School Committee Meeting - 5/4/2023

001year. Um, and unfortunately Haley had a prior commitment with the change in and dates for the meetings. And um Maven Haley brought this to to the committee, the the student advisory council back in February about the idea of transitioning in the spring instead of in the fall. Um where seniors are so so busy over the next few weeks. Um we sort of just it it it was it was an uneasy ending. And then with the the new group coming in, sometimes they wouldn't attend their first meeting until October. Um so what we've decided is to transition with Maven Haley being done now early May so they can enjoy their um last month of school without having this commitment. And then at the beginning I probably I think it's going to be the June 1st meeting.

002I'll be here again to introduce the the three representatives that will be on committee next year. And that way they can start right from the school, right from the beginning of the school year. Um they'll be on board with you. And I I think that's it's a brilliant insight that you not only need to, you know, to um to let have the time to yourself to sign off properly, but also that somebody else could be onboarding. Um I just want to say thank you so much for all of your commitment and time and updates. And we just have a little Thank you. We wish you both the best in your journey. Thank you. and thank you for being part of the team with us. Thank you so much. Yes, I will. Congratulations. We're so proud

003of you. Thank you. I appreciate it. And do you want to tell us where you're going next year? I'm going to Villanova. That's what I said. Well, my brother goes there. Well, I saw the sticker. Thank you. Um, exploratory sciences. It's basically just undecided in all the sciences. I have a some friends children that went to Villanova and had a wonderful experience. So, congratulations. Thank you. Great. What about she's going to UMass? Yes. So, she's Which one? Ammeris. Oh, great. Yes. Those of us that went there say there's only one UMass. Okay. The other ones are UMass Low, UMass Dis, but there's only one UMass. Don't forget UMass Boston. One of my get it. I knew what you meant. Awesome. Well, thank you again. Thank you. really appreciate all of your time and and your

004communication commitment. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And I'll be back in a couple of weeks with our new reps. Great. Thank you. I've been here 25 years. Learn something new. Yeah. Um Mass, it's Amber. Everybody else gets a qualifier. Okay. Um school committee individual comments. Jason, so the envisioning future Hollist um we are in full swing of getting um community engagement and this week we've had three forums so far. We have one more event this week. It is Saturday. Um it's actually I need to take that back. It's not our event. We are participating in the public safety day that's being put on by the town. Um, Robert Walker, the deputy DP DPW director, um, got together all the departments and they're doing like a touch a truck and you can come

005to the high school between 9 and 1 and meet people from the departments and envision future holist. Um, we had an engagement here on Tuesday evening. Um, we had about 25 people, a lot of people in person, a bunch online. Um, on Wednesday, one of the consultants, myself and Kathleen Buckley, the assistant town administrator, came to the high school and sat with students. Um, so we've gotten a lot of feedback and then this morning we were at the senior center. Um, so again, please, we want to hear from everybody. um go to the town of Holliston website. There is a link to future Holliston and we want people to share your ideas on our um it's called social pinpoint site. Um so lots of work happening. We're still in that engagement phase and when the

006summer starts um we'll move towards more of the start putting the strategic plan together. So but really great work from the students. It was a lot of fun. We got a lot of data from them and um just it was really nice to be in the to sit with them and hear from them. It was really cool. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? I just wanted to congratulate the cast and crew of Ram's um Aladdin production that was last weekend. Um their kids are having a great time. They performed well. They're exhausted. But congratulations to Mrs. Hecker and Mrs. Peters and everyone else that is part of the casting crew. It's a great show. Anybody else? One more thing. I'm getting my dates confused. Next week the district will be celebrating teacher appreciation week. Um and

007the PTO is sort of leading all of the leading and coordinating the activities. So um get on your class pages and check out the PTO. um Facebook page and request for donations, etc. are all listed there. So, we're looking forward to a great week next week at all four schools. Um the request for donations is on the PTO Facebook page. Okay. All right. Just one quick thing. Um, I guess you most of us saw the news, but for those that aren't in the high school, congratulations to Principal Nicole Botley, who was named Massachusetts High School Principal of the Year. Um, and that announcement was made through the Massachusetts School Administrators Association. And of course, many of us have tuned in today for the interviews with the um, principal candidates. Now, is that going to be

008available online for people who couldn't tune in today between 5:30 and 7:00? Do we know? Are you able to get it online? Um, yes. If it's recording. Yes. I don't know if they recorded it. I wasn't I'm not sure. Okay. Okay. But we can follow along with the emails in terms of feedback and and when did that do? Yeah. The feedback survey should have gone out this afternoon from Mr. Renee. So So they should be able to respond and it's by 5:00 tomorrow night. Excellent. And um Dr. Jordan, I saw a post up at Rams Middle School announcing that he correct is now Dr. Jordan. So, please I was going to update you. We actually have two new doctors in the district. Dr. Joanie Manard and Dr. David Jordan. Um, both received within what, a

009week of each other. Oh my goodness. So, very we're very proud of them and um give them the best wishes. So, too many too many uh big pows in the room at some time. Now we have what? Four doctors at our meeting. Yes. And none of us will prescribe any medication. [Laughter] Great. Anything else? All right. Um I did not get any requests for public comment. Keith, did you get any? No, I did. Um how are you on time? Do you want to Can we have Dan's presentation? Yeah. Okay, that's great. Are you all set to go? I'm ready. All right. Oops. I know. All right. Good evening everybody. Happy to be here again. Uh providing the spring technology update. This is just a um I wanted to spotlight a few areas of the strategic

010plan. This is definitely not everything that's going on, but I thought it'd be helpful to highlight a few major initiatives we're working on. So, um, tonight I'll be presenting four initiatives from our communication arch, uh, because they all involve technology, one from teaching and learning, and then three awesome people from talent and resources that we recently hired. All right. So, one um large initiative we're working on is building out our family resources on the website. So, we have um hired somebody and I'll show her later in the presentation who is really helping us out with this. So, this is the initiative on the left. The website that is not completely um live yet, but will be shortly um is going to have a slew of uh resources for families. Um it's a lot. So um

011all of these are going to be uh organized on one page. So we will use these when we onboard families uh to show them what's available to them uh locally Massachusetts. Um so that's coming soon and that'll be located under um the safe and supportive schools uh link right here. So, you'll see another uh link in that page that's going to be linking to this page. And then we're also I did not get a chance to talk with Dr. Kuska about this, but um we'd like to potentially put it on the spot uh up here. The these are like really go-to links for families up here. So, um potentially, um you know, eliminating the COVID information one, possibly replacing it with the family resource one could be one one move we can make. We like

012to keep this list not too long because it's sort of our go-to links for families. But that's kind of my hope is we uh we get this page linked up up there and then constantly refer to it throughout our communications. So, that's um happening behind the scenes. It took a lot of work to get that site built with all those links, but um happy to be at the point we're ready to release it. Also, communication. We're excited about this one. This is going to uh really uh open our accessibility for reports and everything. So, currently, P school prints reports as PDFs. It's always a challenge to translate those. Um so we have a tool now that we're going to be able to post reports uh inside the portal for uh families. So the power school

013um report cards for example RAMS they're going to be available not only as PDF but electronically in the portal and then once they're in the portal they become translatable. So all families will have um ease of uh translation for their ch their students reports. Um and then phase two would be potentially transcripts. So this tool does have that functionality too. So we could potentially we get this request frequently. You know, I wish I saw my students transcript it because it's a nice snapshot of their entire high school career. So again, that's a phase two, but we this tool does have that functionality. So we're really looking forward to uh launching that. It also has a lot more features as uh for example we can track um empower school we'll be able to track students in

014the computer science endorsement program easily with this tool the global citizenship program. So it's difficult right now to track we use shadow systems we call them to track these students we can do it within powers school. Um so we just bought this product um and we're training on it. So just giving you a preview of what's coming down the road. That's great. And that that is a huge initiative in our strategic plan, the uh accessibility of content. All right. Another one um I should have put her name and face first, but another one that Kim at central office is working on is our staff directories. And um I'm going to share thought I would share this link. There we go. And this is actually live. Um we decided to start with central office. So this

015is your central office and all faces. Um and our plan to and faces and roles and everything. So we plan to expand this um to the schools. It's a it's a massive project, but our goal is to get all staff photos on the website and the directory. So um it would likely be in this four column format. So you could search, for example, like if you want to see the French immersion teachers in um second grade or something, you could search that in the directory and the pictures would come up. So um it's it's a large project, but we're working on that and u we have somebody that's dedicated to it. So I think that I mean I just felt it was really important when people are trying to like find out who their new

016teacher is. It's reassuring to kids that they can see and even myself sometimes I don't always know someone that I um might want to meet with or something and I haven't met them or because they are part-time staff member whatever. It's nice to be able to have all our faces front and center. Of course, I'm sure the central office people are loving the fact that you're leaving this slide up and showing their faces. Yes, I'll hear about that tomorrow. Oops. Um one more with communication. This is the fourth one. Uh another large project um was to identify all the links on our website that are external. Um and these are um sites that we built over the years. Schools have built for example uh programs studies uh the global citizen site. They're all really nice

017looking sites. This is just the list of the high school sites, but we want to convert them to our main website platform primarily for searching because right now if you search for like global citizenships on our main website, you're not going to get much. So if we move it to our site, then all the searching capabilities kick in. And then also all of the accessibility features. It's not that Google site doesn't have those, it's just we feel that our main website has more of these advanced features. So, this is a project that we are um and thanks to Joanie for some assistance with this, but we um are having some folks come in over the summer to help us uh migrate these sites. We're not going to get them all done. And this is a

018two-year project, but our our big one is program of studies. So, we're trying to get get that one over first. Yeah. And then um the other ones um coming soon thereafter. So this is uh all four schools like if you compare the high school to Placentino it's it's not nearly as much. So the high school is the big one. Um and then we will just um another part of this project is training staff to manage their own content. For example like school counselors once we migrate some of those sites over we'll have to train those users to manage the content on the new platform. So those are the four communication in initiatives that we're working on uh teaching and learning. Uh Joan's been leading this uh project as well. We have a team of folks

019and and they are uh spending a lot of time on this, but we are taking a deep dive into all of our current resources, our digital resources, uh examining usage, alignment, uh pre-K to 12, and looking at the data because in the fall, as part of our plan, we're going to um launch a data dashboard committee to um search for a dashboard solution for Hollist. Uh so that's the plan is we're trying to capture all this data and then find a tool that we can house all this data in the fall. So this team is working uh behind the scenes to look at all of our resources. And then next year we'll be presenting to you some um potential recommendations for um a resource to house all of our data. And this would be data

020that would help teachers, administrators, uh potentially parents might have a a snapshot in some of their student data. So, I just wanted to highlight this team is doing a ton of work with teaching and learning uh to examine all of our resources. Feel free to chime in, Joanie. Okay. And Dan, is that because P school um can't doesn't have all that functionality, right? So, it only has say A to A to L and we need an A to Z. Correct. Actually, P school does have a data dashboard. Um but there's a lot of other solutions out there that are um very user friendly. So P school will likely be one of the candidates we'll explore, but there are other ones out there too that are apparently agnostic as far as data. So and they do

021sync with P school. So we're just going to look for the best one for Hollist. Yeah. Um and and bring it forth because we every time we turn around there's a need for this dashboard. Um ex for example the equity audit it was really um timeconuming to try to extract some of that data from powers school uh and so if we had a dashboard it might have been in minutes instead of hours. So that's again and that was a need for us at central office but we feel like principles would also benefit from having that at their fingertips. Yeah sure teachers in their classes. So good. So there's a large team of curriculum and technology integration working on um all of these resources to present that large initiative next year. All right. Then I wanted

022to bring forth some of our new staff. Uh this is Jacob. He u he actually is coming to us from Western Mass. Uh he was looking uh to uh to get closer to Boston. We're excited. He has school experience. Uh, as far as technology, he will be supporting Placentino and then other schools throughout the district. Uh, very knowledgeable, very friendly. Um, feel like he's a great fit. And then, uh, these two have hit the ground running. Um, so Jody Renee is our new data system specialist. When you come to central office, those red signs that you see, they look great. She made them all. No one asked her. She We came in like Monday morning and everyone had a sign on their door. I like that one. She used a cricket, which I don't even

023know what that is, but my wife would. So, she did that. She's been great. Um, she comes to us from Ashlin Public Schools. And then Kim Ston also is the one that's doing a lot of that website work for us, the staff directories, and then family resources. So, you'll see her friendly face right at the front of central office. So, um, they're doing a lot of technology work, which is why I don't I don't supervise Kim, but, um, she's doing a lot of work with the technology. And Jody Renee is handling power school, our new special programs, which is our special education replacement uh, system and then everything else surrounding data. We're also trying to use Kim um to help her help us with social media, getting information out because we we do our newsletters

024and our weekly things when applicable, but those quick things to be able to have someone that can is in the office do that. So, we're going to be putting more effort into that as well. And she's great and they both very technologically savvy savvy to make up for some of my deficits. Yep. Great additions. Um, so that's all I have for tonight. I will say like we are um, in case you're wondering, we are um, learning as much as we can about AI and we will in my next presentation I'll talk to Dr. Kuska. It could be sooner rather than later. We would like to uh, bring forth some ideas as far as Hollist and and how we um, how we embrace AI. So we're our team, our technology team um, we're learning as much

025as we can about it. I attended a conference uh actually at Dell headquarters last week. Uh it was all about two things, AI and data. Like the same things we do in public school system, they're dealing in corporate world. So uh it was great. We learned from other K to 12 districts. They're all uh trying to get their hands around AI uh and the impacts of it. So we're going to look look forward to that. That's coming uh coming soon. So and cyber security is not going to go away. Yeah. All right. So, my next presentation will focus on those things, but this one was communication and teaching and learning. Okay, great. So, questions. I actually have a question about AI. Um, so I know I'm familiar with the program Turn It In, right? You

026would as a teacher or professor, you could run a student's paper through this program to see if it if it registered, like what percentage of it had been quoted or taken from some other location on the internet. I have to imagine that there's something coming down the pike that combats a AI like that. Yes. It's interesting. There's the districts that I hear from like we have these all kinds email communications. It's it's split honestly. Like some districts are embracing it. They know it's like whack-a-ole. Like we can try to block it, but the kids have the cell phones and they can get to it and then personal devices. So it's just And then what you block this one, the ne next one comes down the pike. So, and then these solutions you're talking about. So,

027um that's that's why we're trying to learn as much as we can and the angle to take um and and to bring that forth to you. So, yes, there's going to be a lot of these solutions that do that. Um so, yeah. And now I I'm curious about that too just because like Turnitin when we were doing dissert when you're doing your dissertation that was places that they would have you always check your especially in a long document and I always you know that is a way that you could kind of see if there's something out there similar then you can dig into a little bit more. This is just uncharted territory right now because it may not be replicated anywhere else. It may be newly created material. So your guess is as good as

028ours I think. Yeah. Yeah. the the latest version is is now the database is to August 2022. Um what I did learn in that conference was we the the chat GP2 is very shallow like it it does uh it can give you like the surface level it does not go like deep. So that might be the way that we need to um when we assess students somehow um bring that in in the equation. So it's a big one uh to get our heads around. It could be beneficial in a lot of ways. So, we just have to try to figure all that out. So, doesn't it also like make up sources and things like that? It does. So, like you have to be worried because you could say, "Hey, I want you to do this."

029And they'll say, "Well, I'll I'll create you a a a study that doesn't actually exist, that isn't even real, and then reference it." Right. Fake. Yes. I don't know what the terminology is, but Yes. Uh actually term last week hallucinations like Oh, yes. Exactly. Right. How could it be beneficial? Uh just because it it could help like create that first draft. So if someone really struggled with that, even a student potentially like struggle with the first draft. Uh this could be a tool for that. Again, I'm just highlighting use cases in some districts, you know. Um and again, a lot of districts are in the same boat that we are. We're trying to get our head around it as far as K12, but um that could be the potential. um you know students who struggle

030with writing this could be a first draft for example but they still have to manipulate make sure those resources are cited and all that like it will not site right now apparently that's coming down the pike that AI will site these sources so that will be interesting um but there's a lot of ways you can kind of poke holes into it right now we just have to educate our users one of the other things I've heard about how it could be useful is if because it's very it has an algorithm, right? So, it's very predictable. Um, and I've heard of people using it like giving students a a document and saying like rewrite this so it doesn't feel like a computer wrote it. So, like kind of like an editing like teach kids how to

031edit. Yeah. Or like you know this this is formulaic because we know they're going to say this and then this and then this and so how do you make this more interesting and not follow the algorithm? So, it's kind of like inverse it's editing but like kind of inverse writing. I mean, that was just one of the ways I had heard that it could be useful because I struggled to see how it could be useful, too. But I guess if you're if that's if you're learning that skill, it could be it could be used that way. Yeah. And it's it's right now like it's it's open source. So, we are not like going to put any student data in this program or anything like that. Like it's not secure whatsoever. But that's we think that's

032what might be coming is um you know vendors will start providing like private clouds of AI and then potentially uh you know the one use I heard as far as like the data dashboards is there could be the ability to like upload you know thousands of rows of data and then ask AI questions about that data which would be huge for teachers and administrators not having to analyze it. you just ask me questions like tell me how many um you tell me the diversity in you know AP classes and Hollist High and you know the last three years or something. create a bar a pie graph of this. So that I mean yeah I can see those being that could be efficient but yeah yeah so that that's it's that data at the fingertips again

033that was that that conference I went to is all about data and AI so it's it's here it's you know it's still very new but um every version has that much more capability. So I'm talking to you all about this tonight. I'm not quite ready. No, you're doing great. But I'm just sharing what I've learned, but our team is on it and uh you know, we're learning as much as we can what other districts are doing. But um so stay tuned. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Great job, Dan. Thanks, Dan. Thanks. So, I'm going to um move up Lisa's um the superintendent evaluation part right now. Lisa might have a conflict coming. She's not totally trying to stay for the whole meeting. So, she's going to try, but just in case she does have

034to duck out, um we're just going to put the superintendent evaluation now and then go and then we'll follow the rest of the agenda in order. Okay. So, why don't we start with um I think if everybody could just bring this up on your screen. Start with the long version first. The one that does not say abridged and then we'll just go top to bottom and um I will ask for any suggested edits that people have. So we need to change it. We provided in-person learning for grades K through three. Oh, thank you. I can't rely on my memory anymore. I should just check everything. Susan started July 6th if that matters. She Yeah, it's July. I checked that with her. Correct. And the edits you're seeing are just what we did in subcommittee, but

035I know some of you looked at that beforehand. So, so those first four paragraphs of the introduction, does anybody have anything else? No. Is it okay to move on? Y. Okay. So, process. Does anybody have any edits to the process section? [Music] All right. Any objection to moving on? No. Okay. Okay. After process. Oh, my cursor just jumped. District priorities is very straightforward because this is I taken totally from her words and how she described them. So, I'm going to unless someone screams, I'm going to assume no one has any objections to the district priorities section. feedback on arch number one, communication practices under commendations. Any edits under commendations [Music] Everybody good or need another minute? [Music] Anybody object to moving on to opportunities for growth? Good to go. All right. any suggested edits to

036opportunities for growth. And the crossed out sections are what you decided in um and in some changes some of that though are things that were moved. So if it was crossed out, it doesn't necessarily mean it was deleted. Okay. Um, if you're talking about that it is not enough section that was moved. And the same thing with the office hours bit that was moved not deleted. [Music] How about just give me a thumbs up when you're ready to move on. I don't really like the term cordial. Okay. Where's what? Um the first sorry it's on opportunities for growth. It's the third paragraph down. Okay. It says cordial relationships, productive relationships. I don't know what I think productive is a good word. I don't know if anybody else feels strongly about it like I do. I

037like productive over collegial. Thank you. I do too. Do you like collegial or collaborative? Collaborative. I feel like collaborative is overused. Like you babble out of it. Yeah. It's not for lack of Yeah. It's not for lack of collaboration. It's for a lack of [Music] book. Okay. Move forward. It's just so we're all good with productive productive. Okay, it is now productive. You can just sound. Apologies to everyone at home. We are required to edit this in public at a public meeting. Does anybody need another minute? Just lose that. Okay. Where are we supposed to be at the very end or we just moving on to arch? No. No. We're going to move we're going to move on to arch two. Okay. That's where I'm um Dr. Don't you meet with student advisory meetings at

038the lower elementaryaries? Is it elementary schools? Yes. So, it should say all four schools. Yeah. I thought it was rooms. No, at all. Okay. That's what I had originally. And then I know that you crossed it out. I was like, well, it's cuz I saw somewhere else that it was middle and high and that must have just been wrong. Cuz the highlight was hearing her talk about what the kindergarters had to say. Maybe there's just committees that are called the student advisory committee on at those two schools and it's like there's yes at the school level there are two but I have the superintendent student advisor the student yeah super is it called something other than student advisory meetings or is that just superintendent student advisory that's you want to add the word super specific

039one different from the other advisory I think superintendent student advisory meetings Yeah. Where it says to improve their communication and then an offer which paragraph the offers. Um this is back in arch one Lisa under communication recommendations. Okay. Oh yeah I see where you are multiple offers. Is that correct? I guess I don't see where you are. Okay. Um, so do you see the paragraph? Let's see. You see the paragraph in words directed to Dr. Kofka as part of this evaluation. You see that paragraph and then underneath it another member. Lisa, do you see an offer? Now I see it. Okay. Yep. Yep. An offer they have ignored is So is that offer? Okay. Got it. Oh, you mean should it be offers? Yes, offers. Multiple offers is what she's trying to say. Oh, uh,

040yeah. So, offers they have ignored. Yep. Okay. Sorry. [Music] So Lisa, the second paragraph that that's the edit. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Before you go on to that, actually in this in that sentence, we're talking about outside mediation specifically. There's another place where we talk about informal and formal and informal gettogethers. That's been multiple times. I think this outside mediation this is that was multiple times as well. No, that's been No, that was multiple times. Okay. Yeah. All right. Okay. Cool. Like sorry. Three. Okay. You could say three times if you'd like under um arch two. So on the Oh, wait. Before before we go to R2 though, is everybody done with arch one? I am. I know. Don skipped my back again. Oh, it's her fault. Don, are you really done? Are your final

041done? Everyone's done. Okay. Arch two. Mark set go. So the um just maybe um say the superintendent advisory meetings. So on the recent walkth through at the high school that second paragraph second paragraph I don't know. Did do you need to say superintendent student in my advisory meetings again? I think you I think you probably should. Yeah, at the high school there is advisory. Yes, that's a very good point. Yes. Done. Don't go beyond commendations yet, Cynthia. Okay. You can see her cursor. I've read it like six times already. I have too. I was like we need to do it. You're right. You're right. Um Lisa, is it silly to think to ask should can we define tech and accept? Oh, sure. Need to um tech is the education. Sure. I don't know what acceptance

042were. I don't know what except or just what like it's just one phrase. What is it? It's a collaborative that our students please. Yeah. Special education collaborative. Can I just say a special education? Yes. Thank you. Thanks. Oh my god. You can you guys get to see how bad my typing is. Okay. Okay. Done. [Music] Cather, which is that [Music] What? No, no, I wasn't. I was just wondering whether everybody was blessed. Bless you. Yes. We were moving on to opportunities for growth or opportunities for growth under Can we move to opportunities? Yes, we can move to opportunities for growth. Sorry, I'm trying to do the abridged version at the same time. Opportunities for growth. Any issues? [Music] Going once, going twice. I'm good. Can we go on to feedback on arch number three? Y.

043All righty. Commendations, any edits. [Music] I would like to say successful implementation of tuition free my the quote that I got from Dr. Slaney was that it was seamless. When I asked her, can we include that? The transition to having full day kindergarten was seamless. I can't even imagine what it would be like otherwise and they don't have to collect any tuition. So at the end of full day tuition, which um administrator's report was seamless, implemented seamlessly, executed seamlessly? Yes. Thank you. Which administrators report was seamlessly implemented? Good. You said implemented twice then implementation and implement. Oh, was seamless. I just was seamless because that's fine because you already have implementation. was which you still have to have hold on deserves credit for the can we say successful and seamless implementation really could use some

044AI right along the only thing is like please I feel like it's important for administrators because I I think it's important just to note that that comment came not from us like from our view it was I was saying it came from it came from the doctor's office right so but that was just deleted with the so can you write like per her administrative report or something like that because I think it's important that it comes from administrators not from us I'm going to go back to the way we had it and then I'm going to change implemented Just hold on. [Music] Can we say executed seamlessly? Sure. Went off without a hitch. Yes. That's what she said. Which administrator's report was executed seamlessly? Okay. Does that work? Are you going to take up the

045seamless in front of implementation? Successful and seamless implementation. Yes, I'm going to do that. Thank you for reminding me. I'm going to add this to this one. First time. [Music] Okay. Anything upturned for growth? Anything? Looks good. Are we ready to move on to arch number four? All right. Arch number four, commendations. Okay, I'm doing it again. But under arch 3, opportunities for girls. Do you feel like there was enough discussion about specificity on what you'd like to see with regard to world language department and and this? Have we we have more comments for her on that? Because I feel like reading that I'm not really sure what we're looking for there. That's just But maybe I'm just I think that's the specificity is something that needs to be discussed separately. I think because just

046like the other Yeah. So that I think that was my comment. So I'm happy to have that full Yes. Okay. That more robust conversation separately about specifics. Okay. Mhm. Okay. Arch number four commendations. [Music] So where we say currently calibrating this tool, it's not yet. Is that correct? this wasn't part of I thought it was partially this year or not. She was um asked Dr. Cass but she was um Dr. is it accurate to say that you modified a framework and metrics from Boston public schools and but still are currently calibrating this tool for use in Hollist or did you pilot it? So it's it's really just the the elements that we're using for um our as related to our walkthroughs to give student e feedback related to the walkthrough process and we're continuing to

047calibrate the evaluation system the whole system. That's just one piece that but it was implemented this year. The walkthroughs were implemented this year. Yes. And that was a tool to help us on the walk. We're calling them learning walks. Is that not correct? Yeah. I think we called them learning walkthroughs but it I mean I just what I call them. All right. Walkthroughs. Let's, you know, learn. I think we did say learning walkthroughs. Okay. Well, okay. I I can rereading it. I understand. I I It does. It reads better now. Like, yes, it it was implemented, I guess. But you had recent discussions about the framework from Boston public schools. Is that correct? It wasn't. It's the rubric. So to how they break down they break down the um what I just tell you what

048I read wrote it says um modified a framework and metrics from Boston public schools that is currently calibrating this tool for use in Hollist as a comprehensive assessment model in order to evaluate educators through throughout the district. Is that accurate? No, I think it's really to help inform what we're looking for in the classroom more, I would say, because it's it's it's related to the eight elements that we use in the evaluation process, but it's really about the student and staff look for. It's like when we walk in, this is this will help us understand if this is what we're seeing in the classroom. Does that make sense? So, it's not the framework. It's really related to the um evaluation elements and what teaching and learning looks like in the classroom. Why don't we just

049take out that second sentence? Yeah. Yeah. So, if we just say Dr. Kusca has outlined a process to use an evidencebased evaluation tool to offer constructive feedback to our educators through a series of learning walkthroughs in every classroom. Okay. Yes. I'm going to take the last one out. Yeah. The last one could be Is that accurate? It's twofold. That's why I don't want It's both. So, it's it's help. helping us when we go to class with learning walkthroughs, but then it's also part of us calibrating the evaluation tool as administrators moving forward to help staff. So, it's not just So, you're saying it's not just constructive feedback to educators, it's also informing administrators to help us calibrate our feedback. Does that make sense? like it's so that we're going to be inconsistent and equitable is

050how we give feedback to staff as well when we start to use it in the event. So you're using that tool to calibrate feedback. Is that the right way? I'm just going to make it smaller. Wait, wait, wait. I got it. I got it. I got it. So we're just going to add outline a process to use an evidence-based eval evaluation tool to offer constructive feedback to our educators through a series of learning walkthroughs in every classroom in a consistent manner. And then I have to move that phrase. Sorry, that's not going to work either. To provide cons constructive feedback to our educators in a consistent manner through a series of walkthroughs. It's so the it's it's it's really to help the administrators grow in their capacity to then give feedback later on because in

051the walkthroughs those aren't evaluative. I just don't want people thinking that when we're doing learning walks. Okay. That's important. Yeah, I get it. All right. Okay. Sorry, but the details sometimes matter. No, they do. It does it matter because the walkthroughs are to help the administrator. It's important to not make it seem like those learning walkthroughs are evaluative, right? Yeah, that's important. And eventually we would like to have staff teachers to join us on those walkthroughs so that they can get into classrooms with us too. Okay, I have a new proposal. Are you ready? Dr. Kuska has outlined a process to use an evidence-based evaluation tool to help administrators offer feedback to our educators that's constructive and consistent through a series of learning walkthroughs in every classroom. Yes. Awesome. I like that. Is that accurate?

052Is that fair? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Hold on. Hold the phone. Now I got to go back and do that in here because I just did that in writing. Okay. [Music] Two more straight. Okay. So, can you change walkthroughs, walks to walkthroughs? Yes. We're lucky to have you, Lisa. I know. We are grateful. It'll be It'll be a good 20 years before Chad GPT replaces. There's a lot of kinks to work out. Okay. Summary. Mark. Seco. All [Applause] right. So the quote about the S so SOI um are you at the you're okay sorry we're not at the quotes we're not at the comments that's okay that's okay anybody have anything on the summary okay we can go on what Amanda go ahead um just says I think she is prepared to pivot and the discuss

053is it and to discuss yeah it should be and to discuss and to discuss yes to pivot and to discuss this. Yep. Good catch. All right. Does anybody need any more time before we vote on it? Or do we want to do you want to hold it and vote on next meeting? We don't necessarily have to vote at this meeting. Do we need to read it aloud or not till we vote? I Well, I'm proposing we read the abridged version aloud. I will just transfer the same edits from the long version to the abridged version, which and it didn't end up being as abridged as I would like, but I did my best. Um, and then the idea was to read the abridged version aloud. Do we want to do that at this meeting? Do

054you want to wait till the next meeting? Do we want to vote on this now? I say we get it. We do it. We do it. We just need it all done. No. Okay. So, motion to Can somebody make a motion to not move? Okay. Go ahead, Amanda. Move to vote or move to approve? Move to approve the evaluation. I move to approve the evaluation ased this evening. Seconded by Stacy. Sorry, I was I was reading something else. Um moved by Amanda, second by Stacy. All in favor? Great. Okay. And then do we want to go over the a bridge separately just like we did the other one? Okay. So now you need to switch to super eval abridged. And this is the version that's being read aloud. And I'm just going through making sure

055I caught all the other edits. I got productive relationships. Oh, um, last paragraph of the first, sorry, second page. I'm sorry. Last paragraph, the second page. Um, you have cordial. So, we're going to change productive. I got that. Okay. Did you just say that? I'm sorry. Yeah, that's okay. [Music] And I changed offers. Offers they have ignored. Yeah. I guess superintendent student advisory meetings. I got the education collaborative and accept special education collaborative. successful implementation seamless the seamless part of the bottom paragraph. Yes, I changed the full AK part to what we just okay did. And I also got the um learning walkthroughs edits that we just made. [Music] Make sure the catch up. Okay. Your a bridge is still pretty wordy. I know. I don't know. All right. Does anybody else need a minute

056on the abridged version? No. Okay. Do we want to vote separately on this since we're going to read this one aloud? Yeah. Okay. Moved by Cynthia. We have to accept uh the a bridged evaluation of Dr. Kusca to be read aloud. Edited this evening. Seconded by Stacy. Moved by Cynthia. Seconded by Stacy. All in favor? Great. All right. Ready set. Go. Second. This is the Hollist School Committee evaluation of Superintendent Dr. Susan Kusca. formative review for the 2223 school year May 2023. Palistston public schools have a long history of excellence and Dr. Susan Kuska has worked hard to continue that tradition. Dr. Kuska came to the district as interim superintendent in July of 2020 when the COVID pandemic had thrown districts nationwide into a tail spin. She successfully navigated the difficulties related to reopening in

057the midst of a pandemic. As the immediate impacts of the pandemic began to wne, she spearheaded an enormous effort to de to develop a five-year strategic plan building bridges together. As part of her plan, Dr. Kusca has upheld and further developed our commitment to social emotional well-being for students while pioneering several new efforts to improve our curriculum alignment, increase communication with families, and bolster our growth within the diversity, equity, and inclusion sphere. Like most districts, we are still feeling the effects of the pandemic. We are still catching up academically due to the learning time lost, and we are simultaneously charged with trying to mitigate the negative social emotional impacts of the pandemic on students. This is not an easy time to be a student, a teacher, a paraprofessional, or a superintendent. We are grateful to

058Dr. Kusca, her central office team, and the entire community of families and educators for their shared commitment to moving forward and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and growth. District priorities. Dr. Kusca with approval from the school committee set set forth four arches to guide her goals for the year. Arch number one is communication practices. Arch number two is social emotional well-being. Arch number three is teaching and learning. That's a student learning goal. Arch number four is talent and resources. This is a professional practice goal. This is our feedback on arch number one, communication practices commendations. Most school committee members offered high praise for Dr. Kuska's communication efforts with respect to parents and guardians. The key to her communication plan has been the unifying message from the strategic plan of building bridges together, which is

059highlighted throughout the district as a visible reminder that we are one district with a common goal of continuous improvement in students improvement and student outcomes. Multiple school committee members praised her leadership in producing an updated and improved website. Several members also praised her improved methods of communication to the community through her emails and newsletter. Notably, her quarterly newsletters via S'more have garnered more than 5,300 views this year. She was also commended for her dedicated focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion and her transparency in dealing with racist incidents. Dr. Kusca seems to have developed good rapport with central office administrators, and one member noted that on a recent visit to central office, more than one staff person commented on the camaraderie evident between Dr. Kusca and her fellow administrators. Multiple school committee members lauded her communication

060with families, the school committee, and the community at large. Then now, opportunities for growth, also under arch number one, communication. While some members praised her communication with the school committee, others felt she was not always readily transparent or open to feedback. But all members agreed that the key opportunity for growth, not just within Arch One, but overall in her role as district leader, can be found within staff communication and relations. Dr. Kusca's strength is bringing an innovative forward-thinking ideas. Her main challenge is successfully executing them because of the gradual breakdown of productive relationships between some teachers and the administration. The school committee has received a significant amount of feedback from school staff and community members that staff morale is a concern in the district, particularly at the high school level. The theme running throughout the

061criticism of Dr. Kusca is that she has a top- down approach to leadership and change. The school committee is suggesting to her as an area of improvement that she try new and varied approaches to building relationships with school staff and that she solicit feedback from a wider representation of the school community, specifically including more teachers and paired professionals that don't always speak up when contemplating major changes. It is not enough to make smart changes. If those changes are not understood and ideally embraced by the broader community, their likelihood of success is leveled. We would also like to see her invest some time in leadership coaching and education in order to enhance her skills in making and implementing tough decisions with an eye to achieving buyin from the community, particularly school staff. While holding office hours

062for teachers is commendable, some teachers have suggested that Dr. Kusca should work on more positive casual communication with staff and more proactive transparency on initiatives so that teachers don't feel like everything is coming from the top down. This sort of relationship building should be a priority with pair professionals and other school staff as well in addition to teachers. The school committee would like to acknowledge that Dr. Kusca cannot write the ship in this regard without cooperation and participation from the union representing most educators, the Hollist Federation of Teachers or HFT. In words directed to Dr. Kusca, as part of this evaluation, one school committee member said, quote, "In spite of what in spite of dealing with what I would deem harassment from HFT leadership, you are leading the district with confidence and grace." unquote. Another

063member said that the HFT leadership team treat Dr. Kusca quote with disdain unquote despite her willingness to enlist outside mediation to improve their communication offers they have ignored. There is no doubt that the relationship must improve for our district to be successful. We are hopeful that the HFT will be open to avenues for improved communications that the school committee has suggested such as focus groups or mediation. We are calling on Dr. Kusca and the HFT to come together and repair the relationship for the good of the students and the district. Other commendations Dr. Kusca continues to be a visible presence across the district attending significant events and presiding over superintendent student advisory meetings. Dr. Kuska plays an active role in the leadership of the education collaborative and accept a special education collaborative and has undertaken

064mentorship of several central administrators. She continues to build relationships with our community partners such as Hollist Youth and Family Services, the Select Board, Diverse Hollist, and PTO Mind Share. Although the district continues to experience issues of hate speech, Dr. Kusca's responses have been timely and appreciated as we continue to grapple with these unfortunate incidents. This is difficult work. As a school committee, we urge Dr. Kusca to address these thorny issues in an effort to make the district more welcoming and inclusive. We value diversity, equity, and inclusion and acknowledge that growth in this area is a challenge, but a challenge worth pursuing. Dr. Dr. Kusca has not shied away from leading the district in this complex endeavor, and we commend her for her patience, tenacity, and hard work. Last year, Dr. Kusca reorganized the curriculum stipen

065positions to hire three full-time curriculum coordinator positions without added cost to the district. The new web page with curriculum maps for each grade is evidence that greater collaboration and dedication toward the long-term goal of vertical and horizontal alignment across the district has yielded some success in its first year of implementation. The coordinators have a detailed plan to review all curriculum areas on a rotating basis to ensure continuous improvement. Dr. Kusca deserves credit for the successful implementation last year of tuitionfree fullday kindergarten, which administrators report was executed seamlessly. This was a goal of school committees in Hollist going back a decade or more, and her leadership in making it a reality is one her of her greatest achievements to date. Dr. Kusca has outlined a process to use an evidence-based evaluation tool to help administrators offer

066feedback that is constructive and consistent to our educators through a series of learning walkthroughs in every classroom. Summary: For all of the reasons noted above, we give Dr. Kusca an overall rating of proficient. She has worked hard to guide and improve the district and has many accomplishments to show for her efforts. Our primary concern is the relationship with the HFT and by extension the teachers who are expressing frustrations with her leadership style. While she is demonstrating willingness to improve relationships, the HFT appears averse to any mediation, formal or informal. It will take effort from both Dr. Kusca and the HFT to improve staff morale, and we are hopeful that their joint efforts will make the students and the community proud. Thank you, Dr. Huska. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for reading that. Does anybody have

067anything else they want to say or comment on before we move on? I would just echo that, you know, we really appreciate all that you're doing for our district. We're proud to have you here and we appreciate it and keep up the good work with your awesome team. Appreciate that. Thank you. And us please let us know continue to let us know how we can keep supporting you in that effort cuz without us you you can't leave you on your own on this. You have to be part of this problem. It takes the village. It does. You are the solution. Thank you. Okay, after a a bit of a side side street um policy um okay um so last was it last meeting? So last meeting um Mrs. Rafi brought forward a naming of school

068property um discussion around with about Mary McNamera and the subcommittee met to discuss uh the naming of school property um policy and what we would actually like to propose is that the the reason why there's a sixmonth you know uh provision on number five of the policy is because often times people come to discuss wanting to name something and then they haven't actually even spoken with the family yet. They haven't discussed what they want to do yet. So, that's why that's in place. But you already did all that work on the front end. So, um we felt like we could vote to wave number five, which provides for that six-month waiting period because it's unnecessary in this case because you've already contacted the family. You already know what you know where where the location of

069the uh naming of the property is going to be. So, I would um entertain a motion to wave um the uh provision, the six-month provision, so that we can um adopt naming that room for Mrs. McNamera this evening without objection from the school committee. But it's like I think it's a two-part vote. So, I have to vote to you know wave number five of policy um FF naming of school property and then actually vote. You should probably save that. Is there is this something that you'd like to edit the policy? Like do you want us to No, we're just waving number five of Yeah. No, I didn't know if you wanted us to put it in somehow that that so for the future that if if X Y and Z has been met, then we

070will consider waving or something was kind of whatever you just said about speaking. I mean, we could, but I I think that like with every policy, we always kind of we wave a third reading. Do you know what I Like we have policies that say we have to read it three times when we don't have to if we wave it. Do you get what I mean? So I don't know that we have to do that. I mean I suppose we could edit it in future but this was just asking for us at this point to wave number five because the six months doesn't really we don't need to have six months if we've already gotten all the information that we need. Yeah. No, I'm not I'm not disagreeing. I'm just asking if you is that

071something that you're considering doing in the in policy or um if we did discuss it but I don't know that we have we could that's not what I'm asking for tonight. Let's put that way. But so how do you know that the purpose of the six months was to check the because we've had um other people who have come forward to ask to name things after people who have district Terry Kakabali I'll just take that as an example. So Lin Pond had come to the policy um subcommittee meeting and said I would like to uh for us to consider naming school property um this you know reading room from for Terry Takavali but had not done any of that research of actually speaking to that where would it be have we actually done the work

072of actually creating that space so there was a time that needed to happen between that between the votes that's all okay so that was my experience as to personally as to why it was they waited so she could contact the family, ask them if this is okay with them. Is this something that they would be willing to you know, you know, participate in and then where are we going to have this piece this property? I just didn't know with the 1965 policy if if the purpose of saying following the initial recommendation and then reviewing period of six months is in case there was any kind of controversy or someone wanted to have an issue with it. I feel like this was first brought was it three weeks ago or more than three weeks ago and

073I also think that should something arise like this we could always address it at that point. I'm just I didn't know if the six-month waiting period had anything to do with that but I think that there's ways we could address it if it were right. I mean I think someone could propose someone and maybe they also want to give time for somebody else to propose someone but I think that we could still address that. So I'm comfortable I'm comfortable with waiting. I just didn't know. Yeah. I mean that was my personal experience previously. Yeah. I think that's I can't speak to like 25 years ago or you know I'm happy to wave it like as a separate as a separate issue I going forward I think that exactly to your point we can update it

074to like that it started in 1967 like they didn't even dream of the internet then right. So like it's a whole other I just think if we yes I'm fully on board with waving for for this instance but I also think that the exactly what you're saying John is like why the six months what does it mean what are the criteria that we want to see met in order to make this happen we can look at that in a subsequent meeting I'm happy to do that so would somebody like to make a motion to wave this for motion not motion to wave Um, it's number five. The six month the six review period. Motion wave the six-month review period. I'll second it by Lisa. Cynthia. All in favor. Should I abstain from Why? All right.

075I won't. No, I know you because I proposed it. But but I'm talking about the policy anyway. Okay. So then the other piece to that was that I wanted you can you should make the motion but to actually follow through with naming of the property. I know but we're not all here tonight. Okay. But do we have to be we have to be all here. The naming of school property shall require a vote at a school committee meeting with the full committee in attendance. See I read that too but then you waved number five I think because it's part of number five. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. Then I would happily Oh my god, guys. You put me on the spot. No, no, no. Earlier you could look it over to make sure I did alert

076you. So, I move to um name the what is called the smart room at Robert Adams Middle School in memory of Mary McNamera. What else do you want? Okay, let's second. Moved by Stacy, second by John. All in favor? Great. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Excuse me. No, I I I just just thought you should make it. I I thought Okay. Um the next one is um policy Jig JP selection instructional materials. I'm asking for us to we've read this a number of times. I had no other um uh revisions to it. I didn't know if anybody had any further questions so that we could move forward and I'm asking for this to be revised as amended right now. Anybody? Anybody want to make a motion? I can make the motion, but um move to amend

077policy J selection of instructional materials as presented. Second move by Cynthia, second by Don. All in favor? Thank you. And then we're going to skip over JIC and JICFB because we were waiting to hear back from Katie Minnol and she just got back to Dr. Kuska today. So we weren't able to re over those um suggestions and then she added a few that we hadn't asked her about. So we're going to talk about that at our next meeting next week and then we'll bring it back on the 18th. Um so then the last one is policy KCD which is public gifts to school. Um this is a revision um required uh well it's an update from MASC but law it has to comply with state law. So uh so we basically just took MASC's um

078um uh proposed I'm sorry their guidance policy and we just substituted it in. I think there's a word missing in the second paragraph. gifts will automatically become the property. Oh, no, sorry. Any gift of cash, regardless of donor intent, will be accepted by vote of the HSC and kept separate from the general fund. At least um Lisa Duz cutting and pasting it in. So maybe you just need a comma. Makes it Yeah. or a comma. That works. Or and it's fine. Well, there's already an and you're right at the end of the sentence, so maybe it's just a comma. Okay. Um, that is an Oxford comment. I didn't used to have any issue with Oxford. Okay. Someone just said someone I'm not in there. Wasn't me. Well, hit undo. Whoever it is, I'm hitting undo.

079Nothing's happening. It wasn't me. Undo on the top. It wasn't me. I'm not. I hit undo. I didn't do it. I already did undo. I didn't do it. Can you hover over to see who did it? I didn't do it. Can't you hover the I'm trying. It's whoever. It says last edited by Don Neborski. It says it right up. It's He's trying to find it before. That was We're trying to find it already. It does. Just go to top arrow seconds ago by Don Deor. I just jumped back into it. Just arrow. All right, hold on. I think I can go back to the previous before. So exciting. So if everybody controls these, it should fix it, right? I Okay, from the document this time. No, I control Z already. Nothing. Yeah, me too. Gosh

080darn it. Well, maybe it's AI acting. I guess I guess Keith doesn't really want us for this. That would be a true statement. Can everybody that's on there just click the arrow back? We did. I already clicked undo. What's undo up on the top left under file? There's the undo. You did it. Zl Z wouldn't work. That should work. Yeah, I've done my things. It's very cool. All right, hold on. Just not approving it this way. Your version. All right, hold on. Why does yours look different than mine? I'm putting this one back. This is from last week. Can I How do I make this it? Rename it something else. No. Restore this version. I got this. Hold on. No touching everybody. Oh. Oh, I got Don't touch. Okay. All right. Hold on. And now

081I got to put that comma. Nobody else touched. Okay. Right. Are we good? Hands down. My viewer. All right. I um I have to read it though. I think so. I don't know why this has this shouldn't be here as well. Still crossed up. Hands up. No, the bottom part is crossed up, but the upper part shouldn't be. Does that make sense? Yeah. Got it. Hold on. I got to get rid of this. It's redundant. Back in my car. I've had your card in. Everybody wants to This was cut and pasted. Are we good? All right. Um, in accordance with state law, all grants and gifts to the It should say H. Okay. It didn't get changed. I think when I redid it, it didn't take all the things. There's also a says suggestion rejected.

082I did not do that. Sure. Don't touch it. Don't touch it. Okay. um shall schools shall be reviewed and accepted by the Hollison School Committee before expenditure or use in the case of gifts. Oh, what? No, some ideas are right here. I'm not even on the document. I'm not. Okay. All I do shared drive. Don't close it. That's You're saying no. What you should do is pray. It's normal now. But it's back to normal. I'm accepting it. Okay. Okay. There you go. It was because of the package. Cuz it was in the suggestion. She's like, "Click." No. No. Okay. Okay. It was okay. Um, uh, in the case No, I'm not signing. I'm not signing again. In the case of gifts from industry, business, or special interest groups, no extensive advertising or promotion may be

083involved in any donation to the schools. Gifts will automatically become the property of, I should say, HBS. Any gift of cash, regardless of donor intent, will be accepted by vote of the HSC, kept separate from the general fund and expended at the discretion of the committee as provided by law. The committee directs the superintendent or uh to asssure that an appropriate expression of thanks is given to all donors. Should it say or designate or should that's better? Okay, it's fine. You could say superintendent designate because if it's a school specific, I know it might be better. Okay. All right. So, uh, again, this is reflecting a change in state law that says that we have to approve all gifts, no matter how large or how small, and it's really up to Mr. Betday to figure

084out in what format. That gets submitted to the school committee for our approval. That's a procedure thing, not us. This is just what we have to do. Yes. So um so that means anything that I'm thinking of the PTO perspective. So everything. Okay. I get that. Does that include like food? Yes. That we donate for teach appreciation week? Yes. Even though it's non voluntary if it's gifts. It's a gift. It's a gift. Oh, that's property. Trust me, we were sitting here going, "Why property though?" Because it used to be something that was with under $1,000 is like not Also, I thought a gift I thought a gift had to be something that couldn't that isn't consumable. That's what I right like if we gave t-sh teachers t-shirts gift fine. But food, how do you It's

085It How does it become your property? I was thinking if it's edible, it's gone. Yeah. Um I'm happy to bring that back to that because expenditure. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to have to school, you know, we talked about this above all. We wish we tried to find a way around it. I see. I mean, I think the language is a language. You can probably still vote on it. We just want to make sure that we're reading it the way it is. wait until after. I would say expenditure if you're expending something or using something but eating something. So that does seem a little bit of a stretch to me. You got to wait till after. I just just because in my own industry there are certain I'll wait and we'll ask the question. I

086get it. I hear what you're saying. So I'll define gifts. Define gifts include food. Well, what is a gift? Moving happily. I think that's the question. Am I allowed to close it? Oh, no. Don't touch. Don't touch DDong. So, do So, this is just the Do we need to vote on edits or are we waiting? We're waiting to get clarification. Okay. Gotcha. Consider don't touch anything. So, that's everything. That's policy. We're done with policy. Oh, can I ask a question? Uh, Cynthia, did we Where are we at with the, you know, the policy that Mr. Hicks helped us with? I just, we just approved it. I'm sorry, that was it. I No, no, not not that I the selection of in instructional materials. We did the whole No, but all the other pieces I thought

087we got, we don't have We don't have That's all procedure. Just making sure. That's why I was saying you we did that as part of a courtesy and we all had input on it because we felt it was important for us to all understand it. We don't we're not required to get our input on it. Thank you. I was just all the other pieces. We're qualifying. We're just making sure you are all set. Perfect. Okay. So, I need to move forward on that. You move forward. Okay. Okay. All right. So, we are going to hold on the rest of them and I will find out what constitute a gift. Does gifts food consumables? Does that go for like wine too? And yeah, seriously. All right. What are gifts? I don't think you'd beating that. But

088well, somebody might be. All right. I'm out. Moving right along. Central office administrators. So, a few things I just um I wanted to update you on. The student um representative tonight mentioned DECA and yes, they did go to nationals recently, but also I did um ask I heard from Miss Lang, the adviser, and I asked if the students would like to come present their experiences because we've done so much with DECA this year. So, they'll be coming to our 518 meeting and give you an update on that. Also, um, we had some our project 351 student, Sally Heert, who's our eighth grade representative for the project 351 this year. She's doing an awesome project on a library audit process project with the middle school. So, she's our student ambassador at Rams and she will be

089coming to share what she's doing at the June 1st meeting. And then additionally because um I had shared with you in the past that we have the Celtics playbook which is also part of project 351 but it's separate as well some they're trying to do some of the same work and promote community and DEI and all that but our two representatives for Celtics playbook under that group is Danielle Portal and Kagan. I've shared out about them before, but I asked if they would come and present their experiences because they've done some extensive training with some of our leaders at the middle school to help train them to now lead some of this work. So, I thought if they could give us an update, that would be great to hear that. I've seen some of their

090work. They've done an awesome job. Um, Aladdin was last week at Rams and I was able to see the well the dress rehearsal I was able to attend and that was great and I was able to tweet out some of the pictures for the of the students there. I think I saw someone's child there if I'm not mistaken. You did. And then yesterday the safe routes to school happened at Miller Pleasantino and Rams. I don't know if anyone ever said that, but I know Joanie was able to attend some of that. I was not able to make it this year. Teacher appreciation. Interesting enough, I know that's happening next week, but then there's also the National Teachers Day is was 52. So a shout out for both you know and it's the national day and

091then there's also teacher appreciation week. We also celebrated principal's day on 51. The nurses day will be on 56. Administrative assistance was on 426. Par appreciation was on 45. So there are so many staff that aren't even included on that list. But we as a central office team did try to send out thank yous to all staff regardless of if they fit in that category because we want to show our appreciation to them. So hopefully they got those in their mailboxes this week. And then I just want to remind again that the feedback survey for the high school principal search after the um principles presented tonight for the webinar, it will be open until 5:00 p.m. tomorrow and get that feedback to us so that we can determine next steps and move forward with the

092process. Think that's it for now. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Kesca said some things I will add though. Um, I had the pleasure of going to the Hollist Historical Society today for a field trip. So, it's wonderful seeing our students interacting. Um, and having some fun doing some hands-on activities. Um, we will be coming out with two more curriculum newsletters this year, so be looking out for that. We will be having a upcoming teaching and learning parent information evening. It was supposed to be on a night that we rescheduled a school committee. So, we're going to plan B. So, we I will let um people know and I will be sending out a bright arrow announcement to all community members. And finally, our curriculum reviews are continuing with math preK through 12. And um

093our secondary ELA when we or the committee does produce a report, as you know, it goes to Dr. Kusca. Once she approves it, it will go to you for approval. So, we'll keep you in the loop on that. Yeah. I do want to clarify because it was kind of a quick communication and we had some conflicts because some of our staff have to present and the June 22nd was the day after school gets out. So in order to get the presentations in their scheduled and due to the change last week and people's availability we did have to change and I had reached out to Katherine um and Minnie about that. So I apologize for the inconvenience but it was really about trying to get the presentations in before school gets out as well. And when

094will we see that curriculum review report? The last school committee meeting. So when is that? It'll be the the 15th. The 15th. So we're meeting June 1st and June 15th. Great. Thank you, Mr. Bud. I have nothing. Thank you. All right. Staffing updates. I pull up. I have um so at our last school committee meeting um there were some comments about the number of staff turnover and a concern about retaining staff which clearly we're always um interested in doing our best and trying to make sure we support and retain staff. I do want to correct some misinformation or just maybe without the data. It's hard to understand what the data was explaining. Um and then I did receive a lot of questions after that from school community members and other people um about the number

095of staff that have exited in the last few years. So I'm going to go back first from to 2017 just to give you overall numbers turnover by year because that kind of paints a picture as well. So 2017 to 2018 there was 31 um resignations or terminations depending on the but they're all in the same category. 31 for 201819 precoid there were 48 then we get into 201920 and we had co at the end and I'm not I think people just stayed put because nobody knew what was going on so was there were 41 um turnovers that year 2021 in the height of CO every district was seeing a huge amount of turnover um and we also added positions that year there were 96 turnovers and some of them would be the same position. So

096sometimes it's not even it's like the same position we filled for one day and then that person exited because it might be a lot of them were par professionals and we saw sometimes the same position was filled three times because of um just people um learning to jump into the district and maybe not know what the position was. The following year our our 2122 last year we had 97 positions turn over and then in 2023 thus far we've had 26. So for 2460 is 31 48 41 96 9728 but I wanted to talk a little bit more about position because I think it's confusing because it it sounds it sounded like a really big number. So I wanted to tease into that. So if you look at the positions that turned over for um the

097ones I think that are the most significant and I'll be happy to answer other questions but par profofessional turnover has been the most significant and we've talked to you about that frequently literally when I say that people were being hired and they might start for one day and what was often happening they were hiring and start for a day or two in some cases and then literally find an open position and then people are competing for jobs and might find a position in a neighboring district and maybe it paid more and they resigned without any notice and we refilling it the next week and I I can tell you that frequently happened. So for 2021 there were 30 PAR professionals exiting in 2021, 49 in 2122 and so far this year 15 now we do

098see PAR turnover in the summer. So I'm sure that number will um come up a little bit but in general that was a total of 94 for that the three-year for the um secretaries we had um six we had zero in 2021 we had some retirements and changes in um 2122 we had six 22 23 we've had one then if you look at teachers which I know is a category that um there was a it it appeared that there was a misunderstanding that we've had significant teacher turnover and yes probably a little bit more definitely more in co um years we had 35 in 2021 34 and this year 10 so so far um if you look at the total again 96 positions in 2021 97 in 2122 in 2223 you there's still time in

099the so we will we will see that number rise but clearly it's it is stabilizing which was what we predicted and then uh one of the things I'd like to highlight is I've talked about before we're seeing in a number of our neighboring districts a lot of reduction in force because of budgetary impact we have been very conservative and careful and not hiring positions that were COVID related or adding them to the budget that they couldn't be sustained so we hired temporary positions. So, we're not seeing that right now. Clearly, you know, things could change in the future, but right now, we're in a good place and trying to sustain what we have. I did also want to add um some of the positions that I mentioned for 2021. 13 of those were co positions

100out of that 96 total. So, you know, the the details do matter um and paint a different story. Do you mean they were temporary? Temporary then with the one-year positions that we added to help with the um classroom coverage. Um, I'm happy to answer any of the questions. I have more details if you wanted them, but I don't want to labor. Um, and I would imagine a significant portion of this are retirements. Is that correct? So, I can I can tell you um retirement numbers as well because the reasons for each area. So, if you look at for I think I can open it up. So for example um for par professionals that if you want me to go by year if they left and we don't always have the very specific but she tried

101to categorize I mean Lisa did a great job those that were non-renewed zero in 2021 three in 2122 zero so far in 2223 other employment um again like I described people moving maybe higher pay or different things 10 in 2021 13 in 2122 22 6 and 22 23 for personal reasons sometimes a job closer to home and things like that um or they don't some of them during co might just not return to work so the personal reasons we didn't always know either 16 in 2021 31 in 2122 6 in 2020 22 23 so it really appears like we are seeing this kind of breath of you know people kind of settling down and staying put and wanting to remain in the district. So that's a good sign. Um for retirement, we had four paris

102retire in 21, two in 22 and three in 23. And then similarly, if I'm just looking at um the teachers, which is our larger group there, we had let me just get down to that. So for teaching positions, we had one in 21, we had one co position that was a temporary position and zero in 22 and 23. Non-renewals sometimes not a good fit because again when we're competing for staff sometimes in order to try to get someone in front of students, we weren't always getting the best candidates. So okay, non-renewals would be two and then seven and three this year. So two the first year, seven and then three. Those that indicated other employment 8 in 21, 8 in and 22 and this year four so far. Personal reasons 13, 10, three. Retirement again

103I really see you really can hear the impact when I read this number. So 11 teachers retired in 2021, nine in 22, and then this year they're not listed, but I think we're going to have two two right now. So significantly, we do. So I just want to paint that picture because I feel the news is good. We're seeing things settle down and people staying put. I think the people that exited for personal reasons, COVID, safety, whatever the reasons were are now kind of readjusting and this year is looking pretty close back to normal from pre-COVID. Okay. And I just want to echo that the the sort of like bell curve of of returning to normal that's also reflected in the national averages. Like it's not specific to Hollist. It's happening everywhere in rural and

104inner city and everywhere that the the stress of co and you know the unusual situation that those unprecedented times that we keep talking about there was a lot of it and it wasn't it wasn't just us. Yeah. No. And I just that's why I wanted to reassure people that people aren't fleeing the district. We saw what we all predicted and it wasn't surprising and it I think the news is looking very positive not negative. And I also think too I think we sometimes also forget change is good and to stay in one place for a long time and can sometimes someone can be stagnant Mr. Buddha sometimes he's looking at me he's giving me the the dirty eye. So I just I just think we have to again the like the devil's in the details

105and you know really be considerate about what we're talking about. I didn't say you were stagnant. I just said you put my name right in there. Well, you kept giving me the evil eye. So, thank you. I think that that helps a lot. Okay. Reports from subcommittees, communications. I have done nothing because I've been doing superintendentations. We will we'll stand up. We will have uh we'll have to have a meeting soon and have one more newsletter before the year is over. Do so, but do people have ideas for what they want in the newsletter? That would be helpful. I mean, obviously, we're going to report on town meeting budget stuff, but aside from that, are there particular things people want highlighted off the top of your head? I almost think you should just stick with

106town meeting. That's important enough. If something comes up, can we email you? Yes. Okay. What about day on the hill? Was there anything of significance we shouldn't include? I could. There's not really It's just something to think about and then include if you think there was um Yeah. Was there good news? No good news. There was not great financial news. Let's put it that way. It was I don't want to get doom and gloom on everybody right now, so we're not going to do that. But um there was some concerns, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will negatively impact us. It's just I don't think there the numbers were what they expected. So, but we might have some good news that comes out next week. The Senate sends out their numbers next week. So, we'll

107do more. It was a productive day. I was glad we went. You know, we spent an hour in Senator Senator President's office. That's good. She wasn't there, but that's okay. Okay. Um, oh, policy. Next meeting is next week, May 11th. Thursday, May 11th, from 2:30 to 4:30 at central office. Awesome. Budget, we will schedule another meeting in advance of the May 18th meeting. Sorry, say that again. We will schedule another meeting in advance. It's our next meeting May 18th. Yes. Yeah. Right. So, I don't have the date yet. Okay. But do we need to meet before town meeting too on town meeting evening to meet just in case there's some that might I don't think we're scheduled to meet before town meeting unless Keith or any of the other members on the subcommittee feel like

108we need to. I don't know that you need to. I mean, we always have a placeholder as a general meeting before town meeting specific on budget. So, you have specific budget subcommittee meeting scheduled as well. No. Oh, you mean we do all of us? Yeah, we do. Committee we need to have a budget subcommittee beforehand unless something catastrophic happens. I don't think no budget before town meeting, but ideally budget. Yeah. I mean, the only thing would would have been because of the April revenues being so low, but the governor said she's not doing 9 C cuts, so there's no impact with that 23. Thus, you know, 24 is at least stable. Yeah. So, you know, so we'll see. Did the finance committee make their recommendations? And is our recommendation the same as theirs for our

109budget? That's what we need. Okay. If it's the same, then we're Yeah, I I found to press. I know that. So, some questions about outside reports, but yeah, they've gone to press. So, okay. So, we need to close for the 15th. We just need to put Yeah. We'll see for the 15th for the full committee, but not for the budget subcommittee. No, just for the full committee. So, maybe six o'clock. Yeah. Okay. Is there a lot of other amended? Yeah, we'll have to see who's already grabbed if anybody's grabbed the library already. But we all say we just have to kid first. They're all going to be here one night. All right. Um, school start times. Mr. Bud, can you give us an update? Sorry. Um, um, we've met um, there's a possibility that we

110make, we me, homes, transportation. We're talking about the possibility of combining instead the Miller and middle school routes on 15 buses and then running the Placentino children at the same time but not on the same buses as the high school. Um I haven't gotten confirmation from the state because nobody seems to want to own the law. But um the the the idea behind it is that what we would do is again we can fit all the children on Plastantino buses. That's the nine is not the issue. Um the runs may be a little longer, some runs may be a little longer, but again the nine's not the issue. The issues with the six buses for high school students and it's less about the volume as opposed to the distance traveled and how we'd have to

111do it. and the the what we would the plan would call for the buses to basically go up and down major roadways and people have to metriculate themselves to those m those stops. So we would not be going deep into neighborhoods and things of that nature. So it' be cutting down say the mileage of our routes but not um but not you know but still providing a service making a service available doing that. Um, and again, Holmes is not sure. Heather and I have to go and literally drive out certain things. I mean, we're going to take a bus out, one of their buses. Um, take a bus out and drive around one day and just kind of get a feel for it. Um, the the again the challenge with the state is that um,

112law explicitly states that we have to have bus stops within a half a mile of a person's home. I don't know if that applies, which was my question. I don't know if that applies. And I've called once the attorney general's office for attorney of the day and they said they're going to get back to me and once to um business services at Desi with regards to again because they administer what we have to do. So um and they said nobody's ever asked that question. I said great. Um but in areas where we don't have to provide transportation, high school students do not have to be legally transported. Do we have to follow this law if we offer it? And that's it was a simple question. Well, not simple. It's not a simple answer but a

113simple question. It's a simple question. It may not be a simple answer. So, so that's you know the the the the two components is whether by law we can do kind of the idea I floated out there to homes and then if we can if the law makes it okay then can we actually execute it. So so that's right now I think our best hope of being able to have the Miller and Placentino buses be one run apart. So we'd go from a three-run day to a two-run day basically. So, and your your Miller third graders would be on the same bus as your Ram sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Correct. Correct. Correct. And your Placentino and high school kids would then start at 8:55. No, no, I'm sorry. They would be they would be

114the first run. They would be first. So, PL Oh, I'm sorry. So, Placentino and High School starts at 8:10 and then Miller and Rams would start at 8:55, something like that. And and it may not be 810, it may be 8 or something. I mean, we have to work out the the details of of that piece of it. And again, dealing with push that later if we're going to do that. So, I push it. Again, I just have to see whether it's possible first before we start talking about actual times because then we get back in the discussions like we did however many years ago. Now, somebody's going to tell me that um before the pandemic, which means I have no idea what year. Um but we we'd have to figure out um at that

115point, you know, what times do we want to assign that because of whether it be for athletics or or after school clubs. What does this mean for the late bus run? I mean, there's it revisits a lot of those things that we've already visited and and made a determination of. This would by putting these together in this fashion, it would alleviate the the challenges that families are having with the Miller and Plantino runs being a full run apart, you know, a gap of a run or two runs apart, however you want to look at it. But it would also address what what we've been talking about, which is buses crossing Washington from Miller to the high school. Like that's from Rams to the high school. That's where we get caught up in the in the

116timing, in the traffic. Like we can't. That is such a gargantuan feat that getting having them be the same run ends up taking much longer than we thought it would because of the traffic at that time of day. Okay. Are they still going to have that though because no Miller and the the the high school would be on its own run. So it's not dependent on stopping off a different school. the the middle school would be on the run with the you know 100 numbers down or 90 numbers down the street. So keep placentino kids are they still picked up at driveway or you're saying half up to a half? No no no no class children while we may bundle some and we we did a better job this year. I mean we did get

117some complaints. There's no question about it but outside of kindergarteners we did a much better job this year of of putting you know of having more neighborhood bus stops as opposed to individual bus stops. So that that that improved this year. We cut down the number of bus stops on the Placentino run. Okay. And in in our high school about how many kids do we still have taking the bus? I don't know off the top of my head. I just being honest. I just don't. Um as you look into it so we know kind of what we're what what we'll be putting out there if you are allowed to go over this half mile. Can we get an idea of exactly what that is? Because if it's if we're having it's it's either a half

118mile or it's unlimited. It's one or the other. Right. But I'm saying if it's unlimited, if you Okay. Okay. You're saying what would it turn into? What are you actually asking kids? Because I'd be uncomfortable with asking, you know, a 14-year-old to walk a mile and a half or 2 miles along, say, apprentice street, right, to get a bus. But if you're telling me it's a half mile or maybe 3/4 of a mile and these are streets with sidewalks, that's that's different. I I I understand. It's, you know, again, in review, in reviewing it initially with homes, you know, again, we had I don't make it sound like we're driving down Washington Street and and kids from the Queens have to make it to Washington Street. That that was not the case. Um, but that

119being said, I mean, there was going to be there's no doubt that there would be more than a half a mile in some instances. Um, but at some level, we're kind of trapped. You know what I'm saying? It's, you know, the the the star nature of the road layout in Hollist from from the center of town, you know, down central up Washington, you know, it's but you're losing middle school drop off which will buy you 10 minutes maybe in theory. Yes. But then by trying to do Plastantino and High School at the same time, you you're making the time there too. You know what I mean? So it's on the same bus. It's the that the right but it will lengthen their roots because there's less but for purposes of the community and as this

120gets out I mean feasibly are we talking next for people who have to September and work schedules you do not anticipate all of this can be worked out by next year but it's an ongoing pursuit and these are the things right because again we're not confident yet that this is going to work out with regards to um the six buses for the high school from a timing perspective I I know there's people sitting at one of the tables here. Um, that if I said, "Well, we can do it, except that I that the high school run's going to be an hour long, and now we're picking up high school kids at 7 a.m. again, that's going to go over at best like a lead balloon, at worst a lead balloon over my head." So, um,

121I I'm, you know, being cognizant of that. It's it's the it's a reason, it has to be a reasonable plan. And so, you know, but I also think this just, you know, further emphasizes that we have capital projects right now coming onto town meeting floor about sidewalk projects. And this is one of the reasons why we should probably approve them because if you are going to increase the distance that some students might need for a bus stop, let's need to be a safe place with sidewalks. Agreed. Agreed. And and you know, again, the it's just tough to work with some of the constraints that we have, much less a bridge being out. But um you know the the constraints are are always the challenge. And you know again I just had a weak moment you

122know a couple months ago when I said well what if we did this and now it's kind of mushroomed on me for more work more work more work more work more work more work more work more work than I really wanted. So um but we'll we'll continue plugging away. Thank you. Also to just add this you didn't say anything against this but this is super super preliminary so don't worry like lots of discussion and information will be presented before any decisions not next September no definitely not next September and we haven't um given up the idea of using that the easement or whatever but that's that's more longterm it would involve a ton of planning and like legal There's challenges I mean between whose land it is, where it is, stuff like that. And then

123in addition to where the where the road for the e would have to go, we don't know what's in the dirt, right? We don't know if it's a big hunk of granite or it's a big pile of dirt and you know until but the thing is even if we even if we had that road there that it wouldn't solve a whole heck of a lot because I mean it would make the traffic flow better but it's still getting buses across Washington Street at that time of morning. That's that's the problem. It's making the the the run so big. Although we haven't like abandoned that idea. I don't know if anyone drives through Sherbornne often, but they have this sort of like back entrance. It's actually used as an exit and it's just an exit. Um,

124and I was describing it to Keith. It's um it's sort of like the pie in the sky dream of what it could look like someday, but someday is not anytime soon. And and again, I think it for traffic flow at the the schools, it's a it's a good idea to keep it like on the back burner, but it doesn't actually solve anything in terms of our the fact that the the middle bus run is too big to fit in between the other two star times. So, I just wanted to say that we haven't we haven't abandoned it, but it's not it doesn't really solve anything. Thank you for continuing to work on this. I know it's a lot of work, but you put some things to bed, you know. Okay. Um, old business, the vaccine

125update. Yes. So, there were something was brought to my attention I think we just kind of forgot about because of the fact that we had anou in place last year that ended on June 30, 2022. And that thatou was in place for HFT members. So in effect when theou ended all of the benefits things like um co sick days and everything else and then the mandate for the co vaccine that you had voted on also ended for HFT with that. However, because you voted Mhm. as well. Then the recommendation from our lawyer was that you probably should just vote to resend it because there are non-UN members that technically would still be under that and we would want to make sure we're not using that in the pandemic as we think moved away. So it's

126timely to try to get that language out so we don't have to have that in our job postings any longer. So in just in my discussion we you were asked us to policy something but I forgot to put on the agenda so I just said it myself. So um when I talked with other districts about you know whether they had that requirement Hollist was kind of an outlier in having a requirement for a vaccine. Um I believe Ashlin was the only other one around us that required it. Hopington did as well. It was not required. It was there was a lot of suggestions strongly encouraged. There was a lot of that language, but there was nothing that I could find that said you must. Um, so there was kind of an outlier in that. Did

127you check Did you check do sherbings? I remember talking with Kathy. I did, but I didn't find she told me they did too. That's my But maybe it's buried or maybe they rescended it as of whenever that happened. But what in the last, you know, month when I was looking at it? Um, any issues around, you know, hiring practices, par professionals, etc. that those were, you know, they had the same issues that we did in terms of what their openings were without having that requirement. Um, that being said and no one when I spoke with um just video, sorry, I emailed with BBA back and forth about whether there's some concerns about um you know, kids with special needs and if this was going to change anything for them. And you know she had indicated

128as others had indicated that you know anyone who was already having issues that were medic kids that were medically fragile their world did not change like they were still continuing to be concerned about RSV and all these other issues as well. So there really wasn't any further impact that they felt that we should keep that in place. So I don't see any reason why we can't resend it. So it's off of the language is off of the hiring the job. So that's where it's showing up still. So we have to rescend it in order for that to be removed. So we have to vote on that and then that can be changed. Correct. Awesome. Do you want to make a motion, man? Sure. Um I move that we no longer require staff to be vaccinated

129for CO 19. Can I make a suggestion please that that we would to to resend the CO 19 mandate? I move that we resend the CO 19 vaccine. Seconded by Stacy by Amanda, second by Stacy. All in favor? Thank you. Newsletter. No news. School choice seats. Um at 9:00 at night, do you want me to um go through the process or have you all seen that enough and just want to get to the business? fully. I I process the process. Does anybody have a fine? Oh, you guys don't want to see the presentation with the motion. Oh, no. He doesn't have the presentation. You did? Oh, I thought you You said your pres already lined up. That's just me. I did. You use Canva this year. Still has It's his old one. Yeah. You didn't

130make a new one. Oh, I made a new one for Did you I updated it? Yes. I only covered numbers. Okay, that's fine. So, we can move on. We can move on. Moving on. Um uh the memo container in your packet um regarding the school choice seats. Um we did have fewer requests this year. Um but it's mostly in kindergarten, which is just an interesting fact, but I don't know what it means, you know. So, I'd like to have a assumption why we had 19 requests in kindergarten, only seven this year. But moving on, um, in working with the principles, um, the recommendations we'd like to offer, um, for for new seats are six high school seats. We are allowed to say high school, not specific grades, just because, again, if otherwise, um, again, high

131school is not as grade specific, obviously. So, um, on their class sizes, two and eighth grade, and and you'll see through this, I also put how many seats and then how many siblings. Six in high school. What? Sorry. I just feel like that see that number seems low compared. No, we the most I think we've ever added is 10. Yeah, but we have 15 this year. That's okay. But this again, we try to use school choice to balance out grade sizes because it's it's it's the easiest to plan as a district if we had 212 children in each grade. So, I just feel like I would add more high school seats. Well, you again, this is your vote, not mine. So, um uh six high school seats. Um, we account for our two siblings. Um,

132two eighth grade, two seventh grade, uh, two sixth grade accounts for our one sibling. Um, two fifths, 2/3. Uh, 2/3 gets both siblings. One second grade seat for the one sibling. Um, one monastery Montasauri seat. Montasauri. Uh the the kindergarten enrollment this year left a great large space in Montasauri and a smaller space but still a significant space in French immersion. Wow. So um those we didn't have a lottery and plenty of room. Wow. Plenty of room to be in. Is that the first time in Yeah. Uh for both? Probably. Monastery had been extremely hot for a period where we actually went from two classes in third up to three. Um to accommodate that it's not so much it's not so low that we need to make an adjustment down. And again adding the seats

133here makes sense. If we had more interest going forward, you'd probably see me come and ask for another recommendation on it. But um at this stage, you know, again, we have a customer. We'd like to invite them. Am I am I mistaken that last year we didn't have to do the lottery either? I feel like we did not have to do the lottery last year either. But uh but we had an available uh monastery. I think there may have been a lot of moni French we did not because we had like three or four available seats and we added one or two French students. Yeah. Yes. Keith, if we have a lower than normal kindergarten, is there is our is our school choice maybe I do need your presentation. Is school choice closed or can

134people still apply? Yeah, we still apply. Okay, so it is still open. So you could come back to us if eight more kindergarters apply this. There's nothing preventing me from returning anytime you have a meeting. And how long is it open for? Technically, they the state requires us to have a second potential lottery or drawing in November. We never add seats that late. So Right. Um but you'll take applications through like the November. Okay. We don't, you know, there's always room over the summer. We always get other I mean there'll always be some kids and and again it's my normal spiel to you guys is you know there's the shopping families you know and high schools are shopping and is not. That's what I was saying add more high school because it's shopping. Yeah. I'd

135like to see us add more high school seats because and full disclosure I was contacted by somebody. No one's ever contacted me before. Um, but somebody advocating for a kid wanting to go to our high school. And that's a nice compliment to us that, you know, people want to go to our high school. And if you look at the class size numbers, our high school class sizes are fine. 2011, 206, 2011 compared to a lot larger in like sixth, seventh, 8th. And you know, those eighth graders, we're going to lose some of those to private schools next year anyway. So that 215 um that's going to go down. Who knows? But if we're losing 15 kids just from graduation alone, I don't see why we can't offer more spots. Cuz right now, we've basically got

13616 kids vying for only four spots at the high school because two, we have two siblings, so the two siblings are automatically going to get two of the six seats. That leaves four seats. So that's 16 kids for four spots. That's a lot of I feel like we could do better than that. Keith, I might be on board with that too, but I did want to ask, is there anything that you know that you could tell us about this the 18 high school applications with more specificity like 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th that gives you pause about increasing size? For example, if we're talking about um 9th grade and it's at 212 and you're telling me, well, 10 more of them all want n is there anything that give um I'll try to use my memory

137best I can. There was 112th one or two 11ths, maybe three 10ths. Okay. It was and then the rest was incoming n it was probably kids transition, right? Okay. We lose a lot of kids. We do lose ethn if we want to get down to the spec specificity, I would add more of the ninth grade seats if we can do that. You can do whatever you want. It's just it's again this is your vote and the more you restrict the vote, it's the reason why we do do restrictions and very specific in kindergarten. Yeah. Because we want to create spots based on program. The other end of it though is that if you restrict not if you restrict high school um by that you could end up challenged as well. We'll say with regards to

138seats I don't want to see us just add ninth grade. No, I'm not saying just Okay. I'm just saying that we could add, you know, Keith, I I think I missed it. Why are you not recommending to have 15 high school seats? Because the again we we we always try to balance out as much as possible and we've never added 15 seats. Also, 15 kids are not going to come from that pile. Two of it's really four four seats only. Really? I will guarantee you that of of the group that's there, I will tell you the high school is usually about a 20 to 25% acceptance rate. It just is. So then let's open up. So then if that's the case, then why wouldn't we just open it, right? Because truthly, I think that with

139six, I'm going to meet everybody's needs in all honesty. But again, if you want to add more seats, I we'll take more seats. I just we can table it. What's the table? What's the yield rate if I mean voter and then come back to us% is that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Only 25%. I mean why not have 18 seats and then because there's other reason because adding students during the year can be disruptive both or more of a challenge with regards to um you know them missing a good portion of first term or possibly all of first semester. No, I think the teachers for next like for now to allow 18. That's what she's asking. Yeah. I'm not talking about adding middle of the year. I'm talking about this. But once they're open, they're

140open. Open indefinitely. Yeah. So, well, but we don't have to add people the year. If there's seats open, you have to add people during the year. The reason you have a vote, if the the way the law works, I should review the law. Um, the way the law works is that right now, until you vote not to open seats, every child gets to come regardless of grade, regardless of space, regardless of anything. You are while I'm telling you you're voting to open seats technically you're closing seats is is and leaving you close everything you're opening these just few you know these the the few numbers that I'm putting here so it's it's when it's open it's open okay well two of them are siblings so it's really only four seats the high school so I

141would just say maybe we could add a couple pick a number you are comfortable with I'm not trying to be flippy and I'm not I'm just saying I'd rather go with the 15 I think sorry why are Why are you warm up her hand? I'm not beating you. Okay. Yeah, I'd rather go I'm with Stacy. I'd rather go with 15. I'd rather the higher number. Is it It is difficult to time closing seats because because we don't fill the 15. We need Well, no, it's not losing them. It's If we open too many, we try to time out when to close them. But then why are they coming? I get somebody applying on Wednesday and you can't close them on Thursday. It's a fresh start. Yeah, that's that's okay. I'm just saying I think somebody

142wants to come into the district for both. But I also think that it's or they're someone they could be expelled from somebody else. Yes, that's true. So someone with somewhere else, do we have to take them? Um if they're expelled, the the the expulsion rules have changed greatly in the last what 10 years, 12 years. Way back when us old people um started um in this industry uh when you were expelled from one Massachusetts public school from all. Yikes. Nice. It's not the case anymore. Not the case anymore. We expel a student, we are still responsible for educating them through private means. So it's it's you know so but do we have to take a school choice student that has been expelled from somewhere else? You can't they used to allow you to check a

143child's disciplinary record. You don't have to find out until after. This is a blind. I'm going to give you an example. I had a student from a in a previous district that they were they wanted a school choice in because of the vocational component and in fact because it was vocational, we actually were losing money because the money that the town paid was less than the per pupil expenditures, but that's a separate thing. But this student had had a felony that was not shared because it was a different DA's office and came into the district and then was found out to not be able to be on premises. And we were then liable to then pay the home tutoring. I was able to get an agreement from the other superintendent to say, "Hey, we shouldn't

144be absorbing this." And they also withheld a little information. Not not the superintendent, but somebody knew something. Let's just say but this is I mean I don't that's the tricky stuff to that. I don't want to assume that of our 18 applicants some of them have felt like I no we're not saying anything about that. She was saying, "Why would someone come in late in the year?" is what I thought they were trying to ask. That's how they But what I'm hearing is even though we have 18 applicants, if the yield rate is only 25%. Then essentially we can, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, we can only expect five to actually want to come, right? But if those seats are left open, they have to be left open through November. Right. So what I'm

145saying, they have to be left open till you close them. Till we close. So you could close it. Okay. So we can vote July or August September seats should be end of September whatever. Sure. All right. Beginning of September. Put it on the agenda to close them. But Keith, do you have any more information on um numbers that we're losing to Keefe or No Aggie or anything else that would help us on this? We did not get the we did not get the numbers the final numbers from Keef yet. Do we know applications? How many the applications were? Oh gosh. I'm sorry. Um were they similar to last year which was Hold on. Hold on. Just talk amongst yourselves. I think technology. Well, they also have the culture coming up. Oh, I can't put it

146here. Hold on. There we go. That's what I'm hearing. Jeez, you catch the names. Uh, seven. Seven is the current applications for where? For Norwalk. Oh, Keith. I don't get any information from on there were a lot. I just know very from parents. If we're really scrutinizing high school then I want us to also look at sixth grade and why we're only accepting two if seven are applying. Is there any reason based on the class size that people are not don't have the same feeling about recommended for the principles? Yeah. But that's very specific to to class size because in in in everywhere except for the high school, right, it really it directly impacts class size. Whereas at the high school, it's not there's so many classes you can't can spread them out. There's four

147different, you know, levels. So it's the average class sizes. We were just in a walkthrough and I there were classes with six kids or five kids or there were some really small class sizes. There's also very large classes for some things, too. Okay. I mean, I think I think the answer on a case spreadsheet is sixth grade has an enrollment of 222 with an average class size of 22. So, that's probably the reason to keep it at two. Okay. I just I just wanted us to look at both if we and use the same. So if we add the 15 to the high school, the total number of open seats is 31. I haven't even done my presentation yet. Um adding 9 to How many more? Nine would be adding more. Oh 35. Where am

148I down here? 935. Yep. And then we can vote to close it in September. But Keith, does 35 really make you uncomfortable? Like make you want to throw up? Because I I do respect No, I respect your recommendations. I just um It doesn't make me make me throw up. I just I think it's Okay, good. I can't deal with that. It's a I I again I try to put realistic numbers down and um you know, again, it's it's your right to open whatever seats. You can open up every grade everywhere. That's again within your purview. Um, we try to manage this closely. The reason this program has been a success is because we manage it closely. And back in the days when you used to be able to ask for disciplinary records, I always felt

149much more cavalier in putting some of the numbers out. I'm not going to lie. Now we can't. And I can't tell you who's going to win a lottery. Um, you know, but you know, the more seats, the more risk. So, yeah. Is 10. I I just I really feel like at the high school level and I think why you have those applications [Music] is for some cases there might like some of those students might need a fresh start. Okay. Can you ask this then? I'm just I'm just and where so much mental health stressors and when you're hearing from kids say I hate it here. I can't wait to get out of here. And I think I'm just sensitive to it because I'm like living in this high school world right now. I would feel

150better about offering more than six seats, but I don't want to. So what if we said the compromise and we negotiating with me? I know. Negotiating amongst yourselves. What if we said 10? What if we increased it from 6 to 10 but closed it and put it on our agenda in September so we don't have extra kids coming in which could be difficult for teachers come such a question we want to do at the end of August over August but we want to close that out. So Keith can I ask another question? We want to see we want to see the number of people taken and where our weight lists are. In the event that there is a student separately to miss in the event there is a student that reaches out to the district

151that is looking to come into the district because of those issues. A family is going to contact us to say listen we're in Hop I'm making it up or I'm in Hopington but my kids having a hard time friend group whatever it is would we be able to to take them in? No. If we voted, if you brought that to us and we said we can vote for that, doesn't have to know who the person is, but you can say I would like to allow one student to come into the district. I have to follow first. I have to follow the the the lottery process. Okay. So, we've somebody shows up somebody shows up in July, they're at the bottom of the list. Okay. But sorry. Okay. But once we've closed our choice seats, Yep.

152What happens with those that those people once the once November happens the the list gets torn up. Yep. And technically if we're going to reopen seats or have open seats I start all over again. Okay. Unless we go in September and close them. But we can close them in September and then we tear everything up in September. Is that true? Um if we close them and we don't plan on reopening them in October, then yes, we're done. Especially just one more thing, especially with the block schedule. As a teacher, if a kid is coming in November, they're coming halfway through my course. It's really, really disappoint, right? No, I'm all for closing. I think we up the number as much as we can and then close it in September. So, I guess my only question

153is we're flying a little blind here because we don't have the specificity as to grades. So, if we voted for 15, Lisa, we could take a class that's 212 and turn it into what? 227 which would be significantly higher than any of the other grades and 9th grade is different than say 11th or 12th where you do have a lot of variability with electives. So I'm just saying there's implications if you go 15 you might be voting to have the largest class size. So can we find out those numbers? What how many applicants are going into n 11 9ths 410 three wait one more time. If you look at the page three of my Oh, okay. All right. Sorry. So, why don't we let in why don't we let in all 10th, 11th, and 12th?

154So, that's that would be eight and then maybe half of the ninth graders be nine, but that'd be 14. That'd be nine. Can you Oh, wait. You can you can you can do it by grade. You just haven't found that an effective way. Right. That's Well, I'm saying because there's so few 10 11 12. It makes more sense, I think, to distribute them amongst the grades. I'm more comfortable with that than the possibility of adding 12 13 14 kids to one grade. Okay. So, 912. That's 13. Yep. That's a big difference. If we do 13 seats, we that will be five ninth graders, all four 10th graders, all three 11th graders, and the one senior. Maybe unless we do it if we do it specifically by grade. No, I'm proposing specifically by grade. You have

155any concerns about doing it specifically by grade? The only concern I have is I don't know anything about any of the students and who they are, but a 12th grader realistically, can they if it's a catch-up issue or like if they're only here for one year and they have to come in and our requirements are different and all that and our the way our terms run, it may be very challenging for the child to actually graduate on time. That would be my how we set them up for failure would be my only wonder. That's really good. At least if they're in 10th or 11 families who decide though, not us. True. But they may not understand the nuances of our schedule because I've had parents come to me this year that did not understand and

156they've been there all along and if their child was on an IP, whatever the situation was, but they didn't understand the nuances of the quarter term and the and the but I think that's on us to com to communicate with incoming potential school choice families and say, "Hey, this is what how Hollist does things." You can. It's just it's also about things that are offered in certain years. Like if they were missing something and it wasn't offered a lot like every single oh, you know, we do physics in this year and we do, you know, cuz sometimes things aren't American this year. Like it's very I think they need a fresh start. I think most people switching are switching because they need to they need a fresh start somewhere. Yeah, I don't disagree with that.

157I just have a district that's not as strong as halls. I I just it that's that has come up to me as a concern with kids that are supposed to be graduating this year and they're just finding out now that they missed XYZ and can they and they've been here all along. So there our schedule does create some nuances that make it tricky. On page four, am I reading this right for for 12th grade? The the school choice candidate for 12th grade is is a sibling. Yes, we had a All right. So, it's a So, this is already So, they know about the sibling does that that that's that's a family who is actually returning to the they had multiple children here. I'm trying to be as generic as I can, but they had multiple

158children here. One went somewhere else. The other one stayed. So, they still qualify as a sibling because they still have a sibling here. So, this is a moot point. We're taking that person anyway because we take siblings first. We should take siblings for sure. Okay. [Music] So what's So I vote for I for 12 I propose five 9inth graders, four 10th graders, three 11th graders, and the one 12th grader for a total of 13. Can you say that one more time? Sorry. Five 9th graders, four 10th graders, three 11th graders, and uh the one 12th grader for a total of 13. open seats [Music] at the high school. Mhm. [Music] Then all the other and then everything else as as listed or as recommended. I'm making a motion to open five 9th grade seats, four

15910th grade seats, three 11th grade seats, and one 12th grade seat at the high school. And everything else is listed. And everything else recommended. Everything else is recommended. Total 35 seats. 35 seats. No, it's that one's below. How many is that? Is it 33 seats? Well, it was going to be six and now it's 13. So, add seven. So, okay, that's 33. 33 seats. Okay. Moved by Lisa. And Keith, you can come back and say you're all wrong. This is what happened in the end. Feel free. And we're putting it on the agenda to close it. Close it in September. Yeah. Somebody has to remember to do that. Who's going to remember to do that? Mr. Bet. Put in your notes, Mr. Bet. Please. I got it. Moved by Lisa. Second by John. All in

160favor. Thank you. That took longer than I probably should. We should have went through everything. We don't have any items of information. Our next meeting is May 18th. Uh we are going to adjourn open session to conduct and we're going to move to executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-un personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-un personnel from which we shall not return. Moved by Stacy. Seconded by Lisa. Roll call vote. Yes. Sorski. Yes. Myself. Yes. We have it at 9:33. Good night. Thank you.