School Committee Meeting - 3/13/2025

001good evening and uh welcome to the March 13th uh 2025 uh meeting of the halls and school committee uh we will get right into the uh agenda I'll first entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda unless there are any um updates or anything okay all those in favor thank you um one thing I I think um we'll get a report from our student representatives and do our own individual comment but then before we get to public comment I'd like to do the uh budget presentation because I think there's some things in there that uh might be informative um going forward so does that work for everyone okay um so our student representatives are here um spring Sports start next Monday the 17th the senior showcase is next Wednesday the 19th Carley freck is bringing

002in a holocaust Survivor to talk to the school mcast is March 25th and 26th um for the 10th graders for English underclassmen are going to pick their classes at the end of next week um semi-formal is March 21st um the two weeks ago we had Deca States and we had some qualifiers for Nationals the qualifiers are son javali Josh sing Vishal ramanan Jacob lendy and Gavin mcgan we also have had a lot of discussion about the schedule ual at school and we have some comments on it um we have an Instagram account the Holliston student advisory Council and that account has 234 followers we put a poll on there asking for feedback 168 people um responded to this poll volunteer base we had 10 people respond that they liked this new schedule and we had

003158 people say they did not want this new schedule happening at this moment um as you know underclassman are supposed to pick classes next week and it's kind of hard for them to pick what classes they want without knowing what schedule they will have next week and they want to be as prepared as possible for the future and I know a couple people that it's hard for them like their after school commitments they rely on school they commitments go after homework so there's also a lot of that MH and we also have had some comments on the Instagram so sort of like Ramia said a lot of the responses were that it's going to stress out um stress them about their jobs after school because they have a lot of that all of the new

004classes especially with multiple APS um it's going to be confusing like even though there are some I know Mr list is doing like some like information like meetings but I think a lot of people are still really confused about that um and overall it just was like a very very negative response on the students hand also about the start times the form that was sent out included three times that was 750 8 and 810 but the time that was went with was 8:15 so there's a little bit of confusion on that that's all we have um the as far as the start times go obviously we we had a lot of discussion around that and things moved a little bit from from some of those options but um I think we'll get to we we'll

005hear more from from some people about the the ab schedule and understand that there are definitely some concerns and we want to hear about them and see if there are ways that we can um either work with Dr kusco and and Mr list uh to to make some adjustments within that schedule that to address some of those concerns or um just try to make things a little bit easier appreciate everything you're trying to do I understand that this is probably a lot of stress on everyone it's what I'm it's what we're paid for yeah there's no perfect schedule so but thank you um is that yeah okay great um we'll get uh we'll do uh School commit individual comment now Frank um nothing okay nothing for me Jo nothing Sarah nothing um I'm just thinking

006that in light of some of the comments they were making maybe it would be worth it for us to kind of figure out whether we can have a public forum so that we can actually get some of those questions addressed for if it's possible to do that before the students have to do you know put their schedules together before they have to put their schedules well I don't know I mean I I mean I would if if it's possible I don't know if it is possible but why don't we list lot of forums in addition to Mr list well I just I don't think we've had a forum like in the evening for folks who may not be able to come to something during the day so they can so parents can understand list I

007went to his presentation on Monday evening and I know he's doing another one on the 19th is that you want something in addition to that I mean maybe they were I thought it was pretty helpful but I think Mr list and the administration will have better like the questions now are come up is like what does this mean to my schedule and I don't know if any of us would be in a position to answer that right so he would need to guide that with his team by what date a class is chosen do you have meeting with their counselors they have sometime end of and I think my understanding is the classes are the same whether it's the current schedule or the different schedule but I still know that people have questions about what

008it's going to look like um but I hope it doesn't impede the ability to at least pick what you want CU it should come out the same as far as the classes you want should be the same either way it just laid out differently that makes sense uh I think an email went out today that says uh that counselors will join students in classes during the week of March 24th to go over course selection course selection opens Friday March 21st and closes Friday April 4th does that answer your question Friday April 4th okay um and you had referenced the survey I've seen a copy but now I'm worried I've only seen a partial copy so do you have uh do you have access to the survey with comments as well we have a picture of

009we have pictures but we can get we can get access to all of them is that something you could provide so we have some of that information do you want us to not right now okay not at the moment but within the next week yeah okay thank you okay um do you have any comments no okay and and I don't either so we'll uh we'll move to the to the budget uh presentation um I promise it won't be be be too long um we still have some work to do before uh the plan is to vote next week so we kind of have a bottom line number um that we've uh voted earlier today in budget um second slide um okay maybe now I need my PowerPoint just look at not slide two and three

010I'll put the um put the the PDF in there okay bring that up stop Shing is it in the folder mhm same name just the PDF [Music] PF opens okay is this just I yes we just voted it we met in Budget on um yesterday um and then we met again today to vote on and we're not we're not asking for a vote tonight so this is the presentation okay we still have some some key details to to work out um how we get to that number being one of them so it's School committee's FY 26 operational budget and then we also have the capital budget in here as well at the end [Music] I don't is there a reason why we're not doing you want to do this before we have [Music] doing all

011right um so first of all uh we just wanted to thank you to uh to the residents of hollon for supporting the the tax override in September um this was an incredibly important step for our district and was supported by 67% of those who who showed up to vote and is is is greatly appreciated so as we go through our budget just know that what we're able to do is only because of uh your support um the town's budget picture is still tight though again this year um when all the initial requests were were put in and sent to the town manager um the initial cut based on the the revenue projections at the time was a $640,000 deficit so um the town is certainly not a wash with cash and is going to need

012to find uh you know um getting to Wi window that down some um the holl and school committee and select board have sent a joint letter uh to our state elected officials uh laying out the funding shortfalls the week chapter7 um continued issues with uh you know Rising uh special education costs um and other funding needs and so the budget of the budget process at the state level continues and so we don't have final uh numbers from there but we're we're continuing to base it off of I believe they're working off the governor's number um the house and school committee remains committed to meeting the commitments we made during the override by closing the Gap to the town manager and finance committee recommended budget go one more okay um so the budget subcommittee has worked

013closely with the central office administration on identifying ways uh to close the gap um from the superintendent's initial budget that was over a month ago uh so we have new information since then and so we're we're we're making some strides which we'll go into in a minute um since Dr Kusa presented her budget um okay up there there we go updated information has uh has come in so specifically our final recommendation um um will be presented on 327 with all the details um and we'll vote at that time but the budget subcommittee has voted to recommend a bottomline budget request of 44,5 183,184 which is a 1.6 million do increase over last year or 3.75% increase um this includes um any sort of priority needs that we're able to to fit in based upon how

014far down we can winow the the underlying level service budget so as as I said we continue to um look towards meeting our commitment to get to the 3 and a qu% that we as we said during during the override um and we believe that we do have line of sight to that but there's just some moving pieces uh to to work on before we can are able to finalize that with Administration next slide so just um looking at sort of where we're coming from in fiscal year 5 where we said we would be with the budget over with the uh fiscal projections that we made um so during the override um we projected that our budget for fiscal year 26 would be up by 4.26% um we recognized at the time that that was

015obviously above the 3 and a qu% that the town uh um Town Administrator now Town manager had um sort of allocated preliminarily to the school for through the budget um projections that he made made and when when Dr kusco presented her initial budget over a month ago that we were at 4.21 and then 4.68 when you included all the priority needs so essentially the underlying budget when you don't include the priority needs we're kind of right on where we were projecting the number to be um since then as as said we've continued to do some work and we found some um some savings which will the details of which will'll go into uh later but we do believe we'll get to um a 3.75 on an overall budget um and very close to the three

016and a quarter uh on on a level service budget so I realize we would like to have some some uh of the more details now but we'll get those to you as soon as uh we're able to sort of finalize those But it includes a as I said moving pieces one thing I'd like to note is that um when going through all of this it we had origin um projected a $700,000 um decline in special education costs however you need to First net that with bringing back on the $750,000 that the town had picked up on a onetime basis for us so our actual projection within the override budget override projections was for an increase in special education cost of $47,000 the current uh decrease in special education costs is $99,000 so we're actually under

017in special educ ation cost from from where we were originally projecting despite the headwinds that we've been talking about over the over the last few weeks um we're slightly over on on um on Personnel slightly under on on on operations but that's before we've taken any sort of measures to look at enrollment and things like that any questions about this slide um the next slide is is just kind of a a list of of um the main drivers obviously the largest is is um employee costs most of which are contractual um we're also adding back the 750 uh from the special ed funding from the town uh The District transportation of 245,000 which is roughly in line with the 275,000 we projected uh would the the bus contract would go up to um account for

018the increased need for additional buses and the cost per bus to implement the new start times and getting everybody onto two start times from from uh from three currently uh special education transportation services are up a little over 100,000 um custodial services are up almost 45,000 um administrative technology which is uh some some programs and uh subscriptions and things 31,000 um other operational costs are about 24,000 um then you've got some contracted services from medical up 13,000 utilities up 10,000 Athletics up 10,000 [Music] um districtwide uh technology 4ou of 4,000 heating of buildings down 26,000 um norag agagi down 999,000 the maintenance of buildings we removed the 100,000 that was put in there as part of the override um and then the reduction in the net special education tuition costs of of $884,000 I just

019want to highlight the the noric Agy number that is a a risk that we we we currently see so that is consisting of essentially a net plus one there were three there are three graduating seniors currently um and we are budgeting for four new enrollments and there have been nine applications um so that is a a potential risk if we have significantly more applications it's about 30,000 student last year we saw some favorability where the numbers actually came in below where we were expecting so we we we'll see that we don't find out for a few months from that so are those increases in state aid um locked in like we know we're getting them or is there the circuit breaker yeah we're our circuit breaker we we have that amount now we it's a

0202-year uh Grant we we received the circuit breaker from 2024 um in the fall of 2025 and we start to get in it over like a SE several payments over the course of this year but we don't use it this year we're actually we've been accessing the 2023 um circuit breaker that we received in 2024 this year and we'll use the next year's SE yeah any other questions on this these are all the numbers that came out of the parts one two and three which are later that that Dr Jordan and uh Dr Kus have already presented um so then at the payroll which is the next slide again this is uh the same information that was presented earlier a lot will post this to the uh to the town's website for for those of

021you that don't have a um like 60020 Vision um I think that's how it goes right um but it shows it currently before any any additional adjustments and and no um additional retirements like that we know is is up 4.93% for for payroll um we'll just the next is the operations slide that's the same one that we've uh looked at a number of times special education is on slide nine again this will be on the um we'll put this on the website so that people can can look over the numbers um looking at priority needs which is slide 10 um we uh agree and and want to move forward trying to get the the five priority needs that Dr Kusa put forward uh additionally um we're Sugg jesting um trying to see if we can

022if we can work in the quarter ft uh increase to get the hollon high school course performing arts teacher to a 1.0 from from a 75 that's um largely driven by our anticipated increased enrollment in those classes due to a shift to the ab schedule so um The Hope is moving that out of the um out of dsb will allow more students to um take advantage of of those great offerings that we have again though that's going to be budget dependent but um it's also a fairly modest uh expense um given the potential benefits and I think that one another thing that uh has been that makes this um more compelling is that over the last um you know few years we've seen a lot of turnover in that in that in this specific position

023we'd also seen a lot of turnover in the Miller and and Middle School position and then last year we went to one point0 FTS for both cores and band shared between Miller and Rams and I think you'd say that that's been working out pretty well yeah the scheduling can be tricky but the benefits of it has been um the fact that the kids will be followed through with the same people has made a big difference already so because we've lost people to full-time jobs um looking at the the capital requests the budget uh subcommittee has is is supporting a 1.02 n uh 1, 129,000 uh budget request price of $75,000 for Wi-Fi equipment upgrades at Rams in the High School uh though we note that there was a 40% rebate so um while we have

024to request the full 75,000 we expect to get 30,000 back on that if we if we go forward with that um $999,000 for the auditorium lighting um for those you've been following this for for years this number has been on the the the capital um plan for a number of years at $250,000 and um Dr Jordan Dr kusco sort of put pen to pen to paper working with uh to window down to exactly what we need to fix right now there are still additional things that that can be done over time yeah like can after we do this we can kind of all aart thereafter if we need to Y um but this gets the the risk of failure and not having lights out of the way and very importantly too um it's transportable so

025if we did get a new high school we could actually move the the lights uh to to the new school um additionally there's $75,000 for exterior doors across the district um just over time doors need to be replaced um and then we are still working on sort of finalizing a number the administration is still working on finalizing a number talking to the different departments but right now we're estimating uh that we will need $30,000 uh for additional supplies at the high school um to implement the the schedule change and so we're going to include that as part of our Capital request uh finally uh we're going to be looking for about 75,000 75 $750,000 for to um finish or to do the the Rams roof in in one go uh the the initial plan was

026to do half of it and then half of it later when we got the bids in the bids came in lower than expected and the money that we got appropriated in the fall is actually able to do 2/3 of the budget and this will it's 2/3 of the roof and this will finish the roof doing it at one time saves about $100,000 versus splitting it up into into two so a scaffolding and setup cost um and then that's just the uh the override projection analysis so um that's where we we stand right now um if there any questions um but the plan is by the 27th we will sort of if you 5 five we will have the tbds filled in and sort of a list of different changes and how we're we're going to

027get to um to the number where we need to get to one thing I say you know we're looking at at a bunch of different shifts but it will the expectation is that it will not result in any any any job elimination any people job eliminations so it's it's a good thing okay just to be clear though make sure everyone's clear the if there's enrollment shifts which we should be aware of are there I want to be clear to the community that when we say there's no people is like people will be like oh if there's enrollment shifts in that case what's the process and is there possibility there are folks that are not qualified to take on a new role so every year we look at enrollment shifts potentially and we also look at

028um retirements and then we determine what the the true needs for the upcoming year is so I mean that regardless of budget we also um are Frugal and try to be prudent of what our true needs are so um we've had to shift staff based on enrollment bubbles that have gone up um we definitely have seen a decline overall at placentino so there could be um moving forward some positions that will not be um in the budget next year which will help offset some of the needs that we have but we're hoping to maintain um all of the staff you know again with attrition and retirements and all of that so there may be potentially some less positions but they will be confident the tetris pieces of who's qualified to do what roles we'll be

029able to yeah we have to look at all of that as and then we can also um okay we move people around every year just based on you know sometimes just the movement happens and the bubble goes up and people unfortunately have to move to accommodate a higher level in one grade than the other okay I would add just you know it's very very early in that in that process we feel really good about the number and where we're going and so um you know our our goal is to have uh as little to know impact on on people as possible but um you know that's we're pretty early and we got a lot of we learn and favorability over over the next couple months got and also keeping in mind that we're looking to

030maintain um the good class sizes we you know we're not looking to top off and have high numbers we you know we've been able to stay Below in most cases the number that is the um recommended top in the school committee policy um so we're not looking to get to that top number um in any way but we also need to make sure that we're not having very small class sizes in the same um Dr Jordan um there's a mention um District transportation for the new Star times of 245,000 do we have a contract in hand with homes or anyone else that's been we have his estimate um as far as that um and then are just working through like what when we would do the the sign contract for him but um his estimate

031um comes in uh as of right now um below what we more or less projected um by hairs but hopefully yeah but this is you know they're um where the things that I think at this point which I know could could potentially impact that Transportation budget were like just recently we had to add a smaller a smaller bus um this year um so it's less about like you know Apples to Apples we we're having we've had to add some smaller buses and some different things and situations that those are still drivers as far as that budget line with with homes um so uh but based off of um comparing um our budget uh what we budgeted for transportation in fy2 to you know matching that to FY 26 we we coming up uh pretty good

032um but we I do know of at least one small bus that we're we're looking at we probably are going to need to add um which might come in a little bit a little bit higher than what we were hoping for okay do we think think that we'll have that negotiated by time that we have to vote next time that the contract will be sett I can I can definitely talk with him thank you will end up probably changing our recommendation no I know I just this is the first time I've seen this so I just wanted to sure I don't really have any other questions to ask because I just saw it when I said no I just want to remind everyone that you know just because when we vote on the on the

033the 27th and that obviously goes forward to the finance committee and we We Begin negotiations and we go through it we'll go through it again so just out of curiosity when we get this approximate $30,000 back uh in rebates what are we putting that to us that's going back to the capital fund Capital fund yeah so that doesn't go to us that goes back to the time or pizza um but it does sort of lower than the net expected sort of expense right um or pays for high school supplies I sliver just under a million dollars then yeah we got let's go all right um everyone good yeah okay um so we'll move on to to public comment now we do have um a bunch of people so I'm going to ask uh that we

034try to keep it to to two minutes per person is there anyone on the zoom that is going to want it if you we have one is there anyone on Zoom who wants to participate in public comment just raise your hand so I know that if they can use this the raise hand feature that would be helpful one person wrote in okay so we get and then oh and then so the get 13 okay so no one on okay okay do you want to do the time how much time are we allowing two two 2 minutes and uh Donna will raise her hand at uh 30 seconds just to give you a a warning so uh first up we have uh Steven Lio and if you just state your name you don't need to give

035your address if you're a student but your your grade would be great uh Steven Lima um I'm a junior firstly I would like to thank Jim Morelli from Boston 25 news for taking interest in this issue hi my name is Stephen and I'm a junior here at HHS the vast majority of students believe that we have not had our voices heard Mr agura approved this when he stated at past meeting quote General consensus if the current schedule is awful end quot I've not heard anyone who will directly be directly affected by this uh schedule change share this opinion is your responsibility to use the students feedback before making such an impactful decision I bringing a different perspective I have diagnosed dyslexia and anxiety and have had tremendous issues in this District my mom has even

036been told by Major decision for accommodations that just because you have dyslexia doesn't mean it impacts you academically make this make sense I'll help you you can the schedule will make everything harder it creates the possibility for now eight tests before every single break because all teachers want to get working beforehand this will directly lead to tremendous increase anxiety and stress for me and many other students additionally as someone with dyslexia my brain works slower on all academic tasks so with the increased course Lo the amount of work I'll have to do outside of school will tremendously increase increas in one of his many emails to me Mr Alfred stated quote it will not be doubling the work this is factually wrong more classes mean more work and that's the truth especially before breaks and

037during finals let me use this analogy if your boss came to you and said you have to do eight tasks instead of four and you had no time you would be mad this is how we feel the idea that we will not have an increased workload is insanely inaccurate it makes me question how much you all other than Mrs lenik truly understand the impact of this change this schedule is a rush fix it's a rush fix for an issue that you seem to think is present Mr alred even stated quote is the ab option perfect no end quote why rush into something that isn't perfect what you all should have done and what I urge you to do now is find option that's perfect and spend L your time to implement it I thank Mrs

038steing for voting no and urge you all to reconsider because we will be suffering for it thank [Applause] you back just thanks just just just other than than um a complete reversal of the decision though there any things that you've seen that would that we might be able to do to help with um alleviate some of your concerns well I talked with Mr list as you had said and basically what came out of it is all the issues remain present and no one knows what's going on because the lock there's a insanely amount of lock there's a lot of a lack of communication and from what I understand and what I know is true from talking with some people that the only reason why the schedule got approved is cu the only one that the

039union didn't need to say yes on so in my mind it's just a rush fix for an issue that great you may want a new schedule I can understand that but spend the time to implemented two months you started last year but you didn't really spend the necessary time to implement the schedule and now we're going next week to course elction and no one has any idea Mr LZ gave some forms but he himself has no idea what he's T like no idea what he should Lobby for I had a meeting with him he was saying oh do you think this or this could be helpful because he doesn't know what to fight for because he himself you guys use the word feasible this is the only Co feasible option but be but it still

040limits so much for the students and all the all your counterarguments to why you think this is a good fix all can be disproved it's just I think as Cynthia said a forum where we could actually voice our concerns and you got you all listen would be very beneficial thank you so try to do better communication and um I think talking with Mr list myself uh you know he seems to be trying to find some solutions to some of the issues that are underlying um to address some of the concerns that the students have had so I think that's more why he's asking questions but uh we can definitely work on the the better communication piece of it um Oliver I for two minutes I'll I'll tell you when there's 30 left okay try I

041a little bit more so I'm just going to talk fast if you guys have any questions please let me know thank you um my name is Oliver Brown I'm a junior um I live at 66 winr Street um I'm representing the voice of a lot of students here at hollon who signed a petition that I made um plus the survey that they um uh released uh at the school last school committee the HSC made a unilateral decision to change our schedule to a two-day eight block format rather than relieving stress about the current schedule issues this is moved to only see distrust misunderstanding and worry as a student whose senior year would be severely impacted by this schedule and based on my conversations with many of my peers I can confidently say that the majority

042of students are against the a block format with over 100 students going to sign my petition the lack of communication around this decision is by far the biggest issue um the way we organize our lives is dictated by school and the classes we take um and I find it kind of ridiculous that we feel unheard and ignored um when we're the ones who are affected uh not all students have hours of free time to study and these are the students who play on sport teams uh manage our school events lead our clubs theater Productions Community uh volunteering um academic competitions and bring energy to our school um and they work jobs to pay for things like uh car payments uh college and those were some of the things I saw in one of the schedules

043surveys of people being worried about um and this committee has chosen to ignore the fact that uh the workload in this schedule increases significantly um and it fails to account for additional demands of assignments like projects and study guides uh labs and other time intensive tasks that require careful planning and effort outside of the classroom um additionally according to Mr list Q&A the schedule fails to address any of the math uh existing issues in the math program um beyond that of yearlong math meaning that we'd be adding more content above our math classes that we already take um I know many of my peers who work into the night um and it's it's a lot so I ask that you guys resend your your order to change the schedule we should return to the original

044schedule and make more time to come to a better decision that includes all parties so I just uh appreciate that um sounds of communication sounds like communication is still still an issue so we'll we'll add that to the list but are there any other things I'll ask the same sort of question are there any other things that within the ab um schedule that you can see that might might help alleviate some of your concerns um from talking to Mr list he he did have the idea of introducing one or two study blocks that students could sign up for um kind of like a dsb that takes up a whole block so you don't have to take a classes the issue I see with that is the whole idea around staying away from the six um

045the the six block schedule um was to give more opportunity to students to take electives this feels like the same exact thing except now we're just in school for those those other two blocks for those 81 minutes and it's not it's increasing the the the time of uh that we're in school and in classes um the the time of classes is is a huge issue it's not something that's that's workable and it's it's not efficient and we need to do a lot better with it I I I would agree with you on that the 81 minutes is long and when I when I was uh exchanging emails with with Mr Lima that was really what I was referring to that 81 minutes is a long time and and I wish we could have addressed that

046more but um unfortunately dealt the cards we are just quickly I'd like to know before I leave um from all the hours I've spent watching the school committee meetings and trying to understand this this situation um Miss levik is the only person who's raised issues with this schedule and the only person who's actually feels like she's been advocating um for for our side of the situation and all times she it feels that she's been silenced or interrupted and I really like to stop seeing it because she's been trying to work for the students trying to raise the issues here um and ignoring issues is not going to be how we get to a better solution thank [Applause] you um uh Tracy [Music] two minutes I'll tell you 30 good evening Tracy fer 96 rolling meow

047Drive Mama five the teacher I'm speaking here tonight to commend the high school administration particularly Mr list and the the school committee for taking the necessary steps to bring about positive change at the high school level with regards to a new schedule this schedule may not be ideal but when more ideal schedules were presented they were voted down by the hollon Federation of teachers for a variety of reasons that are now under legal review so with our their hands now tied we ended up with an AB schedule students here tonight I commend your ability to speak up I truly do but I ask you to continue to do your research and think for yourselves on this topic to start that research ask around to your friends from other towns who are working playing sports and

048running clubs they are all taking six to eight classes as the majority of our state is they are succeeding and they are about to put in college job and trade school applications to a lot of the same institutions you are are you going to write your college application that you can't handle the classwork or the long lectures are you going to write a college essay about taking a stand for something because you thought it was going to be too hard for you to handle you can all do hard things our students in Holliston at all levels are resilient you're techsavvy you're open-minded and you can all do hard things and although this seems hard your perception will change over time and you will soon realize that saying something is hard is not a reason to

049not do it and ultimately the schedule is not hard it's new you can take eight classes and you will succeed teachers are tasked to support something that you do not all agree with for a variety of reasons but our job as Educators is not to scare our students into thinking that they can't do something that the majority of the entire state of Massachusetts is managing our job as Educators is to help our students see their potential and know that they can do hard things or in this case just new things I know that there are a number of teachers in support of these changes because they know of the real world benefits to a schedule that allows for continued instru instruction and Equitable access two minutes two minutes cut off now a sentence or um

050my sentence yeah sorry um I will encourage all members of the hollon community particularly parents of high schoolers to encourage your kids to embrace these new changes there is so much potential out there for our students to really see what they are capable of doing and all of our students thank you um Timothy good evening my name is Timothy Haley and I'm a sophomore at the high school I'm here to share my input on the high school schedule change for next year I feel that this is a bad idea because it is rushed and very few students are in support of this change this change will result in twice as much homework and twice as many classes to focus on more importantly as someone who is on an IEP for dyslexia and ADHD this change

051will no doubt affect my learning it takes me a while to process information I need consistency in repetition in my coursework in order to be successful reinforcement of subject matter on a daily basis is key to my learning having every subject with a question uh mark on math on an AB schedule will disrupt the consistency I need it will only add to the fight to be a successful student I will have a tough time recalling information that is not presented consistently have you considered the impact this will have on Learners like me I urge you to please reconsider this change for the population of Learners much like me who often don't have the courage to speak up about our struggles I ask you to develop and research a plan that balances the needs of all

052students including those are who are struggling the most thank you for your consideration so so timy I'm so glad you you you brought up consistency and then the time it takes you to learn because um that that hits close to home with my daughter who also has dyslexia and ADHD um and one of the things that I think is really beneficial about the schedule is that it it includes the consistency it's not every day but it's every other day but then it's for the whole year long and so you know one of the things that you know we've seen is that small learning in small bites and having longer periods of time with which to allow it to be absorbed actually helps in your learning because now you're taking a class over the entire year

053and so if you miss a lesson or you know you're you're struggling with with something for a little longer you have more time to to work with your teachers work with the with the the um the material and and and study over the entire course rather than having to to consolidate it down into into you know very suin blocks so I I can understand the the apprehension and the anxiety around around the change um but I really hope and you know please come back to us in in a year and let us know how it goes but I think that people will find that having a whole year to take a class will actually help with with some of those issues so I you know um but I would just like to also ask you

054know what I've asked the other students is you know are are there any things specifically about the ab that you think that we could work on um to help make the transition easier I would just say communication like everyone else has said uh I've just uh got a lot of confusion from teachers administrations uh Administration people and it's just not been clear to us as students thank [Applause] you Sean Sean Bilo all right I good yeah you good all right um I'm Sean Bilo I'm the band director music teacher here at HHS I want to share my perspective on the issue of the schedule inherently my perspective has bias however I want to make this clear I have no agenda other than the success of our students and our entire School Community as some of

055you know I was on the original scheduling committee that worked for months in collaboration with building Administration with the goal of coming up with a scheduling framework that would better meet all of our students needs few of those factors students across all learning demographics have difficulty getting electives they want due to our current schedule students with academic support needs don't get to the get the same access to classes and opportunities we have classes electors in particular that have unbalanced numbers and and current research shows that the brain processes information better with smaller more consistent exposure regardless of content area now we are in this position where it has come down to what is worse do nothing and let the inequities continue for how long it's been decades or do what could be done within the

056hfts current contract the ab schedule where we are now is that there is no good answer even though we had it in our grasp the way that hft leadership chose to engage from the start is disappointing as time went on my concerns to fellow faculty on that committee fell on deaf ears there should never be a bargain or negotiation as to whether we need to make a change this is exactly what the shift leadership has turned this into due to their spin misinformation poor negotiation and unwillingness to listen this needs to be about what we need to make positive change happen the process of how it happens and what supports the faculty best to make that happen I believe in the work and the collaboration I experienced before I was removed from the committee by

057the hft leadership that is why I voted to advance the 5-day rotation framework that I did I am proud of my now 12 years here I am proud of the vision of graduate work that we did I want to make sure every kid gets to live and breathe that every day as a parent myself I constantly ask myself what how I would want my kids school Community to collaborate and we all every adult and student here that has any stake in this deserves better thank [Applause] you thank you John um uh hello everyone my name is Vall Ramen aan and I'm a freshman here at hon high school and just as everyone here um I just want to talk about the concerns I have and common concerns that other students that I've talked to have

058had with the new Ab schedule um so this new Ab schedule has been proposed and shown to students which has spr a lot of questions with how it to ultimately affect students that are participating in sports have jobs after schools extracurriculars and their ability to manage all that work um a big issue to this new schedule is as many kids have discussed um that students will have far more homework than they do now uh roughly 1.5 to two times the amount that they do currently and the constant switching every other day would also be detrimental to students that maybe they're absent One Day You're missing two days of that certain class and is trying to keep all the memory of different topics that are being learned can make it difficult to get a proper hold

059on certain Concepts if you're in higher classes like AP biology or AP US History and one point I also really want to hit on is concerning students that have to go home and either work a job or take care of younger siblings as there may not be someone at home to do so consistently um caregiving would be difficult with the amount of homework that they'd be assigned and stress and anxiety has been an issue for many people that I know and putting a schedule out like this that places students faculty and many others on blast isn't very beneficial to the cause and then aside from the students the individuals who are going to be affected significantly are the teachers they are the backbone and foundation of the learning process here for the students and are

060the reason that we know what we know an issue that arises with the ab schedule is the lack of personal connections that teachers will be able to have with their students currently if a teacher has three classes of 25 students they have 75 students at any given time with this new schedule for certain teachers teaching like six to seven classes every semester this would mean an increase to 150 students uh which would hurt the connections that they'd be able to Foster with so many students it's much harder to establish a sense of trust within a student and for teachers this would also affect them as their motivation to teach a PL teach class could be hindered it'd be tiring for them and essentially drain them of their passion for teaching I can confidently say that

061I credit my good academic performance to the connections that I've have made with my teachers that is allows for students to look forward to a class when they know they have a teacher that is eager as well that's the power of connection ultimately I want to acknowledge that I know your job as school committee members isn't easy however the decisions that are being made in this room affect us as students and the faculty and staff we are the ones that are directly affected by this decision sorry and that's why the time and consideration that is put into these decisions should be taken with the utmost important for many of you this this may be a decision that you get to make and move on with but for us this is something that will impact everything

062and making sure that this process isn't rushed it's critical in ensuring the well-being of students teachers faculties and the quality of hon high school education for years to come thank you for your time if I could you you said that this would increase the workload by one and a half to to two times yeah how did you arrive at at at that uh cuz if you're looking at AP classes and math classes uh as I've talked to Mr list and gone to his meetings certain math classes if you want to double up as a sophomore next year which for me would look like having Algebra 2 honors and then proceeding a pre-cal honors um those classes would be occurring every single day so you could you wouldn't be having as much homework in different classes

063as that math class would be taking up two of the eight possible blocks you have and then for AP classes um once again two of your eight blocks for the first semes and then every other day for the second semester so if you cancel out do the math you reach roughly 0.6 which is essentially how I rounded down to 1.5 but so in this scenario you're actually only taking six classes right you're not actually taking eight no you'd be taking if you if I were doubling up with math I'd be taking seven cuz think I have an AB but then if you did the AP you'd be taking six well yes correct right but you're still going to have that but isn't doubling up on math what we're doing right now what sorry I didn't

064hear you is doubling up on math taking taking math for you know one math class for a full semester isn't that what we're doing now yes sir that is also what is going to be provider at least when I talk with Mr list that's seemed for some for some math classes yeah for certain kids that want to progress higher in the Ma I'm just still trying to understand how we're getting to to one and a half to to two times the workload because I certainly you know would would that would I would that would concern me if that if I could really get to to that number but it seems to me like more like the learning will take place over the course of a full year and if we were actually doubling the workload

065but it's not it's not happening over the course of you're separating the class to be every other day it's not constant just as Mr Belo said it's short amount consistently this is every other day in a span of 81 minutes not that many kids like kids with ADHD like Stephen you have you have difficulty to focus for that long an 81 minute class period every other day that's not having the class consistently in a small amount throughout the year we're talking about workload though and you're taking the class over the entire course you just you just changed the topic inter this is public comment so well no but I'm just trying to I'm trying to understand hold on second hold on second I'm just trying to understand because one of the the complaints that the

066students have had is that we're not listening to them and so I'm simply trying to understand what he's saying and how how he's interpreting what's going on so that I I can listen and I can can then sort of consider that and response so that's not what it sounds like though than I'm I'm simply trying I'm just saying that's not what it sounds like okay thank [Applause] you is Itali or javali Sia chali sorry did I um hi my name is Sonica and I'm a sophomore at Holliston High School um I kind of just want to start off by saying that I understand why we're having a schedule change and I get why it's necessary so what I'm saying is not to necessarily oppose it um I just don't agree with the way that this

067has been going about so first off the information that we have been receiving has been all over the place and confusing one week we're hearing about one schedule the next week we're hearing about another um and then now oh and then we were hearing about how there was going to be no schedule change implemented because there wasn't enough time for there to be one and now just two weeks ago we found out that we're having a new Ab schedule and we're already starting to think about core selections for this new schedule it's so complicated and everything seems like it's being rushed and not handled carefully our schedule change will have a drastic impact on students lives during high school and also outside of high school um if this doesn't work out then students grades can

068drop they can be extremely overwhelmed and even lose sleep and this is not to mention like the time that we're losing off of AP classes and the amount of students that we have taking multiple APS a year if this happens what are you going to do are you just going to change the schedule again because that's not fair to us especially the sophomores and freshmen because it's not fair if we have to have three different schedules during our time in high school and um we as student students should not be experimented on with the schedule changes that's why we need to go about them very carefully so that everyone's voices are heard um we just want there to be more time and thought put into the schedule change and we also want student and teacher

069opinions to be heard and accounted for because a lot of us feel like they haven't been so far if there is to be a schedule change I think that it should be maybe pushed back a year just so that the transition can be a little bit more smoother and that so students and teachers can have more time to prepare for it and hopefully have their voices heard better thank you and [Applause] similar and just similar to what I've asked your your your classmates are Are there specific things though within the the ab that you think could be addressed to help with some of the concerns you have for me like personally I'm planning on taking like around four APS next year and obviously that's like very heavy it's very rigorous and my my personal concern

070is for my three-term AP classes because I'm going to be taking like Cal PC and like a push and those are three term classes the time that I'm going to be like losing on those AP classes because I've talked to teachers I've talked to other students who have talked to teachers and those teachers who are running those APS are saying that we're going to be losing time because of the new schedule because of the AP exam that's like in May or whenever it is we're losing time off the schedule because obviously you have three terms right now but if we do the full like full semester every day that we have that AP and then if it's alternating the second semester we're going to lose days so I'm just like a little bit concerned about

071that because I don't want my my cour workk to be rushed before the AP exam because I feel like that might affect my score okay thank you thank you sty good evening sty 20 Arthur Street it was recently reported in the local Holliston local Town pages that the Miller select board and school committee engaged in conversation with members of our school committee about forming a Regional School District those emails were published and on one of the emails on November 18th 2024 the chair of the Holliston school committee states that he discussed the proposition with members of the Holliston school committee at the previous school committee meeting in reviewing agendas in minutes from school committee meetings from November 14th to the present no reference to this topic was found this is really concerning as select board

072chair Tina hin stated at the March 10th select board meeting it is important to assure Holliston taxpayers and families that the select board has not had any private or public discussion about this matter and that any discussion of this matter would be held in open public um excuse me by held it would be held in open public meetings by the select board such a decision is multifaceted and will require a lengthy and public process I am asking that you put this on your agenda for March 27th and you have a conversation about what the conversation happened with Millis and then have a conversation with the community it is too important it is about budget it's about multiple things that affect both communities please address it thank you so we did discussed that in in executive

073session under you know option for for for Grants um there was no official sort of proposal by Mills we we had a brief discussion about whether we thought it was it made they made sense and and the committee consensus was that it didn't so there was no no one was cut out of anything because there was not anything actually I think my recollection was that the consensus was that we had a lot in our plate right now we wanted to revisit it later that was my recollection there wasn't anything no we didn't have any proposition but we didn't actually openly put it on the agenda to discuss it so we didn't vote on anything we didn't vote on anything exactly I'm just saying was cons there was there was no no there was absolutely no

074vote and at this point my understanding is that M has decided to go in a different direction anyway so I'm not even sure there is anything to discuss at this point anyway um Rebecca uh Rebecca Kylie 37 Overlook Drive Holliston I have a sophomore and a junior here at hollon High School uh thank you very much for the opportunity to address you in person I've communicated with you via email um over the past few months I would just like to say that I continue to have significant concerns with the schedule change proposed for the fall of 2025 I'm concerned with the roll out and the impact this will have on our students and teachers throughout this meeting there's been questions regarding the increase in workload the workload increases as students are currently managing four classes

075in a given semester when moving it to 8 that's an increase because they'll be happening simultaneously I understand that they're taking eight classes over the course of an entire year right now but what you're asking them to do is to increase it and take it all at the same time this will be detrimental to many students specifically those with disabilities and it is 100% more work than what they're currently doing this decision has directly or indirectly created a rift between Administration school committee and teachers there's an overall feeling of a lative transparency and that voices are not being heard it feels as though the students are being used as Pawns in an effort to gain compliance on other issues a scheduled change is definitely needed but we urge you to give this change the time

076needed so it can be implemented with Fidelity and appropriately you're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and it just isn't in the best interest of students thank you for your time Rie my name is Ali Basher and I am a junior to begin my speech I'd like to read off slam poetry created by two sophomores Colin hogden and Jack de Gregorio as a project for English 10 to use your voice and fight for your beliefs teacher student connections will take an eternity people who don't go to this school making decisions how can that be teachers will have double the classes they already have so much students will have double the homework they'll have to study during lunch whether you're relaxing or studying YouTube is a such is such a great source

077imagine life with YouTube now that would be a force 81 minutes classes without any breaks when you ask to go to the bathroom should you have to wait with that good evening to the school committee members The Advisory Council representatives and the other many important fac faculty members at this table as you know I'm Ali Basher and for some background context I've sat at this chair before last year in May I came to get a Muslim holiday observed in our school system as a day off for a community I argued that if Christians had many holidays Jewish people had Yong Kapur and Hindus got dwali why shouldn't Muslims get one as well my arguments had my argument had sub topics which helped support my claim but my main point was equality equality is the belief

078that every person holds equivalent value in society and this is the truth in every situation including this one I understand that the schedule of change was intended to Aid students who may need support throughout a year or to help um band and chus members have more practice time in school however a majority of students will also be affected by this change I know many students who had planned out Junior and even senior classes in sophomore year using the current schedule and the schedule being right now would affect their ability to take the classes they had intended within the years they scheduled as a result of this new Switch and let's not forget as Juniors that senior year technically counts for something to have something like a routine that we followed for 3 years be com

079completely blown out of the water is like really appalling and it's fully inconsiderate not only are those students being affected but students interested in taking AP courses and their respective exam exams may find it difficult to adjust to the current schedule as they will lose substantial time about 30 hours in preparing for the AP exams they might have to take to put it into perspective any amount of time extra is super important to students um taking AP exams due to the intensity of set exam however students aren't the only people directly being affected by the schedule change as teach just conclude all right fine overall the schedule change May constitute many different wrongdoings despite being despite causing a positive change for a small group of people however as someone who can respect equality I would

080like to propose a better option what if we had five block days and kept the same format of scheduling with semester and term classes which is likened to a real college environment right now there are four minutes being added to each block why not bring it back down to 77 and add them to the fifth block the fifth block could be that of a lengthened DSP where it can be an opp opportunity for students to have more time to cram for the next test in the next block a time period to get homework done for students who get late home get home late due to sports and careers more practice time for abandon chorus and those and for those who especially need it people in need of support and extra attention thank you Mel Michael

081kenel McBride Junior hollon High School the new schedule changes made for the 2025 to 2026 hollon high school schedule come as a bit of a shock to many students including myself not in terms of preparedness for a possible schedule shift but in terms of the fact that when I talk amongst many students in mine and other grades very few people that I've spoke to wish to enable the schedule after was first mentioned in the student and teacher surveys many teachers that I've spoke to are also against the new schedule change what I'm asking is this where are the results of those surveys why were the majority and the most important people in this building teachers and those who will be directly affected completely ignored it doesn't make any sense the rush Decisions by the hollon

082school committee the start and stop times are a major factor I came here straight after work directly after school I start almost every day at 3 p.m. where's the concern for the working students of the school the complete switch on a group of kids going into their senior year and being prepped to go off to life and many to college like myself is the real issue I'm not concerned about the amount of work we are about to face I'm more concerned about the change that is now coming directly before one of the critical years in which students will now face stress inconsistency and overwhelming feelings in a year that is supposed to be enjoyable and educational the comments made by students who have taken the time to show up tonight should be voice enough to

083consider a change for the proposed ship set to sync that is headed for hollon high school thank you the survey results I would say though that I the issue with with them is that unfortunately Mr list was prohibited from from discussing the schedule options when the survey was was being conducted which makes it really difficult to to understand and know whether those survey results are actually accurate because people were filling them out without sort of the complete set of information so that that's one of the difficulties with with with the schedule results but me I I I hear you I mean it's definitely you know um an issue and when I think it's it's pretty clear that we need to do a better job communicating what what's going on with with you all so um

084is there anything though as I asked your your your classmates about the ab specifically that you think that could be addressed um to help alleviate some of your concerns I think what can be addressed especially in terms of that survey is the block schedules that were proposed were all shown out in there they were actually there was a diagram for each block schedule that was shown out in each of those survey questions that we would look at it had a full explanation written about paragraph long on each one of them explaining what the schedule would do and it had each block written out I know a lot of students had filled that out and a lot of teachers had also voiced the concerns and I believe I'm not 100% sure on this but I believe

085there was also a teacher survey that went out and none of the results were released and I've talked to countless teachers and students who both filled out that survey I know Oliver back here has started a petition that has gotten I believe and correct me if I'm wrong Oliver but about a 100 signatures at this point and there are students and teachers who feel that they're not being listened to and the results of the survey weren't shared so there's nothing to say that we have been listened to and while all the blocks were shared and we did have correct information on that schedule and the changes that would be coming we weren't the results weren't seen for that so what happened to them does Mr List have the results and why is he not sharing

086them I I don't have the answer to that question right now um but I was more more speaking specifically about the AP schedule going forward but but that's fine um thank you very much [Applause] you have an email comment there was an email comment as well just I think we've gotten to everyone in the room okay it is from Kathy chartier 68 Pilgrim Road I'm writing to urge you to vote Yes to forming a subcommittee to investigate leveling in the Middle School for Math and possibly bringing back math leveling in seventh grade and three math levels in eighth grade math leveling in Middle School is the only way to meet the needs of all Learners and follow the Dy model for having a full year of Algebra 1 and 8th grade it was successful for

087many years and allowed for a complete Algebra 1 course in eth grade and a course for students who need more time on instruction it is also fair to teachers our teachers work hard and with all of the new things being thrown at them it is hard to meet the needs of a huge gap in levels of math understanding in a math class as one person additionally I often tutor students who have serious confidence issues and doubt themselves because they are pushed too fast in math or seeing other students on the higher level get the material while they don't for those students going into the full Algebra 1 next year at the middle school there will be a lot of gaps in their math 8 standards knowledge while there will be some stop Gap measures implemented

088to catch students up and fill in big gaps in their understanding of the e8th grade math standards this is not a sustainable model going forward and thus leveling in math needs to occur in the Middle School in grade seven to allow for M math 8 standards being taught in grade seven and some math grade seven math standard it's being taught in grade six it can be done via differentiation in the classroom in grade six for those students who are ready thank you Kathy charier okay great um so that brings us to the end of our public comments um section I just want to thank um and commend all the students who who came out today um to to to speak up and advocate for for your for your beliefs and Views um that takes a

089lot of guts to to get up get on camera and and and speak to the community and and you should absolutely be commended for that so um that that uh I really appreciate that I think that and if I'll give the opportunity for anyone else to sort of you know make a comment but I mean I think that we we we are listening we are hearing we'll take the the comments and feedback back we we'll we'll talk to the administrators and see if there are things that we can do to to make improvements to within the ab schedule but um we're certainly here to do what we hope is in the in the students best interest so we're you know no one is looking to uh to to harm you um does anyone else have

090any anything you want to add I would just ask that anybody that had public comment or didn't have an opportunity to make sure you email if you could email the school committee the full school committee your comments because it's hard for us to remember every single thing that you said but it would be helpful if you could send it to us that's a good point and maybe add just to if uh you uh if you're looking for a response or you're just sending it to to have it so we have it I would say a majority of the feedback was around communication and I actually asked with the raise of hands is it the ab schedule or was it communication could communication get us to the point where AB sorry you didn't site that [Music]

091I'm a junior um I think for me personally the way I see it is that it's mostly about the communication I think the ab schedule specifically doesn't work for a lot of students but it's not the schedule change itself that we're unhappy about I think from the get-go it was just approached completely in the wrong way um there was no like consideration of students and like their opinions and so now I mean I don't know what the solution is like I can't tell you but I think continuing the way it has been so far like you are not going to gain back student confidence like Confidence from the students or like you know just you know I I just don't see how continuing with the ab schedule will you know reassure um the student population

092after you know just not being involved in the conversation at all so that's what I think so as it relates to my comment on communication I think we all need to look at each other the committee Administration hft the teachers everyone involved in this decision to bring change to students which is here who we're here to help uh and serve um you know we need to get through this Division I mean I think division creates breakdowns in communication we need to work together on this and that's what I um I hope we can get in the future between all the parties uh and I think that's why there is breakdown communication we would love to better plan this and obviously can't take years to do things but two weeks is not a lot of time

093for anything and and I empathize with that um but I think working together will allow us in the future to get to a point where we can better plan it and be aligned on things to then move forward for for you guys so appreciate all the comments I'd also like to add that um a lot of the I I was writing down the concerns that you shared and the questions that you brought up around how uh what are the implications what's the impact of the schedule going to be for students and I think a lot of what you said kind of Echoes some of the questions that we had and in the discussions that we've been having over the last several months with Mr list we've really tried to understand what's going to be the

094student experience if kids have jobs if you have AP classes if you're getting support in school what is going to be your experience with this schedule moving forward how feasible is it to implement for the school but how feasible is it for students to um live this this um schedule moving forward so I I did write down your questions and comments I also Echo what Cynthia said if there are additional things that you didn't get to say um please share it with the school committee because I think we'd like to share this with Dr list or Mr list so that he and the guidance counselors can um improve that communication and get those answers to you um so I'm just I'm I am concerned with there's a lot of things that have to fall into

095place over the next days couple weeks April 4th you know kids are supposed to be registered for their classes and I'm just worried about if all of those things don't happen in a way that we need them to happen to make this a successful roll out for the 202 25 26 school year do we talk about that again over the next couple weeks I don't know if we have time for that I this I mean I know he can't be here tonight but is he still he's confident that he's going to be able to to get all this done right yeah I mean as we've talked about in the past when you any time you change and alter a schedule they have the Administration has to work behind the scenes to make it happen in

096power school so once you um voted to move that direction the Administration has been working to create that new schedule behind the scenes and um get it to roll out so the issue is all of that work moving forward is is already happening and then if you change a decision then I don't know what the outcome is just because you know they've already moved the work behind the scenes to get because it starts next week we're a week away from all so the the students choosing their um options um happens but but behind the scenes they're building the template to get it course can we get an update from Mr list at the next school committee meeting yeah sorry go ahead I can just share that the training for the administration counselors is next Thursday

097and Friday all day with power school just throwing that out there yeah I I will say that um that update is going to just be a more detailed version of what Dr Kusa indicated um there there have been kind of days of labor on the creation um schedule and even like the schedule stuff that you do every year um with kids um and any change that point would be a reset um of something that was already starting about a month later than it usually does so um I would just say whatever if if there's any interest in change is just notice noticing that that's we're we're already behind schedule as far as that not even accounting for students registering on what needs to be done so that's I think though there are some things that

098maybe we consider um new changes to the program of studies that might help address some of the anxieties whether it's you know allowing students to only take seven credits you know during senior or or upper class years um reducing the waiting of uh the final exam um to to take some of the burden off of the sort of feeling like they're going to take too many finals at yeah that that part is like almost after that's that's like once once the framework and structures built in um and put in then then it comes down to like what classes kids are signed up for required for and where they have space and where that exists as far as being that but I think that's driving some of the the concern and anxieties from from the students

099I you think we can get maybe some some update on on some recommendations it doesn't need to be a necessarily the complete list but on on some ideas that that might help address some of the concerns yeah I don't want to speak for Mr list not being here but we will certainly um David and I will speak with him um tomorrow and see what he could potentially that also don't want to ask something Mr list who's not here but is there anything that we believe he can do with partnership with the administration to communicate more in the next few days cuz again communication seems to be a gap we don't have a lot of time so we may need to Pivot on a few things to get that communication and questions answered I think there's

100yeah 100% I also think that and I was speaking with Mr Liss um yesterday the day before on this like a lot of it is also helping students understand like their exact schedule and what that would look like it creates a better like framework for doing that um sometimes that can be challenging in like a large session um because I think when you're talking about scheduling a student and even a parent and even um most of the folks at this table are looking at through the through the lens of a single student or a single schedule uh and not the interacting of you know 750 students on how that that is scheduled but like I think Mr list is is looking for students who want to understand scheduling um and is willing to spend the

101leg work not just to to to spend time with those students on understanding their their particular schedule and the impact that that would have but also just understanding scheduling as a whole different types of schedules different whatever that would be which understanding specifically the ab schedule as a whole the different like interacting things that that bump into to each other what IT addresses what it doesn't addressed um as well that I know and we've talked a number of times just about sometimes on paper things seem very simple and it's far more complex it's there's multiple puzzle pieces that we're talking about in moving one shifts another um and then you know we do know for a fact that there are some schedules that are just are not feasible just based on the parameters that we

102have and the limitations that we have so some things will not we know that some things will not work um so I guess though considering ABS in place are we putting additional mechanisms in place during cuz I agree I mean keep talking about this at the high level everyone has individual questions about their schedule you can't really do that in a group setting it's challenging um but as we think about scheduling starting on March 21st are there other mechanisms in place we do to support the students through this process cuz again it's a change so like we can't consider they're going to have the same process as last year there's going to be more questions more concerns more options even right so how are we supporting them in that change this year I me I

103think that's that's absolutely something we can chat with M list about as far as what to bring um and better ways that we can do that I think that we're hearing that from the students as far as different ways that we can kind of communicate that um and I you know Mr list uh you know you know just encouraging students to to meet with him um individually in small groups whatever just to kind of talk about like what their concerns are and kind of understanding their exact their exact schedule or scheduling as a whole and what some of the constraints are yeah and I know that he has met with some students already that had um been asking questions I would encourage students to schedule time with him again or with administration because I do

104think um they want to be able to reassure students that um and try to with the anxiety as much as possible so you there is definitely an opportunity for students to reach out you know as you said small group or otherwise um I I would encourage them to do so yeah I don't think you know a student's meeting with Mr Liss is not because he's necessarily supporting an AB schedule or the old schedule or other schedules it's just to understand schedules too um and like understand all right what are the concerns you have or the things that you would want to address or in your schedule and just walk you through schedules and what what those look like um and exist and and and looking at the a this schedule but anything else that they're

105wondering just kind of having a good understanding of that um having done myself schedules at middle school and high school they are uh they're complex piece in order to meet everybody's needs I need stop we've had the same same schedule for for for 30 years but um there's a reason why most districts have gone away from the the that block schedule and you know why 90% or more of you know of high schools in Massachusetts have seven or eight classes that that that occur at the same time so it's not like we're moving to something that isn't tested not just the norm but just by far far in way the the overall majority of of of students so but they're not 81 minutes long and every other day well this is it's very unique I

106just want to say I think that the students have shown themselves to be extremely resilient it's been 5 years since the pandemic you've all had to shift gears so many times so I don't think that's about that you don't want to make change it's say that it's just too fast too much you haven't gotten enough communication enough understanding and I feel like that's what we're not hearing [Applause] that's all right well thank you everyone for for coming out really appreciate it you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting um but we'll move on to uh the technology update from Mr God damn this is the best part leave there's better Parts even Parts further down all right give minute [Music] all right so tonight I just want to give you a brief update

107on some um technology things uh answer any questions you have but just uh kind of the five level things that are going on in the tech department so we'll begin with the power school data bre just some updates there um I sent out gosh probably earlier in the week uh communication about um the breach from power school they have the crowd strike report uh which was an independent third party that investigated the breach to make sure there wasn't anything hiding under the rug um so there's some interesting things in that report um also Dr Kus and I attended uh there's starting to be some uh class action um suits against Power School at some point down the road um you know you may be asked to participate in that so we'll we'll have more information

108we'll start learning more about it I'm just giving you a heads up that that school committees may be involved in that decision sometime down the road and we'll we'll share all the pros and cons of doing that sort of thing um and then the identity protection I I'm getting some emails from families I don't know if you all received your emails we not from Experian but if you do not uh on our website um Power school's website and I'll probably send it out separately now you can enroll uh even if you did not did not receive the experient email so that's the latest there um we feel confident about the measures power schools taken according to that crowd strike report to make sure this doesn't happen again we are taking our own measures which is

109the next topic so cyber security um so as you know we trained all staff uh January 17th during PD day since then we had a town tabletop exercise so that was really neat we uh we worked with the vendor um Chief Cassidy Chris Mayo um Kathleen Buckley Travis uh before he left he was part of that meeting and it's we're going to do it with the schools in April but it's a great exercise where the vendor leads you on you know if this happens and they keep infusing um more problems into the scenario and we have to as Executives kind of react and make decisions based on those infusions of problems so um the power school breach was sort of a real reality check um we've we've had somewhat I would say like a tabletop

110with that unfortunately um but that's a little bit different because we weren't compromised as a district or town it was more of a global episode so it was a little bit different so this tabletop is more you know this happened in hollon and this is how we should react to that scenario so we're going to do one uh it's at the bottom here April 8th with um senior leadership and we also invited the town to be part of our tabletop because it's going to impact them we also have an incident response plan that's Brewing sorry I'm jumping around a little bit but that's um going to be delivered to you um when it's complete next time I'm up here I'll be delivering that to you whenever that is um it'll be complete by the end

111of April I would think and that response plan has all the details about you know if we have an incident who to call first for example cyber insurance or law enforcement or both and who does that calling and communication all right and then the middle one there is the Wi-Fi security so one of the things we're learning and this is this is something we've been working on anyway is uh we need we have some holes in our infrastructure and we're trying to plug those holes so one of the recommendations for Wi-Fi is that an organization should be able to see who's on the Wi-Fi and not see what they're doing but just see the devices and the users so that's the HPS guest you receive we can we can actually see for example like there

112we sent that email to 639 people it was really just all staff that had a Holliston email address and 140 accepted the invitation there was some like what is this all about like you trying to spy me no absolutely not it's it's just a best practice of cyber security organizations should see who's on their Network I actually heard I went to a conference today and Google was telling us uh that a huge District South um they were getting all these captas whenever they went to Google you know cap after cap and they said to Google can you basically whitelist our IP addresses so that that doesn't happen it turns out that district there was these routers that were dosing Google and attacking Google so Google was completely justified by sort of putting those captures on

113everybody coming from that IP address cuz it was perceived as an attack so Google in that case you know responded appropriately the district was trying to like work around that but that's the kind of thing that was a router on that District's Network that they didn't realize was launching these attacks so um that's the kind of thing I worry about U you know we we have to be honest we have users that get compromised and they spam districts all over the country and that's what but um I'm going to get into next so we got the um approval um which I'm very pleased with I advocated for this uh we're purchasing a product called Google workspace Plus for education so what this does is if we have a fishing attempt and Dr Kusa is on

11490% of these attempts her name is spoofed it's typically like please read this salary memo and her name's there she did not send it but anyway the staff can report that quickly now to an email called cyber threat and then the first person that reports it we can withdraw it from all the inboxes we could not do that unless we purchase this product so basically that email would go out we'd have to deal with all the people who said we think this is fishing we're not sure and then we've had staff compromise by clicking that salary email and then giving up their credentials um and then once they do that it's just a domino effect of um bad things happening I think the music email is the one I referenced where they try to sell

115that piano so that's the bad actor trying to get people to pay them shipping for piano anyway that's the fun we're dealing with and AI is only going to intensify this the U the thing we're noticing now is there's not those grammatical errors anymore in fishing attack attempts they're Rock Solid because of AI um so it's harder and harder so this tool will help us with that it also has a ton of Google Classroom um Integrations and big one which we're going to uh communicate the teachers very shortly is a grade pass back to Power School so that that will cut the teacher workload if they choose to use classroom uh they don't have to re-enter that assignment in grade twice they enter in Google classroom and it will sync with power school Gradebook so

116at least that part will cut down on some teacher workload um and then it has classroom analytics and then today at this conference I heard a preview of what's coming potentially in June with this thing we purchased this product we're going to get all these other classroom tools um and the cool thing is the teachers have to have a Chromebook which we just purchased Last Summer and the kids have to have the Chromebook and if those two parties have a Chromebook there's all these Cool Tools that are coming as part of Google's um suite and this product so we're looking forward to all that um lots of translation tools and accessibility tools and captions that teachers can turn on and off and then Gemini I heard about this today um again we're still we've we've

117talked to Administration about this is March is not not a great time to launch this sort of thing um but we do have it the ability to give Gemini to U 13 years and older and it's a Walled Garden which means anything the students put in there is not going to be trained on that model it kind of lives in our own hollison environment which is pretty cool that's that's kind of groundbreaking because chat and all these other products you're whatever you put in is who knows where it goes unless you pay for the uh Enterprise or premium licenses so stay tuned about that we have a lot of work to do with Gemini and AI but at least 13 year year olds we do have the ability now with this product to give them

118an AI tool all right uh last thing is just a preview of the capital budget as it stands now um Dan touched on this earlier the 75 000 for wifi I just got final pricing in today um and just so you know the 75,000 is the last chunk of Category 2 funding that Holliston received it's a five-year we get a five-year bucket of money from the federal government from the FCC and this 75 was all that was left in that 5 years so that's why how that number came about so we're basically going to try to fund try to fund as much Wi-Fi improvements as we can here at the middle and high school probably not going to be be able to do it all and so that's what U next year's spring Capital there

119might be additional depending on what happens with the FCC we don't know if there's going to be more funding coming from the government if there is then we'll ask for more Wi-Fi next spring to to finish off the middle and high school and then the auditorium lighting you heard about um next fall just preview this this seems pretty solid we'll have the Chromebooks grade 5 and 8 and then we're Gathering the inventory of iPads this is a little bit tricky because of um we're trying to forecast when Apple's going to say this version iPad is you know no longer going to be updated once we have that you know roughed out we think it'll be about 60,000 to replace our iPads and those are like School based iPads that teachers check out for uh lessons

120um kids check out that we we have about 40 to 50 in each building they they serve they have this Niche iPads always have this Niche and they without them you're sunk to do certain things they just have the app store and they have a lot of cool features so I I think they're here to stay and we need to replenish them we haven't done this in a while last time was actually covid and we only did teachers at that time with Co funding the student iPads not not so much how many so we looking at for 16,000 um it's about I think 160 is what I forecasted 180 something like that and then the auditorium is potentially next spring again if we if we uh need additional lighting um infrastructure for the High School

121auditorium we don't know what that number is going to be we're going to see how the summer goes as as long as everything goes well see how the Productions go then if there's anything additional we we should know that I would say late fall we could kind of forecast what's what else is needed for next spring other than that I don't see any technology surprises um coming as far as capital this is my rough next year and a half any questions so am I understanding correctly that up until now we didn't know who was on the network uh we can we can see our devices um like my Chromebook and David's you know laptop we can see our devices but we can't see it's it's hard to pinpoint whose device it is so that HPS

122guess we now have a name attached because that was sent to you directly um we can find them it's just not easy um and so we're going to we feel good about the student instead staff networks the HHS wire and the panther net to be honest like I I share that password pretty freely knowing it's going to go away uh we want to get to this model of um you know you get the password in this email fashion or we'll give you the password but you have to go through a captive portal like the hotel Wi-Fi and make sure you've read the acceptable use policy so that's how we're going to treat sort of not HPS guest that's actually a great Network even though it's a guest it's highe speed there is going to be

123another guest Network because we're trying to discourage aside from your devices trying to discourage BYOD because as I shared a few minutes ago every BYOD device is a threat not yours but I'm just saying it's a it's a Potential Threat I should say whereas these Chromebooks this device we can manage and control and just the B withth because you have people that have their phones their Chromebooks and then they're bringing external devices as well and you just you can't support unlimited correct it was it's a lot of lot of it's the threats um to be honest and and U you know if we go down because of a by device then it's going to be ugly and that's what the tabletop does it kind of Paints the picture for executives to start planning for that

124because it's I'm not going to say it's it's probably going to happen to be honest hopefully not under my watch but it happens to lots of districts and organizations So when you say B is that including students who bring their own laptop and don't use the school issu Chromebook or is that okay yeah so we're we're probably going to push it out next fall um like for example you might see the guest Network right now um we're probably not going to enforce and take down the HHS wire and the panthernet until fall because we don't want to impact like student projects uh but we're going to start notifying students that those are going to go away and start preparing for the fall like they can they can use their BYOD on a guest Network I

125think they're going to find it's going to be a struggle and their Chromebook is going to be a lot faster okay and then again that's that's you know less of a threat to the network overall there were a couple of programs that were saying you took off of like students can't use YouTube and can you just Yeah we actually heard from Google today on that that was um the timing is not great the March timing um we have no control over that even the the Google employee did not know um why Google picked March it feels like it's some legal uh reason that they picked march to enforce this but basically it's um YouTube is still available but it's prescribed by teachers via Google classroom and um Google slides and those those programs require parental

126consent so we weren't comfortable uh with the backup plan if parents said no and in this environment we expect some parents to say no I don't want my student on YouTube um with the power school breach and everything else so until we have and and honestly like what's the backup plan for YouTube um but do know we're going to put these as uh permissions on the annual student form in the fall so there will be an opportunity for parental consent but even then it's um you know teachers have to figure out how to manage that in the classroom um actually I shouldn't say that we may not we may or may not do that unless we have the backup plan like what if students some students can and some students can't so I'm just saying

127some districts are doing that we're not quite there yet as far as getting consent but Google's really forcing the hand here they're they're enforcing paral consent for those services do we know of many districts that have an all out ban on YouTube versus including within their parental consents at the beginning of the year um they some have some did it early in the year and all ban or obtain consent obtain tank sent um and some you know turned it off like we did so it's it's kind of a I don't I can't give you a percentage but I like at this conference today there was some on both sides um but it it feels uncomfortable to me to say um you know we gave permission on parents behalf you know and allow you to that

128that doesn't feel right um so that's kind of where I am is you know let's there's got to be a reason Google's doing this no one really knows what it is um but we have to you know figure out the plan if we're going to go parental consent and then obtain that consent thanks there's still screening tools though too like it's not you could be on YouTube but there still it still screens out corre content it's restricted and moderated YouTube so that's that could be the way to explain it to parents is it's not unfiltered YouTube it's right we have a filter in place that moderates it uh blocks images Blocks videos so it's it's not like unfettered YouTube but um yeah we need to work out all those but but right now a teacher

129can embed a video in a in a slide deck or something like that if there's a correct and any and we've already made exceptions if you're 18 years old which some students email me about you know they're they're except exceptions they can make their own decisions about this it's it's anybody under 18 any more questions great well thank you and thank you for all the the hard work and thank you keep running cyber safety um okay we don't have any uh policy updates uh this week there was supposed to be one on but it got missed next time sorry about that um central office updates yes I did want to um give you an update on the grant to support stem career learning project lead the way is the grant that Mr list has talked

130about before it's been um more than one step to the process we had received part of this grant previously and then he um he applied for 75,000 for the next stage of the grant this is to open up some more Pathways at the high school related to Stem which we're really excited about so um we were approved for a $40,000 Grant um and I do have you know some more information about it but it really it's helped to get any um to launch Gateway computer science biomedical science or engineering programs within the school so this will be the next phase of that we would have liked to get the 75,000 but it's exciting that we're moving forward and um I'm sure in future presentations Mr list will give you more information about what we're going

131to be able to accomplish with that Grant as well and then I think I I know that um you you already did the budget presentation so I I did give updates at budget subcommittee about kind of where we think we are right now and where we're hoping to get um so we're not at that number that you're proposing for the future but we hopefully will be able to get there um when we have more information that is still to come in upcoming weeks our last full day professional day is tomorrow so the next school committee meeting I will update you on the happenings that's it and what is on the agenda for tomorrow for the um it's it's a whole bunch of different things um there are Landmark is coming in and doing training um

132on language based support for reading uh I's coming in and working with Elementary School teachers um hegerty data instructional planning Continuum training Special Ed training um math differentiation training uh curriculum mapping those are just some of the topics nurses are going to be doing uh let's see CPR um emergency response preparedness medication administration plan cyber security training those are just some of the topics thank you you're welcome um so one I just want to acknowledge that uh this past week we presented on to this select board and received their votes for the Middle School and the uh Elementary School SOI um for for the msba so we we'll submit that uh application by March 21st um and then following that will uh be the the high school application uh which is due by April 11th

133um for that um uh also which I've shared with Dr Kusa um and um with Mr Alfred uh and just bringing this information to you is there's um both the mass uh and masbo uh have kind of collaborated to put together um funding proposals for uh the state um uh specifically just as we think about it that's that's uh information on um uh percentage increases on uh circuit breaker or tuition uh and on Transportation reimbursement along with several other uh key uh funding sources um or needs um across uh K through 12 um education so um you know I they're encouraging us to just kind of touch Bas with with you all on on how we reach out to our legislators and encourage those types of um funding proposals uh one of the funding proposals

134is for uh is for adjustments in fy2 uh so circuit breaker adjustments um their proposal is uh requesting a 90% uh of eligible tuition uh reimbursement um and then uh for Transportation a 75% elig eligible Transportation requests again this is just a proposal from these organizations uh to our legislators in order to meet kind of our Rising needs that we have that's great that would obviously be significant so I'm uh I'm in favor um but I'm glad that discussions are happening and the the recognition of the impact that those costs are having on on budgets uh Statewide not just our I just I Al just as we think about the circuit breaker and transportation reimbursements are are State funding um and as we think about um Federal uh Federal funding and how that could be

135impacted I I just things that are able to kind of protect our districts and and meet our needs at the same time are important yeah I think districts are word they're losing not next year follow year Federal funding forget which one I read there was a few in the news today M some uncertainty around just funding that would go to the state that actually help support our food um program right now so that is definitely a concern um I have to say it was principal for the day which I forgot to mention on Monday at placentino and did the breakfast program and the lunch program as the principal and just the number of students that are taking advantage of that and it may not even be food insecurity at home it may just be busy

136schedules and they're coming to school hungry and regardless of the reason they're coming to school hungry to be able to have those programs in place has been incredibly impactful in a positive way according the principles and the numbers have increased um and the stigma has gone away right so we are very much worried about sort of what will happen next um and we'll just have to kind of watch and and prepare for things so great um so moving on we have uh Personnel the guess there's some job descriptions that we need to approve yes put in your folder um the cafeteria general worker um job description that Lynn had updated as well as the kitchen manager and the uh assistant kitchen manager if you recall um in the last iteration of our contract we had

137um the manager and assistant manager would no longer be part of the cafeteria worker contract so um they are now under a separate contract and we did um negotiate that there would be an assistant manager position so Lynn has worked with David to update those three job descriptions and it's in your folder so any have any questions or other job descriptions I'm going to trust I think in the uh the administration's putting this together um so I will uh entertain a motion to approve all three of the job descriptions if you want like for assistant see assistant kitchen manager I'm going from the bottom up uh the kitchen manager and the general sorry the cafeteria general order um so moved can before we just can I just say one thing um if we are going

138to make kind of a change in what the duties responsibilities or job descriptions it's helpful for us to see what that was and then have the new proposed so we can see what the difference is because as I'm looking at this I'm going yeah it looks fine but I don't know what the change is really from what thank you was there before so if you could forward that to me just so that I could have that you could get those from we'll send them too do we have a second second all those in [Music] favor thank you it's unanimous Lisa um all right uh reports from our subcommittees Communications Communications y um so do we want to do office hours yes we with so I've sent out a couple requests for availability sorry about that

139my only thing was do we want to I guess do we want to do Mo before or after we sort of vote on a budget yeah so last year we did it we did two before and then one after but but I'm open to any suggestions of the best time to do that do we have at least three people available for next next Saturday I was I proposed Saturday the oh wait 22nd 22nd and then the 25th and the April 1st at um via Zoom at night um I can re I can re resond I think I said April 1st but I only had one availability in the original but I could do April 1st at night I probably do the 25th at night okay I can make any of those work I can be

140that Saturday the 22nd when was that email sent many times Joe no I can I can send it's okay I sent it again this week um I don't remember which day it's really okay I'm looking for it now I know go like as a I did it through the form um do we have any other no it's cut off I know but I don't know what they were saying there from with the what that's what I'm saying I could do the 25th with you Cynthia okay can you so we have two VI for the 25th and then Don can do the not by herself though right Hillary and I Hillary and then Frank can do the April 1 anyone else for April 1st she do April 1 potentially could do April 1st okay do okay

141we'll be the talk I might need to be there you trust us so I will um so I think it's a me thing it's okay J didn't say anything send I'll I'll probably send you an email Dan that you could send out and with those dates the budget presentation's in there so you can always bring that with you and access it okay discussion strategically I'll be after the you committed to what date and send that I love that they will put the budget presentation up on the website but I I think I'd like to wait to email out the budget presentation so we voted on it and have all the filled in the details so it's not yeah okay so can I just do a communicate say we're going to have office hours and we

142can discuss with the budgets or any other whatever else whatever other topics on these dates um and then you had mention a forum I mean do we want to talk about having a forum for this schedule stuff it sounds like the students are asking to hear for us to hear from them so so I guess my my question is is it who who is best to answer the the questions that they're having at this point I guess I don't think it's us I I think that it's sounding like the students want to be heard by us so I don't know so much of if it's about like questions to answer on specifics I think they want to feel that we they have been heard regardless whether it's they agree with it or they don't agree

143with it CU I don't think we we just didn't give them that opportunity before we voted on it yeah so I can also see people coming to office hours to discuss it possi but I think it's my understanding Mr list is doing the 19th in the evening and is there anything else we had the 10 um I I think he's having meeting with students during the day I believe there a lot of meetings going on with with counsel um the guidance and and um he's doing a lot of meetings but I do think you know we should look to get more Communications out from from Administration on things that you know seem to be still confusing yeah I mean it's it's still brand I mean Cynthia the one thing I want say is I think

144we need to do forums going forward and I don't know the version of a forum what makes sense in terms of the format to get more voices to be heard but right now the task at hand is we have an AB schedule so they need their questions answered for their schedules so that's what I'm trying to my point of view is let's focus on getting them set up for Success next year as we move forward we have to change how we do things and I I think the point is that they're not feeling that we're setting them up for Success because it's not about and I was trying to say this to here it's not about we we've been doing a great job communicating it's just that we haven't given them enough time and that's

145what I'm saying and I think that's what they are e the sentiment of what they're echoing is that it's just not enough time for them to put all of that together to really understand how it's going to work so they can understand how it's going to impact you know what if their career in school whether they're a freshman sopore senior um I think that there are students like um what was her name um uh shanaka that Shaka son sonak I'm not saying it right I'm sorry um who was saying you know this would be this could potentially be three different changes in my in my schedule in the four years that I'm here and I think that students have have had 5 years since the pandemic of having to Pivot and pivot and pivot and

146pivot and it's been a lot I think they've been incredibly resilient I think that they're looking for us to take a pause so that we can actually and I'm not saying that we don't implement it I'm saying that we give more time for our students our teachers the administration to get through freeing out all the logistics are building it on the Fly it's like we're literally in an airplane and building the airplane when we're flying and I don't think I that's how I that's what I think I'm hearing yeah I don't know if I'm that's what I'm hearing is your proposal though like guess what I'm hearing I'm trying to understand is are we saying there's going to be a proposal put on the table to pause this AB schedule because at this point the

147ab schedule is the schedule so how can we set our students up for success in the condensed timeline best as possible which is why I will reach out to Mr list as well like we need to make sure we have those mechanisms it's really up to us to decide how we're how we're hearing all this feedback and how we want to respond to it we've created that because we voted on it so we do have the power to say maybe we need to take a second look at this well that's why I think I've asked for you know some proposals from from Administration on different things we can do within the program of studies to that I think some of them have been issues for a while anyway I mean opport multiple times and if

148we keep the schedule or change the schedule 81 minutes is is the amount of time whether we did nothing or we did what we did so you know we can't change that um but there are other things things such as you know allowing students to take seven out of eight you know at some grade level we can these are proposals that would have to come from from Mr list these are not really you know for the question I would have there though is I know some of them could be happening and I think Dr geordan said after the fact but some of those have to happen now don't they if I if I'm a senior and we're going to say we're going to cut it down to seven credits to make the workload more manageable

149that has to be decided now is that that's that is the point like weighted finals I get like we can do that after like we can figure that out after but if it relates to credits and what I'm taking wouldn't that have to be decided before I start picking classes good to make a decision of whether we're allowing that for so that they can make a decision on what they're scheduling um the and so like what courses they're taking are you allowing them to take seven classes instead of eight and that's just a decision that you know the sooner we're able to make that decision um um the better uh but um I wouldn't say that that's one of like the major levers um for scheduling that's like a driver right now it's for students

150as far as selecting their courses but not like our ability to actually run the schedule okay it opens a week from now on the 21st and it's open for two weeks right so at this point we have Mr list presenting again to parents and students who want to come to it um on Wednesday the 19th does it it sounds like we might be asking for additional FaceTime with him in answering making sure people's questions are answered and the ability to meet with them is that that or do they do they need people need to have FaceTime with us as well to understand why we're doing this or is it I guess I'm just can we increase I would like to like I yeah because I'd like so I think you know certainly we have the

151meeting on the 27th and um they can do public comment again but as you see it's it's a little artificial right it could be 2 minutes it could be 3 minutes but it's not a back and forth we are having the office hours I mean I'm I'm there next Saturday maybe it makes sense to also try and schedule an additional office hour next week right we know Mr list is doing a presentation but can anybody to an hour or two of office hours next week prior to the 22nd so that would be the I can I can look I don't have all my schedules in front me I can look as well I'll also be there on the 19th as a parent of a rising freshman that would also allow it to be more of

152a communication and sit down and talk with people right me well that's essentially when you do do forums you know it is we we it we're there all of us are there and we're there to like people are ask us questions that's what exactly what is which is very different from public comment I would say though just I mean office hours have spotty attendance but these may be larger like making clear to other students like we're not in a position students and parents we're not in a position to answer in individual schedules so I just want to make sure they like they don't come and say here's what I my proposed schedule how will this work and I think all of us here would be challenged to answer that and I think the the issue

153is that is what a lot of the questions are right because at the end of the day mean how does it impact people care about the entirety but but they want to also know how it impacts them directly and that's only natural so we can we can let's pledge to Sarah that we will respond to her emails but we we can we can schedule uh you know more office hours and stuff that can be done uh outs meeting 18th Tuesday um on the 19 right does it make sense for two or three people to be there after the presentation too presentation present about an hour it's an hour but then that's in the the uh Auditorium and then afterwards there's an a specific discussion in here because the um um showcase the senior showcase mhm

154so there is already going kind of a breakout um I I'll be there um as a parent but would it make sense to do an office hour then what time is I would be at the senior showcas showc there's still seven of us right no I'm just saying that I won't we could I'm not trying to be there but I have a senior so I'll be that I think 6:30 to 7:30 the second part of it or is it 7:30 8:30 I have it 5:30 to 6:30 that's the okay that's the first part of the audit 6:30 to 7:30 is the is in here we could yeah 6:45 to 7:45 I cont tentatively do that could we make sure it's not a quum but that's sure we could I guess notice it notice it but

155um this is the 19th yes okay it's hot topic that night already so that's might not be a bad idea right right and people will be here that's the biggest thing with off so but we can we can yeah so let's let's discuss this and who so sit from like 7:30 to 9 or something d s so we do it after the second part okay I can definitely do that well I mean it's just we'll be when the second part ends really but we if we're going to post it we have to post it for a time so what is the point of the I just want to make sure like majority is going to be in the first part second part is breakout no the first part is freshman is the Freshman program ring

156nth grade for program study section 6:45 to 7:30 is the family presentation for students currently in grades 9 through 11 got it okay so we do most of the people will be still at 6 I just didn't want people to leave and then we're doing a forum yeah got it okay okay so we'll do a forum are we calling it a forum well if there're going to be more than three of us I guess it's sort of more just C so three four four office hour options the 19th after the presentation and then the 22nd at Coffee Haven then the 25th and the April 1st via Zoom at night okay great thank you um pa uh our next meeting is this Tuesday um at 4:30 at central office the 18th um and I'm going to

157have a couple of at least two policies at our next meeting from the 27th to bring forward at least two but the revisions are not new no budget met on March 6th March 12th March 13th and then you saw the the presentation tonight we will be meeting again before the 27th but we have not yet set a date okay um super Evo nothing new okay um um we need to vote on the last day of uh this school year um because are we confident we're not going to have any more sow days some big storm happening like this weekend is all right so I'll entertain a motion to we don't really have a choice here but to so to set the last uh update this last day of this school year to June 23rd 2025

158and it's a half day right yes the last day would be a half day on a Monday on a Monday so sure attendance is going to be Stellar it was either a half day after juneth I totally get it y this one's even worse this is even wor is there motion by do we have all right all in all all in favor nobody's in favor is what it is Hillary um okay do we want to talk more about uh the 2020 5 2026 school year I've given up on everybody um yes I think we should because we need to get this movie either today or um on the 27th at the latest cuz this is pretty late so nobody wanted to look at 22nd sorry Cynthia can you just re uh redescribe your your proposal

159because I will be honest I didn't wasn't able to sort of fully follow it at 11 it was going to yeah exactly cuz it was super late I um I thought it would save us like a day so that we'd be we would end before juneth cuz right now we're ending the day no wait sorry we do end the day before Jun so it was going to give us a buffer of a day I don't know if that's worth it or a day and a half but if we moved our December um break to the 22nd 23rd then um when back to to school on the 29th 30th and then did um a half again it only saves us like a half a day it wasn't really worth it but it was like is open

160popcorn so that's where we're at um I'm I guess I'm entertaining so it was only going to save us like a half a day it's not really worth it but or a day I guess it it be it was just one day I did I don't know if it really does much cuz here's the thing we're supposed to go back on what it we go back on the second which is Friday like nobody's going to be there so but don't people go I get that I agree with but don't people kind of some people go away for that entire time and go away from the 20th to the the thought was that they would go for the 22nd 20 that we would pull that one back and then we would get back the 29 30th

161they would go to school 29th 30th and 31st but then be off of the 1 and 2D so like have a half day on the 31st or not who cares New Year's Eve if we we have to have that offway if we're concerned they're showing up on January 2nd I'd say equally if not potentially worse if we ask them to come in on the 29th and 30th just cuz with the amount of people that will do trips for that week it's more likely to come back by New Year's Day and it's awward it's a Friday but it's more likely but nobody's going to be here on Friday I think one way to save a day might be that we have to go back to doing half P days clarify the half PD days don't change

162the length of the school year though cuz it's still 185 days they well for the teachers no not for the teachers really we've done it before where it's been like you know we've done it before we've talked about it back and forth it's just not we we did do it years before and if we did two half PD days that saves us two days right we could get us I think technically we have to do like three three half days to equal a one full day PD so that's why a lot of districts do like a like one half day like every single month throughout the whole year but does it does it does it now that we have the elementary schools on a more similar um time frame they could collaborate more now than

163they were able to possibly a half day I know before when you had Miller and placentino teachers who had their work days on such different hours I mean that's worth looking into I mean you're you're you're closer but but I think you still have to fit the teacher schedule around that so it's still at 185 days so either that or you're putting full days for teachers at the end of the year the you know I mean like it's still the same problem um regardless of their half it it doesn't I don't we've tried different scenarios and it hasn't not solved the problem but in terms of the learning days it would be nice it could be more valuable to be out before it's so hot exactly that's the whole that was why I was like

164if we could gain a day or two days but I'm in favor of moving till at least two PD days really screws us on I think the um well planning has already happened for PD next year as far as like booking we have to book like a year out so some of that's already been contracting with people as we speak well all of the days contractor not all but I mean like you in order to get certain training you have to book it out way ahead do we know how many days are contracted for I don't at this point like the some of it they've already been putting out for dates so we don't right CU I verified maybe you can tell us which ones have been contracted for and we can move the other

165ones to have PD days still that makes it really hard to do the work that we're trying to do I think as we've discussed I mean it's really hard I mean we're going to be doing curriculum reviews during the day we're going to be having all day trainings with outside providers so I'll bring it up one more time and I know is not favorable if we're asking everyone to come back on the second right now if we move the January 16th PD day to the 2nd understanding teachers would need to come in on the second but it limits like if we're ask everyone to come in right now we're only asking teachers if we do a PD day that's just no yeah but the alternative but right now it's it's a school day not much

166instruction going on it's there then I think my proposal is better then okay cuz then we get a full week and then the people come back to school and then they have two those two days in a whole long weekend again I guess my other question and then you save a day what then we get out on the 7 instead you think that's a those the 22nd and 23rd are going to be like the districts surrounding us where our teachers might be living do you think do you think they'll be out I don't I wouldn't know that I didn't actually check that you think other districts will be I think they will we be considering the 23rd and 22nd I didn't I think the issue is actually we have school on the 29 30th and

16731st but every District that I'm aware would be closed so that means now parents would have to find day care for their children that is that's what I'm getting that is what I'm getting that is a big concern I don't think we want New Year's I get it is going to be horrible especially for people that have already booked um trips because it's so expensive traveling the Christmas week that they end up booking probably already now and some people have weddings and I mean I just it's that's why like last year I had said if you're going to really alter the schedule you really need to think a full year ahead because the closer you get to this timeline it's just people have already um well to be fair even two years cuz there are

168trips now planned for the spring and February breaks yeah still trips so yeah but the other thing is they have like you know they have vacation camps for kids I mean not not everybody's off for the break like some people have to work throughout that so they just do vacation camps I'm just saying like like most other people I think that's why we I tried to think last year I had when I I did want to support Eid but I also had offered to try to put a PD day on that day so that we could still have it off you know this we're just we have limitations based on the number of holidays that have been built in Ash doesn't have not ready to vote for getting out on June 18th which with just

169one snow day would push it to the 22nd so is it do we're getting on the 23rd this year right which is really late will be like on that day do we Sol we did not have people think about it we' be ready to vote on the 27th I mean what's the I mean two weeks it's already late two weeks I think we should think about a little more the time but everyone come ready to vote one way or the other in the 27th I'll be zo you zo okay trying to look at Hop this calendar cuz they have the same holidays we have but they but they have one less Contra contractional day so it's also do they have half PD days they given off the second they have the second Jesus they have

170the second off they decided already okay hold on most of the time we've decided this in February so I think it's I I understand that the second coming back is problematic but I I I don't see any other the scenario based on the number of holidays that have built in but something has to give here and that's the only give we could come up with what do we think ATT tenant will be worse and I know it's a bit of a gamble right now the second or the 22nd of June right cuz if we think about the second is going to be so bad I think the 22nd take that off will be worse will be worse but that's but 22 isn't a certainty could be the 23rd and they're taking the first and second

171well exactly I mean it would 22nd would be a certainty if we took January 2nd off and we made a day off know right now we're ending on the 18th it's just one day one one snow day in you're I mean ideally ending before juneth is really the best viable option we can come up with what I guess I'm saying Dan is we're giving June or January 2nd off the day needs to push out oh well then you right then you go to the 22 that's I was asking like you think January be so bad is 22nd going to be worse and the answer was seem to be yes I would just advocate for you know providing closure on the calendars as as soon as as possible on that just as far as thinking about

172you know the teachers and and starting to schedule out and families as well as far as vacations and different things that they're trying to put in uh into place um also if if we're kind of continuing to have that back and forth on like the second or the June or whatever you know we can we can connect with teachers too just to kind of get a sense of like what if you could do that for March 27th just because I just don't oh I don't know that we're going to get good consensus honestly I mean like I I hear you hton has the second off just so you know that's because they have less contractual days I they get but they same day because they have contractual no I know I'm just saying that they're

173also taking the second off they do early release P I would stck at what David saying we're getting a lot of feedback from teachers they just need to know the calendar so so they don't really yeah we're going to get a tradeoff so we just need to decide so that they can play yeah they just want to I had to decide tonight I'd still like to convert to half PD days yeah yeah I would too I know the idea was floated that we um potentially remove some nonfederal holidays is that the table I would say now Joe which one far now you speak and you throw the grenade that that is not something that that's that's a pretty major I think the other thing is one of the things that worked really well this year

174is giving our teachers we did a half day on the first day of school so that teachers had all of their mandatory trainings done that day I would have to foro that half day if we're going to go back to half day because we're trying to minimize um disruption to time on learning so there's a lot of other things that were factored in when we went back to full days and it's been much more um the PD's been better the teachers getting their trainings done that opening day has been better and there's been less disruption for parents so and I don't think we gain um if anything you're gaining like one day by going back to half days and the disruption is actually probably well one day would be huge because we then either give

175the second off or we start end on the 17th and have that extra B day so one day is pretty significant looking I'm can you can maybe let's let's let's do the vote on on the 27th and maybe if you could put together an option to for splitting up P into two two half days and and let's see what that looks like does that make sense or do people just want to vote on it now I don't can I ask one more questions of course um is has there been any discussion around moving one of the PD days to before school starts yeah so we did we did that a few years ago and teachers hated it okay so we took the PD survey feedback and um they really said they were so anxious about

176trying to prepare for students that they were very unfocused that day so by that's why we moved it to mid-september so I guess the question would be though would they rather have a PD day before school starts or January 2nd off what but then that would put us into the 22nd of August anyhow do you know what I mean like that would that was the one we talked about going back to the week before so I think we told them Friday we did float that putting no no no no we did not float that I float I Flo it I floated it right I really wanted to advocate for the the different groups though because if you go back to half days the different groups cannot meet across the schools because they we're talking about

177one day so we're going to there would be three three other full PD days so we're justone splitting one of them be different now that we have placentino and Miller on the same schedule no because we're talking we're we're meeting K through 12 in a lot of different groups together I have to go back and look at how CU when we had the when we had the half apds we actually had 181 days for students to make up the time so it actually was the same length of the year that's what I'm trying to I'd have to look back to a couple years ago when we had that scenario sounds like we should yeah we can all look back at those let's look back on those schedules and and come ready to go put an

178actual vote on for the 20,000 I will put an actual vote on and I will put in bold and capitals thank you okay I bet we land on the sun probably um okay now we're getting to to new business um Title 9 updates so I put two items in your the school committee folder just for your information um um based on the current um government of the Federal Regulations it has been voted um that the the president has implemented back to 2020 Title 9 regulations so it's law at this point so we we have to now revert back and change our handbooks to reflect that so J Bey had um reached out to our legal council Katie minol and so in there is the Title Nine student handbook language and this is more just for

179you to be aware because legality Trump's um bad word choice but the legal requirements enforces that we do have to change the language regardless of the fact that you know us vote on the handbooks at different time of the year so this is really about making sure the law is reflected in our student handbooks and then um we will end up bringing Cynthia back to policy um acab so that we can reflect the changes in policy as well at our next policy meeting but I wanted you to see that this is going to have to change and then we'll end up having to send out to parents to let them know that this is now the um the policy and the grievance process and complaint process that we do have to follow can can we

180get a red line or is there a red line to this to see the changes um it's I I don't think it's red line because it's completely reverted back I'd have to give you the old one and um that's in the handbook our policy is supposed to just say that we follow what the law is essentially and then that's the length I'm not suggesting we no no I'm just telling you I don't there was a little I'll admit some dragging of the feet changing it CU change it back again and then now we're changing it again um current so that's why it just reflects now in the handbook that it automatically changes into whatever is whatever the whims of the current Administration okay um so dis moving on to uh discussing the creation of a

181leveling or um subcommittee of the the hollon school committee um I did send you an email just because I didn't know if you wanted me to at least kind of address some of the um there does seem to be some confusion out there I didn't know if you wanted me to project and so to be able to walk through kind of what is already in place for next year would that be helpful yes I I think though I just just so we're clear my sort of thought here and I thought we sort of discuss was more of a a longer term a committee for at least a year to look at not next year but sort of the the future stat so I want to hear have to say I just I thought it' be

182helpful for people to hear kind of where where we are at the moment and then um talking about what your plans are for the committee so let me just share this why is it not there going try again it didn't share that time I don't know why it's not sharing look at you see I'm I'm sharing it and it's going blank I don't know why mine's blank do you want to see if you can share it screen I don't know why I mean I was it was working earlier so I don't know why it's not now I think you're the only one on now can you that's the one that's on yeah that's one that's on can you make that a coost it's screen sharing that's not the issue you can see it here mhm

183um can somebody else log on to it and then you're asking you to pull up from there uh yeah if you if you can or from your computer it's not yeah if you can if you can go in from the school committee there we go there we go all right thank you I don't know why it was doing that but okay so it's it's still going to be hard for you to see but let me just see if I can go back it's still going to be hard it looks like a completely different language the way this was um designed was to try to kind of show where we are currently and what's already happened one of the things we had talked about at the last um presentation when carara Manning was here was the

184fact that the teachers have already done work as of from last year to this year to try to address because no matter what direction we go adding levels taking levels away the model is still if we're going to do Algebra 1 in grade 8 there's still for some students they still have to do four years of math in three years there's no other way around it whether it's levels or not so if you look at the blue and on the left side which is our current grade six um class the blue is all of the current grade six standards and then as I slide down here you can see the teachers have added some of the grade seven which is the pale yellow on the left you can see that 7 rpa1 those are showing

185you the standards that they've already taken from seventh grade to to move down to sixth grade to try to make some of these adjustments so that's what I wanted to show you here so it's not a ton of Standards but again it's taking to get more um into the content and then if you look at the second column which is our current math 7 which is the yellow so if you look they've also tried to move some of the grade eight standards which is the light green so that's why col a cod to show you that this is the work we talked about that happened last summer the teachers have really made a concerted effort to shift some of this and they tried to look at standards that more just um if it was a

186grade seven standard and then the grade eight was part of the same standard but more advanced that's why they made some of these shifts already sorry where are the grade eight standards in grade seven so the green so that's the yellow is grade seven this column here and then anything that's green in the yellow col and then 8 gc9 which is a geometry 8 G8 um 5 so you can see those are the ones they' moved down because it made sense to place them there and then going into the third column which is our current um math 8 course similarly they've looked at anything they could shift there but the math 8 standards um is what our current um grade eight students are getting either all math 8 or they getting a hybrid of some

187math 8 and then alge one standards so this math 8 in the middle that would stay the same for most students next year that are not going to be in advanced and then if you look to the right of that one is there anything that you're proposing changing in the math8 for next year from this year math 8 will be consistent and they'll do all math 8 standards for the majority of students that aren't in the advanced class okay so that's saying the same as as yes are we offering eight Advanced and algebra one next year is that so if you look at current 2425 which is what we call algebra and grade eight that's not going to exist oh move to algebra because now we're doing the full algebra so if you look at

188the um right column with the purple the current um grade8 Advanced are getting the purple standards the yellow standards are the ones that they weren't getting in this current year but they will get next year so you'll see there's quite a few though there's a lot and I know that everyone's equal it's it's a lot and that's that's why in 9th grade they're spreading it out over really two years of math and it is just a lot um but the teachers will be working as hard as they can to get that in um regardless of how many levels you have in seventh or eth you're still going to have students that are going to be missing some standards whether it's in seventh grade or eth grade and that's why um these students in the alra

1891 when they get the full alra 1 in 25 26 will be able to go into geometry in GR 9 and then alare 2 in grade 10 and then pre-cal or Cal in 11 or some of them might take it in grade 12 foral are there any eighth graders that will be or seventh graders now that will be going into eth grade algebra 1 next year what or are there any standards that they will be missing so they will have not gotten the math 8 standards so that's why we propose the math lab so they'll end up taking um they'll have another offering during the day that they will have some extra help actually help extra work to do because the same thing would happen if you have two levels in grade seven those students

190so right now if if a current sixth grader were going into seventh and they were going into Advance they would not have had any of the grade seven standards so no matter what levels you have you're still condensing for some students you're still condensing four years of math in three so that we still have to supplement either in seven or eight regardless of um which way you go can you just go over the math lab again sure yes so that's why the math to position is really important that we would be offering um D blanking out at what time of the day she would be doing it Rams BL Ram sorry yes during the Rams block they're going to have um a math lab offering and they they'd have to um vary the time of

191day the days of the week that students would get it and so we'd be using a lot of the EXL and this would under Carla's Direction she would work with the math tutor so that students would be set up so they have it all set up with all the math eight standards they would test in and they would supplement to find which ones they're missing or I mean some kids will just naturally have been able to learn them and move on on their own but the ISL program is designed to supplement and also make sure that the kids are moving as fast as they can through those standards how does Delta math fit in Delta B one um it's more for like repetition and gaining the facts but we're really trying to utilize more ISL

192and I ready because that's what we P so EXL because that's in Middle School we're relying on that more because you can give specific assignments based on standards that students are struggling with and also Exel adjust to the student so if they're struggling with a certain concept it's going to give them work on that concept if they've already mastered something it's not going to give them work on that does Exel teach them or I mean it's more it's more more of an assessment as I can tell from no so so Exel is tier one and tier two that's why we wanted to get it tier one is the assessment part tier two is helping students differentiated at their level so there's like a but then it just gives them more problems to do at a

193level that they're still trying to master well it helps cor learn on standards correct and it helps them to learn I guess I'm just worried that it's more the kids are just trying to figure out the problem but I don't know are they learning the concept oh absolutely they're getting support from teachers at the same time but if I'm if Dr Kus is struggling on one concept and I'm struggling on a different concept I excel is giving her work on hers and me work on my standard that I'm struggling with until they Master correct so it's a differentiated math with direct instruction right that's what we're trying to understand is they're going to be direct teachers would yes it gives them feedback when they get it wrong but there's it's not like specific lesson on

194okay so now that you've gotten it wrong like here's here's what you got wrong here's what you need to do next time but it doesn't then do a specific lesson so that's where that direct instruction so the would be giving direct instruction too along with that just is a classroom teacher but if you had 10 kids in there and then you see that one continues to hit on those same standards and can't master them that's when the tier three instruction might have to this might be my own incompetency but when when working with my daughter's EXL I haven't been know to figure out how to go back to problems that she already did and review them I don't know if that's just me or that's that's not possible I don't know the program well enough

195but I'm thinking it's because they would have mastered those concept she got them wrong okay it gives them new ones in the same on the same standard right right but I'm trying to see if I'm trying to help her and go back and look at she did wrong it would be nice to be able to go back and and and I think that's where the tutor and also Carla would be monitor ing the the reports that they're getting to determine whether need more support Delta math uh Delta math we are we are not using as much because I excel and I ready for those needs are you I think it is be used not not as much because we're relying on I ready and I EXL yes it's being used but not as much as

196we were before because it's meeting the bulk of those needs that Delta math did do we have any feedback from students or the M department on it on Delta B we can I can get some I know that Mr McLoud talked to him about it um but yeah I can get some feedback I think whether depending on what you decide you know next year if you put together a level subcommittee I would I would hope that it wouldn't start till the fall just because there's so many things happening uh that I don't know that you get much accomplished this spring but if you go that direction and these are some of the conversation we want to bring to those discussions and I think regardless if you end up implementing um two levels in grade seven

197the same thing's going to happen we still want to have math lab in grade seven then because they would have not gotten the math if they're going right from sixth to 7th and the advanced in grade seven becomes the math eight standards and they would have missed the grade seven so we still have to double up somewhere for students regardless of the levels so so that kind of was was curious to me in your email just asking to delay till the fall um only because that at least my thinking and and obviously this would be the committee sort of put the charge in to the to the subcommittee would not be to make any changes but why would we wait to start the the work looking to the for the for the following year I

198was just thinking of the bandwidth of the administrators who I think are really critical to this work absolutely just I'm worried about the bandwidth of them with all the other changes that are happening are you looking for it to be like a traditional subcommittee or or should it be a committee of the administration and the you know we already had a math um study group and then school committee members could sit on it because it makes that it a little bit more school Comm members did not sit on either the no no I'm saying that we could sit on it is what I'm saying instead of it being a subcommittee of the school committee because then we're operating more on their time well I think it would be I I I agree with you that

199the administrators should it should lead it but I you know my my idea anyway would be that it would be you know teachers some administrators a couple School Comm members but for the school committee really to be there more to observe and sort of report that's what I'm saying but it's not Comm right that's fine but I don't know if that's really a one thing in the subcommittee just like just like with the tuition free F the kindergarten what we did with the with the start times sub well that's a true subcommittee then right with three members on it no doesn't typically it's three members on it but it doesn't need to be we wouldn't do we have three members but then we also have to post it the same way and all that stuff

200correct it would have it have to be public follow the oml and everything okay um but but just saying it can sometimes limit the flexibility there definitely suggesting that a couple of members be on it and serve on it and still do all the same things you can still take minutes and all that but it's it's it within the purview of the superintendents just like we had the task force on student stress or whatever you want to call it maybe it's a response team or you know I think yeah I think the difference is who sort of the committee ultimately reports to do we have three members that are interested in being on it I'd be okay with two but I'd like to be on it I could do it I think as we think

201about a subcommittee though being Cynthia and Joe sh feel free to chime in but it was highly disorganized yeah we took and again start times and and math leveling and deling different conversation but as you bring in different points of view that have very specific viewpoints at times you're not going to get consensus and and again you never start with consensus typically you got to get to consensus I urge as we think about having Administration Teachers Community school committee on a subcommittee there also be an external point of view that can help bring that to the table because you're going to bring a bunch of points of view and I'm I am for um the leadership be Administration but having an external point of view to bring a different perspective external point of view someone

202who's not directly involved in it so I was thinking that we would just like some some I think Kathy had volunteered to to be and I and she might be able to do it during the you know when it's during the day CU she's not tutoring when students are sure so is that what I mean you mean something like that because I would not be in favor of of bringing in anybody like a a moderator to them try understand chaotic I would rather be part of the administration the superintendent and certainly having school committee members serving on it um and be active pers what I would say so is Kath remind me Kathy a parent she is former School Committee Member she was a three-term school Committee Member I guess the concern I have kid

203her kids have graduated how do ensure that it doesn't end up start with and end up cuz to be honest I think the feedback was like how do we ensure there's organization and goals and well one of the I think one of the issues that with the start times was again this is seems to be a theme that of critique and we're going to have to address it but there was a fairly short time frame to make decisions with with that this one of the reasons why I think starting it earlier is better is that you get organized and you set up sort of a trajectory in sort of where where you want to go and you put in place I I I think that in your email you suggested to people and I think

204that those make make a lot of sense my only suggest those were Ron Taylor and and um and Karen Manning um my only other suggestion would be maybe I want you to talk with him but but um but Jerel um just because one of as we look at all this one of the big things we're talking about is and I I feel like we don't ask we talk about Equity a lot we stand by the equity AUD but I think having him more in the conversation will bring a different perspective right so I would definitely stand by one of the main focuses right and so then we would seek out you know some some number of of teachers and then a couple community members who have no no not no I'd like to keep it

205to can I I just thought some of the things that I've done like when I do Wellness Council whatever I always say please let me know if you're interested and let me know kind of why you're interested it would be wonderful if you could get representation from both sides of the some people that may not want to change to far and people that do want change cuz what happens sometimes is we get people that already have a mindset made up and then we don't get you really need pros and cons of both sides debate it really becomes a debate and then we heard from from from Ron ARA we kind of you know that you know that he at least has seen the the benefits of of deling um I don't know where where Miss

206Manning stands but um I I think am iing nor am I looking to to um to you know uh what's the word uh stack the deck if you will in one way or the other but um so I agree yeah I think we have you know community members who feel very passionately about it um in in certain in one certain way but I think that there's that other piece that I think that they may be missing which is one of the reasons why we're looking at that was because of the equity piece of and we need to make sure that we um follow through with that whatever we decide right so if we if we have to think creatively about how we make sure that we don't have those choke points and still have levels

207if that's what we decide to do we just to make sure and be mindful that we're not stacking classes in certain ways but that may be an unavoidable thing which is why we have to be really thoughtful about how we decide to move forward one of the things that's great about kathia obviously is her experience and being not only on the school committee but but tutoring tons of our students knowing you know kind of what what it is you know certainly reaching out to Amanda um and bigo and then then you know right but those are folks and those are folks that appeal very passionately about math so we just have to understand I think we have to both we consider teachers I'd like to consider teachers both at the middle school and the high

208school abely and frankly if we're going to be looking at if we end up having to a level if this is scaffolding it's going to have to happen the elementary level too so I don't sure I think it should be spanning I mean it's the entire K through 12 math program so and with clear goals like what is the goal if we're trying to make sure that the most students have access to get to calculus by the time they finish high school here and that's our goal then let's set that as the goal and figure out what those Pathways will end up being that students have a clear pathway to getting to calculus and that we're setting the structures in the in the um the SC the pathways to moving between so if a student

209is a little bit delayed in getting the materal there's multiple MTI point to me that's where you where the really kicks in is is ensuring that we have the the ability to provide students with the support to allow them to accelerate if they just are later you know in in in accelerating and getting it right sometimes especially with things like math it just kind of clicks one day right and and you start going but if you're two years in and you've already kind of gone into the just the right well I will never get geometry for statement um about uh bringing something else into the space um I think that I think regardless of what the makeup of that committee is everybody's going to be bringing their own biases or their own Community identities whether

210they're a school Community member whether they're a parent whether they're a teacher whether they're administrator um and somebody who's able to kind of acknowledge that and and sort through that so that we can have open and Cloud of conversations you and I having been with Joe and with Cynthia on the on the uh other committee um people brought in those biases and it we spent a ton of time even just trying to break down those in our conversation and that's took up a solid chunk of our of our time um most of it you know so it you know it's it's no secret that like it was I was the principal of the building when we made the you know made the move away from seventh grade accelerated um and the reasons for that I

211am I am not wanting to put myself on that Committee in any way uh but um I've I've offering yeah so you know I uh I would just say that you know in doing that um and making that move I I also know and acknowledge it was not necessarily a PO a popular thing um so if uh if I was completely focused on self-preservation that would you know not have been the direction I would have gone in um that that being said um whatever group has put together with this is to look deeply on you know our actual data uh with our kids and and the the potential outcomes and consequences of any decision that's here's what I make and focus on our mission and values I was going to say I feel like this

212is less to me about calculus but what is it that we hope for our students Futures Beyond High School right because I personally it was trig when I went to school and some districts still do trig so I took trigonometry I was an advanced student and then went into college I took calculus for math Majors I decided I had to work too hard my v+ in in college so I gave up um calculus oh I finished calculus but I didn't go any further but to this day I don't use calculus you know and or triing right my my algebraic thinking I did someone I middle school math 8ighth grade um free algebra that being said I think it's more about why do we want them to get to calculus what doors might it open and

213I think that's a better story than calculus for its own sake is not really the outcome do you know what I mean so and maybe part of the in Innovation Pathways that David is trying to move forward with I think part of it is meeting each kid where they're at and getting them as far as we can exactly but why and as far as they want to too not just what we can but also like you know if they want to you know accelerate but maybe they don't their family de doesn't have the means to to put them in Kuman or or Russian math how how do we they don't have to leave this District in some way whether it's expensive tutoring some fists can afford and others cannot or leave this District in order

214to be offered um challenging ma yeah and I think that's my point so what is it that the children would aspire to Beyond high school that would really make it important that they get there so here's the thought so I think that you know we do want a little bit of structure around this I mean I would be willing to sort V to create the shell tonight but that might not be necessary one at least in so far as my thought would be would it I don't know if you've had conversations with Karen yet about this but if Hillary and Karen maybe could could find time to get together to to discuss sort of the framework the mission statement and then we can bring that back you know on the 27th and and and vote

215on the creation of the committee with a sort of a a memb ship sort of suggestion to not not necessarily names but at least um positions and in the meantime if there are are teachers and staff who are interested um in serving on it or members of the community um to you know send an email to who wants to get the emails I I think need to send an email out to the community about it and then I mean because if you're not listening tonight you won't know anything about this right yeah I think we need to gain some which I think would have to come after the 27th maybe wouldn't Hillary and Karen talk okay for more of an i' like like Ron if we could too cuz I think you know his perspective

216as a former math teacher has been very helpful in our conversations so can you let me speak to I have not talked directly to Ron Karen is aware that I was recommending her and I'd like to speak with Jerry just to let him know that that might be an ass okay yeah sorry to put you on the SP spot there but and then so then we'll have more of a a concrete recommendation um because I do think you know the mission statement where we're looking to get to um as a to sort of empower the committee and and sort of to find the work is important does that make sense yes sure sure okay okay nice school that's so I so I popped in your folder the language um and the so the last time

217I did a presentation on the SOI was in 2023 because we had had people that had seen those presentations so frequently that um we didn't feel a need to do so last year but for people that were not here when we made that um vote I wanted to share that so you had that and I apologize that you just got that today because it just occurred to me that some people would not have um seen that before you need us to vote on it tonight so I need to get it on the agenda for select board very soon so I've already heard it before so um I'm happy to answer questions but also it would just be voting on the language for the um thing um is there a change in the language at all

218not the l i I did take priority four out because priority four um in last year's SOI had to do with at that point we were seeing that bubble going up and we and now that our enrollment has dropped more significantly in the lower grades I can't really use that as a um a need any longer that's that's a big blow high school for yeah just if we um yeah but but just so with the SL board now meeting um every other week and um us needing to get on their agenda for the 24th because I think it's the next before we had to submit it on the 11th um correct so I did ask um Lisa to reach out today to see what which one we can get on I said I have to

219do it no later than April 7th and that's cutting it close uh Kathleen was able to respond oh okay with the 24th 24th thank you okay so we're on for the 24th to change the language in here though cuz it says February 8th 2024 I'm sorry did I not take it up no February 8th says on February 8th no no that's that's not the actual language we it's it's the italicize that is the the language we need to read take the rest of the language right I will but I it's just the resolved having convenient and open I know but I tried to fix the dates because I apologize for that if I didn't um I hope I put put the right one in there well you have at the top it says March 13th

220but then you start the first sentence says on February 8th oh yes sorry I just 1th the you know but I just wanted you to read the resolve part yes and I can update the rest of it thank you is everyone ready MH okay resolved having convened in an open meeting on March 13th 20125 prior to the SOI submission closing date the school committee of the town of hollon in accordance with it Charter bylaws and ordinances has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit to the Massachusetts school building authority the statement of Interest form dated April 14th 11 April 11th 2025 for Holliston High School located at 370 holl Street Holliston Massachusetts 01746 which describes and explains the following deficiencies and the priority categories for which an application may be submitted to the massachusett school

221building authority in the future priority area number one building jeopardizing student health poor health and learning environment priority area number five replacement renovation or modernization of a school facility system such as roofs Windows boilers Heating and ventilation systems to increase energy conservation decrease energy related costs in a school facility priority area number seven replacement of or addition to obsolete buildings in order to provide a full range of programs consistent with State and approved local requirements and hereby further spec specifically acknowledges um that by submitting the statement of Interest form the massachus school billing Authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or the approval of an application the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitment from the massachusett school building authority or commits the town of Holliston to filing an application for funding with

222the massachusett school building authority so that is the um motion do we have a do we have someone to move by Cynthia you second by Dawn um let's just do a roll call Frank yes Hillary yes Joe yes Sarah yes um Cynthia yes Don yes Dan yes so that carries 7 to zero thank you hopefully more luck in this one and did we update that we went in front of the select board on Monday for the SOI Dr Jordan did it during his yes and so they they they voted and supported our our applications for the uh the roofs okay start okay so that brings us to the end of our uh public meeting and cynia it is 10:00 on the on the do so that was we did it however we we we are

223going to do into executive session um we don't ex we do need Executive session um so I will entertain a motion to adjourn from Open Session into executive session from which we will not return though no uh for the purpos of discussing strategy was collected bargaining or litigating if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares and this is for uh the hft hollison schedule committee um yes move by Cynthia okay Frank yes Hillary yes Joe Sarah Cy yes Don yes Dan yes uh thank you very much we are now adjourned and have a good night e