Holliston School Committee - October 5, 2023

001good evening Holliston and welcome to the October 5th 2023 uh meeting of the hollon school committee we call the meeting to order we're meeting in regular session first item on the agenda is the consent agenda with some warrants and uh the uh minutes from last week last week last meeting does anyone have anyone have any comments on the minutes or are we good to approve the consent agenda okay at this time I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda move to approve the consent agenda as presented is there second second by Amanda you mini yeah I have I was okay the um so all in favor say I so it's 401 um perfect moving on to our report from our student Representatives hello yeah so once again thanks for having us here um we

002wanted to start off by talking about um the Mia power ranking since those the come out um so football currently ranked number two which is really exciting and girls volleyball is rank number seven and on the top of the football yeah so homecoming was two Fridays ago our theme was hawaian and it was very successful I think everybody had a really great time and I never know regarding that um and then last Thursday we had parent open house um teachers I think really enjoyed that um NHS seniors served as tour guides and the NHS had big sale and raised anal $80 and then um on the top of the student advisory Council um October 17th um and we have ourm as of today so we're really excited to have representative James Arena De Rosa joining

003us for civic State this year we also have um our beloved AP Government teacher Mr Bry um Mrs Susan Nichols from the Senate president's office that's the district liaison uh Ted Dy who's um a high school or hon High School alumni um and Elizabeth Bri the town park and so we plan on having a panel for um the senior class having a voter registration drive and having um our senior class engage in issues of politics and Civic engagement as we prepare to step out into the world what day is that again Tuesday October 2E the morning thank you [Music] great thank you very much all right uh next on the agenda is uh school committee individual comment and we will start with Sarah um I just want to quickly say thanks to um The Faculty

004staff and everyone else at Rams in the high school um for both open houses that I was able to attend in the last few weeks um they're all great I really enjoyed getting to meet um my kids teachers of real heroes of the High School open house of course with the National Honor Society did that helped everyone find their way around when we were all off thank you everyone who made that and happen okay tonight thank you I I am thank you for open house as well I only got lost twice I just going to say I know it's like my what sixth year coming to the school but I so still that's a success um and I really appreciate all the teachers that were there it was awesome I went to the townwide not

005to steal any of sah Fender but I did go to townwide PTO last night we had this new handy dandy like flyer brochure about the things that they do for the community and one of the things I just wanted to call attention to to the staff and teachers is that they have a form online for them to submit for um materials and things that they might need for their classroom that's open to all teachers all staff members regardless of what school year it's not just for elementary school high school as well so they just wanted me to call attention to that at the meeting last night so I said I would do that and um that's all I have for this evening than comment okay um so just uh for for me just as a

006reminder to everyone town meeting is October 16th it's in the hollon High School uh Auditorium 7:00 I believe there's babysitting again available uh for those who need it at least in the first few hours um it uh it promises to be a very riveting meeting um no but it is our is our fall Capital meeting the the schools have one request for uh uh for Chromebooks for Fifth and eth grade and sort of our normal request um so we hope everyone can can come out and and show their support for the schools in that way uh the only other thing we'll talk about later on in the meeting is just that we'll be holding a um form with the school committee and the uh sort of the staff of Educators and staff on October 12th

007um second we have public closed meeting but it's intended for uh for just uh for teachers and staff and that's in the uh that's in the upper toown Hall and we'll be sending out an email tomorrow as for official invite um to to the staff that way um any else all right do we have any public comment no one send me an email and I don't see anyone here so I think we don't have any public comment so we'll move forward uh next we up we have presentations and um are we sure Jess is first jelle go first all right all right so I just screen [Music] share so I just got a text from somebody that we need to unmute the zoom uh on that computer okay unmute okay [Music] no the bottom [Music]

008left I think get to mute yours just yeah kick back you guys got to turn your sound all the way up okay all right there's can you hear us at home no Echo okay it's a rocky way to start um so I am Jess Bey director of student services and um tonight I just want to give you an update of our work ahead um for those of you that don't know I'm I'm going into my second year in this role um and very excited at the the work that our team has already um started to do from the summer um up until now so I always like to make everything student centered those of you that know me and we're starting to work on um presenting at each IEP meeting as well the students picture

009to to not allow us to forget who we're really talking about I think sometimes um we're always in this to do what's best for kids um but sometimes we lose sight um and so I like to just show what we're doing and we're off to a great start here these are just a few pictures from events that have occurred already at the first start of the Year some activities at the middle school um our unified basketball has started um and just it's been it's been a good good start so far um I like to just sort of ground Us in the work that we do and give you the trajectory of where we've been with our student population so I tried to capture what our data looked like last year just to give some perspective

010um we definitely often talk about uh the challenges that students are facing now uh but sometimes we fall trapped to um everyone is having a hard time and everyone is struggling and so this data just sort of captures where we're at with things and certainly there has been an increase in certain areas but I think it's expected increase as we fall out of this um Co I hate to bring us back to co but certainly we do need to keep that in our mind as far as the data that we have and the kids that we're working with um and just sort of track um are we getting better or are we still struggling and so you'll see a small uptick in our numbers for IEP and a small um downward Trend in our 504s

011and so looking at some of our data we can um equivalate that to some students are coming off of 504s and going on to IEPs we've also had um some movein as well that are um IEPs inherited from from other districts um our English language learner population has grown just a little bit so we're um at 77 last year into 81 this year currently um and our out of District numbers which we projected last year we were going to see a little bit of an uptick um we certainly have had that so we were at 42 last year and this year um we are currently at 48 kids out of District um so far when and I speak with our ssas and our um special ed Liaisons we talk often about what does our journey

012look like and what do we really want um for our students and I think you can equivocally hear from everyone we're really looking at um just an open and honest way to communicate with families and staff to learn more about what it is that our students need um and really working with Community stakeholders at bringing in resources to best help us and I know jerielle will talk a little bit about how we're growing that in the area of mental health um and utilizing outside Community stakeholders to help us with that um but also within special ed services we do a lot of work with um outside agencies such as Perkins and landmark to continue to grow our own practices um but also help students that are currently in the district needing those supports where we

013may not have those positions I always like to bring us back um to what we have been doing um sometimes it's often hard when we're in the thick of things to really look at the progress we've made so I will always paint this picture for you to show you the growth that we are making um I think we've made incredible progress over the past year in beginning to align the work across the district I think when I jumped into this role um one of the things that I noticed and heard from lots of people um was that we need to align our processes and procedures so that not only our staff know what to expect for a students Journey but families also know what to expect and so we don't expect that prek is the

014exact replica of what you would do at the high school but you should be able to anticipate some similarities in how things are done the processes are pretty similar and the services that we provide are very similar um what we also are really trying to aim for is to create um especially from coid is to promote and create more independent Learners and what we have found found is that um because of the Gap the academic Gap I think we've become um accustomed to worrying about allowing students to fall and make mistakes and so what we're looking at is this assistance support determination and what I mean by that is when we're providing Paris support when we're providing supports in inclusion settings making sure that we're providing the right amount of supports so not assuming a

015kid can't um but looking at what a kid can do um and allotting the right amount of support uh for them to find their own success so we've Lo looked a lot and we will continue to as part of um the ssas and my student learning goal is really going to be around what types of Paris support and how much Paris support are we giving to kids um and we have created a criteria around that which families will begin to hear and see at IEP meetings um so it gives people the data um that parents are looking for so when we say no your child doesn't need a onetoone why is it um and giving them that specific data we've also launched special programs this year um that I'll talk a little bit more about

016um in a few slides we're working really on um a more robust way of communicating about student services so we have launched the family resource guide that we've made with CPAC um last night we held our first family Ed series around understanding your child's IEP um and we have seven more that we will launch throughout the year around guardianship around um what is a 504 around behavior and and regulating behaviors um around our investigation processes in school all of these will be recorded in on Zoom so par families you know can attend but if they can't they will be recorded and posted on our web page um and you'll continue to hear us talk a lot about the revamping of continuums which I think lends itself to decreasing our outof district numbers once we we

017create and solidify those strong structured continuums to help kids stay in their District where they can and provide them those supports this is just sort of something that we um talk a lot about as an admin team but also um with our special ed staff is really making sure that everything we do is through the lens of inclusion and Equity um and I often talk to our staff a lot about um yes we want it to be an inclusive setting but what does that exactly mean and making sure we're focusing on meeting the child where they're at because often times we feel like if we just include them in the General Ed setting that means we're an inclusive District um and often times what we find is we haven't allowed that child the opportunity to

018be ready for that type of environment so just because we're including them in General Ed settings doesn't mean that we're providing effective inclusion so really making them think about inclusion as being a feeling versus a place so does that child feel when they're in a jet end setting that they are included in that I don't want to ever walk into a classroom and just see a child sitting there at a desk and that means they're included right so making sure that we are differentiating and providing opportunities for them to access that curriculum at a level that they can my special programs update um we're really excited that we've launched this program I have to remind everybody um at home and in our schools that we're still in that infancy stage so as much as we

019would like to feel that when you launch a brand new program it's going to be perfect and quick and easy it isn't um and so we've hit a few bumps but I feel like we are working really hard to train our staff we've provided a lot of after school training hours we've provided in school training uh professional development around that um and essentially what for people at home what's social programs is is our platform that replaces what we used to have as easted um it houses all IEPs 504s English language learner documents and healthc care plans um what we're our hope is and what we know to be true is that this is a more effective and efficient way to keep student information confidential um and keep us in compliance so far as really monitoring

020our timelines and keeping things um in order we have also um purchase the docu sign feature which you heard me talk a little bit about last year which we have already started using and it is so much better um so our ability to be able to send a consent out or the IEP out to a family and get that signature back in Rapid time directly back into that child's portal is is really great um we will be working with families um in the upcoming months to introduce the parent portal side of that um so right now anything that is being sent out you're receiving in your email that you've provided to the school um what the hope is is with that Parent Portal you will get your power school access similar to how you at

021the middle school and high school can check attendance and grades of that nature you'll be able to flip into the special program side and be able to access your child's IEP their progress reports and their 504s um print those as you need them and be able to view them whenever the other thing that we're really working hard on is training and communicating not only out to our community but with our staff as well so I've already talked about our family Ed series um which is the the calendar for that is posted up on our web page um and I know CPAC is doing an amazing job uh promoting those for me so I really appreciate that um we have created with the help of Victoria Briggs our bcba and Tesa panad DOI our SSA from

022Rams um and myself to create uh five modules for par professionals um initially we designed these for our brand new par professionals that have been hired this year um which is we've had 21 new par professionals come on board across the district those modules are around what is your role as a pair of professional so what does that look like what are the expectations of that role how do you collect data and what do you do with that um understanding what disabilities are what are continuums offer and how those are addressed um supporting inclusion within the Gen Ed settings and uh prevention and deescalation of behaviors in the classroom so those are the essence of those modules um and what we found was um everyone kind of wanted those pieces to that pie so we

023have shared those out um and so Paras are able to access those and review those um they are all recorded and also provided Google slides for those we're piloting this year what we're calling our building liaison um another area while we have new teacher Institute um one of the areas that we saw that we were a little bit struggling in was providing especially our par professionals a liaison support in their building because they aren't part of new teacher Institute so what we have done is provided a pilot of this um where they'll be one building liaison per building um and Par professionals will meet with them on a you know an as needed basis get tours of the building learn the most Essentials of what they need get their answers questions to their answer or

024answers to their questions um and just have that go-to person I will also meet with them periodically both the liaison and Paras through um office hour zooms so that we can just answer questions and help them acclimate to the district and feel supported and finally special programs which I just went through so for the S of time I won't go through again um and then just to remind you of our work with the Continuum it is a lot of work um and I really can't thank the Continuum staff enough so in each building um we have our basis Continuum our Network Continuum and our Pathways Continuum um and we've worked really hard to create an entrance and exit criteria for each of those um and create a methodology to collect data so that things are

025more aligned and how we create and share data and that allows us to better understand when a student is ready to transition out or when a student is not and we will either increase or decrease that level of need and lastly I just want to review a few um initiatives that we are launching through student services um not necessarily brand new but just things that we are keeping our eye on as um ssas and the myself the SSD on how we are doing so reexamining supports that's what I talked about earlier so really taking a look at how much support are we providing um are we following criteria and what's our data to demonstrate not only to families but to our staff that children require that level of support through par professionals and services we

026also have a strong push on our literacy and learning you've heard me talk um last year about um our Orton Gillingham initiative where we have the majority of placentino and Miller a special ed staff trained in Orton Gillingham we've stepped it up to provide um at least five staff at Rams trained at Orton Gillingham and two at the high school so as we start to see our struggling Learners grow um and go through the district there are some supports there for them as they get in the older age you're going to hear a lot of talk about the de dyslexia guidelines through desie and how we are beginning to identify that more um are working really hard as an SSA group to acknowledge um that we do need to improve in this area um and

027recognize and label that on IEPs where it is pertinent to do so um so we will be working with um Katie Minal who is our attorney Dr Nami Turk and then also our school psychologists who are wonderful and amazing um and have a lot of background in this so they are going to do the work with us through our testing how do we identify dyslexia um dis graphia and disc calcula and how do we put that on the IEP but go a step further and how do we help our special teachers provide direct service around that and then lastly we will be um launching the new state IEP this coming fall fall 2024 um by then all districts within the state of Massachusetts will be expected to implement that um we're doing lots of training

028now uh sending a group of people to train the trainer through desie in the upcoming weeks um and roll that out and we will also be partnering with Alan Bloom who I had in last year to meet with parents around the new IEP he has developed a really great data collection tool that will help us provide um not only families but our staff across the board how does the data um align with that new IEP process and then lastly I just provided links to just important docs that we are using as a student Service Group um to hopefully help these are all on our web page um and I think very valuable to families and that is it any question yes so one of my questions was about would it be possible to go back

029on one slide the slide that had the initiatives and yes perfect the focus on dyslexia guidelines and identifications and I know this came up I think at the gym parent Forum as well yes now this is something that we had to begin implementing this year right in July we I mean the dyslexia guidelines have been out since 2018 um so we have been focusing on it um being new to this role what I have learned is we need to do more training to help our staff or our special ed staff recognize that yes this is a must do um in public schools and so we are working on that and the guidelines is it only for identification or is there specific new guidelines in terms of what interventions we need to use both okay so

030what are the specific new intervent like what are the new interventions what's different about it well I think what families need to know and what we've put out there um just this week I believe around the literacy screenings so we have been using dibl as a way to um screen our students and catch them early and so every training that we've been through is really focusing on catching them as early as we can so it used to be identified by grade three and now really studies and those guidelines are showing we need to identify kindergarten um and first grade in order to really make gains and success in that area um so we are doing that we're providing OG as a tier one level of intervention um in placentino and Miller um and then we're

031also able to provide reading tutoring where kids are hitting that red level in the dibles um which parents will see as we continue to provide information that goes home about these scores um is is capturing that providing that tutoring and then looking to see where is the growth are they making growth in that area and if not um what more can we do so far as academic support okay and those screenings happen at least twice a year at least tce are parents in is are all parents informed on the results of that screening or only if you're in the red yeah so um we're starting to provide that initial information to All Families what we would like to do and what I think is best practice is any child falling in the red or that

032atrisk area will get a a phone call prior to that letter going home um we feel just as a district that that personal connection with a family prior to them getting that in the mail is best um and then what we will do is continue to screen and parents will be kept apprised if their if their child is falling in that at risk of any growth or regression and I know you said for the intervention we're utilizing or in Gillingham are we only utilizing o so we're not so it's a multisensory approach so we are using pieces of Orton Gillingham and Wilson you'll hear a lot that we're still implementing Wilson and we still have Wilson Reading tutors so dependent upon where the child is at we determine which course is better for them um

033studies and research show that grade two and above um is where we begin Wilson so we typically don't start Wilson Reading earlier than grade 2 but what we're doing in this district is providing at the start of kindergarten through first grade and then some will continue in OG so it's sort of that mix and many many districts around here are using mixes of that uh because they come from the same family so Wilson and Orton Gillingham are like under that same umbrella of each other and that was an additional question the continue Orton Gillingham training is that meaning you're expanding it to additional staff or you you're continuing the training with the people who are currently OG certified so what we're doing is we're training Orton get so the majority of like I said placentino

034and Miller are trained um we're now training we're in those initial phases so some have completed the training over the summer some are doing them right now then we have a group that would like to get their practicum and get a larger certification in OG so we're investing our time to to Pro to provide that to them um so there it's why I say continue is because it does it does take a year long um time to complete your practicum they utilize students that are in our district to provide more OG as part of their practicum um so it is a process and especially in light of those new um guidelines from Desy on this do we have a plan where we expect 60% or 70% or 80% OG over the next year like do

035we have a a one year two year threee plan on increasing OG certifications so we're we're we're working on looking at right now how many and how many more do we need and what we're trying to do is keep up with the number of new teachers coming in so our new special ed teachers that were hired at placentino and Miller I was able to provide and so they're they're beginning their training coming up this winter um but then yes so my hope is by January when I come back to this group I'll be able to say this is the percentage of how many are trained this is the direction we're going um so that you can better see where we're at but we have a commit within the department to increase the percentages over the

036course of the next year and the next two years y okay Y and and have more continuity I guess you said there's there's just two at the high school but is that also something where we think we need to increase right or the need doesn't yeah so what we're looking at now is how many more do we need to increase as they go up in grade right and what we're doing is Shifting to at Rams in high school is is running under the morphology umbrella which is for for the older kids um older level students that that same reading under OG so we're looking we're starting small right because we don't want to over provide either um that's why we looked at our numbers going from 5ifth to sixth this year to determine how many

037teachers we should train at Rams and then we saw a few um identified students that were going 8th to 9th that continue to need OG OG um supports so we chose specific teachers that would have those students and then determine do we need to add more based on where our numbers are at okay last question I prom um it is an area that's really interesting to me so with these guidelines is there any type of um new guidelines for communication with it and by that I mean you find out your child has whether it's a language based learning disability or just they're not they're not hitting benchmarks they're in the red here and the school says we're going to implement this OG tutor is there information like what does that mean to the average parent

038and how to communicate with them so that they can support that OG learning at home and I think years ago maybe it was like oh well if you're not Wilson certified we can't send these materials like super secret stuff like do we have more of a partnership with the home now with these materials and educate parents on what this program is yeah like what does that look like yeah that's a great question so um myself Jamie SL Dr slany um and Lisa Robinson who is our new SSA at placentino have all taken a dyslexia course through the University of Colorado which I think is it was truly an amazing experience and really broadened my knowledge around this um so what we would like to do is do some professional development not only for our staff

039but also our families regarding this and then include our literacy Specialists who really are working you know in the weeds so to speak in the buildings on what can families do at home so this is what your child's doing at school and what does that mean when they go home right because I think we do hear that a lot Don is like what more can I do for my kid and what does that look like because you don't want to do the opposite of what we might be doing at school either so really you should be hearing more about some nights that we will do some recordings some resources we'll be sending home in the upcoming months to best kind of clarify that okay uh okay two things first is just a comment um thanks

040for what you said about inclusion being a feeling versus a place I've never heard it put quite that way and I think that there is this knee drk reaction that well being in the general Leed setting is that's inclusion that's the definition of inclusion and if a child's not feeling like they can manage that or they feel different or they feel it makes them feel you know even worse about how they're able to manage in the classroom I think um it it doesn't work and I think that's a really good point um second is can you go back to the slide that showed the numbers of IEPs and out of District placements so that was more I can't do the math that quickly but it's definitely more than a 10% increase so the top line

041is 12.6% of the IP increases and then the overall though if you sort of push them together because if you're saying sun4 turnning diabetes that's about a 7% increase yeah so that's pretty significant and I'm just wondering that your head down I I know I should have called you earli and my calculator so the I wanted to draw attention to that because we do budget and I'm just wondering how your staff is doing because that's more work and it's the same number of staff and I just want to be aware that that's happening yes yes no 100% And so when I started putting this presentation together and I saw these numbers um I immediately reached out to our ssas and said let's start working on our staff schedules and get and collecting those so so

042that we can begin looking at case load versus amount of staff and is it Equitable what do we need what do we need more of what don't we need more of right um so I think that that's definitely something we always look at um just in my experience in these past you know year and a half as as we look at um but something I need to keep an eye on for sure yeah cuz I've been wondering in particular I've been wondering if for years if maybe at some point we need an out of district coordinator but I but the big picture thing I want to highlight here is that I mean there are stories all over the country about teachers and burnout and I think being a special being a teacher is hard being

043a special education teacher is a different level of hard and your staff is wonderful but I just want to make sure that we're I I don't want us I want us to take care of the people that we have and and make sure that we're not you know that when we start looking at things from a budget perspective that we we're taking care of you know supporting the the staff that we have including you yeah yeah no I I don't disagree with you and I think I I I always speak to this too I spoke about this last year is how are we using our staff efficiently and effectively too right um so taking our staff within building and making sure we're utilizing them in the right way that um you know as one grade

044sometimes what we'll see is we have Bigger Pockets of special ed students in a certain grade that then follow through right so are we shifting staff in that way as opposed to adding more staff which we may need to do but we need to look at all the factors to determine what's best so something on my mind all the time and I about the burnout and just something that's always on my mind of how do we make things feel better in education for sure that's it for me thank you I was um I was going to say I was struck by the elll numbers because I feel like just a couple of years ago that number was at 20 something so I feel like that's something that we need to keep track of because they're

045coming in at all different points I was yeah what break breaking down that number what we really need to then look at is what level are they at in need right so 81 L students does that mean that um they're fluent they're not right and what what are we doing for for those kiddos I'll speak for a little bit on that we are finding a lot more of those are lower than like a level one if you recall this year we did add two special ed teaching positions that we have not yet been able to fill but we're still they're still getting posted and we also added um increased our both of our elll y teaching positions at one at Miller and and one at the middle school and we added I think three additional

046power professional positions this year so we have already incre and I think last year was the year we added the school psychologist was that last yeah two year yeah two I can't remember last year year before years ago I think yeah what do we think the impediment of killing these positions are like what I mean just AR people I mean at this point in the year they're they they're already gainfully employed okay um and we we continue to post but I think you know we've actually been fortunate than a lot of I'm hearing because except for those two teaching musicians we have builded all of our other teaching musicians which was looking a little nering and you knew that we are P professional positions were really kind of scary during the summer and we did

047that Mark campaign and some creative programming and we were able to F still still missing some but um if you if you look at the state overall some of the numbers are just in this area like I think you and I have talked I'm in a job alike um and so when I I mean obviously we're only looking at student service positions but um one of the directors had put out let's like capture how many open positions we have and hollison actually was in really good a good place compared to you know some of the other districts around us so I do think we did a good job you know at that 10th hour of really pulling in as much as we could but um yeah I think just education itself is it's hard and

048it's hard to pull people in and get them to stay so okay so I'll ask some questions then um she has a question I was just going to say thank you for bringing up your point about workload with PA professionals cuz my mom is a par professional and I know how hard the job can be hearing from her and I'm glad to know that we're thinking about that on a district level yep always she's amazing okay thanks um so just back to something Don was talking about with OG and and little personal experience with that but I try to stay away from that so right now if a if a parent comes to us and and we has an outside evaluation or has done some research and says I want I want I think that

049OG is best for my child are we are we able to com that um if we feel we need it so we're never going to um self- select a methodology right so it's looking at the child what um their profile looks like and then determining what's best for that child and relative to their age right like I think that's always what we need to keep in mind um some students do better with a prescribed program so so far as for looking at that we might say Wilson is the better model because it's a step-based model that's prescribed specifically to that student um whereas OG is more that methodology um that is kind of sprinkled in meeting kids where they're at um but is not a stepbystep program so I think it's just dependent um we

050certainly would always say if you know given that situation if they were uh dyslexia um if they if they were diagnos with dyslexia yes we would provide them a multisensory approach could I say they would walk in and say I want OG and that's what I'm getting it's not how we really that's not how any District really does it it's really a team based approach in selecting what right but if they have an outside evaluation the outside evaluator says that student would benefit from OG over Wilson's we would consider it yep for sure so are are we able to to meet it if we if we if we feel it's appropriate yes we would meet it so we do so okay so we have the capacity correct with the number of stff I mean ultimately

051we're legally obligated to the team has to make the decision the same time know that no one writes in OG or Wilson you write in multisensory approach and so so legally we're not obligated to provide OG um in that sense and often we wouldn't start with the program we would usually start least restrictive and go with a multisensory bringing in individual needs of that child and then if they're not after looking at their progress monitor then they might go on to it correct cuz I I think I don't want to get hung up on if something's written and we bring it in that's what we give it needs to be a team- based decision right so we get oftentimes we will get a lot of recommendations from outside providers some of it which we can

052do some of it which you can't some which don't really fit when we see a student all day long in a school environment um and we're with them all day um with the the input from a parent is is determining that so we just need to be careful I don't want to Bo myself in if a doctor writes OG then yes parents are part of the 100% And so what you're saying is that we do have the we have the capacity we have the capacity okay um and that's great to hear because that the you know that side it's the wonders for my daughter so um so I just noticed you have all those those resources in there and one of you know did I think when we talked I foret in June or earlier

053this year in September I'd ask if you could if you could send that out proactively to parents did you did you do that links to something like the guide going of like the IP process I was still hearing you know there still a lot of parents are just confused by the overall process it's insanely complicated and and crazy and some of the some of the information in these resources seem really good but I couldn't find them when I just went to the website but when I clicked on the links you know they were s there so were we so of course so two weeks ago I held our CPAC meet and greet which I went over all of this provided these links and they're posted to web page last night I held a parent night

054um that was understanding the IEP process myself and Emily lurry went through the entire IP document what each section means what our acronyms mean I'm very mindful now of like we just do all this educ Babble right and think people know what it means um and supported that and have the same links because I do think these links are helpful and posted those to our web page so everything is is I'm trying to be mindful of not pushing too much out no but as soon if someone is starting to enter into the special education process 504 IP y do we send them an email with these resources do we do we tell the ssas to sort of say Hey you know get them all these resources proactively yeah so the family resource guide is given

055to every family that's newly registered whether they're on an ie or they're not that link goes out from Kim seon and I also have given that to all of our ssas and procedural assistants so whenever a new family comes in that's email out it's also on the web page of every school um in the district and on our main District page so the family resource guide if you look that up really walks people through the process of a 504 of child find of an IEP it provides all these resources it provides a flowart of who do you start with who do you go to right um yep where so we I'm just I'm in that resource guide and I'm sort of looking and there's not I didn't see an easy flowchart used to be a

056physical book it did Ed it was a binder binder yeah I had where do you where do you fit into that process so far I'm not sure the IEP do you have a role in the IEP process yes so what we went through the flow chart two weeks ago at the meeting is the SSA is the umbrella over the building y from them are the Liaisons and Specialists right so sometimes if you're on a 504 that goes through the counselor if a parent is struggling with a 504 and try to reach out to that counselor and don't feel like their needs are being met they then go to the SSA if the SSA doesn't seem to meet the needs of that parent and the parent is still struggling then they know they go to the

057SSD which would be me at this role okay so then you are sort of part of the okay y yep and then of course I oversee like all of the out of districts so I'm a lot of go-tos for a lot of families districts yep but yes so that's all outlined in the meet and greet links great um so our our IEP is increased by 12.6% mhm when like is the 509 number is that year end like June correct okay so or right around I should say I'm sorry I can't say like June and last day of school but in the spring we were at 509 so the last time I I think I spoke to you was in May yep okay so then over the summer we increased by 12.6% right around there Y

058and then beginning of this year yep where are those kids like like what what grade do you have a distribution oh I could break that down for you I don't didn't come with that I'm sorry I didn't we were going to get that level of detail no I'm I'm a numbers guy um so so so so that that that's you know I will tell you that the numbers just speaking off the cuff I know they decrease as the kids get older right which is exactly what you want and that's what I talked about last night at understanding the IEP is what you want you you don't want necessarily a child to be on an IEP forever what you want is for your child to gain strategies understand interventions that work for them and then begin

059to apply them so they become independent Learners right so our trajectory is right where I want it to be so far as numbers dropping when they get to middle of the Middle School up into the high school so they will you will see them drop there oh no sure I'm just kind of curious if we're seeing if it's front loaded if if it's in third grade um you know how where we're seeing the the numbers increase the the 6 or 14% increase in out of District placement that that to me is actually a pretty significant number because we all know a what that means for the the child and and and how how much difficult but then obviously you know from from a financial perspective which is obviously last secondary to to the child but

060but still not uh unimportant um so we ended last year with 40 when did we know we had six more out of districts so I will tell you that three of the six were movein from other districts throughout the year so when they move in prior to April 1st we then inherit that out of District cost so um that's where those numbers increase did we see a few more go out of District 100% um and I do feel like our staff and the services we provided we gave everything we could to those kiddos and this was what was best for them um so when a child moves into the district do do we have the ability to review the case and see if we can meet the services in District or do we have to

061just continue on with what the the out of District placement is well we certainly can review it and see I would say that these that moved in were not ones that we would disagree with um so half of the increase was inorganic correct but initially whatever IEP they come in with we would where we have toest other team um y I think that's uh yeah just back to dislexia work that you're doing is there anything that um would would it make sense because I know one of one of those were the request from the community for some sort of like dyslexia task force or something like that is there is there something that to to be said for for forming a a group of of parents Educators um School Committee Member to to sort of

062help I mean it does seem like dislexia is one of those big issues that that we're sort of facing right now I think it's a I think go ahead I'm sorry just La just graph you all all the different forms of um so I think it's important I think it's important that internally as a district we we do the training and we get our hands wrapped around how we're going to help kids in this area I have not seen and and if I'm wrong please feel free to reach out and tell me I've not seen other districts create dyslexia task force that include community members or parents but what I do feel strongly about is educating our parents on what they can do for their child or what we're doing with their children so what

063I would like to see us do here is really wrap our hands with our staff around around it and then provide forums or provide Community nights where we can share with with families resources and things that they can do at home but I do Wonder too with some of the um intervention tools that we have then with students now having Chromebooks and so forth are we are we making sure that parents know some of the additional things they can use at home yeah the apps and things that are helpful for yes absolutely I think we need to do that yep great thank you very much yeah thanks thanks Jess than [Music] everyone all right next up uh is I think it picks up pretty well so it's l far as you can get it maybe

064[Music] move I would say we're running right on time so this is great just all I my answer any question am I able to share if you someone gives you the I did I made you the I already did we play a video will it will you guys be able to hear I don't know um try let's find out would you like to introduce your your team members yes so if you want to do that you might have to share the computer audio Yeah that's what I'm going to um so if you share your screen first and then you can be audio and then you're saying open up audio it might say that as a talk yeah so you to go to advance and then just talk from here do you think it'll I don't

065know it's not for a little but I think um hello everyone um so we're trying something different today um and and I'll get a chance to talk a littleit about that um but Jal ver I'm the director of EST in equity and with me I have some amazing people and I'll let them introduce themselves I'm Sarah the technology integration specialist here and the advisory Co advisor um co- advisory leader and business teacher here Karen Lane nice to see everyone tonight and haris I'm Harry Smith I'm a student a senior at the high school I'm a a previous s for the student advisory leadership program thank you for having um Jerry just want to click slideshow yeah all right this all media is coming together all at once okay um so in reflecting um in reflecting

066how I presented in the past right um I think one of the things that I tried to do is provide an overview of all the different things happening especially because the role that I stepped into was a newly created role but in doing that I also think that it's really important for me to bring voices from the field who are doing the work who are engaging in the work to bring life to the work right now granted I can't bring every voice of the work that is happening but my hope is that every time I come back and present I bring a different perspective different voice of what's happening out there in the world okay so um so with that I asked my amazing Partners to come with me today so today what are we

067going to do so one of the things we're going to do is we're going to um uh talk about I'm always going to Anchor our work into the structure of what we say is safe and supportive um I'm going to talk a little about where are we going this year right I'm not going to spend as much time reviewing everything um that's happened in the past two years but spend time on where we're headed um and then we're also going to uh have a chance to talk about two things that have occurred that I think are moving or will continue to move to work one is uh a district SC Elemental Health review team that came out with some recommendations for how the district can support schools um we're going to talk about a trajectory

068that we're engag in with ruler we're going to talk about the houseon high school SE team um that uh sahun is a of but how it ties in directly to advisory right that's why I ask our advisory U to come and share a little about the work that they're doing so u in that work um and I'm not going to read this but this is available on our site and I I always want to Anchor when we talk safe and supportive schools um in many ways I like to describe it as the soil for belonging to fully live if we hear this term of belonging right of or a feeling right being included in the soil that is a safe and supportive school right for students to fully um achieve where we want them to

069be for students to really feel connected to fully truly feel they belong they need to be part of a safe for of school right and also I don't think we're ever done but it's a it's it's a space that we always aspired to constantly create or think about how do we get better at that work um so how does that how does the state support of school speak to um this visual of mtss last year I shared uh these visuals but a Sab school is the umbrella in which mtss should live in so when we talk about tier one tier 2 tier three when we talk about supporting students at different levels for whatever needs they might need it should be under the umbrella of a saing supported school right that is really what's going

070to uplift all the practice we talked about we just heard an amazing presentation from my colleague just Bey in order for those practices to fully live a space where where they feel safe and supportive only augments the work that is happening in our schools so and to me I think visuals are important because I think when we talk about this work it's hard to sometimes um ju suppose all the language that goes with it I think really understanding a visual that speaks to the way we want school to feel and and and how mtss plays into that so what is some of the work that's happening um this year um but has been a three-year trajectory so far so one of those is one of the things I lead is called SSP student services providers

071and that's kind of a a group of all uh school counselors School adjustment counselors uh bcda School psychologists uh and one of those things that we've always been proud of every single year we end the year with what do you think you need how can I support how can we support you differently and one of the things they ask for this year is every other month we come together across the district when we talked about the alignment work but then the other month now I'm going to be going to the schools to talk with them as a team at their school to say what do you need here how's our things working how do we support you at the school level so they wanted to be able to engage at the developmentally appropriate conversations but

072also across the district as well right so I say that because I think that one of the pieces is important is to make sure that um I'm meeting the needs of what our Educators need right so making sure that that SSP space that is that that had been created even before I was here was authentic to them and to their needs um currently and I'm really excited about this we have close to 60 Educators right now taking either trauma 1 trauma 2 or trauma 3 um that we partnered with les University here offered right here on campus 60 Educators is about the staff of a whole school yeah right maybe not the high school right that's a lot bigger but just imagine to to go to a school where our Educators have grappled with all

073all the research that we know around the impact of trauma learning and how do we augment our classrooms um in that way right right and we have people you know over a year and a half who've now taken their third section they're in that course right now right with 20 Educators that speaks to the commitment and also to kind of it's meeting their needs right if you offer something and you take it once you don't come back maybe for whatever reason it didn't meet your needs but we have Educators continually coming that tells me this is a a a powerful piece um we also um this past year that's going to be something I share we uh convened a a district team uh of um student support I guess experts right the people who are

074in the field who are supporting students and we really engage in the conversation what are our gaps what is some of our needs and what are some of the things that us me District can do to support this work and align the work right one of the things that I always talked about when I present for the past couple years and I know in many ways as a school committee you supported that sentiment which is we need to make sure we align right you can't be a district of Silo work we need to align the work that we do across our schools so in many ways I'm going to share some of those recommendations a that came out of um that piece um we have three schools who are now entering their final year of

075a threeyear PBIS Academy um we also um got to move my camera here um we we also which I was really proud of and that's what the pictures on the top left are um when we launched our district PD day the district each district each school we did individuate a but it wasn't created by me was created by me and their team so it was led by teachers it was led by uh leadership and we presented we what we presented was authentic to that school right when we presented here at H in I school I stood right beside Sarah and we talked about the work that we were doing at the high school and that feels and rings different when it's being led by your own peers and colleagues in the field just as well

076um we are also entering um hon High School is entering year two of SE Academy I'm going to share a little bit about what those results were uh we also identified I'm going to talk a little bit about what that means we identified we needed to align across the district what's our tier one trajectory for seal um and I'll talk about a little about what's some of the gaps that came out when I first came in um and why we needed to align that and then we have three schools who are now engaging in culture responsive education Academy through Desy as well so that's some of the work that began but it's continuing um one of the pieces that I just want to augment um this word belonging we hear lot lot and um and

077and I think that um belonging is an outcome of all the efforts we try to put in so we say Dei when we say inclusion is a feeling it's really to create a space of belonging but belonging requires us to bring to the mix seal mtss um Universal designed for learning um higher order thinking strong professional development all to come together to create the ingredient for that right you know for me I'd say it's the adobo to the seasoning and how I would cook at home that's what's necessary for that work to happen so one of the new pieces that we're going to be engaging in um is something called Mass ready so I'm not sure if you're familiar with but um the Massachusetts Association School superintendents the Department of Education um and um the

078mass school committee U I don't know if they're called organization um but um have come together and they created this document and what this document is this is a guide that all superintendents in massachusett are being encouraged to utilize it comes with 11 Dimension is really geared to move and create action plans at the district level around the equity diversity inclusion work right so I'm going to talk a littleit about what this means um but I wanted to share because this is publicly available right so at your own time if you take a QR code and you scan that you'll be able to see what's the work that is being asked of every school to engage in when it comes to um Equity diversity inclusion work that needs happen at the district level so one

079of the pieces that is extremely important right is that um this guide calls for us a to have clear Dei goals to speak to where we want to go that also calls for the structures like in other words it you just can't arrive and say Here's what we're going to work towards what's the structure we're going to come together to kind of talk about and wrestle with the work that needs to happen and ensure that it happens and then lastly is to build a strong culture uh with powerful powerful Partnerships right it's not enough for us as a district just to create a team and say we created a team we also need to create Partnerships across from school to community and with experts in the field to really move this work right including students

080families Etc so that's going to be a part of this work so how does this structure look um under Arch 2 which is part of our strategic plan um the title for that is social emotional well-being the pink is the work that started right you've heard me refer to a district mental health leadership team that's a team that kind of is putting together put together the recommendations the orange Under that is work that's already happening you've heard me talk about PBIS tier one the Seb Academy you've heard me talk about peer leadership at least as Rams has presented they talked about some of the peer leadership work we're here to talk about um our Sals and and and um advisories so this is the work already happening but the work in the green piece that

081hadn't launched yet right and in many ways it's because when we start this work you can't launch it all at once right so we're in the space where we now know to start launching this work but also we're doing it in aligned way in which across Massachusetts they're using this ready document as an alignment from District to district one of the great things of this ready document is that not only does it guide you through where to start but it also links it directly to what the law desie law says and best practices so also you're linking it to what the Department of Education is asking us to do so the part on the right is going to be the part that we engage in the purpose over here is blue but purple on the

082screen um that's where it's already happening we have schools that have established climate and culture teams we have schools engaging in C Academy um project 351 work has been happening for years here in hollison so the reason I say this is because I think that in me saying that we need to engage and create a a Dei direct like a Dei trajectory in a leadership space doesn't mean the work has not been engaging but we do need to align and make sure that we organize and really think about where do you want to go right um to go away from the passionate starts to the all those passions coming together and moving Us in One Direction so in speaking to um that District team that came together um on the screen you'll see these are

083all the people who participated uh in that District uhal mental health action team that came and gave perspective as far as what should we be doing um and in that perspective taking we engage in three over a long period of time sessions one was why should we develop this cohesive s system session two was really identifying processes and practices and the thir session was like so what are the action steps we need to do to get there and the action steps that we um arrived at are four and they're really in line with the high school steps and and as well which tells us we're in the right direction so the first step is across all four schools to build a consistent understanding for why MTS is important and how it supports Mt mental health

084right we want all of our Educators to understand the connection of the just work together um the second recommendation is to be able to utilize a tier one resource framework K to 8 or K to 12 that was a gap that we identified when I came into this District um we had two of elementary schools we're using something called open circle um the year I came in open circle closed its doors and the model that open circle used was that every year you'd have to send people to get trained especially new people so when them closing the doors you create the sustainability you create a sustainability problem but also as we know in education with turnover every year you're going to have to be sending people to get trained in in a in a resource

085the middle school was using Second Step so then they were using a different umal resource to support students and to build skills so we are engaged kind of in a trajectory in which every school was kind of really working to engage and think about how do we build these skills up in our students but we weren't talking to each other and we weren't taking a lined approach so that was a gap that was identified by our Educators as well um another Gap and this speaks to student supports is around how do we identify and make sure that we're implementing the right support for tier two right if you recall when I talked about the three the tiers tier one is for all tier two is like a targeted group tier three is the highest level

086right tier three might be for instance students we talked about um IP with with receiving support services but tier two students might be students who just need targeted intervention but one of the pieces we identified is we really lacking not only a structure but a system to make sure that we can identify tier two and and across the to your students but also make sure that we're providing the right support uh and the last piece was we wanted to kind of really make sure that we're building our practices on analyzing data and the reason I bring that up is is is data should not be a four-letter word data should not be a bad thing data should be something it's a checkup how are we doing are we making sure that we're providing the right

087support to students when they need it right so these four recommendations came directly from that team that I showed you and the way we're going to use these recommendations this is the recommendation that I'm going to be engaged in over the next four years next three years they speak directly to our school Improvement plan but it's the it's the work that across our district our Educators said they wanted me to engage and support them in so then how does this tie into our trajectory I've already kind of highlighted a little bit about some of the gaps we saw um when I first started year 2122 um we had a lot of starts and stops um we also we're seeing data from the Metro West Health survey telling us that students were having a harder time

088um regulating emotions um dealing with coping strategies Etc so we wanted to kind of think about this next step of a tier one resource what's H how do we support that skill development so one of the things we did is and I shared this in one of my first presentations is that we established also a cross- sector team that looked just like the team that I showed you to look at the resources out there there's a lot of resources out there um but we utilize Castle as kind of like our um our research database Castle is is an organization that um ensures that all our trajectory is is research based right there's plenty of research behind it from there we narrow we narrowed down um where we're at this year is using something called ruler

089and ruler is uh to put it mildly it's about emotions it's about emotional intelligence and it's about that emotions matter and that's a really simple statement but it's a big con it's it's a big context and what I mean is when our data tells us that emotions are the space that students are have struggled with the most especially coming out of coid and how do we share emotions expl emotions um problem solved which is emotional spaces we've seen Behavior uptick which usually is an outcome of of emotional space as well um we really wanted to identify a a resource that would help us build those skills up um and a resource that could be embedded into classrooms right um and you know maybe at some point as I share the trajectory uh Sarah took um

090the summer training um but we wanted to look at a resource it wasn't about we have to do this for 15 20 minutes once a week and build it into a calendar we wanted to think about a resource that anybody could do right if I walked into this space and I saw this room feeling extremely anxious how do I bring us down how do I connect and we have a conversation about emotions to then be able to transition to where we want to do right we got to provide that common language but we also have to provide that emotional intelligence starting from prek through 12 and imagine the trajectory if we're all engaged in that through the moment kids enter our schools so um the last piece I'll say about this is that um I'm

091sure at some point there'll be a presentation on the des's new health framework uh the Department of Education Just For the First Time renewed our Wellness standards that have not been renewed and well over 20 25 years in those standards it directly calls for um districts to engage and building up emotional intelligence uh supporting not only emotional regulation but emotional language across the schools and establishing as a resource in that way so this also really aligns us to be able to meet the need of that St of that framework standard that actually comes into play next school year so what is r of stand for recognizing emotions in self and others understanding the causes and the consequences of emotions labeling emotions accurately expressing emotions appropriately and regulating emotions effectively one of the pieces they say

092is we have to name tainment we have to be a to engage in language um social emotional learning language in order to really be able to um address the challenges in our classrooms every day what will this look like and and the other piece too is I probably could have sat here done a 45-minute presentation just on ruler right so part of this is to be honest is we're going to establish a session at some point this year probably a forum where we really share What ruler is with voices from the field right not from the director of es on Equity but people who' taken the people who taken the class and talk about I'm excited for this and this is how I think it's going to benefit my kids right so we're going to

093do that as well but I just wanted to provide an overview of what this is um we this past summer sent three to five people from every building didn't send they virtually were sent um to attend a train the trainer model so in other words we now have three to five people in every school who can train others on What ruler is so we're establishing events which means we're not going to have to send people to go to a training we're going to build up that capacity here inhouse to be able to support new staff as they come in and the trajectory for that work as well um this summer what they call for year one is engaging and doing professional amount for teachers there's no expectation that we're launching this with students this year

094the belief and ruler is is that we really want teachers to be be able to wrestle with practice learn ask questions look at establish and establish a relationship with What ruler is before we say let's roll out with kids right what often times is best practice if we could and then next year this would be the place where we would roll out with students to roll out with families and the reason I say roll out with families is because ruler is also about helping our families also utilize that emotional language or that skill to travel from school to home right CU we think that's how we would get the the most impact to this work um ruler is not a curriculum it's not just a resource it's a mindset it's a it's a it yes

095it's a resource that any educator can use but it's a way that we want classrooms to feel we want Mo emotions to be okay in our schools um often times I'll talk with Educators and I'll be like how you doing and they'll be like everything's fine everything's fine everything's going to be fine right and one of the things I'll tell them is like hey you you did ruler it's okay to not be fine it's okay to feel exhausted to be tired to be happy to feel Joy to feel anger but if we can talk about that and like put that on the table we can figure out what to do with that right maybe there's something we could do together to figure out what the next step for that is right so it's really kind

096of establishing a framework that we all work for so let me transition to why this wonderful team is here um as you heard me say at hon high school we engage in SE Academy and what SE Academy really is is if you think about that umbrella and that mtss piece it's geared for the high school to establish that for themselves for them to evaluate and look at what do we have across the tear here at our high school and how do we know we're meeting the kids the needs of our own kids um so uh what you see here is the team that engaged in that um work this past year and continues to engage in network this year um and actually we just co-ed a presentation with staff at the district PD today as

097well and here are the recommendations that came from this team one build skills of all educated incorporate SEO related skills in their classrooms and interaction with students right you already see the alignment with the one that I shared out of the district level and these things happened independently which tells us that the recommendations happening in both spaces in many ways are speaking to the needs of our schools because they're happening dependent we're ending in the same place um the second piece was developed as you can see a system to data collection for all oneon-one interactions but also to develop effective systems of tier one tier two tier three the high school identified and said we need to do this here too right and even our our school counselors were saying we talk and work with

098kids all the time but we haven't really tracked to see like what are the trends what are the needs so we got we're we're going to try to figure that out and the last piece is how do we support the adults at house in high school with their own wellness and needs right one of the things that comes from trauma sensitive education from that learning is just like our students have stuff that they carry in their backpack with them that we'll never see us adults do it well right I know when I you know coming out of Co Etc we all have challenges how can we be our best selves if we don't build a system that also supports the needs of our Educators right we need our best selves our best adults in front

099of our kids every day to support them in their learning as well but one of the pieces that I think is extremely important is when we started to identify how do we how does this happen especially number one how do we incorporate skills into classrooms and how do we make sure we're meeting the needs of our kids if you recall if you recall the picture that Jess and I once put up of building a school and we said the cement the foundation most important part having a tier one trajectory is the most important part for this piece and really when we think about what is our what is one of the most meaningful tier ones here at the high school uh it's advisory and the reason I wanted to also um provide a space to

100kind of bring this to life is because I think that in many ways I can come and share some of the work but our we have passionate Educators leading this work the moment that I asked um Sarah and Taran if they'd be willing to come and share some of the progress yeah no problem and I was like you know it's at night right you know it's like during a school day right you know during you know it's at night and they're like yeah no problem yeah and then we're like we should bring students yeah let's bring students and and right so like this is The Passion of the work that's being led and I think that it's it's really important to kind of highlight that work because I think at times especially when I present

101it feels like it's this overwhelming thing of happening but the reality is they're the ones moving the work right and and it's happening so with that being said I want to turn it over to to you know our wonderful team um so hi everyone so again my name is pen Ling uh business teacher co- advisory leader with Sarah um so we kind of jumped in two years ago it's my third year here so after my first year Sarah walks into the M room yeah end of the year like literally I think it's the last day of school I just toil you onland and she's like stop and I was like I have the email pull up they looking for two people she like so and I'm like you want to do it don't you um

102as together as a combined effort so we kind of jumped in um I thought of it we are jumping off a cliff together holding hands and we're going to see how this goes so um this has meant a lot to us and we have we've put a lot of work into it and we're excited to kind of share the story of where we're at where we can see this going and and just kind of it's It's been a very organic story to say the least so we're excited to share that and Harry has been here um on our journey so um I think that was a perfect introduction we're just going to go from here this picture I just would point out is um our this year's Sal um and so we're really proud of

103this picture this is they they arrived um principal list gave us shirts for them this year and we have little um definitions on the back that a few treasured Souls from last year got to try we we're going to get to that so it's all the excitement of the first day um they getting freshman orientation uh so yeah so before we jump into we have a little clip just to recap our year and our story from last year but we kind of wanted to lead with this in building kind of our mission is first off inspiring with voice so our biggest thing through our St start in this program was uh feedbacks along the way from both staff and students and all stakeholders that were involved in the program um so just really being able

104to collect the data uh but with that said using student voice so uh we'll kind of jump around a little bit but one of the biggest things at the beginning of the year uh we were inspired uh I had gone to a design camp in California the air prior and the design challenge was how do you bring joy back into education and I was like oh boy this is a load of question but it was a design thinking um some of you know that that's my passion within the classroom but as design thinking challenge as Educators um I was in California and we had to build a prototype what is joy and education and that is a challenge um especially for adults right like you're the you're the student right now you're not the teacher

105so that was really our inspiration for the first year and with that said we said how can we bring joy like let's hear from everyone we want to hear from you what do you want to see this being uh so our first activity we just asked what brings you Joy everyone followed by the second week what is going to bring you Joy here in hollison it was kind of our first year last year back from coid SL pandemic per se where there's no normal anymore but back to a kind of normal whatever that means so with that said uh we listen to the students and we'll get to it but full scope end of the a um we did a field day last year and I can't even PR or expressed The Joy it brought

106us as Educators and Harry will speak to it but not one kid was on their phone or maybe they were tracking something but like we were doing quote old school activities so to speak of just pure joy um so we'll get to that but we did that because of what the students said at the beginning of the year uh rebuilding uh we really wanted to rebuild the program again we kind of um took it and wanted to create that Fresh Start so to speak so like where do you to begin with that and then just really creating opportunities so Sarah and I had the opportunity to go to California last year and last year that challenge was as in January um how do you build your Monument as a as an individual and as a

107community and last year the end of the year we had every advisories Monument up here and it was really moving um rooms came together and expressed and Harry can speak to that as well um just what their uh advisory room did but just seeing the culture come together and even if it's a 51% Buy in of starting that change um it was pretty moving for us so don't start that um part of our process of onboarding into advisory um jerielle sent us on some training and I'm forgetting the name of the company I Great Schools partnership okay great schools partnership and so we um were tasked on creating a vision and um really honestly like this was our first time working collaboratively in the summer with um an assistant principal and so we just went

108all in and we came up with our mission statement um and they gave permission to keep evolving I know it's like a lot like years um and then we came up with a little brand that we keep putting on all of our things because we really just wanted to see everyone inside of the community um partnering and we also found that previously um the the year before us actually um The Advisory leader had designated um the following vision of a graduate as that had first come out and so we still found that so valuable and created that each month we were following a different um we like to call them buckets I guess but a bucket or a pie piece of the vision of a graduate so we kind of modeled it after that to

109tie it all together and to make sure we were really seeing the vision living um I'm going to play my whole our video works uh this just Recaps last year so there's no audio you can kind of see it go through that was our Monument [Music] yes yeah he's on this right [Music] here um so yeah so that just kind of was a a run through of kind of where we started where we went for um the 20 I'm forgetting what year we're until 22 23 season so to speak um so we brought Harry here tonight to really just speak to his experi experience he came on board last year and he was a s um so led the program and Sarah and I jumping into this and we wanted him to kind of just

110speak to his experience and all the things so all you there right thank you I'd like to thank you guys again for having me here it's a pleasure very excited to share the year was packed we did a lot of of things that I couldn't have I I never thought I'd be part of it it was an amazing experience it started at the beginning of the school year and we met just before the year started to talk about what we were going to do and that first day you know it's still a summer everyone wants to enjoy the summer but everybody showed up everybody was ready to go and was like hey what what are we doing guys and you know it was it was that it started right away that everyone seemed ready to

111go and wanting to like help and and see what this idea that miss that Taran and Sarah had in store for us and so the first time that we met freshman it was the freshman orientation and we were told that you know it was the first the first their first impression of the high school and we were were their leaders and even though we didn't really feel like leaders yet we still we all came together we showed them where to go who to talk to and we were always all there for questions and it it it the day as the day went on we could see that all the Freshman were looking up to us you know any question they had they they weren't scared to ask you know it was we were we did

112a great job making everyone feel comfortable and supported and that felt really good because that was the whole idea of that day was to you know help those kids that they're in a new place and they need some support and we were there for them in every way that they needed us to be you know as the as the year started with our um our meetings it it started off slow because we you know we it's a new program and it needed some fine-tuning but that's that's what we did we we met every once in a while the all the Styles and um Sarah and Taran asked us what do you guys think how's it going what's what's good what's bad and we would all get in a big circle we we' talk we we'd

113share oh this week you know these kids had a really good time doing this you know we didn't expect it but it it was awesome so we write that down and then the next week we do something similar or some weeks we'd have ideas we' like oh this is going to be amazing and it it just didn't work out for whatever Reas like oh this is going to be so fun and and nobody really nobody's really on board with it so we we would fine tune it we report back and everyone just kind of work together you know we bounced all ideas off each other to uh help make the program a lot more fun for the kids and as the year went on that's that's exactly what happened you know uh we we started

114to brainstorm more activities based on what kids uh said they wanted and we came up with things like the the maker space with all those projects that you saw um that was just a go get some materials and make whatever you enjoy and you know for personally my advisory we we uh came down I came down here with a couple of my kids I got some we got some supplies I told them go nuts get whatever you guys want you know glue popsicle sticks anything and and we came back to the classroom and everyone was like oh and and we just put something together you know there's no real Rhyme or Reason it just it was an awesome way to have everyone you know everyone was talking everybody was putting new ideas in changing this

115changing that laughing it was it was a great time and it it wasn't a hard thing to do it was a it was simple and but it was effective which is which was really awesome this year we did a lot of a lot of stuff like that and know and we also uh the the S program was a great way for the juniors like myself to to get some to like meet some of the fresh and you know build that Community CU they're coming in we already have our community we we want to we want to help them become part of the high school community and it was the perfect way to do it because uh they come every Friday to our advisory and we'd say how's how's the week going you know what's new

116with you guys you guys enjoying your classes any questions and you know we'd answer all their questions they they want to know what classes are they taking next term you know it's what what what I do what I got new classes Where do I go what do I do you know we'd explain everything to them we we'd help them out with all their questions and it really like it helped us it helped us come together and we'd even come together with other advisories you know if if one advisory couldn't answer it that we' we'd go next door we say Hey I what you out with this and so we' talk and then that would get those kids involved with even more kids and just as the year went on the the community grew closer and

117closer together um another another activity that I that I really like that that tan mentioned was the the the the activity day sorry field day you know we got we got the opportunity to set up a whole bunch of of yard backyard games and it again it was really simple but once everybody once we we welcomed everyone out we made a human tunnel you know all the way down into the field arms up and and we're cheering for all the freshman and they know they're hesitant at first but once they got into it they really got into it and everyone everyone's having fun you know there's cornhole people are meeting new people again it's just it was an amazing experience to have everyone out on the field together playing games you know having fun like

118TR said nobody was nobody's on their phones everyone everything was happening right there and it was just it was it was perfect and at the end we got to all like talk about it and and like appreciate how much effort went into that and how amazing they these two were to set that up for us and to make sure that we could do that you know we we took some time out of our day it's like this is a this is a perfect thing for have come together and it would absolutely not have been possible without these two phenomenal [Laughter] helpers they hit the ground running with with all the SS and when we didn't know what to do we could go to them even when they didn't know what to do they figured it

119out and they came back to us and we bounced back off each other you know they yeah they had ideas they asked us if we thought it would work we try it we say oh it doesn't really work this way so they we brainstorm something we try it again and we keep going until it worked and it it would not have it really wouldn't have been possible without them so I'm I'm really appreciative to have been part of that and to also be part of the uh process of selecting the news house with a picture that you saw of the this year's Styles you know I got to be part of the interview process to find the next group and much our not most our surprised there were a ton of kids that wanted to

120do it you know it it seemed it seemed it g way more popularity than we expected and we ended up having almost 100 kids sign up and be interviewed and I got to I I lucky to I get to sit down oneon-one with the kids and talk to them be like yeah what do you what do you think this means to you what what is the value of the of this program for you and there were amazing answers and unfortunately we couldn't take all of them because there's just too many too many kids but the interest was amazing and I'm I'm I'm glad I could talk to the next like generation of them I'm sure they're going to be the same the same way they get to select the next group and each year you

121know we we'll build off we have to offer our ideas to Karen and Sarah to help them with areas that we didn't have hindsight in and this group this year is going to be able to do the same thing and hopefully it can happen year after year it'll just build on top of each other so thank you I'm going to turn back over there I appreciate you having me here been amazing um so one of the things that we looked at was last year our mchine like kind of what was driving us was um what gives you Joy and trying is for the joy do you want to speak to that yeah sure you can go you can go home now um so we just we shared about so in year one uh that was

122really our theme was the spread joy and I mean open-ended question right what does that mean to people so we really uh set that up as a driving question to all the students that were involved in advisory which if um the community doesn't know that's 9th 10th and 11th graders here at the high school uh so just looking at that uh we really wanted to model design thinking principles coming into this we were able to have that California experience um this past year which actually half sponsored so thank you have if you're listening um but they were actually able to sponsor Sarah and I to go out there and I I just want to emphasize um Jerry all keep speaking to support and collaboration and I'm not the educator I am today without that um

123so I it it these volumes when you have the support um and being able to collaborate together so and the three of us have been able to collaborate a lot over this last year so we kind of first first half of the year it was a struggle and it was a lot of brainstorming and brainstorming can be messy and students don't know what to do with that um second semester we come back and they're like wait it's clicking I'm taking my brainstorming and I'm putting I'm putting um purpose to what we were doing the first half and so you just saw the story so this year we're moving into a year to trajectory uh really moving into this theme of sparking curiosity and I'll hand it off to Sarah um because I am all about

124like learning by experience this really speaks a lot to me because if we're able to be curious then we're definitely in a safe and supportive place and having that Curiosity enables us to kind of pursue our passions in life so as I work in the maker space and the kids when I like learned how to use a sewing machine and they want you to teach them I say like well here's a guide let's see what you can do and it's about not having like absolute success getting in a for everything that we do but being able to take safe risks and be curious so I really um have had the pleasure of like working in this ad advisory program and building the community and that's kind of where it starts um we wanted every student

125to be able to connect with one grown up in the building so that over the 3 years when they attend advisory they know that every Friday they see that teacher um that they can connect with and say you know what I'm I'm not okay today or you know what today was the best day let me tell you why so that's kind of like our driving place and so building up of last year's curriculum into this is also like kindness just fuels everything right so we're using random acts of kindness for our curriculum base as we move forward because I mean there's no better thing than kindness and finding different ways to be kindness and expecting of everyone to build on inclusion of everyone in the school um so again we're looking at another design challenge

126as now it has become my passion as well um it's contagious but um we're asking them this year to um build something that represents their individuality with in their advisory and then that way that starts that conversation like hey I noticed you put on your Monument I like to ski too and it just starts that conversation um one of the exercises that we did last year in California we were thrown into a group of strangers much like our students on the first day of school or in a new advisory um where they're not able to be like oh great this is really fun it's really stressful um but we were able to because we're grown-ups put down things and you know put down our walls and be able to talk to the stranger across the

127table and I met a woman who basically had the same childhood growing up and her parents were in the military and she traveled and it was like wow this is a stranger from California and she moved out west and um those of you who know me I moved up to Canada and I came back and so having that travel United us so we're always looking for the common grounds and it does start with being kind to one another and being able to listen and then being able to share our stor so that's kind of what we're this year um we also loved um in the past our and create advisory usually ran some type of community service which I think we um especially as Educators and people sitting around this table we really give to

128others by service so I think it's a really important quality to teach our students um life skill that we can do great works and serve everyone in our community and somehow so we're looking for a a type of community kindness project that we want each advisory to kind of brainstorm and after there we move through so there's an endle again this year just like last year with the monument this year will be bringing together in theing purpose and I think just to add on to that um or emphasizing the organic element of this we're adjusting along the way and we want this to be successful to be able to build relationships um with all stakeholders in the hollon community so that is the biggest goal uh you know and just creating that safe space and

129environment for everyone and and I would say the organ happens um every month we meet with the Sals individually so it's always like the first Friday of each month and so tomorrow is our day with them um I usually get weepy and then she Rings me in I don't know I'm like a proud parents of them all um but they share such wonderful stories or struggles and we uh share together but it's a really like proud time for us and then with that feedback or with the feedback that we get from staff and individual advisories were able to then say yeah that didn't really work that well that wasn't what we expected and we use that feedback each time to design the next week's lesson so usually we scrambling to to see how much feedback

130we can get and because data does give us room to grow so we're getting better at collecting data and growing from that um okay so in the first this is really quick because I think we're taking a lot of time but um we get excited the first year we um walked in and we had 37 students already picked um for us and so we just like met them on the first day a half hour before the ninth graders came in and we're like this is great we're excited we're going to be here with you um and so it really was an exciting year um we started with an activity that we learned um from the training we had in the summer that was called connections and it didn't mean that every child had to share

131in their advisory but the Hope was that each week if we practice this at the first 5 minutes that the um teacher advisers would report back to us and say that that didn't share for 4 weeks shared today and just said where they were at and it was exciting and so it was like really bringing everyone in that group together and so it was a practice that we tried um we we have all the training right like so much training we're like what else can we read all the things that we do but this year the most exciting part was we didn't quite have a hundred students but we did have over 80 applicants and so it was really exciting um we set up teams of volunteers styles that were actually Styles last year's Juniors

132who wanted to participate in the experience so they were um we all set out with a list of questions and the kids picked and said yes this is these are great questions this is what I want to do and they went through and boy they they showed some tough skills in the interview I was think I'm glad you're not on my interview panel but um they did really a great job and they would rate the the applicants and say like we think this student would be great but not a super strong leader so maybe a super strong partner would work really well so we got a lot of good input from the students to like help make the matches for I think the biggest thing is the students are building this program with us we're

133not driving this um to a certain extent but we want to hear from them what's going to work from them at the end of the day and making them all or not making them them wanting to All Connect together uh so just a few things we're adding uh group contracts this year so like hey you're in this sale program just really starting the bar I I've always been a sports person but I'm like this is a team too you're s we got jerseys this year um we wear them every Friday but really just adding that element that what they're doing at ours and I think that's like the biggest thing for them is what they're doing they're creating something that's making a difference and one thing we did add too with the new leadership this

134year was um welcome Wednesdays so um David List said you know what this was a really great practice we had like a welcome Monday and I was like yeah I'm a former English teacher that doesn't work for me we need aeration so I can remember so we pick Wednesdays every Wednesday we have a select CS there like a spine up sheet um and and the Cs will rotate through um and they're not with their Partners they're just like whoever gets it gets it and they stand at the um glass hallway entrance and then the main entrance and they just welcome people in and say hi and it's just kind of like I don't know it's like it's all the warm and fuzzy it's like it's a nice way to start a Wednesday um and think

135that I'm pretty sure yeah and and just lastly wrapping it up data we're starting to build it so we only have a year to speak to so the biggest one we really kind of just wanted to highlight as the beginning of this year so everyone that's gone through it for phase one we really wanted to ask uh we had over 200 responses to the survey which was really awesome and giving a start of the Year survey uh but the biggest thing was yes and kind of 50% kind of and 33% 34% yes uh to do you feel you have a strong chemistry in your advisory room this year and that too there like a whole bunch of ninth graders that have never been there before too but you know I think it was good so

136it's the kind of is like well it's the beginning of the year yeah everybody has all and we just felt it was powerful that we had that much more buyin people wanting to get these back uh so we thought that was important to highlight and then just continuing the journey for a year or two so we'll um we'll see where that goes but we appreciate everyone just listening and it's been a a labor of love so we'll see where it goes but we appreciate everyone tonight listening and we just have two um very quick quick yes these are styles from lasty teson okay oh The Zo world is not easy you have to M she liked it had a good time feel bad right now we can share those LS with you yeah but thank

137you again we appreciate it thank you very much uh yeah I and to me it's a double thank you it's a thank you to um Harry Taran Sarah um all the Sals who participated all the people who I share their names on the screen um and you know as we said sa SP school is the soil you know from the soils where we get where we want to go right and you know uh every I'm hoping that this new format of like me sharing a little bit but also bringing voices from the field um works because I think that they can do a way better job to contextualize what this work feels and looks like then I could do uh in speaking about you know the nuts and bolts of a program so with that

138I guess I open up questions and I would ask that if you had questions maybe um that we about R may ask that first so they don't have to stay any longer um but I guess I open it up to any questions sure go ahead you put just step up one of the microphon just so people can hear too thank you I move up here yes yeah thank you guys for sharing I just wanted to bring in a student perspective as I was hearing your presentation and especially about the data collection I had a question on what efforts are being taken to continually check in with the freshman and the sophomore as they're in these earlier stages of high school and starting to engage in advisory just because freshman year from me at least for

139my class wasn't great but sophomore and junior year junior year we found it really hard to engage in advisory every week um and I don't recall there being spaces for me to provide feedback on how we were feeling about um the lessons that were being taught and I appreciate the efforts that are being made to communicate with sty but I wanted to know specifically um are there steps being taken to ensure that actually hearing from students and it's not just you know checking the box say are you feeling this chemistry but rather a place where they can write out their thoughts and full and share that with you guys and know that things will be modified to meet them where they need to be yeah that's a great question yeah um I'll jump in but

140I think there was several opportunities where it may have been up to the advisory teacher for that execution per se based on uh the delivery of the lesson from a higher umbrella standpoint and then through each advisory session that's really where how we collected the data I would say um so if you didn't feel that but we are trying to would love feedback too on different strategies to be able to um you know kind of make that open space yeah we did we did recognize that last year too um and students who knew us would come and say like this was a great advisery lesson or we didn't like this at all um so that was just more of like a like comment that they if they felt comfortable with us but um the other

141thing that was exciting was this year we started using um the classroom so like the Google classrooms for each grade um I know now that you're a senior now it's not like affecting you but um we put in some activities at the beginning of the year and so there's always room for private comments in there too but the styles of the Freshman particularly um are being trained this year too with a little bit more of Sensitivity I guess like to notice to recognize to recognize first and foremost when maybe there's a quiet student in there that's not engaging or maybe the students are like we hate those and then for them to give us that feedback as well that to provide a space as well like hey I noticed you're not enjoying this can we

142just like write down what you're doing because we're going to meet with our advisers and and we talk about this and find a better solution but we we really love the constructive feedback um a lot of students parents and teachers would just email us on the side just to say like this I don't feel comfortable doing this or my advisory groups aren't working out um we're not a quick fix yeah so we would like to kind of research like why it wasn't working on at the time and then provide some extra help or um if aelle per se would have been um holding up their end of the bargain then unfortunately it is like a job and we would have to like dismiss this out and and work a little bit harder to find a

143partner that would work better in that place so those things are going going on I know probably like in your advisory you weren't seeing all of that CU you're in the advisory attending but we do have the supports um and we actually are excited to try to get some training for ourselves this year as well and then for the teachers as well to have kind of like a handbook to like support them and say like is the areas where we want to highlight yeah I think biggest thing is we're looking to continue to explore to tools and avenues uh to increase the needs of communication with the entire bsite and and just another question about the logistics of advisory itself um obviously the concern is when it's being held during our study block that's generally

144when teachers are the most available to receive help and there were several times when me or my friends or mys in general weren't able to receive that extra academic help because we had advisory going on or my teacher would just my advisory teacher would dismiss me to then go meet with other teacher because we knew we weren't really going to be doing anything and so either way there's this issue and I wanted to understand what to that's a little disturbing to me so we um see advisory um and I know last year's leadership saw this as well as well as now the new leadership that that advisory time is actually like sacred time it's the one time where we can actually check in and and with ANL lens really work with students and make that

145safe place we have um dsv is what you're talking about on Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday and we've always had an advisory um one day a week so um I don't know if it was during the co times like during the remote box we had it on Mondays and we did it on Mondays um when Miss slasher ran advisory and the the census was that this wasn't a really great day to do that because students are coming in from the weekend and have a lot of questions and they want to meet with teachers um so we moved it back to Friday over a general vode um but the other thing is is that teachers don't have meeting times during advisory except for find Arts um and um find and Performing Arts have teacher meetings on

146that Friday and they don't have an advisory man do you have a question yeah there yeah um yeah I was just wondering did you ask teachers like a preference if they wanted to have a freshman advisory because I know last year from my personal experience as well as experience from like other friends um that the quality of their advisory was partially dependent on the the teacher specifically so teachers some teachers were a lot more involved in the their advisory and other teachers kind of left it up to the Sals or just for advis those Sals that kind of just let students do their so we see first like there's kind of two parts to your question so this is great and then you can add on um the Administration has always sent out a um

147Google form at the end of every year or in the spring kind of right before people are deciding um courses are coming in and how many classes are we going to have for like incoming freshmen the teachers are asked would you like to participate in the advisory program and do you have a preferred grade do you have an advisory now do you want to keep them or would you like a senior home run um so teachers elect to do this and um that is so that's always a choice right um coming in they kind of like as we transitioned last year back into the advisory most teachers were assigned their same advisory to stay with them so this year I know that um the only advisories that weren't like reassigned to their old teacher was

148because we had some staff that left and so new teachers were assigned to those because they were not given a chance to like say oh I want a nth grade advisory and we were kind of like we need to know who the ninth grade advisers are right away um because we try to match up styles with that um and then yeah and the one thing I just want to add is uh coming off of last year in reimagining the program actually last Friday's session was around we showed an example of a video of what advisory is a I don't want to say a standard but what it looks like at other schools that I don't think it's been like that in the past here for a while where we're trying to reimagine that program so

149last year we oh last year last week we actually just showed a V video to get everyone just feedback and bring storm hey this is what one school's doing how could this work here what are the obstacles we could see and how can we come together so we actually want to reflect off that um tomorrow session and we actually got some feedback from teachers that really appreciated that so again it's working together to kind of figure out that overall solution so just to add on to what Sarah is saying and also to bring it back to my earlier point is there anything in place or that's going to I guess get rid of this Obstacle of students not being able to receive academic help on Fridays if they had a question on Thursday night's homework

150or they have a test on Monday how are they going to receive that academic help on Fridays if they need it because students are call to so again it's not time there is not a DSD during that time so my suggestion would be email the teacher I connect with your teacher and make the connection or look to schedule additional time where it's needed but advisory is supposed to be that advisory block um for a reason so I think it's just in terms of uh something that has always been on the schedule in terms of I guess what I would would say this direct answer that but um uh Taran and Sarah's role is to imagine and work with students on how to best utilize advisory space I think the question you're asking is even a

151bigger question which is um if students need supports how do they best receive that and I honestly think that's probably a question to be brought to the administrative team to think about um if there's a big need of students who need support how do we connect that right so um not to say that that they can't answer but I think that in one space um as a school we ask them to Envision what that space is but the question of structure I think that's a question that probably is best situated to to bring that to Mr listen is admin team to think about are there better ways to support students when that needs you know what I mean and I think this is a trajectory right so what we're hearing is a this work isn't

152perfect hasn't been perfect but we're building a trajectory where kids are getting behind it right and the goal is is to get better every year right um I know I I don't aim for Perfection I know they don't um so a feedback is essential but also I think what we're hearing from kids is we're headed in the right direction the question will be how do we continue to get feedback to kind of improve every year yeah my question is actually similar to what Sarah asked which is I'm wondering sort of what about teacher buyin um I've been a part of several advisories as a teacher myself and um it's tough I know some teachers are like really really into it like you to and me I love like I could run advisories all day I

153love doing that stuff and others are like uncomfortable so you did answer part of that with form and how that's selected um how do you sort of I like with when there are plan are there planned lessons each week that the teachers receive and if so like is it like they get that email at 10:00 a.m. and then they have to do it that day or is it like do they have plenty of time they have um agency over what they're comfortable sharing it not how does that all work um just jumping in so we at we're laughing um who's going to jump in but um we send an email out every Thursday we we send some type of guiding course so to speak uh we have a slideback by month that we add to

154with leading guiding activities we always emphasize if something's working differently for that advisory room they can make it their own so if you're feeling that you want to do something else with that um your advisory class in terms of building relationships like all the means to see what is most for you I mean I know we have particular teachers that said like I really know these kids they had an 11 gr bad last year I really know these kids and right now I think they really just want to come together and build this puzzle and talk and that's what we're going to do are we going to be in trouble because we didn't do the lesson we're like no the lesson is there always as a guide um some teachers really want to more of

155a scripted like what activities can we do that I'm just meeting these kids like and so they can build off that the lesson is always there as a suggestion um not a end all be all and so I mean we have awesome amazing Educators so they can recognize when this perfect slide deck that we love or whatever isn't going to work and there's some other situation going on in the room and that's we rely on their expertise they can recognize what works and it doesn't you had like a lot of feedback from teachers on how they feel about the advisory program and how it's going so I would say like when we ask for feedback we um we generally get a lot like it always like it's in any class right we have a lot

156of loud speakers who will always be the first people to like either cheer on something or say nope this is where you made an error and that's good it's it's totally awesome and we go through all of the stuff and as a matter of fact like tomorrow we're going to go through some of the responses with our Sal training like this is what we've heard from different advisories um I think sometimes not everyone responds and so we're saying to people we really need your feedback that's how we can grow from it um and it's it's happy feedback and sometimes like more negative feedback it it it's all valid and we need it only to become better you know um and not everybody signs up to be an advisor for um the ADV not every teacher

157in this and I guess I just would say that for any this work we have to invest in it right we believe in it and I think that's the piece that I think we're trying to move towards is like investing in this not only as them as advisers but in this work one of the things we identified was that there has really never really been a true training for our Educators right so I spoken to people who say like I I love talking with kids I'm not always sure how to roll out lessons right um and we would imagine that teachers might but for instance just because I'm a let's say a school counselor doesn't mean I know how to run a classroom right so developing even a training iies for our Educators who are

158advisers so they feel comfortable or if they need support that wasn't something that had been done before right so we're like building also these these supports for our Educators so that they can kind of grow into that space and equally support for our students and for our sou so they can kind of live up to that as well um because leadership isn't just you're born with right sometimes we also need to kind of think about how to support to build that uh that courage that confidence in their own voice thank you very much any other I'm sorry I have just one um as just sort of more of a process question how do you decide what students get chosen for what advisory like what's your rubric or do you have a survey for the kids

159and so you can group them in a place where they actually have a safe space where they feel comfortable to talk because all this is for not if those kids don't feel like that's a space where they can do that I totally agree and can they switch if it doesn't work out right and can they can they switch if it's not a place they feel comfortable so we actually haven't had any of these switched this year um we have had people partner us like say like this advisory isn't really working can we move to the this these two classrooms together because we feel it's working together as a full group we did have that half of us here um I've also had students like we do give them a survey and we say like before

160you leave for the year before we make our final choices where we're going to place anybody can you um if there's a teacher that you really put feel connected with I know in the past like as being an adviser I've had students that were in my advisory became s and then I was lucky enough to say hey could I get them back in my classroom we already have this great relationship and the student said yeah I want to be in your classroom too so it has to work both ways I think in order for it to work but we had students request to be with teachers um that they already had a relationship with so then they would begin with their n graders with the teacher that they had been really close with um and

161sometimes it doesn't work out that well like sometimes a teacher will request students and the students didn't request the teacher I'm going to honor the students choice in that matter because like that's great that that teacher felt really close but that student felt closer to somebody else so we've also done it that way um and last year we had a few times where s's requested to be in a sibling's advisory to in order to support their siblings might have had a really struggling situation and we did allow it this year we kind of said you know what I think it might be okay to recognize that maybe there's a student that's struggling and then not partner um a sibling in there because for whatever dynamics that we don't know that that would be successful so

162it's always kind of like on a Case by case basis but we do listen to the cyes and and you know they'll say like I want to partner with this cell because we're besties and then this year we said like that's great but you have to also understand when you walk into a ninth grade advisory that if your besties it's a little bit intimidating for the nth graders that don't maybe know anybody um if they're new to the district and they see you as being like best used and now they're intimidated so we're cautious about everything yeah I think the one thing to add on uh just like I relate to my students in business you know I was going to like everyone you work with but you learn to work together and if it's

163being picked at random at the beginning of their freshman experience uh now that is kind of being phased out obviously coming back from Co so I think moving forward things may look a little bit differently but they'll be able to especially this year's Freshman Class be able to really experience that organic feeling uh if you don't know everyone that's okay but that's why you're there to work together and build those relationships so great thank you and I do have follow up for jerio but if you guys want want to leave youate have a good one thanks so much and J he was really quick because we are uh getting getting late and it's really more of a request for for a future topic of conversation but under save and supportive schools um obviously uh you

164know we had another uh instance of hate speech on school grounds this past week and I'm I'm more interested we don't know if it's a student still under investigation I'm not I don't want to talk about the inance itself but I would like to understand a little bit about you know we put out statements we we talk about how you know it's it's unacceptable hate has no place all that what what actions are we taking and and again I'm not looking for you to give us a real sort of detailed response now but maybe just a topic that we can have you back uh for for a future conversation about I just I just think it's really important so the community and everyone kind of understands you know not just what we're saying but what

165what are we what are we doing how are we instilling or trying to you know instill uh you know values in our in our students yeah no I'd welcome that and um and not necessarily to to get into that right now but I think that in any response we're talking about multiple people right so we're talking about building leadership educated the school counselors Etc um so I think you know in any the students what what probably would you know at some point I share is what would be the process the schools go through when when when things like this happen how do they support students how do they invest like the whole piece that goes into that um because every situation is different but um the process that schools go through um to investigate something

166you know is a similarity right no I'm not talking about the investigation I'm talking about like sort of what actions are we taking to to sort of educate children about the harms of of of these type of things you know like the the reasons behind you know like what how are we trying to prevent them from happening in the future we we can talk about the investigat I'm less interested in in in that but more about how do we sort of prevent or or minimize the the can I just can I just say one thing I mean I think I don't want us to jump to the assumption that it was a student it happened on school ground I said that to to be understand but but we we've had issues in schools of this

167before correct and I'm just saying we don't that's why the police are trying to support with this I will say though one of the things Jer and I talked about is regardless of whether it happened as a community issue or one of our students was involved in anything here um the today I reached out to Rabbi Mimi to say um jayen have come up with some ideas like regardless it's this is always an educational opportunity no matter how it happens or when it happens so we this is something we want to bet with Rabbi Mimi and also um with our administrators if something happens in the community or a neing community can we still bring that in as a learning lesson with students and and what could it look like could it be a moment

168of silence could it be um I I actually um emailed Taran and Sarah um today before this meeting a while ago and the two the middle school and high school principal because I wonder when we send something out to parents do students even know because I always say please talk with your students about this in case you know and then we also need to bring it back well if students are upset we need to maybe think about how can we support them in school whether it's an outside event or an inside event maybe other ways to bring them into do they have access to a counselor additionally like right after incidents happen so these are all things what that we're exploring and want to kind of vet um you know thinking of advisory is this

169another opportunity to educate students about anti-semitic um propaganda and things like that at especially at the middle school and high school level where they should be able to what do you think we can do to help um out in the community as well and work together and partner with the community I guess what I would just say is that here's what I can say until I do a proper presentation uh is that um our schools are doing work to educate students on issues of hate um the middle school have been doing it for at least three years um we've shared about some of that in the past they call them safe supportive lessons that been happening other middle schools um they're actually some of their peer leadership work is actually now focused on that where

170students are actually providing feedback on those lessons and delivering lessons um the high school's done some work so you know one of the pieces is yes I'll come and do you know we we'll share out right in a formal way around like what's happening but there is education happening even you know in the spaces of you know engaging literacy around different families and different struct like there is work happening across the district but what I'll say is the other spaces that's also why I presented on that Dei work that needs to happen too because the other piece is we have schools doing a lot of what I think is positive work and addressing this work um but also we want to align to make sure we're all headed in the same direction so that's this

171is exactly also why um I pie I shared the the the creation of having to create this uh leadership team that also focused around that across our schools um so we can help our schools augment what they're already doing to be clear I wasn't suggesting anything but just just trying to understand no I wanted to actually do it because this not only be in a public meeting I know there's people watching so I wanted to kind of it let families know that there is work happening yeah great and Jer I like we talked a lot about how like at need like The Advisory work is wonderful thank you so much for all the work that you're doing that everyone is doing that you're facilitating um but how can we um support you and the other

172leaders student leaders teacher leaders in doing Dei work in the schools like and maybe you know it seems like another area in which folks would really benefit from training yeah um so what kind of you don't need to tell me what kind of work that's happening because I know there's the ACL lessons there's the peer leadership stuff that's going on but how can we continue to really support that work and really make it a goal of ours to keep folks really aware that this has to be a a town and a district priority to make sure all folks are feeling supported in our schools in our town and I think the other piece to wrestle with was how do we get better at sharing what we're doing right because I think that that's even my

173own personal challenge right I could I could sit here and come one day and present on the at Health work and I can come and do another day on the work right so but how do you share that I think that that that's a challenge how do you share it in in in a deeper sense so people can hear what's happening it also doesn't take an hour or more right because every school's doing something every school's engaged in this work we've done professional development that we've shared in the past but in retrospect 3 years from now right something that shared two years ago is not top of mine right and and a lot of this work as you know right in education this is trajectory work right like PD we do today today should then

174build off of what we do next year but as school committee members or as a community how do you know what that trajectory is right and and how do we share that I think that's a challenge um you know for districts like our size to think about how do we share in a way that people can wrestle with and see that trajectory that doesn't take a 2our PD presentation so I also welcome the feedback on how to do that and I think it's always we're never done right I mean that's the bigger part how do we get better kind and T we're talking about advisory how do we get better at this work and and build the capacity of our staff so that they are able to have some of these difficult conversations too because

175not everybody feels comfortable right leaning into this work and we got it better at that as well and I just wanted to say that I really appreciate that you keep talking about breaking down the silos because I think that that was something that was very prevalent before you came they were just different silos of information or different programs that we were doing across the district and the fact that you're trying to unify that so we have common language and common supports across the district is really really important I think so I just wanted to thank you for that because I definitely see that difference since before you've been here so thank you thank you any comments or questions I think so Ariel is an important addition to our for sure yes it's it's wonderful to

176have have you here thank you so much thank you thank you thank you all right you want to skip policy I'm really quick policy let's see student discipline it's a good topic it is right it's too bad the students aren't here this but anyway they did get the agenda Hadad of they they knew well and we're at the point where like so this was actually a policy I thought we were done with but I guess things kind of over the summer and I won't get into my own personal story but I I it got kind of lost in the weed so I apologize for that um so there really this is I'm not reading this whole policy again it's not it's an just a um revision we had a question the last time that we

177spoke about this I think it was June I apologize again and it was about on page four um regarding expulsion and that assault on a member of the educational staff I believe it was Dawn who was suggesting you know is that a mandatory about about staff educational staff versus students and that's the law so that's why it has to be written in that way I can't change it so that was that um and then one other thing that was added was um um uh at the very very bottom about policy definitions so we have like you know so people understand what restorative justice means and things like that so um that is added as a document we that it obviously would be like a fluid document but it's on there too so um and so

178there's no other changes that we made from the last time that we met other than just to confirm that um that point about exposion any comments or questions do we need a vote to accept the Amendments I'll accept the motion to uh accept the amendments to uh uh policy jic student discipline seconded all in favor carries thank you and then the other one is um this is more of like a housekeeping policy um that masc just suggested that we had we have a policy around um admitting students this one is about whether we would deny what reasons we would deny students so this is a first read so I have to read the whole thing but it's not long um and we can you know I'll take questions and then if people want to just

179send me feedback we can talk about it in the next time all right so um policy jhd ex exclusion sorry exclusions and exemptions from School attendance denial of admission denial of admission means the withholding of the privilege of enrolling in a school of the hollison public schools the hollison school committee affirms its position that it shall not discriminate in the admission of any child on the basis of race color sex sexual orientation gender identity religion disability age genetic information active military veteran status marital status familial status pregnancy or pregnancy related condition homelessness ancestry e ethnic background national origin or any other category protected by state or federal law athletic performance academic performance or Proficiency in the English language there's this ASX race is to include traits historically associated with race including but not limited to

180hair texture hair type hair length and protective hairstyles the following shall be the grounds for denial of admission to school or for diversion to an appropriate alternative program graduation from the 12th grade or HPS transition program of any school or receipt of any document evidencing evidencing completion of the equivalent of a secondary curriculum failure to meet the requirements of age for beginning school as determined by the um HSC as provided in in massachusett general laws failure to to meet the residency requirements and HPS has opted not to participate in the school choice law failure to comply with the provisions of the Massachusetts school entry immunization law great and there is legal references at the bottom Master Law chapter 76 section 12 chapter 76 chap uh section 12a chapter 762b and 7615 and uh 603 CMR

181section 26 or sorry chapter 26 okay so again just a first read so any comments on that any initial thoughts I deleted a period And I see that I know I I think we got added by mistake but other than that I I don't have anything okay so we we don't need to vote on read y thank you wonderful all right moving on the central office updates yeah so the the one thing which is a very good thing our hopeful thing um that I wanted to share today is Keith and I and Travis aarn and James ke and Bobby cadra attended the senior study yesterday for 2 hours with our msba visitors there were five of them um I have to say it was the first time I've done I've done different parts of building

182projects but I've never done a senior study so I was not sure what to expect or um you know where are we going we did have a document that they gave us and we meant to bring copies so we'll actually send them electronically to you just so you can see what they said shared with us um but the team was very interested and asked really good questions and really dug in and pushed us to think a little further um we were encouraged by the questions that they were asking I can't say where it will take us but we felt very optimistic and positive by basically what they were asking what they were sharing with us they seemed to be very interested in our school and this particular project like I said I can't promise you

183it's going to take us to the next step but there were 63 uh 63 projects that had been applied for and it was narrowed down to 32 and then they were doing 23 senior studies out of those 32 CU nine of them they had done recently enough that they didn't need to is what they shared with us um a couple of things that we learned through this process uh were one and you know one of the things that Keith had always thought that because we have a Fieldhouse that that if we had have do a rebuild of the high school we may want to keep that field house cuz that would not be part of the money back to us and they brought up the point which I wondered too cuz you know I just

184took it from Face Value cuz Keith is my building expert um but typically a field study if it is a separate field field field house is a separate building then it would not be ours is what houses our Wellness classes and we have PE classes in there all day long plus after school classes so it's not a separate Community Fieldhouse therefore it's our gym oh nice so that could could then be become part of the building project was really good to hear but they did say that they've had places where they have a field house and a gym well the field housee is like the community piece this ours does become a community piece but first and foremost it's part of our wellness program so the N of this that would be then included in

185in the what about the auditorium though that well right now um if if we were to keep there two things that could happen we believe they didn't get into the specifics of the numbers but when we did have um an architect who happen to be a parent of the district give us some information they they went through the formula with us and believe we could get 750 seats yeah between 7 and 7 if if we've got the building project n we have right so if we if we decided we didn't couldn't go down to 750 is and wanted to stay with the 904 914 then no it's not going to be included but that's the decision we'd make at that time okay we're so far from that but yes okay um but then the other

186piece um that they wanted us to dig into and that I would like to bring back to you at the next meeting to put on on the agenda for a potential vote um there's a lot of ways to strengthen your application and they will still take this information if we can get things to them pretty soon so one of the things that they asked is about um what about your enrollment prek to 8 are you are you concerned that you're going to have Bubbles and and move up well we did talk about enrollment and some concerns of the future for a couple reasons we know that prek is coming down the pike if we go with um fully funded pre we're probably going to need three more classrooms we think at theano classentino building we

187have we are maxed out right so something's going to give here we we do foresee we're going to see our our enrollment has been pretty uh level we haven't we've had some bumps in you know like uh some grade level like is it grade four right now is the big one or grade five two I'm sorry but we have one you know we have had some Bubbles as well our overall population has been fairly fluid however at we are seeing a programmatical need with our high needs kids are coming in you know Jessica was talking about that as well so we're running space if we have to build these programs like at the high school already so over time we believe that we could outgrow the lower campus and we have nothing that we can

188do there we're putting up if if we do get to a new high school it's going to be a long time away before doing any of those projects we just did those really recently so we are worried about that so they they brought up two potential ideas that we can be thinking of if we foresee this is going to happen some districts have gone with if that if they out through their lower level would you want to build a preschool at the high school which would then become part of that building project work correct know right which then you can have an early childood program however that doesn't create as much of a space need cuz let's just say that's three classrooms right we don't have that at the high school either right no that

189being said the other possibility is if we for see that we're going to outgrow the preab ability and have to potentially move grade two to Mill or grade five to midd yeah and potentially bring grade eight up to the high school that's also showing a long-term plan that this District may very well need and whether we whether we say that now let's just say we say yes we think that in the next 5 years we may need to shift our population up if we get to the project of if that helps us get feasibility and move this project forward it doesn't lock Us in right so anything we say on this application that we think it's an unknown right when we think that might happen but it definitely strengthens if you're looking at not not

190just how is the high school necessary but how is this going to help the district free k through 12 so they definitely I would you agree that was a very strong focus of the conversation about anything that might be not just a high school but also serve a bigger need in the community definitely can give you a leg up I say it was just one of the things that we had added if you remember this year about that there could be an enrollment with the high they and so you know again we affectionally called the the bay maneuver if you all remember um of moving sixth eighth grade up here but the the as much as the and things we had actually discussed internally since then you know as much as the idea of moving

191preate grade C certain opportunities there are also certain challenges with it because remember our preschool program currently is basically based around a special education piece well those special education teachers can't do prek and K1 and two then as we are currently configured add to that what does that do to monor because again monor for prek and K is a three-g graded classroom we that can't move either or they all move it's we have certain complicating factors that make us a little different not the pre not the uh special education piece but the the monor piece um one thing we'd also talked about as an enticement um for the eighth grade piece would be something with regards to the the outflow of students to other schools other Public Schools such as Kei or northwalk well a

192student who gets indoctrinated so to speak into the high school participates in sports because if you an eighth grade in your high school they can play high school sports as they get indoctrinated it's Arts here or or or clubs here you know the fact is is that they may choose to stay as opposed to you know you know matriculating out to a different District I went to eth grade at this school during a build right but one of the things we're try and there's a lot of things that would go into right again we come to right we don't have to even think about that right but the point is it could strengthen our application to to move us forward and gives us time to determine what the long-term needs of the district are so

193you would be looking for a potential vote on what a supplemental so what we would do is write a letter and that the school committee voted similar to like I had to um send them a letter on the vote before and it had be certified by the chair so you would um you would vote that the whether whether it's a preschool potential move or an enrollment shift and we would want to cite the reasons why we think we might need this coming forward um and you know I I know that you you have concerns about eth grade there's also some districts do e8th grade is like a separate wing wing but it opens up the opportunities because we're one of the things we're locked right now with the with the blueprint we have here is

194we're trying to build more endorsement programs those opportunities are limited because um right now um Mr list is trying to develop the Innovative Pathways Grant but then where are we going to put these new programs so if we could open up more Pathways and get more opportunities and then allow eighth graders to access those because they're in the high school it just to me we had a concern last year we had the highest number for a while of the Kei Tech students leaving but maybe if they had those hooks in and open up their band chorus things that they can't necessarily do in the same level as they can um in a high school setting you know even the vocational offerings of the things we talked about was Allied Health or biomedical that's something that

195the students here have been asking for the last couple of years again when you build a new school you can Envision whatever you want and if you build it they will come and they will stay I mean that's something we want to maintain our students in District as well uh what else so I think Keith you already talked about a lot of the other things I had down here but um the thing that they need to hear from the school committee is that if we are anticipating a potential issue with enrollments and again we're out of space in placentino I have no thinking classrooms there so even if we wanted to do something else creative Institute a another another special ed program I don't have space it won't happen in placentino so when you look

196at it that is the place where we need the space now um but if we were going to look at a potential enrollment issue within this District they would want to hear from you on whether your plans at this time would be to do a prek at the high school or grade eight at the high school that's what they would want to hear so when they consider our application um they know what they're talking about or what the plans would be if it was going to go down that path so let's put together letter we can talk about that I would you know we obviously need to talk about what moving eth grade to the high school means cost wise for as far as the building cost um but I mean yeah and I don't

197think we even have to worry about any of that right now we're just saying that we are we are thinking that this could be a possibility and and whether you do it or not that doesn't matter right now so that that's news the community would need no one is making any decisions even if we get to that point we have multiple years to even consider and multiple years of data gather before any decision be made but but it does strengthen the application that's really the most important part just that we know that we're going to have an enrollment issue way we're going to very likely going to need to do something and if you can if soltion en but that you don't really need to be much more specific no no and if the high

198school rebuild or whatever it becomes becomes not just a High School need but a district need again that's a very strong Community message and msba hears that message as well okay great and then one other quick thing is that um I had reached out to Senator sp's office I know that you know I've talked to her before and she knew that that we had been writing the SOI and um Karen andman Foster said to me what can we do to help do you want us to write a letter I said that would be great so today Karen sent me the letter from Karen spila and I sent that over um to our site coordinator whatever Katie Katie christop I think it is anyhow everything helps right and um and and what I explained to her

199is obviously um Senator spilka's endorsement also is a strong message to the community because they also want to make sure and they asked Travis's question if you got two feasibility do you think the town's going to buy in so we were you know he sped very eloquently about that about where we are and and a very we feel a very strong sense that the community is ready and waiting with baited breath for this right and that we would be able to get strong support for building project um could you share u k could you share Senator sp's letter with us too and then did you get a sense of when the senior studies would be completed the timeline for that so I asked if there's anything supplemental that we can be sharing you through and

200actually um Travis sent us something today he's going to put together a letter um talking about the 40b the other piece 40b housing they asked about growth in the town and he did foresee with the with the 40b need in town that that also could be an enrollment bubble as well so he put together a letter they go and accept that letter from him and anything that they would require from us they said you should get in it before the end of October and that's why that October 19th date to have a v from you and a letter ready go be really important I and I also met among the other schools where they were conducting the senior studies do we have a sense of when they're going to be done I think she said

201they would next week so that's why like the end of the month they'll they probably won't accept any other pieces because then they're going to be voting in early December it was December 12 or 13th I don't remember which number it was now decision that's the decision the board will vote at that point in time they say we may hear earlier um just because they don't want it to be a surprise either way but again it's it's so government making decisions before the decision is made yeah and again like I said we have no idea if this is going to go anywhere but it was a very positive we support them so um Keith was this a different meeting than the last time that they came to do yes yes last time was kind of

202a a meet and greet and kind of a lot of high fives and how are you doing and stuff like that just kind of a general walk through this this day came with some very specific questions that I think they ask every District some specific questions regarding our application um and then some hints on kind of things to do it was which was the things that we were very surprised to hear on how to either improve our application this time or even for the future it just it was it was helpful it actually was and again very positive I mean you know and uh K Katie recorded um all the rooms we've been into in different yeah she she used do a GoPro and walked around and we pointed out different things and you know

203it was you know it was fine and everybody during the whole tour I mean people were different groups of people were talking to different you know people so it was you know was it a different group that came in terms of like did you I've never seen those people before different okay one was and they were able to be taken up on the second floor oh yes we we saw we felt that heat coming off the black top roof and they were very they very much noticed that since they picked October for their senior studies and and having a board member there was something again the last time we have a board there yeah okay these kids have been here for 5 hours yeah I don't want to mislead anyone to think that this is

204like going to happen anyway but it was definitely positive felt reassuring and hopeful at least it's actually a pretty good stud yeah yeah thank you very good initiative all right uh two very brief announcements on uh yesterday we had two very exciting events we had our walk to school event T9 Dr Kusa Jess spey and myself um went on a walks a lot of fun had a good turnout uh Dr Kus was able to post on social media last night we also had placentino potluck family night for multilanguage multilingual Learners we probably had over 60 people there I would uh venture to guess we pizza for everybody and then families brought um whatever they wanted to contribute uh a lot of kids had so much fun they made their bilingual super power mask so they

205were all very excited so it was a lovely evening cute great thank you Mr VI um I don't know if anybody noticed but winter Street's having some Transportation issues um there there's construction going on in hollon I I think it's like a unique thing for this year and traffic too you think um So currently freed out my kids this morning where where the flying by where the road where the first covert's being done we have a fairly simple route to get around it no stops have been impacted um the next covert um stops are going to be impacted I mean it's just there's places we can't get to that students will either have to walk North on winter or south on winter in some cases a significant amount of distance but there is nothing we

206can do because there are no place to turn around a bus will this be done before winter this will be done winter will be done certainly before spring I just passing and moving on which which spring because win's been under conru construction be done they they anticipate I spoke with the G the GC who's doing the work um they expect the first one to be done in two weeks the second one will be more complicated um I heel will'll call me sometime next week with an update on the first one but the second one is more complicated is this are a lot of Miller kids going to be affected after daylight Sav yes I have I have children being affected on all three runs so walking down Winter Street in the dark no cars will

207be going though no seriously no seriously no cars will be going CU cars literally can't go literally can't go you can't get Beyond short a little which everyone so don't bother everybody so can we get can we have HPD support the initial week if that's the case especially because it sounds like it's going to coinci hi right around daylight savings time where it's early it's dark it's new they're walking on that road they they'll have to go both directions though I you know I mean I I can certainly reach out to Travis and see if he's willing to put details on for this project I don't know but again they'll be initially it'll be it'll be two different directions make sure these kids have it down and hopefully parents can rather than car pool they

208can walk pool I don't know they can they can drive south if they have to head south they'll be able to get out of there I mean to get home so um that was one thing um this afternoon uh uh James ke and I oop sorry okay I didn't know if there was something something else happening on the first thing um uh this afternoon James ke and I did a walk through of the Woodland Street campus um with regard with a a number of people from a uh uh HVAC fir HVAC design firm um and and uh we'll hear more first whether what the cost would be to put together a plan for us um and uh with different options and then we'd have an idea about proposed uh uh costs of the units of

209the you know uh uh solution as well um the fir again but the first step is you know they have to determine what it's going to take for them to put it together architecturally um and that that'll be the first cost to see how much that's going to be we really don't know the police station James told me was around 20,000 um and we're subst bigger than that so it may be a big number so so that's just that's are they going to give us multiple options as far as like every every every room okay SP system Keith or there's all sorts of possibilities there and and we did speak about geothermal to make an old friend of yours happy the uh the chair of the finance comme will be the chair of the finance

210he'll be very happy he won't be happy with the answer but that's fine and again this is just to get ideas of what's actually possible in Associated cost correct just it's not promises for anything we just need to understand this more do anyone watching Hope understands we're talking about the the heating not heating but the at at the Wilden Street campus at yes so you know that was that that piece it's great that that meeting happened or that that walkthrough happened so quickly and then the the last one is is I did get the results back from the um analysis of the playgrounds at the elementary campus um I we I met with our maintenance director Bobby cager we're going to do we're to talk about what the things we're in writing we're going to

211walk the campus probably not tomorrow but probably or walk the playgrounds beginning of next week and kind of talk about what plans we can do um some of the things are just not doable um for example on the placentino pekk playground um some of the elements are this type of element has to be X number of inches away from another element there a there there's two elements there that we basically have to take out of a playg gun that doesn't have that many elements so it's you know again it's it's new standards and stuff that has nothing to do with anything more than you guys like dancing um it has nothing to do has nothing more to do than just again the way it was designed initially um you know 25 years ago so but

212we did have the mulch put down yeah we did we did add we did add another 100 yards of mulch in there um that was we partnered with uh the highway division um or I should say the grounds Division and and getting that in and then uh uh helping us spread it out so that's happened so we're you know gradually moving forward didn't have to rent equipment for a change so on the pekk playground walk through and and talking about how you'd have to remove pieces where there's so very little there right now was there also looking into any level of expansion and and like an understanding of where those pipes and other things that might and I know we have Fields there but I'm just talking minimally like we've got the Gaga pit we

213still have some space we didn't this was this was an inspection of the actual equipment that is there it's not he's not a design guy to build a new so it's it's different Specialties so we're working through it okay thank you and I guess just keep was surprised when you have some numbers or data or something we can schedule a budget somethinge or whatever and start working through all that um that's it that's it okay all right so uh reports uh from subcommittees does Communications have anything uh Communications is meeting this coming Wednesday and we're going to be discussing um a newsletter and also um the creation of office hours for great and I wonder if well it's not teally from Communications itself in our folder I put a a sort of a an invite

214if you guys want to take a look and is everyone okay with that is that uh um yes I feel like I have one comment [Music] okay so cute I did it all myself that's great that's so we'll get that sent out tomorrow so that everyone's officially invited good job Dan thank you I'm just I'm just a communicating master um all right so pausy our next meeting is um Tuesday October 17th at 11:30 um invited uh Tina Hine to come to talk about safe roots to school um policy as well as to talk with David list and Matt Baker and about a number of different issues but one is to talk about any impacts that we could see in terms of if we made changes to the calendar we need to start having that kind

215of conversation and especially as we're talking about how do we address like you're talking about the AC units and things like that how do we address it from a calendar perspective potentially um or Pilot it from a perspective but then what's the impacts so how is that going to change scheduling or Athletics or if if at all I don't even know so I'm just inviting to kind of have that an open conversation that's great Don left during her her moment of uh Spotlight so was just superintendent eval we don't have anything but your planning on presenting goals next meeting right and the well the the next the 19th is going to be the school goals and the district goals not my personal goals usually I do my goals after that if that's that's let's just

216coordinate something we can I guess we'll have a meeting about for right after well when do you expect to present you be to what's the next meeting the November third yeah that's what I think should be okay um we talk we'll we'll talk about budget um so we we had a pretty robust uh discussion about uh the the temperature issues at the uh lower school campus um and then also you know potentially even looking at school calendar changes um stemming from that were the the walk through uh that uh Mr R had and so we're making progress I think just for the community to to recognize you know we we we uh we hear the you know the issu and the concerns we feel some of it um and we're we're trying to find different

217solutions that uh are are possible to to address it um I think this is now the fourth meeting I've been at that we've we've discussed it and mentioned it and we're going to start getting some um some data and and potential Solutions soon and Donald you we're on budget updates and so we've gone through the temperature one and okay um we did an update on um the auditorium wall and and where uh that project was the placentino um I'm sorry the the um James Keys came in and also talked about the roofing plans right and investigating solar did you talk about that okay um and let's see is he talking about solar as far as across the district or just on the schools down on the Woodland Street campuses as they redo um as we

218have the projects to redo the there and getting a grant for right the remaining roof is across Adams plastino Miller that we didn't do so we did was on8 900,000 just the shingle section the remaining section is is the rubber roof flat roof that is is estimated to cost about $5 million to replace all all that roof so so so the the there is some money and there was I guess a $50 million roof sort of or solar State bill that's going to go dribble I mean it's going to pay for very little let everyone ask for it but we're going to look into options for whe putting so on roof we can get someone to actually sort of pay for at least a good portion of that replacement to uh to lower the cost

219of the town and potentially lower our our uh you utilties it's an incentive that by putting solar on they will assist in the project to replace your roof as well it's a it's a it's a roof and solar project combined so that's a good idea to have a new roof before absolutely no I totally get that than that right now on the Cil plan uh the roof is is it done in 5 years or is it just out 5 years and it's going to be done over like seven or eight because it's no no it's it's no it's sooner it's it's James's plan is um uh spring for the Middle School um followed on by the next two years how so he's broken the 5 million up to 3 years yeah I believe so I

220highly doubt will have the the funds for that but okay bom's got it you were there I I was I I know we made promises on um so we did the the plas Ander roof we did the High School auditorium wall update that's gone out for the the bidding we're still working on getting bids back in two different um there's two different potential Solutions one is one is establishing I don't say we establishing but establishing an appropriate uh uh uh flashing system that we talked about pulling bricks out and pray the wall doesn't fall down or running a cover over it which we' we actually had a quote on a while ago of around 700,000 it's going to be a big number um there's no question about it so um we we'll see what comes

221in I mean it's it's we kind of have two wars in the water right now have we gone out to bid though we I don't know that that's it's James is running that I'm not throwing him in the bus or anything here I just I honestly don't know I thought he said the other day it was getting ready but I didn't I don't know he okay check um we did the playgrounds air conditioning also just a town facil the a facility condition assessment where there's software to help better evaluate the lifespan of um SCH right well of of oh is it um well really it it it makes an assumption I mean it doesn't do things more than say that this should last 20 years but it lasts whether it less 12 or 200 it's

222you know it's it's a it's a different sort of module for the software the the that the um the town is using on its side now our facilities will be in it and it'll make it easier oh I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be in I'm just I'm just saying I just want to make sure that it it it doesn't like do anything forensically to determine whether think something's about to die just as based on assessment of of lifespan and helping us with our our list of of Replacements okay that's about it um we will have another budget meeting before the October 19th meeting but we don't have a date y um so office hours obviously you guys are can I say something else though about office hours want to bring up one

223of the things for us to consider um and maybe before our Communications meeting like do we want like topic specific office hours or like no okay cuz people will never adhere to that people want to come and talk about whatever they want about I mean you can say even when we do budget which is what we normally do for office hours they come for all sorts of stuff I mean you could pick a topic as a like yeah I to draw unless unless the people that were going to do it were going to do a small presentation on something which then um so I guess this goes under the reports from subcommittee sections or the office hour sections but um I just want to sort of just revisit because we no longer have a subcommittee

224on school start times um and so it's sort of off all of our radar screen also because we are involved in so many other huge projects always and don't have time but I just kind of want to put it back on everyone's radar screen it's October which means new families are at Miller and re and now new to experiencing what it's like to have that early early start time um however like Katherine Minnie and I have this committee with Keith last year and we we talked about it a lot but like we just don't have ideas like Minnie and I can't do it we can't make a better solution for school start times cuz I mean maybe n can but like I don't know what to do so I'm wondering I guess like I don't

225want to open up that subcommittee cuz we'll just have meetings and not have a better solution you know what I mean so also we don't have kids in Miller so like it's off my radar screen even more so so my point is there are folks in the Community maybe that do want to work with us on this project or even like take the lead on this project is that something we can like get feedback from from the community B no one has a better idea no one really wants to switch it back and I don't think any of us want to switch it back so it's going to continue to be a problem if the only solution is our current model how can we make it better for Miller parents or at least assess how

226it's going so are there things that we could do to help those families such as more child care in the afternoons if that's a need or um I don't know more free breakfast at Miller because the kids don't have time to eat breakfast at home or other things we can do within this time structure to help that so um I guess I'm just saying if anyone's still watching that would be a great these future office hours or beforehand to get in touch with us about being willing to offer some feedback or um offer up some ideas so so one thing I think that the school community at the time promise that you correct me if I'm wrong we will would have would have been some was some sort of impact study about the change is

227that and yeah and then Co happened and then Co happened absolutely that is true but can can we sort of try to work on that and I get I get it the data that we're having is still sort of somewhat impacted by coid because you know we were know testing data a year and a year I mean you know there's there's a lot of stuff but is there a way that we can sort of try to at least fulfill that promise to at least sort of take a look into the data and see what we can we can find there was a recent post on Facebook there there were a lot of people that were there saying it's still you know it's really challenging I definitely don't want to dismiss that I would you know

228but we also need to look at the data because that that sort of is what what should drive all these decisions and so we shouldn't ignore it but can I I'd like to start my personal suggestion would be that we start by try an impact study do an impact study yeah and I would suggest that we do it focused because sometimes what we do is that we kind of have a little overall when we send send out surveys we just kind of add other stuff no I want yeah I want to be very specific because the last I think there was a survey that had a couple questions about yeah some of this but but wasn't wasn't specific so so Susan J ke that's something I don't know if we I don't think we necessarily

229need to hire a consultant or anything for it but but um but but let's see if we can find a way maybe to to design something to to send out and try to get some some some data then look also you testing data and I think we should attach it to an existing survey rather than surveying people to death I know that um prior to you doing that whatever they call the task force um Catherine had started working with me and I forget who else was it you me no was it before that um anyhow there is somewhere an existing um some question that had been started I know we had done some iteration one point but we to Connected Co but I'll see if I can find the one that she had started to

230put together and see if you want to it was part of a much larger survey I remember that and and there it wasn't I don't think there was a lot of granularity in specifics to some of the questions and I think we we we need to get into that a little bit more you know very questions you and I'm sure Dr sard would be willing to help us since she is like an academic expert in the type of things and knows Stu can I make a suggest I think we need to know what the purpose of this is going to be like I don't think we need if if we're not going to change the times back what are we doing what are we doing like what like what are we trying to find out

231like would if you go to right would people be interested in free breakfast would I don't know like care the free breakfast thing I I'm sorry to interrupt here because it's a timing thing if we have free breakfast at Miller I got to bring the kids here soon no you don't you don't there are other things I mean like don't the buses already have to arrive at 7:10 7:15 just because that when they need to start the and some of the buses don't get here at that time so I'd have to move the buses earlier that's that's the thing not all them get here at 7:15 but let's us knows yet like we're I don't want to geta more than just a survey the the data I'm also interested in and I understand that the

232pandemic is going to really challenge us with this is has tested is there anything we can conclude from from from testing data because more than just the sort of impact is you know is it hard to you know are you finding it challenging to get your your child up in the morning and get them to school is are they we know are they are they suffering from that can I suggest we have this as an agenda item to discuss because rather than yep I know yeah good um but your point is taken for sure yep um next meeting might be long but we'll get it on within the next meeting or too every meeting is long no we'll get it on within the next meeting or two I I definitely agree we should talk about

233it moving uh on so I I did load up to the f I sort of put together uh some goals Sarah sent some some good suggestions uh yeah I don't know if you just want to take a take up period and review those I did I did review um can I suggest an addition or you privately for that think I saw Sarah I I had sent you Sarah me individually and I kind of okay CU I'm just saying like I sent you guys a whole Google folder of just stuff that we had looked at before that I shared with everyone just to give you guys an understanding of things that we had done in the past um something to start from because I feel like we were we just starting from there's no reason to

234start from nothing so I had sent uh shared the Google I just assembled what we I had had that I could find in my own files I I didn't really see anything in there that really I mean I didn't watch the video there's a whole there was a survey that uh that an Lise had done of us as school Comm members more like so and this is where I wasn't sure what kind of goals we were looking at M because I guess from my mind if we're talking about school committee goals they should also go along with the district and so it felt a little premature I put some things together but they were more they pretty General I will not like more like what's in the school committee what's our role but I feel

235like if we going to get a little more specific which I think would be nice to it should complement no I I I I agree and so I sort of took heard well no our goals aren't based upon their goals our our goals should be aligned with the district strategic plan so that which there goes will be aligned with as well I assume um so anyway so if if we want to make a do we want to review sort of what I did and make changes is that maybe helpful to have a sort of a starting place now make a additions changes suggestions whatever yes can I just add a fifth starting goal sure um I think we need to include something about being staying committed to Dei work okay that's a good one I'm

236just going to add that we're we're editing this did you just share this cuz I did not see this before it's in theold it's in theold I uploaded at four or something like that okay can we make a goal that if we have stuff that needs to be in the folder that is there well before we have a meeting so that we can actually look at it because I didn't even see it we can make it go it based upon you know our our schedules and workloads and I understand but like in the past we had we had our school committee folder had to be out to us on a Friday afternoon for the upcoming next week on Thursday so we had time to review over the information so we would come prepared that's all

237so is you know hard for me to look at it next meeting something right so again it's not very long but um don't edit this take this offline and make it your own and send it to me individually so because we don't want to edit these things out outside of the meeting um and just so everyone understands the goals that I've have in this in this document uh relate to you know successfully uh negotiating colletive bargaining agreements that we have coming up and um increasing our communication with Community stakeholders um and then doing a review more a deep dive maybe into our review of our policies or there I thought that was a a good suggestion that you had um just making sure that there's a lot of stuff in there that hasn't been looked

238at for a while or that maybe we want to make some changes to um and then we just sort of met one of our goals talking with Dr C sort of working with the administration to continue to strengthen and improve our SOI submission so um and doing everything we can and being committed to to the msba process um so anyway take take the next uh two weeks and thank you any any more on [Music] that okay so moving on we've got the building facilities rental discussion at uh at at 10:00 but it's important um Keith do you have an update for us on oh that's wait sorry I apologize that's under new business but [Music] um we did get we did get that letter from no we did get that letter at the a another

239Auditorium rental um and I know is there a way I wonder I know that it's it's the folks that use the auditorium most that are the most hesitant to allow it to be used by outside folks right correct what if there was a way that the money that they're dying to give to us could be used specifically for um performing and Fine Arts improvements such as fixing the lights in the auditorium or things like that would they then be more likely to agree that you know we can use this as a way to make money specifically for music and we're never going to raise 275,000 so sure but it could go to but but the the some of the issues are they're already building sets so those don't move they will be there till the

240end of the play like right now yeah like right now exactly so that's you know the issue isn't necessarily about the usage even though from an equipment standpoint it is about the usage which means they're going to have to hire staff at a significant increase in rate because people aren't going to want to necessarily give up a Saturday or Sunday to work it we can't allow the we can't allow people to to use our equipment we spent way too much resources on it and it's just that's completely kid do it I'm sorry student do it a trained high school hollon student um I don't know I don't know if they would have I would need a lot of endorsements from from the the tech people now that they could use it could you could you

241put together a a price assuming the stage is free or for whatever the purp purposes that a weekend rental that left it in the same condition at the beginning of you know you know Saturday morning and then Sunday night I was I would guess between $150 and $200 an hour but like for 48 hours or for like whatever the time they were using whatever time they were using a minimum of 6 hours that's reason it's the cuz you have to hire custodial the custodial staff I'll me at least one if not two custodians depending on the number of people that are here right and that's $35 an hour for each add to that probably on the order of $75 to $125 an hour to have technical staff in here plus the cost of the regular

242of the of the space itself right I don't think you could use a student just from a liability potential you they're not an employee yeah could you reach out to the person who sent us that that email and see what dates they're they're looking at I'll I'll refer to the person who manages that for me yes okay so so is there a comparable data with that like what the charges are for or our surrounding schools yes I know what schools I know what organizations are paying other schools after hollon has said no but again why does that matter if this is our price this is our price well maybe our maybe our price is low right honestly I did a whole study in another District as part of my KS and I collected all building

243use like it's a lot of work that goes into it but yeah you can get all those comps over time and I do think you might be low the way he's describing that doesn't sound unreasonable when you say but then when you think about it like there's it's thousands of dollars that these folks pay for like the weekend use and if things get broken or whatever you you know to cover that you have to think of those things Plumbing all those things can happen when you know normal wear yeah but but if we just think get back just I think it's and and we don't want to set it at our cost either because again we want to try oh no it's not it's not at our cost right so and they do some type

244of security deposit in the event that something it's broken the the biggest thing that we need is they have to have an insurance policy that would use us that would identify us as an additional insured so that we can call upon their insurance for something that happens well you just work with your your person and come up with something and then we can we can discuss it and MH all right great newsletter you're working on that um then the use of the community in restrooms I know there was a we had a pilot we had a pilot how did I go um we had a rough start so I had to come in um and but then I think they stayed later so it kind of evened out the rough start from a hour's perspective

245okay um I came up with a ballpark figure not really planning out too much of $50 an hour which they were fine with um looking back um because we just got a recent pumping bill of $ 8001 or $810 for a pump um I'm thinking that the $50 an hour may be light okay um because again I'm paying $35 an hour for this for the for the help already and I put a small charge in there to cover that for a singular Adventure I guess but when you think about that they were here they had seven different games you know that's more than a week's worth of activity for us in some cases you know especially in the fall it's maybe more than a month's worth of activity seven games um so yeah and I

246I think we want to be trying to be welcome to the community but I also don't want to just be guessing I do think we need to get the data right to be we don't want to put ourselves in a situation where throw out a number and then we have to double or triple it when we get the real numbers and and we pump usually twice a year before the season at the end of the season um in the fall in the spring we usually don't have to pump so but again we're you know again we just we don't have that many events there all honesty I mean right you know so um Kei I appreciate you being willing to look into this period yeah so I guess are they going to do it use

247it this weekend as well well they will wait no not this week week only they were they didn't identify this as a date where they had home games um it's the following weekend they have eight games and then there's two weeks where they have one game or something like that which obviously not going to do it because I have a 6- hour minimum on my staff it's it's 1 hour you know um so do you want do you need something from us just to sort of continue with the pilot and you know the I'm fine whichever way you want to head I would just I would recommend a higher number than $50 an hour than we did do you think we can change the number on them now or do we just sort of have

248one more event and then we said a sort of they don't have a they don't have a they don't reservations in for another event so there is nothing to reserve we they he agreed to do the first event then he was waiting for this meeting was okay was the tone of his words I can't I don't remember the exact words so what based upon the experience and sort of the cost what you you want us to sort of can we collect some comps yeah I mean what we you're not going to get nobody in the tight tank we're not going coms no no no I'm saying if you pump the septic tank twice a year that's $1,600 okay um the question is we have to pump it again right that's what I'm when you use

249it more we have to pump more right okay and our alarm and our alarm goes off at 60% many home games through holl we have 20 illuminations by policy do we open the bathrooms for for US 20 times I would guess that's through the year or just in Fall no it's for the year we don't we don't open it for we don't open it for practices we don't there's no other events be open 20 home games throughout the year the afternoon games there's 20 there's 20 night games right but we don't get we get like almost we get almost nobody at an afternoon game though they're not open for those though yes yeah they will be but again the attendance is going to be no the attendance was jaming high school soccer bom soccer right

250after 4:15 we we need to have some sort of decision I guess today if the school Community is going to vote on it and that's or do we want to do we want do you want to just vote to authorize key to set up a reasonable price for for the next event and then we'll come up over then come up with a policy sort of as we are able to collect more data yes I think that makes the most most sense okay is that reasonable for you that's fine okay so I'd entertain that motion by Manda second by Dawn all in favor you have the power for one for one day two weeks but the motion expires in 48 hours yes it's it's fine that just better plan on meeting on Monday it's a holiday

251it's a holiday um okay so that brings us to the end of the meeting the only thing I would say is um I I am going to I would recommend that I that I post us for 6 p.m. before town meeting I'm not I don't see a real need for us to meet at this time and remind me that date that's the 16th um but I think it's better to have it and not needed then to to not use it um also I think that we should just convene it and just then go into town meeting with a with an open uh meeting so that way if we didn't need to deliberate on anything we couldn't be shut down by the select word um is everyone good with that and we we'll all email out

252and we can change this you can always move the start time sort of later yeah um so it may just be that we meet at 6:45 conven during town meeting I I'm going to set it for six just in case anything comes up that we need to to actually deliberate on um yes with that our next regular meeting is October 9 sorry actually it says in the schedule our next it says in our agenda that our next regular meeting is October 19th and and it is but we are having a uh a meeting on October 17th at 6 p.m. and also October 16th at 6 p.m. yes but right but the October 17th at 6 p.m. is to review is to get receive the presentation on the equity audit mhm I don't know if we've

253decided where exactly that's going to be we have to kind of I presumed it was going to be here but I didn't you know no my question is is it in here or do we think that there's going to be enough interest that move to the auditorium I think we'll just yeah I have no idea to be honest with you so I I was initially presuming here but I guess we could be um if you start hearing of large masses okay okay we we'll figure out we'll get it posted and we can always uh move it as long as we're within a couple days so uh Nick so we have a meeting on the 16th Before Time meeting we have a meeting on the 17th to review the the equity audit and get the receive

254the presentation and then we have a regular meeting on the 19th so we want to meet another time that just to no okay so a motion Tove for are we going to an executive session no we are going to have a a motion to adjourn uh to Executive session from which we will not return to discuss strategy with respect toed bargaining or litigation open meeting law may be detrial have a detrimental effect on bargaining or litigating position of the open of the public body and the chair so declares which I do that requires a role call sry sorry so I need a motion I need the move by Lisa second thank you Sarah Minnie yes Amanda yes Lisa yes Cynthia yes Don yes and yes with that we are adjourned for tonight thank you very

255much