tour. Is that your tour guide? I'm guessing it's very loud. The one that's the previous. Oh, that's um that's that was a street performer. That was a street performer. That was the street performer. my closet. And then this is like the hotel. All right, I can pick it up from there. So, all three um Miss Frost and my two fellow students here, they expressed it very well. I thought the relationships that we made were were really unbelievable. I thought I connected with a lot of different people.

013So, I can move on to when we were in Kuneo, I believe, we went out um and we did this tour of these vineyards. And that was just unbelievable. I mean, it's so much different from here. You wouldn't expect to see anything like that here. It was literally like you look straight and just forever you'd see vineyards. And the educational part of it was there was no chemicals involved at all. Especially the one we went to where they made um was it wine, right? They made wine. There was no chemicals at all involved and I thought that was How was the wine? That was awesome. What's that? How was the wine? Oh, I couldn't try it. There you go. All right. Yeah. So, we did get to sample olive oil, though. Yes, we did. The

014olive oil was awesome. You know, tried to bring some home, but couldn't couldn't get it on the plane, you know. Um Yeah. But yeah, the vineyards were awesome. Um, and all all of our tour guides that we had like EF set it up perfectly for us where every day it was structured where we had the perfect amount of free time. We had, you know, great meals, a time to spend with each other and with our chaperons as well. Um, we did that picture that you just saw was an apple orchard. We had the opportunity to go to an apple orchard and see, you know, how these fruits were grown sustainably, how they were grown um environmentally friendly. Um, and that was super cool cuz we got to try them without it being processed, without the

015chemicals being on them. It tasted so natural and it just it tasted just so good. And like the food, if you've never been, the it's the best food you'll ever have. I mean, that was one of my highlights was the food. Um but the like and again the views um especially the vineyards that was probably one of my favorite parts and then going to like the cities. We went to Monaco for a day that was really really beautiful. We took um took a tour there. It's very wealthy. Um but overall I'd say the vineyards were my favorite part. Um, you know, just the educational part of it was important to me on how like I can express it to somebody and if somebody here was a farmer, they could use this and it could help

016agriculture in the United States excel to a further level so we can have healthier foods. So that's my piece. If anybody else like to step in, I would definitely say especially because, you know, as GCP students, we're focused around sustainability and caring for our environment and building connections with, you know, everyone around the world. We're global citizens, you know, and to be able to learn about how people do it across the Atlantic Ocean is a learning experience that I wish everyone was fortunate enough to have because it's truly an amazing experience and you learn so much, you know, having this opportunity and using we watched in Miss Frost's intro to global citizens class, we watched a show with Zack Efron in it called Down to Earth and he goes to a bunch of different places

017and talks about sustainable farming and and how people, you know, cook food there and what they do to care for the environment and being able to see those things and do and do those things that they were doing in that show was just an incredible experience. Yeah, we were like in an episode of one of that shows in that show he goes around and gets like water from water fountains because they have like public water fountains everywhere, but like they're really cool and old in the ground and we saw they were everywhere in Italy and it was amazing. But then also like just being around the different languages too, not only the food and like the the just like the general culture, just um hearing the languages and like we all I feel like we

018all picked up some Italian and some French. Like I I I obviously like knew French from my 13 years in French immersion, but um I picked up a bunch of Italian and we just learned a bunch of different sayings like um I don't know. I forgot that chiao was a word when I booked before I went there. And just everything. Yeah. Yeah. And it was tricky when we because we started picking up the Italian very quickly. And it was tricky when we crossed into France and it was bonjour instead of bonjouro and you know merci instead of gratzi and we were trying to shift languages and then a lot of us also speak Spanish. I speak Spanish so you know I was like hola we were just all over the place. But this is why,

019you know, with our intro to global citizenship students when we're watching Down to Earth with Zack Efron, it's been the dream of the the adviserss, Miss Mills, the students to put that into practice and not just watch episodes in my classroom, but to go and do these things. Yeah. And then we got a swim in the Mediterranean Sea on the very last day. I think the last day like we went it was like a full-on we went to Monaco, we went to EZ, we went to Nice, we swam on the ocean, then we went back to the hotel, packed and five hours later we were out of there on the planes. So it was a but I think that was my favorite day honestly just I agreed to be honest. And once more these students

020were gems. They were extraordinary. I was calling them my ducklings the whole time. 36 of them, you know, just behind the chaperones showing up when we asked them to show up, polite, gracious, curious. It was an absolute joy to chaperone this group. And it was a reminder to me how valuable travel is, especially in another country outside of North America, too. you know, outside of the United States and North America to really immerse ourselves in different cultures and experiences that just can't be mimicked anywhere else. Can I just say thank you to both of you because I think it was a few years ago when you approached me and came up with creative solutions as to how we could make this happen and you put in all the hard work with your with the Klay

021and I it's it's a tribute to your hard work and efforts and your creative solutions. So, I'm thankful. I see the kids in the classroom when I come visit and it's nice to see the real world application of what we do here. So, thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone. That was greatation. Good job. We want samples though, but you know I have a picture of the uh the business that was selling the olive oil. So, all right. You can email it to us. I have perfume in my car. Sure. We'll get a taste of Italy in here. Thank you for supporting GCP. Thank you. Thank you for all your hard work. Have a great night everybody. You too. All right, back to uh the uh up into

022the agenda. Um so report from our student representative. Hi. Hi. Um, AP's exams are ending tomorrow. Prom is also tomorrow. Boys tennis senior night was yesterday. Girls tennis senior night is Monday, May 19th. Girls and boys track senior night was on Wednesday, May 7th. Softball senior night was on Monday, May 12th. Baseball senior night was on Monday, May 12th. Seniors last day of classes are next week, May 23rd. and finals are on the 27th and the 28th. Art Saves Lives is tonight at the high school from 4 to 8:00 p.m. National Honor Society induction is May 20th and class of 2025 graduation night cruise tickets are still on sale, but they'll close on May 30th. Great. Thank you. So, um before we get to our all of our school committee individual comment though, I'm sure

023I probably won't be the only one. I did just uh want to take a moment to recognize that this uh is Cynthia's last sort of official um full committee meeting after 10 10 years 10 years of of of dedicated service to the district and you know uh Cynthia uh has played an instrumental role in in getting the district to where it is today and and her her passion and dedication to the students is is is unparalleled. So, um, well, we didn't always agree, you know. Um, okay, we've disagreed on many things. Let's just be honest. Um, I always knew that you, you know, you you came from a place of of true caring and dedication. So, um, your your tenure, uh, has also brought a, you know, a great asset to the committee and the

024fact that you've you have been here for for so long and known so many things that your your historical sort of knowledge set will definitely be be be missed and uh, and and and something that'll lost to the to the committee. So, thank you very much and and good luck in your, you know, retirement. Obviously, I'm still I still live here. So, still work here. Still work. Still work here. So, that's why retirement's in quotes because Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure I get like six months reprieve before Stacy Rafy wraps me into something awesome. I guess and Cynthia, I also wanted to say on behalf of school committee, but also myself because we've been together for a number of years. I wanted to extend my thank you and um your dedicated service. I mean, you're nothing

025you're absolutely a workhorse. Um, and again, we're grateful for your time, your energy, your passion. Um, and I wish you the best in everything, future endeavors. Thank you. So, um, with that then we'll get to the rest of the school committee individual comments. Um, unless unless you'd like to take a moment to Yeah. I mean, I'll I wouldn't go in turn, but I just Okay. Well, I had to write it down because I just want I mean, it's short. I'm not going to talk forever. I could, but I won't. Um, so I just wanted to say that it's been an honor to serve on the school committee for the last 10 years. I thank the residents for entrusting me with this role. I thank the educators, the administration, both present and former. Um, shout out

026to Keith. Um, for putting up with my sharing is caring philosophy, which often meant that you got to spend extra time with me after meetings pretty often. Um, I appreciate your guidance, your expertise, your dedication to serving the children of our district. Um, I thought a lot about what I should say, but it really boils down to this. Um, relationships and I talked a little bit about this with Sarah and Frank re recently um or today that um I feel like the relationships in the Costa District um amongst our community partners has been fractured over the last two years and um I think it's going to take considerable effort to change course. Um, I'm hopeful that new members on the committee are ready and willing to take on this challenge. And I encourage you to

027take the time to listen, to learn, to establish goals and protocols and how you're going to work together as a team so you can focus on this essential work uh based on a shared commitment um to respectful collaboration and compromise. Um, public education is fundamental to this to the success of our democracy. And just because I'm leaving the committee does not mean that I'm not going to continue to advocate for students every day to have a high quality, free and appropriate education that every child in this country deserves. So that's all I'm going to say. Keep it short. So thank So last week I received a letter from a parent um and they asked that it be read at tonight's meeting. Um, however, they wish to remain anonymous so as to protect the identity of

028their child who is a student in the Hollist public schools. Um, but I did want to read it because it truly highlights the great work that our faculty and staff put in day in and day out. It says, "We understand that school committee meetings are part of the public record. While we wish to maintain the privacy and anonymity of our child, we also feel it is important to share our experience and have asked that this statement be read on our behalf. Our child is a student at Miller School and had been thriving both socially and academically with the support of an IEP. However, midway through the school year, new challenges emerged that significantly impacted the child's ability to engage in learning. As parents, this has been an emotionally taxing experience. Throughout this time, the staff

029at Miller School has been nothing short of extraordinary. From the first signs of concern to today, everyone from the principal to the front office staff has shown unwavering support and genuine care for our child. We know that navigating an IEP and special education processes can sometimes feel adversarial, but that's not been our experience at Miller. Instead, the team has come together to work within the system in a collaborative and compassionate way, creating a plan that allows our child to continue learning while moving toward a more typical school experience. While many individuals play important roles, we want to extend special thanks to Cara Hearan, Victoria Briggs, Emily Lurri, Belle Chadzy, our child's classroom teacher, and Jackie Winer at Hollist Youth and Family Services. Each of these individuals has supported not only our child but us as

030parents as well. Something we were surprised and grateful to discover. We also wish to acknowledge others who have contributed even if not named here directly. Thanks to the coordinated efforts of the entire team. We feel confident that we are on a positive path forward. We are grateful for the professionalism and dedication that define the staff at Miller School. Thank you for your continued commitment to our child's well-being and in the level of trust you provide. So kudos to uh the staff at Miller. Great to hear. That's great. That's great. It's nice. Always great to hear about the positive things too, right? For sure. Thank you for reading that. Thanks. Sure. And thank the parent who were parents who reached out and gave you that story. Absolutely. That warms my heart. Thank you. So nice story.

031That's great. Um, yeah. I mean, you mentioned art saves lives. I had the opportunity to walk through for a bit and I know it'll be over by the time we're done here for sure. Yeah. Um, but it always coincides, which bums me out. Some really impressive stuff out there. I uh even some of the most uh basic I could never do. So, I uh give the students a ton of credit. Um, I also want to thank Cynthia. I know being the longest. Are you you are the last right now? Right now. Right. Cuz Don, you're I'm not the longest serving ever, but not ever for now. Um, you know, bringing that uh sharing is caring and building relationships was uh important to see um during this tumultuous time with a number of different parties to

032deal with, challenges we had to meet uh and take on. Um and uh I will hope and surely we don't lose that. Um and I was assuming you'll come visit public comment. Oh, sure. Better. So, thank you. I still have your cell phone numbers, too. Who does? Um, thank you, Cynthia. Thank you, Sarah. Um, I'll echo the statement on on art saves lives. It was really impressive. I was able to walk through this just before this meeting, which was great. It's it's always fun to see the art from all of the ages, you know, from the little ones at Plastentino up to the high school. So, um that was it's just wonderful to see. Um I hope everyone has fun at prom tomorrow. Please be safe, everyone. Um and then yes, thank you Cynthia. you

033we've done policy, we've done evaluation, we've worked together a lot and I do appreciate you've really been a mentor and helped me understand how a lot of this stuff works. Um it's a complicated um role here. So um you've been through a lot of various changes. We've you know co all you've really seen us through a lot of the school through a lot. So thank you. Thank you. It's been great to work with you, too. Um, I just want to say happy graduation to say that because I have a graduate graduate and um, I'm going to my daughter's graduation this weekend. So, it's a busy time. And Don, graduation, happy graduation to your girls, too. Exciting. Thank you. Um, very briefly, the high school production of Clue was a success with soldout performances. Um, HMEPA

034had also updated that the Rams course and band concert will be uh Thursday, May 22nd here at the high school. And again, we've all mentioned Art Saves Lives, but it is a fantastic presentation. So, get on over here and check it out. I wanted to say thank you to our student representatives. I know the transition usually happens either at the next meeting or in June, but your time is valuable and what you're doing. We really appreciate you you've challenged us and brought, you know, the the um input from students and and I know it it's hard. I mean, you're you're really trying to represent a broad range of students and you come to these meetings and um and and keep us current on what's going on in the high school and and listen to our

035discussions on various issues. But it's it's so important what you do and representing them. And thank you and also good luck on all future endeavors. Congratulations on graduation and um thank you Hillary. I wanted to thank Cynthia as well. I I appreciate the way that you advocate for students um in each meeting and the way that you lead with questions to push our thinking deeper. Um I just really want to thank you for your continued commitment to the Holl public schools. Thank you. Um and I have nothing further because it's all sort of been said. Yeah. Um so now we have a public comment and um um I don't is it who who's here for Barbara and I am Jess. Jess too. Okay. So uh Barbara, why don't you go ahead and uh we'll keep

036it to to three minutes. Let's say and I do have something for another public comment as Oh okay. here. We're here. Wherever. Okay. Hi, Barbara Ryan, 14 Urban Place. Good evening. Um, first I really was inspired by the global citizens that were here. I just I wanted some of the food and um I could feel their um I could feel their trip and it's I think it's so important that we continue to support support that. But it was really just a delight to hear them. You could shop around, Barb. Um I maybe I will. I might too. We just might do that in all our free time. Um but [Music] um what else? I'm going to save Cynthia for last. But um okay, I too just walked through I walked through the arts saves lives

037last night just because I was here for another thing and um just impressed with our students and I think it's again I think you're all supportive of the arts and music and arts in our schools and I think that's something that's evident here that's so important to our students and our families. Um so that was just inspiring to see and I'm a stick figure artist so I really appreciate every medium I saw. Um and um just wonderful. I think um also the other night doc um Gerald Renee and Lieutenant Barrett and our officers were here, our um our resource officers and it was safe, smart, and secure and it's about cyber safety and helping to educate parents. it was for 18 years and older. And um I think we're all navigating what does social media

038mean and what are those mediums. But I I'd really love to see the school committee um continue to become aware and what are their policies um around whether it's smartphones, smartwatches, things in the classrooms. I'm really I love the procedure in the high school. My students were impacted. My sons were very distracted by devices in the classroom. So I'm very appreciative as this first year of that procedure was in place. Um imagine that enhanced learning, enhanced engagement, teachers were very um could see the difference. So again as we look forward and this wonderful event the other night um that's really important to continue to pay attention. I just talked to one of the poster presenters. She's um she did a poster presentation on 8 wait till 8th and I know our building leaders particularly elementary

039and middle have really wanted to try to help par parents uh receive education. So I encouraged her to reach out either through you or the building leaders to share her poster at least. Um last um thank you Cynthia. I know I've come to a lot of meetings this year. um first because of the the the first start time um you know looking at that um and I think your steadfast contributions over the last nine 10 years um are very inspirational. You sometimes were the one person to stand alone um for what I saw as the students and the teachers. I think you're a you're a passionate leader about process and um what is good for all and um advocating particularly for students and hearing people and I feel I was very I was heard by

040you and I thank you. We again we might not have always agreed but at least I felt heard and I thank you for that. Um I really appreciated that you voted no for the AB schedule. I did not think that was right for our students and certainly there was a very passionate discussion around that but you voted no and I appreciated that and what I appreciated the whole school committee did was put a schedule in place that will be enacted in a year you know the ne not this coming but the school year 2627 and I know that my child will benefit and I'm very appreciative of that um thank you I wish you well this is not goodbyes I'll see you again and again and again and congratulations on all that you've accomplish accomplished

041and I thank you and thank you for this time. I know extended a little but I thank you um very much. I appreciate you. Thank you. Yes. Hello, Jessica Omen, 116 Locust Street. Um, I just wanted to get up get up here and say as this school committee term comes to an end, um, I wanted to thank Don and Cynthia. I know this isn't an easy job and your unwavering dedication to this community over the last several years has been an inspiration to many, myself included. Don, I wish you all the best on your campaign for reelection. I know there are a number of really qualified and passionate candidates and I want to wish you the best. Cynthia, best of luck on your future endeavors and thank you for your commitment to this community. I

042want to echo what so many people here have said. Your dedication really shines through. Once again, thank you both for your service and leadership. Your hard work has made a lasting impact and I want want to wish you both continued success in whatever comes next. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And uh we did have uh one uh submission. Someone sent in something to be to be read public comment. I think it's a final one because I don't see anyone on Zoom and Frank uh asked to read that. Yep. Happy to do so. Of course, she puts a bunch of names. I'm hearing a horrible name. So, someone correct me if I get one wrong. Just louder to speak up. I will speak up. Thank you, Dan. Stacy Rafy, uh, 20 Arthur Street. Good evening. I'd

043like to give a shout out to Global Citizens Program Advisors, Mrs. Frost, Mrs. Mrs. Mills, Mrs. Case, Kiss Co. Cole. Okay. Thank you. And Mr. Kles who made that. They're married. Um, here and the chaperones who took honor students to France and Italy over April break for an incredible educational experience. I ran into Mrs. Frost shortly after their return. her excitement was palpable and I hope that she will share the experience with the committee at some point this year. So, thank you for sharing. Um, the vision the experience was vision of a graduate coming to life. Very exciting for our district and I can't wait to see more experiences like this. I'd like to take a few moments to recognize Cynthia as she retires this week from her 10 years of service to the Holliston

044community as school committee member, school committee chair, and policy and superintendent subcommittee chair. I think that almost covers them all except finance. Um, never shared budget. Yes, budget. Sorry, I'm ruining Stacy's letter. I'll keep I deeply regret that I'm not there in person tonight to share these comments. Thank you, Cynthia, for setting the example on how to be a public servant in such a public role that affects all the children and young adults in our community through your honors, your hours, well, upon hours of learning, listening, researching, sharing, writing, negotiating, and participating in all the meetings, office hours, public forums, and town meetings. Well, that was a sentence. You developed relationships with committee members, community members, and many different community partners over the years. During the pandemic, you spent countless hours attending the board of

045health meetings as school committee member liaison and as we navigate such president as we navigated such unprecedented times. You and I attended at least seven MASC conferences where we met, collaborated and shared with neighboring school committees. We spent many days at the state house advocating with Senate President Karen Spoka and our state representatives Carolyn Dikma and James Arena D. ROSA on the student opportunities act funding for our schools as well as specific bills to help decrease our outofd district placement cost. We had the opportunity to share with a former desi commissioner Jeff Riley on what a special place Hollison school public schools is for our students and families. We advocated for creative ways for HPS educators and students to showcase their teaching and learning achievements in ways other than just MC MC scores MCCAST. We

046shared in congratulating honors educators, honoring educators and students at graduations, senior award nights, national honor society inductions, and retirement celebrations to name a few. We sadly had the honor to honor the loss of some very special HPS members. You spent many nights working at Karen Spila or Senator Spoka's uh social and emotional events with the Ashley Hopington school committees. I'm sure this list is not exhaustive of all that you've done. You are passionate, true to your values, and willing to do what is what it needs to ensure the best learning and teaching for educators and students. You stand up for what you believe in and don't back down when the going gets tough. If only there were more elected leaders like you. It has been honored to serve with you for seven years where we

047experienced some great times for our district and navigated challenges that only made all of us stronger. On behalf of our community, thank you so much for your time, your dedication, your passion, and your commitment. I'm proud to call you my friend. Thanks. Thanks for reading that. Thank you. Thank you. Um, thank you Frank and thank you Stacy. Did we I don't think we got anymore. Okay. So, now we're going to do something very rare, which is move on to business. Move from uh public comment to policy. Usually, usually a little bit of a break in between. So, okay. Um, we have two policies for consideration this evening. They're both revisions. Um I'll start with the first one is um policy JH school through absences and dropout prevention. Um this was brought to our attention from

048Joanie by way of Jess or Jess by way of Joanie. Sorry. Um a dropout prevention. Was that was that initiated with you? That revision or was it Joanie? Joanie. Sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. Um where they just needed to add a little bit more language around extended absences. So, we just added a paragraph and I'll just read out that's the only change. It's just this added paragraph. Um, and this came from also our um district. Um, Katie Man has looked at it, etc. Um, so it's been vetted. Extended absences. Consistent education is important for every child, no matter the age. HPS asked that families book vacations and extended travel during v school vacations. Prior to any travel, which will result in a student's absence for more than 10 consecutive school days, the caregiver must unenroll

049their child from school by contacting the child's building principal. If the caregiver provides the building principal proof of return travel back to Massachusetts, the caregiver may submit a homeschool application for the time period the student is traveling to ensure the child is still being educated while traveling. Other options to continue the student's education while traveling include online school or enrollment in a local school where the student is traveling. Upon your return, you must reenroll your child in HPS prior to his or her return. I should say their their return to school. Does anybody have any questions about that? Can I a few Can I just just How long has this happen? Apparently, it's been happening more than it should. Okay. Um Susan, do you want to enlighten us a little bit about I think it

050was generated from Jamie Slendy. We happen to have more students from many different cultures and families around the world. And as our diversity changes, you end up seeing that, you know, travel is happening more frequently during the school year because different times align in different countries. And um we certainly support of our all of our families with getting to visit their families, but it does create challenges. And so that is why it's important that we're able to have language in there so that the unenrolling part keeps us so that if they're gone a long term time and or if they don't return otherwise it creates a challenge that we're just showing extended absences when in some cases they may not even return because they've decided to move back to their previous country or so forth.

051And this ensures that we have a policy in place that we can prevent excessive absences showing on Desi. And then also us needing to see how we can relocate that family and we may not always have the ability to do so if they've made choices for their own well-being to stay um with family members elsewhere. So I think that is definitely becoming more frequent and that's why the language is necessary. I had a question on that. So they take the extended absence and reaches the point where they're unenrolled. Does the desi data remove that previous information for the student or does it stay on the report? So that's my understanding is we unenroll so they're no longer going to be showing and then and then when they return it starts as a new student otherwise

052we're getting hits on. So that just hurts our data over back to say for example if they go back to like they're visiting family in India for a period of time and they're gone for 3 months and their parents are like well they're five so you know what I mean but it h I mean it happens and I think it happens more and more it's it's happened more and more since co I think it's just because people are just saying you know what learning is it's it's no big deal if they're not here but we were seeing that it's really impacting students um achievement. So what is the threshold of days for other districts to if they have these type of things? 10 days I was say 10 days strikes me as actually relatively short.

053I know it's it has huge impact on on on learning but to to unenroll somebody and then force them to to to reenroll after after 10 days seems I mean it's two weeks no it's not two weeks outside of the you know vacation period. So, it's not during vacations. It's just on and without them providing any like maybe they're saying their kid has a surgery or something and that's why I mean they're just saying we're traveling, right? I mean, it's really about that. I don't I'm not sure what it has in the other districts, but yeah, I don't I don't have many examples that I can think of as as um Do you just I'm like hold on somebody who's on a on a a regular vacation. Um most of this is to see family.

054It's it abuts usually some type of other vacation and they're they're gone for maybe a month. um you know at that point in time uh we do have examples where we've had um those are highly invested in skiing uh and and our our high level skiers that we have here will go up and and participate in some of themies up in Vermont uh as well um may choose or not choose to enroll in school there but it just kind of structures it uh that we have and Jess yeah I was just going to say I think typically so we put together the attendance task force and so I'm part of that um I think surrounding ing districts, 10 days is typical. What we want to continue is having the conversation. So, just because we get

055to 10 days doesn't mean we unenroll, but it gives us that ability. So, if a family says, "Well, yes, we're going to be out of the country for another 20," um, then we would have them unenroll. So, it's this says that they must unenroll their child. This is this is not there's no squishiness to this. Um, and so I to me it's sort of there's a differentiation between someone doing a ski academy for 30 days which is a complete sort of choice and you know a a prioritization by the by the family and the student and someone who say is you know an international family and and so you know has a an opportunity to go back and and visit their their sort of their where you know either where the parents from where they're

056from or or whatever. um and you know to to travel there it just makes sense to go for for a month and then and while granted that or however long and granted you know that that is disruptive to to their education and we want to discourage that I think that I don't know I think that's tough because that's in my mind different than someone who enrolls their child but I think I think it's how it's how it is conveyed to the family right so it's not as if they can unenroll and then that's it right but it also is we're required as a district to really account for where our students are and if they're out of the country for 30 days that's a long time to not I would also say that we also

057there's there is attendance law that we're beholden to and that you know when we exceed these this is a threshold we will cross and have to take certain currently by law has to take certain action against a family and that's not something we're looking to pursue either and so this is kind of leaving that um it's true and safe if they're not there and I think partly I I I understand. I I just think that could could we or look at or potentially add um something where it just it gives the principal the opportunity to issue a waiver. Um I I put this for but I think you could I I didn't see the exact language but um or sorry I can't really see it though. I think but like to the principal's discretion or

058something but I think the support of having a definitive number in there is really helpful to account for where our kids are accountability. I think that to the the reason why the next part exists as far as remote options or otherwise is that if they know they're going to be gone more than 10 days, we would like them to give us what the plan is for the because they can say we're going to tutor and whatever it is and it forces them to come up with a plan. I I hear what you're saying too, Dan. But I think the other worry would be from a special ed lens, we are then on the hook to be compensatory services for that time period and then they come back and they could take two months off or

059whatever and we now have to somehow make up all those services too. Right. Right. And then how do they show they're actually advancing the way they're supposed to because are they going to be able to which is why I'm suggesting that rather than than sort of concrete sort of definitive language that they must unenroll that that there is a sort of an opportunity to have a conversation with the principal and potentially seek a waiver. Do you want to put may be required to unenroll? I could Yeah. Sure. Yeah. At at the may be required to enroll at the principal's discret or just something again. Saying must unenroll is what we're saying here. I think with though a context of could be also decided discretion because if you put maybe the family may come back and

060say well you say maybe like let me add the other the discretion. So if you keep must is like it's an automatic thing unless building leader steps in right or whoever they can convey or it's going to be 15 days or whatever then he might Exactly. I just I want there to be a little flexibility. Um but if someone's going to take off for a month skiing, I mean, yeah, I get it. Like that's especially if they're going to enroll somewhere else or do something. I mean, then then yeah, doing like home tutoring or ski, that makes complete sense. Yeah. Um I it just feels maybe somewhat overly punitive for some of our our international kids. Thanks. I'm thinking where you at. I'm trying to just figure out like a sentence that I can add

061to that. Where you're at? I'm on at the end of child's principal. Okay. Um, that's almost like why they would need a home school plan if they But that's a very formal thing, isn't it? Really? I mean, a home school plan as long as they can say that we're educating in some way. We really don't get too technical. I mean, they're supposed to say that it's teaching them the state standards, but you have taken you've seen the plans, right? Yeah. Um, there are I mean, if you if you really want to get to a home school plan, there are many templates that exist online. You could say we're doing online. Go through a plan and submit that pretty quick. Could do Khan Academy, all different components, right? No. And and look, I I I want

062to encourage people to keep their students here and and and enrolled. It's very important for the continuity of education and something that, you know, we've we've worked hard on. But at the same time, I do know, you know, of people who do travel, you know, back to sort of their either where their ancestral I don't I don't know what I'm trying not to use any words, but it just back to uh you know, their the country where their where their family is from and and it it's a very long trip and and they don't get to do it very often and so it may be an extended period of time. I just don't want to be overly punitive there if we can come up with some sort of agreement. And so leaving the language a

063little bit more flexible or having someone with the ability to make some flexibility I think is helpful. How about this? I just added the caregiver must receive prior approval or unenroll their child from school by contacting school. Prior approval from the principal. Yeah, do prior approval by the principal. principal, but I'm saying principal at the end. I I would still put it in there, too, so they so it's clear who they need the approval. [Music] Or I'm going to roll the child from school by contact. Yeah, I'm going to get rid of it now. Yeah. Can you put or designate in parentheses just so it's not like or or or? Yep. I know. said my no my only well go ahead here's my own technical y complication with that a principal cannot by state by

064law by dest cannot approve unexcused absences okay okay great that's what's tricky about the so like we can't create a policy that in effect goes against state law correct okay appreciate that context that And they can't wave, you know, like that's it's tricky. So, we have to leave most of them. We just kind of have to leave the way it is. Well, can't they wave the they can wave they can wave the they can what they're doing is to wave. Can we empower them to wave our policy? Yeah, that's that's kind of where you could do it is that you're not you're not approving their unexcused absences as much as that you're more or less discretion to wave the policy or apply for a waiver from a new sentence period. building principles will have the

065discretion to be able and I guess we should probably bring this by council again. So yeah, so never mind what we're just going to abandon this cuz we have to we're going to have to have Well, no, but we should put in language that we you can Yeah, we can put it in. I'm just saying like let's move on because if we're going to change it then and we need to have it vetted by our council then there's no approving it tonight anyway. So like the next person I'll add it in and I'll send it off before you leave. You might want to invite like the task force to the policy meeting or work that they're doing and it might be sense to come up with common language. Sure. Sure. I I'm open. I I

066just it feels like there's should be a little flexibility or the task force could look at it and make suggestions and and then return it to the policy meeting. Okay. [Music] Don, if you want to make a suggested change in make a suggestion. I'm going to put it in caps so we know where the suggestion. Okay. Well, it should also track changes on I think so. Okay. You have to change it to suggest suggestions. It's just the whole thing is being suggested. So now it's just suggested by somebody else. It has to go on some Yeah. Everybody has to put suggested on when they type. Where do I do that? Sorry. I I I hate Google Docs. Um can you add just like a comment or something? I will in a second. I just want

067to make sure it's coming up as suggested. Do you know how to adjust it? Top right where the arrow sh Yeah. Get rid of that. And here editing mode. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Okay. We can move on to the others and then Okay. I just didn't want you to be Okay. From dropouts to to medication, right? To medication. Okay. So, Let me open this one up. So I'm hopefully Okay. So in your packet there should have been also the um the original I can't for some reason open up the shared. I have it up here but I don't see the edits unfortunately. Yeah. So there's no there's no edits because this one was a wholesale. We took the we took the our policy and said you know substituted in MAC's policy that we

068slightly tweaked but we mostly kept all of because it was getting too messy. the the original well wasn't really original. We've updated this policy like twice two two or three times in the last couple years for some reason. Um and it was just getting too murky. So we just went back and just said, "Listen, let's stop making everything very micromanaged and go back to a um a policy that is just much more general and over, you know, has an overview of what we should be doing." So um I wanted to Lisa Duzio said that she was going to put in what's currently in place. She did. There's two. She did. She can see it. I just can't for some reason I can't open the share drive for somebody. Okay. Yeah. In the drive there's a

069PDF says current version and one that says I think updated which is the Google doc. So I mean it doesn't look all that different. I just don't know why it won't open. But anyway that's okay. I don't need to see both. It does look pretty. There's the current one has reference to HPS where they removed that from obviously the MSC. Okay, that's fine. We have to read the whole thing cuz it's I should read the whole thing. I don't have to read the whole thing. Can we wave it? Yeah, we can wave it. It's a It's not It's a revision. It's not like a brand new policy. Okay. So, um, if you accept, you know, what's in there, then we can just vote to accept the revision. It's been vetted. It was reviewed by Dr.

070Zisblat, who said this was fine. So, I I'm good with that. Any objections? And the only revisions are in purple. No, the entire entire document. Y, but that's why you have the other one. It's all similar, but there was just too much been cutting and pasting all the way through and it would have been just messy. So, we decided just to kind of cut the whole thing through and just use MASC's policy and tweaked it slightly, but it was supposed to say said a school district everywhere. It was supposed to be HPS. I don't know why that didn't take. Yeah, that's one of the biggest changes I feel like. So, we'll fix that. The only question is if it refers to CMR 210 in the current version versus 210 600. Is that the same? No,

071actually it's a different Okay, I see it. Where is six? And regarding class trips, the self- administering during off campus for 105 CMR 210 210.6. Yeah, but it's a different It can be just two. That's just one section of that, but they it's all Yeah, that's where it differs from our current one. Yep. [Music] Are we good? Yeah. Okay. So, I will uh entertain a motion to approve uh policy JLCD uh as amended. Moved by Sarah, second by Don. Joe, yes. Frank, yes. Sarah, yes. Cynthia, yes. Um Don, yes. And Hillary, yes. And I am a yes. That carries seven to I think. Thanks. Thank you. That's it for me. Last policies. All right, moving over to uh central office uh updates. I too wanted to thank Cynthia for her leadership um and her steadfast

072support. This is my fifth year in Hollist starting during COVID which were quite challenging years but um you are one of four I've had four chairs in the time I've been here and um I don't know well over 14 plus I think it was 14 might be more different members of the committee and I I just have to thank you very much for your support your respect ongoingly um your feedback um difficult conversations have always been there and I've always felt respected by you and that's been really valued by me. The last two years of my five have probably been the most challenging of my entire career. I've been an educator for 30 years and I thankful that I've had you there um to listen and and provide feedback along the way. So, I will

073definitely miss you in your role. I'm sorry that you're going, but I I just want to thank you um for being there as a steadfast committee member for the 5 years that I've been here. Thank you. Continue with this 10 years. Um, so you have been present with me for every major transition uh I've had in ma Massachusetts. Um, and uh 10 years as a school member, but uh my entire duration as a parent uh in in this community. um you know the periods of time that uh Jess and I were were here with uh all of your children um and uh each one of the transitions from assistant principal to principal to assistant superintendent throughout it. Um and uh you've always been incredibly supportive of me. Uh and um when we have not initially

074agreed on anything, uh you've been had the utmost uh professionalism uh in finding time to meet with me and work through the details and the data and many times changed my mind on certain things. So it's been uh fantastic. Um and those are have been some of the most important years of my life. Um I've brought two kids into this world during that period of time. Uh so you've been there for since the beginning for my second grader and my first grader. Uh so I will remember you forever. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh also other stuff that I have for my report outs um uh art saves lives uh is uh amazing. There's some pictures that some paintings and different things out there that are fantastic uh artwork. Um the uh other

075thing I wanted to give a shout out which was last week was the rain was earlier this week rain day for Special Olympics. Holy cow. Um, so, uh, luckily we we got the rain day because the Friday would have been miserable. Uh, but, uh, Monday was absolutely gorgeous. Uh, thank you to Jess and her team for having it out. Our students were fantastic, um, throughout throughout it. Um, thank you to our resident Olympian, Nicole Down, who was there along with three other local Olympians to kind of kick off the festivities, uh, as as well. And to our police and fire, um, who were there as well. was a perfect day uh for the event. Medfield did a fantastic job. Uh with that, um Joe, I just want to say thank you very much for reading

076that. That was uh administrators uh buildings and teachers um love to hear that. It's not something that's messaged very very often. So, thank you very much for bringing that uh to the table. Um I was at MS uh the Mazbo conference. That's the conference for for administrators for uh business administrators and Commissioner Tutweiler uh spoke. Um I am encouraged uh by what he had to say about circuit breaker uh specifically about transportation and um reimbursement for so tuition and transportation. Um that has moved we they've they've given some early indications uh in the last couple months that it was going to be reimbured at higher rates. We're getting closer and closer to that point and it's been more and more encouraging than prior years. So that that is very positive for our FY26. Um updates.

077Capital was approved with the town meeting. So that means that we're we're plowing through as far as Ram's roof. Uh if you go by the middle school right now, they've begun staging already. I got a a nervous call from Karen later today where she's afraid that the dumpster was running into the wall the wall of the building. So uh crisis averted, but they are starting to really kind of stage the equipment there. Um the staging is the first part uh with the uh uh kind of a delayed start right around June 1st to kind of really start the the roofing of that. We're on track for the track um in uh right at the very end of school to kind of begin the the track project um as well. And then we're excited to kind

078of um the capital that was approved and we're thank thankful to the community of the town uh for that. Those are important projects, especially the auditorium light lights of being kind of a recurring um project that's been on the capital plan for a long time. Um so thank you to to those into the town for kind of putting opening that through. Thank you. And the uh the track is a resurfacing not a full resurfacing. Correct. But it is still a significant amount that we have been able to do with internally through you know fees and things like that not to rely on the town force. So, I think that that those are always good to highlight that we do try to sort of um fund things ourselves when when possible. Um, and Dr. Jordan, about

079how long does the resurfacing take? How long does that keep folks off of the track? I know sometimes we do summer rentals with the the um littleer kids get to do the track nights, but I think that really doesn't start until July, but there are some rentals on the turf. How long does it impact that? Um, correct. So, uh, I need to look at the exact amount. I just remember when they told me the time, it didn't send the hairs on the back of my neck up. It's like it was going to cancel anything. Um, so, uh, it is meant to be a pretty timely thing. So, it's not interfering with the entirety of the summer or a significant portion of it. So, it's it's meant to be the surface is meant to be pretty

080pretty quick, um, for it. So, okay. But I I if you need I I can get you an update on the exact. Great. Thank you. So now moving on to uh to to personnel. Um as most of you know uh there was an announcement uh was this week or last week that uh Miss Miss Bey is is is moving on to her next great adventure after 22 years in the district. And uh we will will miss her greatly. Um but we do now need to to move on with trying to find a a new uh student services director. Um, and so I just wanted to sort of I know we've posted for both an interim and a and a and a full-time position. So, Dr. Husk if you have a an update for us and

081then we can kind of get into that. As I shared with you the other day, we have four applicants for the interim and four for the permanent position. Um, right now one of the four is the same on both u the processes. So given the resumes that we've received so far, I don't feel like we have an adequate pool to do a full interview process, we still do have the um both of them are open right now. I believe the interim is for one more week and I want to say that the other one was posted through June 1st. It's I mean we can always extend the timeline as we get close to that, but you do try to put a a finite timeline in there because otherwise people may not even apply if they

082don't see a timeline when it's ending. So, I think I would want to keep up keep you updated over the next week or so and see if we get more applicants. What I have found though, I mean, just the lateness in the year, it's it's less likely to get applicants as the year gets later with with these types of administrative positions. Um, but also typically the first week or so is when you get the the highest um volume of people applying. That doesn't mean we can't get more. I mean, we could there's always some people that wait till the very last minute when they see a deadline, too. So that can happen. So I will continue to update you over the next week or so and hope that we have a large enough pool to

083start the process and then um determine from there if that's acceptable. If you have any other ideas thoughts, did you Yeah, sorry. Was trying to figure out how to do the raised hand. Um I'm sorry if you said this, Dr. Tusca, and I couldn't hear. um where has the position been posted kind of in a range of places or what are the recruitment and outreach efforts? Yeah, so what we have found is that school spring happens to be almost the catchall I hate to say but um and then things places like Indeed take it from there. So um it feeds to a number of other places just based on the um school spring being the feeder and then other places almost take it from there. So it it it has been showing on indeed in

084other places. And then the the other thing we've done in the past which we have not been very successful with sometimes we have paid an a large sum of money to post on the Boston Globe for example years ago. Um that was a viable place to post an ad. Uh I have I have found in recent years we have had minimal to no success when we've spent hundreds and hundreds sometimes even thousands of dollars posting there just because it doesn't get the traction and that's people typically are now using the online applicant tracking systems and they get the best um widespread volume. Um if you had any other ideas I'd be certainly open to considering. I just um I could do something like a um you know we sometimes we post it to colleges. Unfortunately

085though, if you're posting on the college level, you're going to get someone fresh out of school and we really that's not really what we want to see happening right now. So that's why, you know, for teacher positions, that is a viable option, but for administrative positions, you're really looking towards the online platform for that. Are there any um professional networks or for this type of position that we could reach out to? I don't know that. I have to double check. I don't know that um Lisa has put it on mass superintendent. I can get it on there. I'll ask her to do that tomorrow. Um, MASPA is another professional site, but typically anyone that's looking at those sites is looking at School Spring. I just feel like Schoolring, which is now under Power School, um,

086took over Schoolring. That is the I mean, that's the be all and end all for people. Unless you're looking out of state, there might be other systems, but it's it's less likely to find applicants from out of state for these types of positions as well. If you have any other things that you can think of, please let me know and I'll I'd be happy to try that. You know, we've kind of this is the route we've been going for many years. And then once you have the pool of applicants, um what's the process that you'll be going through for to interview? Will there be a a hiring committee? Yeah, I think we have to determine do we have enough applicants in either pool to start moving forward? Um I am worried about the timeline. For

087example, if someone is an administrator in another district, typically they have 60 to 90 days in their contract. So the possibility of finding a permanent person this late in the game is becoming slimmer and slimmer certainly for July 1. Um so then the the challenge with having if we if we go forward with an interim to fill a gap the challenge with that is we really would need to have also a finite timeline to tell that person so that they could determine whether they want to take it or if it's someone internal to be able to then backfill that. So it's hard um you know in some cases I've said to reopen later in the year for the permanent if we can't get an applicant pool you know I mean those are the things that

088we're weighing right now. It is looking more and more likely that our best hope would be to have a strong interim candidate and and then repost in the fall. I'm certainly, like I said, I'm very open to doing a permanent search. It's just so far the applicant pool that I'm seeing doesn't really warrant um people that I would want to put forward in that way. I think we, you know, we'd be spending a lot of time with a a small group of people and putting together a group of people to interview as well and maybe not get the benefits that we would like. I'll just pass on. I met with CPAC yesterday and um in addition to expressing their deep appreciation and gratitude to um Jes um they had expressed interest in being part of

089a hiring committee if that were formed and if that was available. Oh yes. Typically anytime we've done these searches, we've um always reached out for parent input and CPAC in particular. Um since I've been here, this we've had two student services directors and I did not hire the previous student service director, but we did a full committee with parents, um administration, teachers, and SSAs. And usually we've had 10 to 12 people on those procedures. So again depending on which direction we can go over the next few weeks but it is it is getting very late. So four applicants is inadequate. How many would be ideal to begin the process? So it's not the number but the caliber quality. Okay. So, I mean, I certainly don't think if we had one or two maybe it's worth

090putting together the whole, you know, process, but if we had, you know, three or four people that looked reasonable, um, you know, I I know that we had a lot more applicants, for example, the assistant principal search and they're still doing that search. Um, so to have four candidates is is a very low volume at this point. So, have we tried to reach out through your networks and to retired SSDs uh to to see if there are any is anyone, you know, this is just an incredibly important, you know, position for for every district, but but especially now. Um, and I I just think that we need we really I I really want to find someone who even if on an interim basis is able to kind of come in and knows the job and

091is able to kind of, you know, move forward with that with very little sort of, you know, need for for ramping up or or learning because it is such a I know very little about the the very technical aspects of it, but so I've been told it's a very technical legal sort of complicated job that that takes a long time to to really uh hit hit uh this the stride in and so I'm just Do you have a clone in your pocket? It was Dolly, you know. I I have talked to one particular individual to see if they're interested. You know, someone that I know has been an interim in different places. That person said maybe, you know, and I could circle back to them. So, there's two two kind of ways you can go

092for interim. One is to take an retiree or someone like that that can kind of just keep things moving in a you know like not making any changes just kind of status quo which means you get by right but then there's also the opportunity if you have a strong internal candidate that knows the system and has started moving the work and you I mean we had just presented just a few weeks ago about the movement and the momentum that we've had with these new programs. So the advantage of having someone that already knows the move in momentum would keep that moving forward. I'm not saying an interim that is external as a retiree couldn't help with that, but there's a learning curve even for them and you know typically they're just trying to stay in

093the boat from rocking. It's uh it's it's definitely a tough climate out there. There are a lot of dis this position posted. I I would say that [Music] um we are we are getting tied on time uh on things. So the swifter that we can be on this the better. Um I I I just I also it's it's not just about kind of the person that we're we're in as far as the situation. It's also just about the stability of the others in the district uh and the other SSAs, the other special educators that we have um at this time. You know, I I wish Jess uh the the best in all of this, but I also think it's incredibly important for us to fill this position. Yeah. Look, she she's smirking at me like,

094but I was laughing at him laugh just to be clear. I was laughing and he would laugh if he said that. Yeah. Yeah. So, I can provide you an email you sort of where we are maybe u next week. I I I just think it's it's very important a that we have a very um however it's happened a robust interview process that includes includes CPAC includes other members of the community just like we've done for for everything and and you know I I I I hear you on the timeline and the tightness that it's getting but I think that I do not want to rush the process because we feel like things are are tightening in. And I think it is we need to make the right decision, not the right now decision. And it's

095important for the community feedback. And it's certainly very important for the community feedback because I mean, you know, I mean, you you just heard some great things from from a from a family at at Miller and that um is is wonderful, but there have been other, you know, families who have had challenging issues and I think that there are people that are going to want feedback on that. And um certainly if we're going to put um an internal candidate in there, which I'm not opposed to, but I think certainly if we're going to put an internal candidate in there, that will sort of definitely impact the longer sort of permanent search if you do run one um because as as you've said, Dr. Ko, once you sort of have an interm it becomes sometimes harder

096to to when you run a permanent search to to get a good candidate pool. Um, so I just I think that we need to cast a wide net and and I'm okay taking a little longer to try to, you know, gather a a better applicant pool if that's if that's not a better but but a more robust applicant pool. The one thing I will say if we don't have someone um in for July 1st, I mean there are just timelines and things that it's not like we can pause um you have to have a signatory. So at that point I might ask you to at least temporarily appoint point appoint someone acting if if we have and I don't no we would not obviously leave it leave it vacant. Um so we'd have to figure

097that out but um does that make sense to everyone? Is everyone sort of on board with that? Frank you typing you good? Okay Hillary does that make sense? Okay, that's a thumbs up from Hillary just for Great. Um, so moving moving on eight minutes ahead of schedule. Um, reports from our our subcommittees, communications, that time of year. Um, really busy policy. We already did policy. That's it. Do you want to do evalu? Sure. Um the evaluation subcommittee met again today with Dr. Kuska. We um gave her a copy of her um official final approved evaluation from the subcommittee. Um and she's has time now to review it over and um with a plan to um review it again with her on Monday and then for a potential vote at that time. That's where we're at.

098Post it. And I did send it to the rest of the committee. I shared it with all of you as well, but just before the meeting. So, it wasn't it was like an hour or so before the meeting. I did not have a good chance to to review it. Yeah, I figured 48 hours in advance. That would Yeah. Yeah. If I could have, I absolutely would have. I'm just So, that's why I felt like that we should push that off just because No, you you guys haven't had an opportunity to final draft as well as give Dr. Kusk an opportunity to kind of digest that and um she has comments that she wants to make that she can do that. and then we'll meet on Monday potentially um and then have a vote potentially on

099Monday if people are ready. If people are ready that's all. So it's posted but okay I do think it's probably important that we vote on Monday you know right if we're ready to then but again like I'm not sure well obviously if Monday folks so you're on your own obviously if the majority of the committee is not ready to vote then correct that's that's the thing right um okay um budget no news other than we meeting good news should should have mentioned that yes we all partners thank you for everyone everyone who came to town meeting and and voted in support of it. And you know, town meeting is always an adventure. You never know. We dodged a $2.5 million motion to reduce our our budget. It was not seconded. It was not second. That

100was double our override. I thought that was a little bit punitive. Well, I didn't want to give any additional information. You know, just um but yes, the budget is passed and we've had no further meetings since last Wednesday's town meeting. And we do really appreciate the town support for that. And as Dr. DS are our capital uh requests. Uh very interesting town meeting. Um a lot of of spending. Um okay. Um moving on to uh our our math leveling uh subcommittee. Um I think Hillary, you put some uh what you shared with me and then I put it into the folder a couple days ago. A recommendation from Hillary, Sarah, Karen Manning, and Ron Taylor. Is that the Yep. uh for for membership? And now I'm going to have to So everyone wants to bring

101that up. Did have these people been noticed that they were recommended yet or No, not yet. Um Sarah Sarah and I just met on Monday uh to review the excuse me um the interest. uh we had a lot of teachers and especially a lot of parents um uh who expressed interest. So a strong group of people to choose between uh was very difficult and we appreciate everybody's interest. Okay. So then so it's not to put people on the spot. Um, if this works, what I'd like to then do is so we we form the shell and then eventually once these accepted, I'm going to I'll notify uh Liz Greenale so they can get sort of sworn in as members of the committee. Um, but so as not to put these people on on on the

102spot, um, I guess I'll just sort of would entertain a motion to um, you know, sort of approve this list, though I would like to to make one addendum as a as sort of a a an alternate uh, I guess. um with uh I'm just going to say her name because she's a former school committee member, but uh Amanda Amanda Bigalow um I think would would be invaluable asset to the group. Um, I realize that we have limited membership numbers and so that may have, you know, been part of the the the problem, but if I know she applied, but if she's interested, um, I would like to sort of I don't know what sort of an member at large like Jerry. I don't know if that's Jerry was intended to be kind of an

103official member. Um, but this it would be either sort of like that or it could be just a an alternate. I would just be mindful of the numbers because then you have to have a quorum in order to meet and then if you don't meet then so it's a this right but this would not be she wouldn't I'm not adding to the committee so is is just an alternate is is so I guess my question is is Jeriel intended to be I don't know if Jeriel's going to be coming to every meeting okay so he's not actually he's just being invited to so he's not a member at large then he he is He's basically I don't Hillary Jerry Alison is not available um for all the meetings. So we pull him in when we

104feel like we need his voice. Correct. Yeah. So he's like a liaison to your committee. So he wouldn't be a voting member, right? So that but so he's not a voting member. He's not a voting member. So liaison. So right now there are 12 then voting members and I think we authorized up to 13. So Jeriel's not going to be a voting member. Then I would I would like to suggest that we we add Amanda in as then as a as a as a as a full member and she did apply. She did apply. We heard Kathy. She's a school committee advocate former. I I do like the idea of someone who teaches math in another district too. We have that perspective and I know that Kathy is a a math tutor and then Sarah.

105Yeah. And um sorry Chris Danic is also um a math teacher in another district. Is it Framingham or is it No. Uh I want to say Wallpole. Does that sound right, Hillary? I can pull it up. I thought I think so. Does that I think the perspective Sorry, I couldn't hear you. Sarah, uh, was Chris Danic from Walpole? Do you remember? I was going to um, no. Was it Lexington or Sbury? maybe Sudbury, but a different district or I think it was a district that had gone through a recent um review of their math how they're offering. No, no, I think these are great these are these are great choices. I just I I just wanted I think given that the when I thought Jerry was in there I I thought we had you know

106an odd number and and I I wouldn't want to reduce from 12 to 11 but I do think an odd number knowing how this has evolved over the years. I think an odd number would be helpful and actually adding adding this would not change the quorum requirement because for a 12 member board you still need seven for a 13 member board you will still need seven. Um, in fact, it will increase the like likelihood of getting a quorum because you'll have one more person who can fulfill that same number. I'll second the addition. Hillary, are you okay with that? [Music] Yes. Okay. Okay. Can you say it again? Because I'm not sure actually. I don't know if I heard the whole She said yes. We're adding Amanda to the to this list and with with

107Jeriel as the I don't want to call him a member at large. That would indicate he's actually a member. It's more just a contributing um leaison. Leaison. Yeah. Ya. Is that just call him a liazison instead? I mean, so it'll be a 13 member group. Correct. With a seven member quorum. Yeah. And I believe that was what we originally um approved was 13. It was 13. It was like an up to But I do think that's important. Okay. You good with that? Yep. Okay. Then I will entertain a motion to approve and communicate out to these to these members and and and let the others know that we appreciate their their volunteering um um as amended. And just really excellent. No, I'm just there were there were we we had lots of people y um

108interested express their interest which I was grateful and these parents don't want we can come back and we we can amend the the committee as well. Okay. So and just to be clear this is a subcommittee of the school committee or it is a advisory committee to the school subcommittee right it is for so then you and Hillary will be running this correct the the committee will determine that I mean we have only one proceed process for really setting up if we form a true subcommittee of the school committee it can only be school committee members but like our budget subcommittee can only have school committee members as members right but we have the that I forget I don't know what advisory that's why I was clarifying it's advisory committee to the school committee because

109you guys are members but you don't necessarily lead it they have to be voted yeah of course right yes but it's an advisory committee okay sure okay just clarifying because it's it is different than a true subcommittee correct we're not forming another was just membership I'm just clarifying yeah so then this would be a math advisory committee to the to the to the school committee okay membership correct um thank you thank you Cynthia We'll again we'll be the we're going to miss that. Be missing. Um we'll figure it out. So I guess the the amendment. So So everyone's good with the amendment. I don't think we need to vote on that. Um so as as amended, do we have a a a uh Did someone make that motion? I thought Don made the motion. No,

110this was this was to amend it then. That was more just like No, to approve the list. Yeah. to approve list as as sort of amended which we don't have agree to. We're not like voting on the amendment and then propose that though. Let's do it. Let's just do it. Move by Don. Yep. There we go. What are we voting on? You you just say it again. Oh, the the the math membership the math advisory advisory committee membership list as amended. Correct. So move by seconded by Joe. Joe. So Joe, yes. Okay. Frank, yes. Sarah, yes. Um, Cynthia, yes. Don, yes. Uh, Hillary, yes. And I'm a Yes. Um, so what I what once you guys communicate and everyone sort of officially kind of accepts, let me know so that I can then let the

111the town clerk know so that she can kind of form that officially and get get, you know, information out for people to be sworn in. Advice on those subcommittees, get sworn in and then schedule a meeting. Don't schedule the meeting and then tell people to swear in. Yes. Process, tights to keep it going, too. Yeah. And yeah, I hope I do hope I know we're getting tight on to the end of the year. Um, but I do hope that we can at least kick things off uh to get that work started because you would I think what was it ideally, Hillary, your timeline was a recommendation in January, right? Yes. Which is not that far away when you've got the summer break and and everything like that. So, so anyway, thank you everyone who who

112who uh volunteered and um we appreciate that it's process. Okay. Um process. So So just an update on the implementation of the extra 10 to 15 minutes. Um Dr. C was was good enough to to ask for get memos from from everyone. Yes. All the principles, I'm sorry. Yes, I put them in the folder. Um I think on Tuesday I did um change one today just because um the Rams one she just made it a little bit more I guess she wanted to make it more of a memo but the substance of it hasn't changed but I she asked me to up that I printed it early. Yeah. So so the question I have about that one is I'm just trying to figure it out. So it says additional time added per core class up

113top English math science 3.5 minutes. Um, but then it says core academic classes went from 51 to 56, which is 5 minutes added to each core class. And then 3.5 minutes allows for passing time between core class. So I'm just I'm just trying to I'm trying to Yeah, they they looked into I mean, if you need really specific detail, I'd rather have her answer, but just the general part that in my conversation with her was that they looked at the entire day and whether they could reduce some of the passing time and kind of really maximize every minute. So the 14 of the minutes did go directly to the four content areas and then they added the they adjusted the um Rams block which is something they were going to do either way before we

114even knew about the change in start times I mean change in um 15 minutes right so my my understanding is 3.5 is the is the transition between classes and the 5 minutes is on to the instructional time from 51 to 56 is that what it says yes um and then the where we which we've always which we've always had across like eight periods within a day the the kind of that's lunch we're calling kind of a and rams block uh well rams block lunch and uh home room as kind of like transition points that we have we've always kind of like it's not been a a perfect number of minutes it's always been in order to equate to the equal number of like 51 minutes and 41 minutes that we needed for the arts that

115there's always there's There's always been about 1 minute or so of flexibility per period that exists. So if if she on Rams block pulled for like a minute from different spaces within other transitions that we've had throughout the building, I can see where she can find like five or six minutes for Rams block. Does she I think she indicates like one minute from the the 15 being pulled into Rams block. I imagine the she's probably leaning heavily as far as what she's trying to double down as far as some of the intervention work that we're trying to do. um as well as some of the special education planning, right? Um no, no, I I get that. So, I'm just But but the it it seems like the if you look at the top, the 3

116and 1/2 minutes is what they're calculating the total additional instructional time to to be I'm just I'm I'm confused too because it it appears from this that there's 14 extra minutes on core, but then there's seven extra minutes on Rams block, which is 21 extra minutes. She cut down some of the transitions. So how much time are we giving? What is the current time for transitioning kids between classes and then what are we changing it to? So um one of the 15 minutes 1 minute is given to Rams block but six minutes were pulled from other transitions that we have. So we do have that she pulled from. We do have transition points especially between lunches that we've had postco or as a result of co had probably more time than we really needed in

117there. So I can imagine she probably tightened up lunches. Um we usually have had um longer transitions between when you're transitioning from like your core classes to your arts. um the transition points that are that are built in there. Um and then we've also built in longer a longer transition from home room to the first period class as well. So if she if she in talking to her saying that like pulling from the different the the different um uh transitions that's likely where she's pulling from. The other part is that like we don't have our to build our perfect schedule. We don't have perfect we don't have perfect transitions um as far as the actual minutes that are built in. Some are two minutes, some are five minutes, some are three minutes just so that

118we get hit the per like so we create perfect blocks as far as like how they transition. We don't publicize that a lot. So um but it's not perfect and part of it their core classes are on the team. They're right next to each other. So in some cases we were giving too much transition time, right? So that's what they've been trying to adjust for the last couple years. So I'm just I I hear you and I see I can I can understand where she's getting the seven minutes for for for for RAM block my the thing still is so it's saying core academic classes went from 51 minutes to 56 minutes but up top it says additional time is 3.5 minutes 32 minutes is the passing time she spec it is no no she

119added 3 and 1/2 minutes but I think it was like a minute and a half in trans I don't want to speak but it says in the first the third sentence it says this is five minutes add to each core class daily but three 3 and 1/2 minutes allows for passing time between core classes above. Yeah, that's my understanding. It's the three and a half minutes is the is the passing time. So I I can um Can we get a can we get the current schedule just like this is what I'm doing with 15 minutes. I don't need all the other stuff. Does that make sense? Yes. Or just see the schedule. It's hard to see. And I respect that you need some flexibility and you're you're implementing this and seeing how it goes. I

120just want to also see like I think it would be fair to maybe get an update next year as well in terms of how it's going to assure people that it is an increase in instructional time. Yeah. And I think the tricky part with schedules too is I mean as you know like elementary we can just add it on to the blocks because teachers they have have the most of the day and at the high school it was easy to add on to each block. At the middle school, what gets trickier is the blocks of time like UA is when we get coverage for teachers for so that's the 82 minutes. So if you adjust here it then we also have to meet the contractual obligations for that. So that's the tricky part that she's

121trying to totally understood. I'm just if maybe if we see it mocked up that will that will that will help clear. Uh but from what I'm seeing it it it seems like a a good good plan. So um core academic so class outside of that do not extend 5 minutes. So the unified arts we did not increase and that's it would be nice if we could increase time of learning on all subjects but that is also the prep time for our general classes. So they're each 41 minutes and there two of them so it's 82 minutes which is the prep. Yep. And do we think that that increase for the enrichment block will will help with things like the transition with um algebra students? Is that sort of a focus for that do you think?

122I mean she talked about at the bottom about the math lab. So it really depends on I mean initially it was it was going to be an intervention block which is it already is but to use that for the tier 2 and tier three. I do think they still are trying to work out when they would offer the support for the um algebra one and the math 8 standards that students would need to recoup next year. So I don't that that might be a little bit more involved but I think that's part of the intent. I mean that is that is as far as like the placement of the Rams block is is meant for for that and including the the RAM the math tutor. Um the as you saw in the presentation that was

123done during the last school committee where our curriculum specialists presented on intervention. I mean, I think a space that I know Casey and Carla are still looking to figure out and hopefully with a tutor can support that is to be able to intervene and excel uh more students than than we currently are. So, I think that there's opportunity. I can't remember the exact numbers, but I want to say that was nearly a hundred students that were intervening at the at the elementary school and in a smaller much smaller number much smaller group um at the at the middle school. Yeah. With the different additional staff. I will say I do I do my um roundts. It happens during ramps block. So I usually am sitting there waiting for the kids to come to me and

124that time period goes very quickly. So I hear the concerns with trying to because they really do use that as a robust time frame. I would uh just like to uh give a shout out to uh to to Mr. Kim for for uh putting the 15 minutes into into science and and social studies because I think that's very important. We had to obviously when we moved science from a from a a special into the classroom, there was a lot of of concern about being able to meet those minutes. And so, one of one of my sort of hopes, silent hopes was that that they would be able to use that uh to to strengthen that and hopefully alleviate some concerns. I do think next year as we implement it, I'd like to hear sort of

125how that's going. But I I think that that was a um yeah, a smart decision. I appreciate that. I did ask him to consider that when he was applying those minutes for that reason because we knew that that was we were really even with the new model we were still stretching and tight and so this I think will be a really good opportunity and I feel like since that's been implemented I mean the teachers are really soaring with the but they've run out of time very quickly with science and social studies. Mhm. Okay. Any more? All right. We can all have board business. Uh you say this. Keep moving. No, keep mov sorry. All right. Update and enrollment staffing needs. Um I guess the budget uh post town meeting. So what what is sort of

126been we have our budget so that's not changing but um obviously what's you know happening underneath uh can change. Um who am I turning this over to? I'll hand it back. Enrollment. Yeah. Um enrollment uh really what we're focused on enrollment is our kindergarten number. Uh the and in your folder is a um is a enrollment uh document uh as well and past his history. It's really just an update of a document that you've received at a at a prior school committee meeting. Um the update to the kindergarten enrollment. Um we're as of today we're at 159 students in kindergarten. There are four kind of that were waiting for their forms to come back. So I I would say like a a a true true number is probably I mean the accurate technical number is

127159. We're probably at 163 right now and we will get some trickle in uh as well and kind of following this conversation on enrollment in the budget and our um staffing. We're going to talk about school choice and in the document you're going to see you're going to see some kind of reference to school's choice off highlighted in yellow as well. I'll save it for for that time. Um the but those are if you look at kind of our our projection and our numbers and I didn't I need to rerun that. So I guess the the 2003 the the 2370 is actually 20 uh three it's different number. I need to run the math again. So just don't reference that. It's a few more than that. Um the uh as we think about um staffing

128um as it relates to the budget, uh we're we're not we're not really any different than when town meeting went through and what what passed on that. Um as I said kind of with Commissioner Tutiler's um uh communication to us and to business administrators, I'm I'm feeling very encouraged by by circuit breaker uh at that point. That's a significant amount of money for the town of Holl for for Hollist Hollist public schools if that were to go through. Um and um I think that that's something important as we think about how how we kind of tightly got down to the 3.26%. Um that's going to serve as a as a great resource for us um in the future. Has there been any indication because I think what one of the things that you're talking about

129is a fiscal year 25 change right in for the transportation circuit breaker. Well, it's yeah, you can a little bit about kind of give you a little rundown of how we do circuit breaker is uh circuit breaker is a 2-year uh amount. So, um right now the circuit breaker amount that we're using that's about $2.3 million. Uh we're using it um for tuition and we received it. It's the circuit breaker from FY23 that we're using now in FY20 in FY25 because it's the second year of when we received it. So the uh circuit breaker for FY25. What we're going to get this year, we historically would not use it until FY27 for that amount, but it's nice to know that we will have that big amount if if necessary. That said, uh we got a

130pretty significant circuit breaker from FY24 that we're going to use in FY26, which is about $2.93 million um that um will be is much more significant than what we've got in the past. And um just is the discussion about the boost and sort of I think it's a transportation reimbursement. is are they looking at that as a obviously it's subject to appropriation every year but are they thinking that that's going to be something that's going to be sustainable like year over year as far as we're trying to retain I I I just don't know if they're even talking about it they they are putting that um out there I think that the the problem with the transportation side they've been very reliable as far as making sure that they get to the 75% reimbursement for

131the tuition the um the transportation is last dollar um and that's where they've at certain points in the budget process for the state that they've gone from committing to 75% as the amount and then by the time that you know the rubber hits the road and it's we're down to the remaining dollars that are in the state budget you're down to 44% 50%. So it's always going to be hard to budget you to include that in our budget for our projections. Correct. Yeah. So we we don't and that's the nice thing the way Ke Keith has set it up and left it in really really good state for for me is that um which is different than many districts is we don't have we're not in a fiscal place where we have to spend um

132our circuit breaker in the year that we receive it. Uh we we have that as a so we we know the amount we can budget for because we have it in hand already. Yeah, it's a good practice to do it the way we do here and other districts do, but there are many that have gotten themselves um in a pickle and unfortunately went that route and then there's no when emergencies come, you have no you know back for like and and Dan is right is the FI we didn't have to project circuit breaker for FY for its impact on our FY26 budget because we actually have we have that money now in in our accounts. I do want to talk about the enrollment again. I think there's just a quick typo. You probably caught it

133already, but the um when I looked at the difference between 25 26 and 2425, my heart like skipped and because it would have been a decrease of 220 students, but the total should actually be 2540 if you use your projected 170 number. It's really only a decrease of 50, which again I'm not thrilled about like that. We do have a enrollment decrease of 50 students, but that is actually not that much different than what we've seen over the last two years looking back. 23 to 24 was a decrease of about 40 students and 22 to 23 was 50. So it's kind of a reflection of the decreasing enrollment we've seen over the last three years, but it's not as drastic of us at 220. That's also before we do um school choice seats. So what

134you what you No, these numbers are post school. What you're looking at for for next year. No, the the look back are post are post uh they include the school. But if you're looking at this column for for next year the projections that's before we do school choice. If if we filled every school choice seat, which we never have, we still wouldn't be at the same number because it's a drop. It's still dropped by 50. And if we filled all 41 school choice, right? a little bit of move just saying it's not close, but you can most of that is that you've got 200 seniors, right? And then you've got a class that we're projecting to be 170 kindergarteners. So, you know, most of that is coming just from the a larger senior class rolling

135off in a in a smaller kindergarten class. I I guess the question I have is about grade one and I know that they were low this year. Those are the existing kindergarters where we only have about 141 in comparison to next year's kindergarten projected at 170 and second grade projected at 171. Is there any appetite for giving back capacity to that grade so we don't have a bubble going through? Like why didn't we open up 36 instead of six school choice seats? Uh so many of them I know you can't you're by school choice of the law you can't open up a class like you school choice is really just like a to cap off so like to cap those classes to cap a class so um right so you don't have a really low

136number but but I do think it's important that you know we're looking at we're projecting right now and and this has been consistent Dr. Jordan's been at 170 since Yes. for many months now, but last year we were 141. So, we're we're getting back to to sort of 170, which is where our where our second grade classes. So, I just think it's important because 141 was was was really scary. And we were looking at that like, you know, if that continues, you know, you know, we're we're in trouble, hopefully that can continue and we can get back to the the sort of more normalized 200. Uh but um I I do take comfort in that. Um, are we still looking at current French immersion enrollment of about 34 35? We are. Um, I think we're

137high. I think we're 18 and so this is it's even we have some that we have that have we're adding to that, but I think I want to I'm sure Dr. Sain is going to text me in the next 30 seconds. Um, but I Sorry to put you on the spot. No. Well, you're putting her on the spot. I think she's listening. I bet I bet if I hear my phone buzz while I'm words are coming out of my mouth, I'll flip over my phone and get the answer. But I I think we are we have added um French immersion numbers. So I think we are we're at 18 and 18. Um but we also have uh we're going to be opening up um six uh uh I think either five or five French immersion

138kindergarten seats on the other and we do have that number of applicants uh for French immersion. So we're already at 18 and 18 and and just to be clear, we sort of cap French immersion in a year where we have too many too many applicants at at 46, right? Or 23 class. So we're really getting back to kind of in that range of where we want to be, whereas now we're at 15, I think, right? We were a little low. And so I did say um to Jamie, please when you send out, you know, check, she was checking in on kindergarten enrollment. Is there anyone that hasn't enrolled yet? I said, "Please let people know that we have French emergency seats available if they they can still change if they have, you know, that." And

139I'm I'm And we did the same for first grade, I believe. Uh I based off of the applicants for for for school choice for French immersion, I'm I'm feeling pretty confident they're going to accept those positions. But, you know, as Don was saying just a couple minutes ago, you know, we might open up you all vote to open up 41 seats. We're not going to fill 41 seats, right? So, we'll see. But it's good. And then it looks like Monasuri is also ticked up. So, that Yes, Monasuri I thought was um really Yeah. Um what's the thought on 11th grade where you know there's it's 18 students behind the 12th grade. Again, I'm not trying to fill a class, but why don't we have any offerings for that? We've ne we've never historically filled um

14011th 11th and 12th grade. I think our conceptually uh we like to add kindergarten and then we want to educate them all the way through um in our school system. But I was thinking about you you can't add a class in high school because there's no so you can it's kind of an open number. We just add high school seats. We just add high school seats. We don't choose like a grade. So it's just what who applies for those high school seats generally. And I know we're kind of talking about a little bit of both because it's it's here. But um we also historically add a significant number of school choice seats in 9th grade. As they transition from 8th, we lose some to private schools and different spaces. So that's why and you all

141you will always see year-over-year a high number whether it's eight 10 seats, nine seats that we open up for for nth grade. What what why don't as we as part of this we just go right to the school choice recommendation just since we're we're kind of on that subject talking about it already. We're We're in deep. Um, is everyone sitting down for this conversation? School choice seats. No. No. Yeah. I think they're Everybody else missing it? I have it now. I have it up. It's not like a backup. I mean, yeah. Where are we? It's at the No, wait. Oh, yeah. It's at the top. So, no. So, um, David, so in previous years, we would open up high school seats, not specific grades. We would just open up 9th through 12. Is there just

142a different philosophy that you're trying to open up a certain number at 9th and 10th? I probably missed what Keith specifically presented to you all, but this is the format that and in his notes that I have. So, maybe he just didn't show that. I think it's just what showed up. My my understanding was we always did 9 through 12. Sorry. He's I Speaking of text I'm going to get soon after. Okay. Well, maybe we'll text you if I'm wrong, but um I feel like I could I think what he did just say high school didn't get into the weeds on it is my recollection. And it's also because you can be in 10th grade and be taking something and get to 11th. You know what I mean? Like you can be taking Well, and

143I think what's harder too the later they enter are different. It's harder than especially with the schedule that we have. It's sometimes harder for them to get what they need if they haven't been here all Yeah. I mean you exact Susan's exactly right. You you want nth graders cuz so that they're you're not having to mess with all of their credits. You don't want them to lose. You don't have that conversation. That being said, there could be some extraordinary circumstance in some other district like maybe there's a student who's having a challenging time in Ashland and they would reach out to us and say, "Is it okay if I move my student into Hall?" Especially if they're like a star center. I don't think we should preclude that from happening. Occasionally it happens. I think

144occasionally I mean I know it's happened the other way. We do have that. So when you once you vote to open the seats and as long as the applicants we extend it out and there no longer is a wait list on those spots. We do have times throughout the course of the year where there are exceptional situations that we school choice. I think we just try to be flexible to allow that. So can we capitalize K? Um sorry because it's bothering me. Um but But so just so I understand. So you're recommending one kindergarten traditional. Yes. And five kindergarten French. Yes. Okay. Just one. Um what are the other? And so do we are all the And so that that I'm just making sure I'm get the nomenclature. Do we have applicants for all of

145these seats currently? Yes. Okay. The one I would like to us to consider opening and you can tell me how horrible an idea this is in just a second. Let's share. would be on our French immersion and if we have capacity in Mostory would be to open it up open up the number of seats that would allow us to get to the maximum number that we would allow in each class for those for those spec specific ones. So I think for the Montasauri just the way the way the Montasauri goes is in the younger grades they have the um like the kindergarten ones is the preschool and kindergarten. So you have 11 or 12 kindergarteners and then how many I think it's 10 preschoolers. So that's why that number. Okay. So we don't need to

146do anything for monatory. The full amount that is the full amount. Okay. That's fine. I just didn't want I wouldn't want to Jamie Jamie is texting me. So I got my answer on the French. It is 18 and 18. Perfect. Also to that question, um the we do our policy kind of has indicates like summer 17 or 18 or whatever is the cap for those CL those young 23 for the big I think it's for for kindergarten and first I think it's I'd have to look back but is definitely 23. No, it's 23. It's 46 total. So it's 23 for each class, right? I think but we still need to make sure that we have like there might be summer enroll and we're required to allow them to go into so no we're required to

147allow them to have a a seat in kindergarten I understand that but so I mean I think that right now we are going to need as we talked about that might happen we are needing to shift um a teacher to kindergarten which we had not planned on budgetarily because we are up to pretty close to max in traditional that's we are I thought you were going to transition somebody the other direction. I would we have a little bit of both, right? Caner, but doing that in French immersion wouldn't change it if we went up to sort of allow it up to our policy maximum. I just I just want to really make sure and I wanted to do this for for Monatory, but something monatory is fine. It's just to really make sure that we

148have fill the classes fill the classes in are really supporting the really supporting that. Um, but just to open seats up for addition, you know, I'm just was going to look up the policy, but I don't really that's so we can maybe we vote on this and you can kind of kind of work with Dr. Shelane and get her uh sort of recommendation to open some capacity to allow you to accept school choice in in both kindergarten and um first grade French over over the summer. Obviously, the preference would be if someone moves to town and they apply before a school choice person, but I wouldn't want to turn away um a school choice applicant if we have a spot, but just the school committee hasn't opened it up and we're not meeting and so

149therefore, you know, yeah, you could vote to open more, right? That's what I'm So, um you have the option to do that. Can we flip back to the enrollment table once more? What seats? What is all the way on the right where it says current SC 2425, it starts with 8, ends with 15. What is What is that? That's this year. This is what we voted last year. Yeah. To open up school choice. So we can compare that to what's being recommended this year. Okay, I got it. Yeah. So we have a lot less seats in high school though. This year we that we open up we have um sorry this this is the number of the on the far right are the current kids in each one of those grades that are school choice.

150That makes more sense. So like in 12th grade there are 15 kids but I guarantee probably the majority of them joined us in kindergarten. So so we have 15 seniors right now that are school choice graduates. So if we're looking at at incremental dollars too we need to the first 15 are just replacing budgetarily what we what we have today. Well, but but we're looking at the number um that we will we're projecting the 209 in 12th grade for next year despite that. You know what I mean? That 15 is part of our um 200 in 12th grade right now. Right. Yeah. But I will say as far as I mean school choice is a is a revenue that you get um from from the state. We're doing a service but we're also receiving a

151revenue uh for it. the um you know we while we're opening up 41 seats we would in order to break our break even on the revenue that we collect we need those f those 15 back and everybody to stay stay in place and we feel pretty confident that we have the applications so far we do yeah especially those French sometimes they say no even and sometimes you apply for school choice at four different schools right here [Music] but less so at the younger grades younger Great. At least that most of the existing schools get to get returned. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We hope so. So, we we have 63 applicants right now. How many was last year? I'd have to have like Frank, honestly. I was trying I'm trying to win there. Give me a big

152number. I think last year was 90 around 90 last year. Yeah. Yeah. That's because Keith did it. Um I got a kid. Um, okay. So, I'm I'm okay. Starting with this, but then would would like a recommendation on sort of opening some capacity, if you will. Is that people especially if it's at the younger grade? No, no. In first grade and second in kindergarten and first grade and really just French immersion because because we would unless there are other I don't think there's there aren't any other French immersions. Just those total. No, no, no. capacity to get to because obviously we've adjusted the um current kindergarten class the first we're adjusting the the first grade sort of staff to meet those kids. So that would be it's it won't change. Yeah. So where are you

153ask what this is specifically the French immersion. So we have 18 is 36. We have five kindergarten French immersion uh seats that you're recommending. So that would bring that would bring us to what 41. Yes. 20 21. And so in theory, what I'm saying is could we open up five additional seats to get us to 46? Yeah, that would be my that that would that's that and I would want uh Dr. Slaney to to to weigh in on and we you can we don't we don't need to do that now. Uh but that would be so to give you the flexibility over the summer so that we don't need to to to would we reopen up though and like ability to apply school choice because we only have we opened it up the application process

154but they could still they can still put an application in later, right? Yeah, like I'm not I'm not telling anybody no right now. It's more that you're so that we can engage in this process that you're wanting a deadline for. And then the other thing is obviously if we have f do we have five kids interested in first grade French immersion? Yes. Yes. That's fantastic. We were worried about that year and the sustainability, right? But but now that would bring the class to 35. So could we do 10 in that one too because obviously we're not going to get you know we're not going to get Yeah. 10 more. So five. So you know that would make it the 41. Are you talking about the first or the kindergarten? I'm so now on the first

155grade. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Can I just go back for a second? So I get So we always started out with it being like 23 and 23 because we expect some attrition, right? So from kindergarten into first grade, maybe you lose like three kids or somebody moves out of town. And so like over the first few years, you expect it to get have a smaller class. That being said, I feel like the students who are coming in right now in the postcoavid time have are coming with less of the other skills that I think that it warrants us being more mindful of having a smaller class size to start out. So I don't know whether it makes sense for us to start at 23 students for each of those. That's why we want Dr. Selen, which

156is why she could weigh in. And I was just sort of thinking too, if you have 30 kids in French immersion in the first grade now and we're adding five, right? you're adding, you know, one sixth increase, right, of kids who don't may not necessarily have the same skill set as the current if you if you did, and this is why again I'd want Dr. Slaney and to to speak to the first grade math to the first grade French immersion teachers. If you did 10 seats right now, you'd have a third or sorry, a quarter of your of your new class who weren't in French in kindergarten. And how does that impact how does that impact the learning? Well, in in previous years, you would if students came in after kindergarten, well, I guess kindergarten

157or first grade, they would get assessed to see whether it was appropriate for them to come in before they did. Oh, I didn't know we do we do assessments for first grade, right? I I was second might be you might be right about second, but I think that would allow that because they're not as advanced as second. I know second for sure we do have a little test if that someone comes in and they have a certain fluency. So why don't we vote this recommendation tonight and then you you can go back to Dr. Sh and find out what sort of the cap is and if there's add or what the what her her and her you know the teachers are comfortable with and if there's additional seats we can open up capacity to allow

158for that. That's not right. It's a good starting point. Does that work? Okay. So then um text from Dr. Do we need is there I can't remember is is school choice we need some formal language or something for opening up C2 we do have to vote because we have to submit it by June 1st I know we need to vote but is there anything specific we need to vote on like we just vote on the number of seats presented you just change the number of the total number to um 2533 that we currently have at the bottom there the number should be 2540 cuz he's projecting 170 I hear you on the 160 We're voting on the seats though. We're not We're not voting on the enrollment. I know, but it's just document. I'm 100%

159changing. I got my little note here to change the the actual document. You can't vote on the enrollment though. Yeah, this is you're just voting voting on the It's just a It's just the number was added incorrectly or it was a typo. I don't know. So, I'll entertain a motion to approve opening up I think 41 total school choice seats as presented in the uh recommendation from from uh Dr. Guska and Dr. Jordan. Thank you. Sarah second. Can you let Cynthia [Music] seconded? Thank you. All right, Joe. Frank, yes. Sarah, yes. Cynthia, yes. Don, yes. Hillary, and I apologize, Hillary, do you have anything to add? Uh, it's easy to forget people on Zoom. Okay, it is. Um, and I'm a I I am I'm a yes as well. So, we're there. And then if

160we have supplement recommendations, we can stick to them. Um, okay. Last topic. Moving. We we're so far ahead right now. Um, because you skip agenda. You go from 8:30 to 9:15. I do I do that to keep you uh on your toes and that way we can end. I think we do. Looking for school. That was a little Easter egg. Okay. Extended. Okay. So, um, now an update on an extended day program. I know we we discussed, uh, new rates and and you were going to communicate those out. Um, how is that going? And, um, have we been able to figure out more capacity to to get some of those? I'm going to hand off to David after I just say, um, thank you, David. And, uh, David and I have been working very closely

161with the extended day staff because, um, I think some we would agree that it was sent out prematurely. That was not something that neither David or I were aware of that the current parents that have children in the program had already gotten recommendations, but they had not been vetted through David and me. And once we saw that, we immediately started working on that, but it took some time with the with the school start times changes that changed the minutes. So, we did a complete overhaul and I feel like the um the team now is ready to go and I think they they've got that information all ready to go and maybe even out already. Yeah, we met with them earlier this week just to kind of uh was it this week or last week? It

162was this week again. Monday. Um just to finalize and say they are good to uh communicate those out to the to the community as far as the tuition numbers. Um we did share those tuition numbers in budget sub to kind of review and make sure that you know showed the the logic as far as that was used to kind of reach the numbers that were on and I think we reached a good place that we felt comfortable with the the tuition numbers that that were going forward. So that should be communicated as soon as they are able to craft the document they need to put out. They're going to be putting those tuition numbers um out. Um we uh they were very accommodating as far as uh like our largest weight list group which is

163our kindergarten um weight list. Uh they were in our conversation and we kind of looked and analyzed as far as where they're staffing and where we could ship uh staffing. uh were able to open up um additional seats um to lower the weight list specifically um in kindergarten uh um in total. So in in 2025, so we're looking at as far as the number of students that we have uh will have enrolled is going is equates to about 251 students this past year, this current year, we're at we are currently at 224 um students. So that's just an a a pretty significant increase of students that we're going to have. Just so that you have a a just kindergarten or No. So total this is like the total uh kindergarten. So just to kind of

164focus on I guess on the the kindergarten we had um we had we have 34 students that were going to enroll in kindergarten uh for for this year. Last year was 18. Um so we we opened up uh and they were great about opening up a significant uh number of seats for for our for our for Hollist. Um so our but just to give you some reference the total number of students we had 2324 uh was 191 with 55 that stayed on the wait list. Uh this year was 224 with 44 students still on the wait list. Uh and this year we're at next year or next year we're at 251 with 63 currently on the wait list. But what will happen as he confirms um seats because they'll send out another thing like are

165you definitely committing when they pay their down payment and then we'll end up moving some of that 63. So correct even though it says 63 now it could get much closer. Yeah. Your 44 and 63 are not a comparable number because the 63 will go down as people say no to their their spot. Can we know about how much movement there usually is for folks? I I know that it's I don't have a good finger on what that is just to know that um the trend looking year-over-year it it just goes down. we once we actually publicize this out once it actually gets the rubber hits the road we end up not and I know that one thing that um Kathy and Helen spent some time talking with that asking us that we we won't

166be able to necessarily do for we decided it's a lot of change we won't do it for this year but we're going to do this is is a um deposit uh for the families because I think they get stuck at the last minute where they're in like July August and a family says no I'm not coming there and it's too that would have wanted it, right? So again, we want to commit as many as we can and that's what we're working and I thank you. I appreciate all the work that you did on this. I know Hillary and I were at an office hour in um March and someone had come with lots of questions about this and and and we had the same questions Don and I think that David and I were both

167concerned because we have never been that involved in that process but because of the start time changes it was like the perfect storm and it had it had always been managed by the the director and the um assistant director. So there hadn't been a need they they usually met with Keith and adjusted like an hourly rate based on cola or you know going to staff right but that is why we actually because of the changes we also asked them not to increase the hourly correct so that the only change you might see is if the child is now because of the change in time going to be there longer term being explained to parents right because parents in the right some of them are sizable jump because of that two hours difference every day. Yeah,

168I mean that's that's the part that um a good point in what we talked a little bit in budget sub as far as like somehow some type of way to communicate a clear type of communication understand that [Music] um what they will pay in a year a parent who historically have it may increase because the that specific program increased a significant number of hours total. Um so therefore but the the rate per hour has not changed. Um now as the number of bulk hours increased we we did do kind of um a reduction in the the rate about a 5% reduction. Um similarly is that we if in the the hourly rate is if ours significantly decrease to a smaller number there's a bit of a premium a 5% premium on those numbers. So some

169some so there as you can it's more expensive to run it for the shorter because you have to staff it still. Um so you you do The larger the program, the the the the smaller the hourly cost is. Yeah. So, in some cases now that the child might be their longer hours, but we they would be paying less per hour. Yes. So, that's the part that gets tricky for people because they're just looking at the overall and not families that are less hours now than they did are paying less. But, but it's a premium rate. Yeah. But they're still paying less than Overall, yes. Got it. That makes sense. Okay. So, that's good. And and again, I know you're doing this, but just anything we can do to get people who are on the wait

170list who want a spot off just give especially given this year when we change the start times and it's having a pretty significant impact on on some families and we would and I had suggested we try to get a deposit now but that wasn't advertised that way but we do with kindergarten. So I mean what we used to do with kindergarten now with we do with preschool get a deposit in the spring. We just start pay making your quarterly payments very early. Yes. essentially the same with extended day. Get a more firm deposit earlier. Okay. Um that does bring us to the end of our regular uh agenda, I think, if we hit everything. Okay. Uh we we do have a need for executive session. Um our next full uh committee meeting will be on

171May 29th. Uh we do have a meeting uh this coming Monday. um just it it should be fairly short and so I didn't want to get HCAT uh you know all ramped up with all this so I I totally didn't need to but people are are obviously it's an open meeting people can attend um but um with that I will entertain a motion to adjourn to executive session from which we will now return to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting uh may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares do I have a Do I do I hear that motion? So move second. That does, as everything has tonight, require a roll call vote. Uh Joe, yes.

172Frank, yes. Sarah, yes. Cynthia, yes. Don, yes. Hillary, yes. And uh I'm a yes. So um thank you very much everyone and uh good night and thank you Cynthia.