Norton School Committee 4-16-25

001All right, it's six o'clock, so we are going to get started. First up, the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. officially calling the April 16th school committee meeting to order. Um, agenda is kind of long tonight, so we will move right along. First up is the student spotlight series. I will turn over to Dr. All right. Good evening. I am very excited tonight to introduce Mrs. Jen Young and Mrs. Michelle King with their Norton High School cubers. Um, so I'll invite everyone to come up and they'll give us a presentation. All right, we don't have everyone. This is a the club is a little bigger, but we have Sarah, Liliana, Samantha,

002Abby, and Kayn. And they're going to tell you a little bit about what we do, and they're going to do a really quick demonstration after of a very small scale. We couldn't bring our whole doggy pony show down the street. even look a little silly pushing it down, but um they can give you an idea of how it works [Music] to other basically about each month. Yeah, twice a month really. Um, we pick out a photo kind of with the theme of the month or something recent that has happened and we make a mosaic of it out of Rubik's cubes. Um, Oops. This is um, this one we did of Miss Clark and first we kind of render the photo a bit. Um, we highlight most things that wouldn't really come out if we just

003put the photo on there and put it through our website. So, like on this one, we highlighted the hair a little bit more and we zoomed in. Yeah. And now we put it into a website and it already gives us like the outline for it. This is only one section of it, a one. It usually goes through X and we each get a section. We go by um what the rubric kind of says. And it's really fun. Um it's pretty easy to do too since you only have to do one side and it comes out into this beautiful mosaic. And just Oh, there it is. That's just a a small sample of some of the work that we have done over the years. Uh so some of them are famous people, some of them are

004cartoons, some of them are maybe locally famous. We've got Adah Wigan. We've got Mr. Smith who's retiring. We have a few retired custodians up there. So, um we've taken requests before. Um and sometimes we just mostly come up with the ideas ourselves. I think you guys should have wheeled it down 123. So, why don't you guys start? So, they designed um like she said, we usually use a website, but we also can do smallcale ones just by hand. So that's what they did. A little um uh it's just a flower because we don't have time for you to sit and watch us put together 600 cubes. So they just So Jen, the big board is 600 cubes. 600 is what we had what we started at. We usually do between 560 and 580 now just

005because of breakage over the years. We don't actually have 600 full cubes left anymore. Um but that was the original need grant that we got for um 600. It evolved really because there used to be a loaner program and the loaner sent out 600 and so that was our number to start with. But um yeah and as you can see too I mostly put up pictures where we had the board or some of them have like the more primitive board but you can't really tell but like where Manny is and Tom like those and oh and Penny the the horrible scary clown there that's on his side. Um, we we were really just doing pushing library tables together and doing them flat. And then when we did Manny, we took our whole show down to

006the middle school and asked for tables. And I don't think Ronnie Goldstein really understood what I was asking for. So, we had one little round table and we're it wasn't going to work. So, my Kramer came out and said, "Oh, well, why don't I give you a piece of plywood?" And they we've like built it on the spot. And then later it's evolved. It was actually Marggo who came up with the the model with the wheels that we could actually that we can now push around the building. So, we do it upstairs. We put it in the elevator and we bring it down to put out in the lobby for everybody to see, which is a lot more convenient than um lining them up on tables and hoping for the best. So, what they're doing

007right now is working together solving um and you as you can see or as you could see up there too, it's not just solving a side. So you're kind of it's almost counterintuitive because you're used to trying to make Bside one color, but really what you're doing is matching up different colors. So everyone is different. Um so it takes a little getting used to, but anybody can do it. We really can teach um anybody who wants to to do it and it's young me. So I you know and I can vouch when I first started um I just will never forget who's working on me and I'm like it's me. I would say they're probably they're all better than us at solving all of them. Yeah. And we've had, you know, these are different iterations

008of them now. And the kids, some of the kids that are up there are long gone. I think we started this in 2017. So, um, and some of those kids could solve in under 30 seconds. like they, you know, I don't really know how that happens, but like I said, they're all better at this than we are. I used to take the stickers off and try to tell when you're done. The corner and it's not solvable and everybody Yeah, that's frustrating. We're almost So is there a specific like left, right, up, down the you have to go there? Yeah. So it's algorithms that they have to learn. Um so usually um to teach it, you make the white cross. So you put your middle. You've got the middle don't go. So you pick that side

009and then you put the side pieces in first. It's easiest to put the corners in. And that's just a down over. Yeah. Up and around down, you know, and that puts the corners in. And that's like I said, we're only doing one layer here. We're only doing one side. So, um, but there were more algorithms to do the additional layers. Wow. We're almost there. You know, I wish we had something to stand it up, but maybe we can. I'll have a phone. Take a picture. Yeah, you can. It's going to be there so you can all So what's like the turnar around time like when you guys have an idea for for one of the pictures like how long is the time you put into making that picture come to the board? So unfortunately I

010end up doing a lot of the design because everybody kind of chickens out on it and I work on that. So sometimes they go quick and sometimes not. Like the the Lorax the kids did that one totally themselves. Um, so we have had some that they've done on their own. But, um, it's hard to say playing with it, designing it because I just do a little bit. I I I go away and don't look at it. I come back. But in terms of putting it all together, we start right after school. We're always done by about like what? 3:40ish. And that's with all the chatting that goes on, too. So, so almost 600 cubes. Yes. In less than two hours. Yes. Yes. And that's 25 cubes that they just did. And they have a little

011flower there. If anyone wants to get up and walk over and check it out, please do. All right. I can see it from where I am. And that was I don't know. It's only 6:09. So five minutes. Incredible job, guys. And Molly just too Oh, Molly just Oh, she's over by Molly's here, too. Can we get a picture of you guys all together? And we're taking requests. So, if there's somebody you want done or anything because sometimes we're sitting there saying, "What should we do?" And we kind of don't have ideas. So, please by all means. Can I ask one more question? Were any of you um students in the cubing club at the middle school with Mrs. Bridges? Are you guys all started in high school one? Okay, seventh grade. Very good. That's great.

012We were there when we went to the middle school, right? So, we took our show at the middle school one day and Mrs. Bridges organized the whole thing. So, we saw every kid in school and that kind of got some. But yeah, Aby's been our great high school recruiter and I'm very nice. Wow. Amazing job. Thank you guys so much for sharing with us. That's so cool. Mrs. Young, can we keep it and I'll return it to you tomorrow? Um, I'm going to stick around anyway, so yeah, don't worry. Yes, it could stay. Thank you very much. Uh, next up is public hearing and vote on school choice participation for 25.6. All right. Thank you. I think I have to go to the Do I have to open I have to open this. Correct. Yes.

013Okay. Uh, I'll entertain a motion to open the vote hearing on school choice participation for 2526 school year. So, second. All those in favor? All right. Thank you. So, um, I have some information to share um, tonight based on questions that were asked at our last meeting and some additional data that I've pulled together for everyone. So, I'm going to go quickly through these slides and then we can open it for discussion. Um, so one of the conversations that we've had recently is where are school choice students coming from? Um, as most of you know, we have currently have 238 school choice students. Um, that number increased just last month from 231 because we had two families that were originally here in Norton that ended up moving out of town, but they stayed as part

014of our district. So, the majority of our students come from two communities. They come from Taton, 106 students, and then Attabaro. We also have 14 students from Rahobath, uh 10 from Mansfield, eight from Rockton, eight from Rainband, um and then five from North Attboro. The Oh, I'm sorry, seven from East. The rest are more ones and twos, and often those are our staff bringing their own children with them from their home community. Um I also wanted to share some data around the difference between Norton students and our school choice students. And as you'll see today, there's really not a lot of differences between our Norton students and our school choice students. The numbers are pretty close. So, um, Norton enrolled students, we have 255 student 2,155 students versus our 238 school choice students. Um, the

015special education populations are are pretty closely aligned, 24.8 versus 26.5. um the number of students on 504s. We have 9.3% of our Norton students and then 5.4% of our um choice students. And then um we're up to actually 70 English learners here in Norton, which I was actually really surprised when I saw that number because when I started overseeing um the English language program, we had four students um and that has grown significantly and we actually have zero choice students that are considered elves. Um, I think it's almost like talking about the elephant in the room and um, I had a great conversation earlier this week with one of our school committee members and we were talking about the fact that there's a big perception that the school choice students are exhausting our system and

016what does that look like? Um, and so what we did is we pulled a little bit of data to kind of show uh the differences between Martin students and school choice students. And I think it's really important for us to remember that when we're having this conversation is that we're talking about kids and that you know um the large majority of our school choice families have been looking for an opportunity to provide their students with a better educational um chance and you know maybe they're living somewhere that's a little bit more urban or maybe they're working here and they want their children to be with them. They know how great their colleagues are and they want you know their children to have that experience. So I'm going to go through some special education data for

017you, um some intervention data, and then also some student discipline data. Um so this year, uh we have this is our total number of referrals for special education as a whole. Um and there are over 200. So 11% of those um are school choice, 88% is Norton, and about.3% are our homeless population. And so this is important for us to know that this includes all evaluations that are taking place throughout the course of the year. This is students that may be involved in a re-evaluation. We do those every 3 years for all students on an IEP. It could be an initial evaluation. Um it could be that we're just looking for more information about a student or perhaps that we think that maybe they needed um more of a of a structured placement. And so

018you can see when we take a look at this data, um, our residents are at the top left where school choice is at the bottom right. The re-evaluations are both in red. Um, 64% of our about 65% of our Norton students was a RIAL. About 58% of the school choice was a RIAL. Initials in both categories 21 versus 26. uh extended eval 1.2 versus 2.9 and then the additional information um was roughly around 12% for both groups. So nothing that's really sign statistically significant when we look at these numbers. Um and it's also you know one student or two students on an extended eval out of 63 is different than you know one or two students on an extended eval out of 500 plus. So then the percentages I think will help us look at

019that a little bit more closely. And of those evaluations that we did this year um 45% of our Norton students were found eligible and again this is not new eligibility. This is could be for students that were doing their re-evaluation and they were we found that they're still eligible versus 47% of um choice. 40 uh 16% of our Norton students were found not eligible versus 18% of choice. And then as you can see we still have between 30 to 40% of um eligibility statuses that have not yet been determined. So, they're either in an active placement and we're waiting for feedback or they're still going through that evaluate evaluation process. The IEP has not yet been signed. Um, I also pulled some information about um elementary interventions. Um, as you know, this year we had

020to see a reduction in our intervention services at the elementary level. We were able to bring back some support after the fall town meeting. Um, but it's a low percentage of students um that are receiving. I actually was honestly really surprised about some of these numbers. I was like, "Oh, I hope we're not missing anybody seeing that, you know, at LGN or JCS is only six or three stu school choice students that are receiving intervention." Um, and then obviously at the Yell School 33 total versus um four. That's because we only have that one interventionist at the Yale school right now. So, their ability to see, they can't see 82 students because they're only one person. Um, and then if you'll look at the discipline data, um, one of the great things that we have

021is something called Swiss S Swis. And what we do districtwide at all five schools is we update all of our student discipline data into the single system. So, we can pull all of our referrals. So, this year there's been 177 referrals. um 300 of the so and what I did too was I looked at okay how many kids does that really mean because while the Norton students have 960 referrals that's only 317 students right um versus 117 choice referrals that's 34 students um and I think the thing that's important for us to remember is every kid has a bad day um you know every kid can have one or two referrals so I wanted to make sure that we were showing like really what the number of students were and you can see the percentage

022of the resident students with referrals is 14.7 where the percentage of choice with referrals is 14.2 too. Again, very very close to each other when we're taking a look at some of this data. Um, so I've actually shared this data previously with the school committee and I wanted to make sure that I addressed some of these concerns here tonight. Um, I think there is definitely a lot of conversations that are happening in our school community about um, choice and about um, the ways that they're impacting our classrooms and our schools. So I I I did think this is important to share with you so you can all see that the numbers are pretty similar. The other big question that we always talk about is special education reimbursement. So my friend Karen Winsper is going to

023say there is way too much on this slide and it is very teeny tiny. I can't see her face but I'm sure she's not right now. Um, but what we've done in the past is that, okay, this is what we're getting for special education reimbursement. What we took that a step further this year, and I want to say thank you to Mrs. Hadfield and then to Mrs. Russo and to Miss Sanborn and and her office for pulling all this information together. What we did is we looked at every single choice student and the services that they were receiving. Then we talked about the actual cost. We looked at okay as you can see the first column says special education teacher where you guys see those dark heavy lines. Each time you see a dark heavy

024line like underneath um the third line down. So you see 76 19 38 and then you see two blank lines. You see a dark heavy line. Each heavy line denotes a different student. So tonight we're looking at one six different students. So we said, okay, what are we getting reimbursed for for the special education teacher? What are we getting reimbured for for the speech and language pathologist, occupational therapist, counseling, PT, BCBA or a paraprofessional? And then we said, what is the actual cost for that person? So Casey and Christine and Alex sat down and they said, okay, this is student number one. Who is their special education teacher? How many students are in that group? What is the hourly rate? If there are four students in a group, divide the hourly rate by four. So,

025I want you all to know the level of detail that went into this analysis. And um it was a huge amount of work, but I actually think it's it's really really beneficial so we can all see what the actual numbers are. So, as you can see, the first student um gets support from a special education teacher. We are re what we're reimbursed versus the actual cost. They also get counseling service, what we are reimbursed from the actual cost. And then you'll move across the column, the total cost to educate the child for special education, special education reimbursement, and the difference. So here you can say that see that we're paying or it's costing us [Music] $8224 more than what we are receiving in reimbursement. And if you do that for just one student you might

026get nervous but we did it for all 63. So, if we go down to the next student, what are we paying for the special education teacher versus what are we um what is our what is our cost versus what are we being reimbursed? And in that case, we're actually um collecting uh $1,200 more than it is costing us. I think you guys get how we did this and went through this. Um so as you can see student number three special education teacher and OT again in that case we are it's costing us more than we're being re reimbursed. Student four special education teacher only student five um special education teacher speech OT and BCBA support cost versus reimbursement. And then student six, special education teacher, speech, OT, counseling, PT. What is the cost versus the

027reimbursement? Now, I think the important thing for us to know is that these numbers are going to change all the time. If we were to do this each and every year, I might be working with one educator that is a veteran staff member and the next year my speech um therapists might be someone who's brand new to Nor. So those numbers are going to change and so what the cost for services versus the reimbursement is is is going to fluctuate year-over-year. Um but the total cost for services is $330,226.51. [Music] The total reimbursement is [Music] $353,9162, which is a difference to the good for Norton schools of $16,871. So, we are actually being reimbursed $16,000 more than we are spending to provide these services to these students. And the other thing I want to mention

028is that this does not include the $5,000 that we get for every single pupil that comes in through the school choice program. So that 63* 5 that is on top of these costs. Um there are there any questions about that before I move on because I know that's a lot of information. Okay. Um, one of the things we also did was we reached out to staff to see um, our staff interested in bringing their students to Norton for next year. And we also took a look at our current kindergarten enrollment to see how many of those students are siblings of current school choice students. So siblings, we have three um, rising kindergarteners at JCS and one rising kindergartener at LGN for a total of four. And then we have three staff members that are interested

029in bringing their children to school that are not currently siblings. So one in grade five, one in grade six, and one in grade eight. Um and then we have the recommendation. So based on the conversation that we had last time, um I'm recommending an additional two students in grade um two at LGN to take a look at those class sizes there. Um, as we've discussed before, the seventh graders um are our smallest cohort district one. Um, I'm thinking we can add two there. And then we also lose a number of students between 8th grade and 9th grade. Some students go to South Eastern Regional. Some students go to um Zarian or Bishop Fian. And so that is a total of seven spots. So we can open up for public comments um or any questions that

030the committee might have. So Dr. Wheel, you have seven spots as your recommendation, but it would be in addition to the staff members, correct? So, I think that's 14 total. So, four plus Yeah, seven. Yeah, 14 total. Um, I just want to thank the staff that put this together. I think this is the most detailed we've ever seen regarding this program. So, um, I know it was not easy for the staff, but I do commend them for their work. Um, this definitely puts a lot more into perspective when it comes to the program. So, thank you to to Casey, um, Sam, Mrs. Hadfield. So, um, just want to make sure we thank them and give them their credit where it's due. Agreed. I was going to say the same thing. I know I was the

031one who called for a lot of this information, but I think it's necessary when we're looking at our numbers here. Guess we'll open it up to any public comment. Awesome. All right. Any uh other questions, concerns, suggestions from the school committee? I just um I also just wanted to reiterate because I was also part of a lot of the conversations around school choice and um thank you to the whole admin team that put all of that time and effort and I think this is extremely helpful and I hope maybe going forward we can sort of continue with some of it just to be able to document and really know where school choice um openings are potentially there and um where we might want to holding back a little bit as well. Um, going forward, I

032do think that school choice is a benefit. Um, I just think that as a district, we need to find that number that's sort of in that sweet spot of where are we going to be able to provide the services and not put a strain on um staff and case loads. Um, so again, just wanted to say thank you. Thank you. I comment on absolutely just come on up. You said public comment. Hi, I'm Shannon Taylor. I am a special needs teacher at um the JC Solomon. Um there are so many other things that we could look at about what's exhausting teachers right now and it's not school choice. we, you know, having kids here and in our buildings. I I didn't even know some of my kids were school choice until I was like really

033looking at their IE and I was like, "Oh, wow. You don't live in North like it doesn't these kids bring so much to our community and just like every kid like right that's why we're here." This the significant strains that personally if I'm just talking myself, sorry Casey and Vinnie. Um is you know I have I have 17 students on my case load and one and I'm one special ed teacher. 17 and that's just me and I think I'm pretty great. But when you're looking at splitting me between seven, you know, 17 people, that's really hard. And I'm doing the best that I can, but we're trying to provide the service. And like today, I was pulled to sub for an hour and a half because we didn't have sub for an IEP meeting. Am

034I happy to do that? Yeah. I need I need to help my colleagues and this is an opportunity I could do that. And thankfully my district, my principal is doing a really good job of if I need to be pulled, I'm subbing for a classroom I'm already in. So I do get to kind of see my kids and provide some differentiation. But there's there's other things that we can certainly look at to be able to give time back to teachers so that we don't feel so stressed and burnt out and be able to find ways back in. But I don't think the school choice is necessarily the way. I really hope that like we can keep these conversations on how to keep moving forward so that we can reduce the stress load on not just

035the teachers but on the kids as well because I'm not my best self if I'm thinking about 16 other things the same way no no person is but I think that's where we'd like to be able to work with you guys on how to get there. Um I appreciate you guys looking to find ways to find the money like maybe it was somewhere maybe we could save all for that. We've been trying to figure this out for years. Um, but I think at times it's just that we we have a lot of kids that we're trying to provide support to and not just the special education referrals, but also like like Miss Dr. O'Neal, very sorry, Dr. O'Neal was saying, um, we have getting those interventionists back was massive for us, especially at JCF and

036LGN. So, I can see 27 kids in a class next year at Hay. That sounds stressful. Um, those are kind of the things that I would be looking at is how can we support that and how can we get some better early intervention so that we can get to these kids before we have to worry about it later down the line. Then I want as many kids as I can have. Please know that I love all of my students. The spring fling that was this past weekend just completely warmed my heart to see everyone running around and having such a great time. Having LGN, JCS and Hay together, wow, I was overwhelmed. Um, but that was it was you saw me Audrey my face was but I just want to like say again like there's

037so there's other things that we can think of and if you guys want to continue to work with us we really appreciate that because there is there are things we can do was let's just find the ways how do you follow that sorry Jen Barley I work at the JCF and I know it came up before about our school choice kiddos and staff and case load. And Shannon really hit on a lot of that. But when we're pulled to th it's not because of our school choice kiddos, it's because of a substitute problem. Um our school choice kiddos, they're just one of our kids. They're part of our community. They help create Norton in in our school system. And I think about some of the school choice kiddos that I've seen grow and mature and

038now they're at the high school level and they would not have had those possibilities if they didn't come to North. And as a parent, I can't imagine if if I were in the other parents shoes. So, we do really amazing things here in the Norton School District and I want to keep providing those services and like Shannon said, those kids are our kids. Bring them on all over. Um, but thank you for the breakdown. That was helpful to see and we're here to help support and work with you guys. any comments? Um, I mean, I just want to make sure we clarify one thing just because I feel like this always comes up. School choice, the students who are here and the siblings who are here are here for until they graduate with us. Um,

039so, you know, whatever we do with school choice, all the students who are here will remain in Norton schools until either they leave or they graduate. Um, and then I guess my only thing, Dr. O'Neal, would be, um, would you entertain taking second grade LGN, those two spots, and moving them to the high school and maybe like 10th grade. And why I say that is again those class sizes are you know whatever 18 for for both uh well I guess it's a little bit bigger at at JCS but I feel like just moving those we know we have the the um siblings coming in for kindergarten I feel like we're going to kind of backfill a little bit already on that side of things. Um, and then again, the nice thing about doing it a

040little bit later where we do have a lot of our students go to, you know, whether it be FE or Southeastern, uh, that 8th to 9th grade, um, and filling it at the high school level to me makes a little bit more sense. Um, you know, just because again, class sizes as they get a little bit bigger to me, it's just a little different. Um, so I don't I'm not against doing seven. Um, I would just entertain or look at would would you be open to moving that to a 10th? I think we have two options. So, we could add two and 10th and make it actually nine based on my poor math the other day. Um, or we could move those second we can take the spots out of second grade and move it

041to grade 10. Um, I'd say it's really what the committee thinks is best and um, we can go from there. I think my thoughts on it are I I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind adding more spots. I It is what it is. I would say we could add the two spots at the high school and keep the two at the LG because in in my thought process with school choice is if the kids are here at a younger age then they're more likely to stay versus we may not get too many new kids at the high school level versus at the LG level. Um but I mean I whatever vote is is going to be put in front of me will be a yes for me. So that's just a matter of semantics on the

042number. Any other thoughts? I mean, we definitely get to have the space at the high school. My recommendation for the second grade was to just make those numbers a little bit more consistent across those two buildings. The JCS will be about 21.4 as the average class size versus we have a um you know the LGN will be 18. So even those two spots it would be 18 or 19 in those um classrooms. But that is certainly up to the committee. I agree with Dan. I mean, I I would I would be fine with adding two for 10th grade, but I I would be fine with leaving the two for second grade as well. I'd rather see with the high school. I'd also rather see that high school. So, we can keep the number seven and

043move the two from LGN to the high school. And I mean, I guess I would even be opposed that I mean, if we just did a quote unquote five at the high school between ninth and tth grade, you know, I think that would all maybe give us a little bit better chance. I don't know. Um, you know, so if it was five and n or three and two or two and three, I feel like that would be a little bit better. Um, and then obviously, you know, seventh grade being a smaller class, it kind of makes sense, but some there. I'd have to look and see if we could do it this way, but we might be able to say five in grades nine and 10. So, like depending on what way the enrollments come

044in, if you had four ninth graders and one 10th grader, you could do that. Um, I'll have to double check um legally if we can do it that way, but I don't see why not. So if we say five at the high school in grades nine and 10 that would bring our number to eight I believe. And then um one more thing here and I know this is an issue across a lot of districts. Um, I would love for us to put some serious pressure on students who are going to school in Norton but do not live here. Um, and again, I know legally there's some challenges to it, but I would really like to see a push from administration to make sure uh I would be honestly open to turning those kids into school

045choice immediately. Um, and then that way we're actually getting some money back from them and some reimbursement. So I would be open to also entertaining of you know giving a final hey this is your last call and then if we do catch people who are not residents in Norton but attending school here and they're not a part of the school choice program um we we try to do a little bit a followup there. Yeah that's definitely something that we're working on. Um it's difficult because legally we don't have a lot of anything behind us is really what it comes down to. So um those are some conversations that we're having. That's great. Had a quick question. Is there a significance to the nine or seven number? Is that the lowest you can go or because

046when you did you have to move them for two to the high school or like to maintain that number or you could go down any number you could go down to well you could go down to zero but that has consequences but I mean like you could go down to one so there wasn't there was no need to really shuffle them you just could just the original number the original seven was just based on recommendations and I apparently couldn't do math earlier this week and said 2 plus two was nine so It's been a while. Must have been a long week. And the recommendations are based on the class sizes and the or what was the number coming from like what was the decision on? My recommendations were just based on current class size, what

047we're projecting for next year and just data trends and how we know kids are coming and going. Thank you. Welcome back. Great to be back. uh DAS by Madra. Um I I apologize. I have not followed any of this since last so I'm a little out of the loop. Um I I wanted to ask and it's all well and good that we've done the special ed um analysis. Have we done an analysis on the non-special ed? Have we figured out first of all it's profitable? I I believe it is. I think I've historically been an advocate of of school choice as you know. Um that being said, at the same time, and I think this will be kind of near and dear to the next five, that $5,000 number hasn't moved in 1983 93 93

048sorry 83 93 doesn't matter that right. So there is going to there is going to come a time when there's there's an inflection point where or maybe there's not if there's an inflection point of okay when we reach this number of kids we're no longer profitable. we should know what that number is. And if there's not an inflection point, we should know what that number is, too. Because it's there is a possibility that there is actually an theoretically infinite number of kids that we can add because if we can add enough kids and still hire a teacher under that, we may want to look at that, right? It's a revenue stream. So, we should know is this revenue stream profitable or not? And where does that profitability stop? And and I'm surprised Nick has not

049said this yet because he used to say it all the time. We need to start pressuring the state and saying that $5,000 number is the wrong number. It's not even close any and and I and I do think that it's still profitable because of the, you know, the variable and fixed costs that I talked about forever. But that being said, it's not going to be profitable forever because costs go up. At some point, that 5,000 is going to become not enough to to meet the needs of each of these kids. So I guess my two things are first of all you got a impression of the state that number has to go up and the second part is you really need to do a full analysis of the entirety of the program to see where

050it's profitable or where it's not etc. And maybe seven's not the maybe 17 is the way. Maybe we can actually add more. And I get, Jen, you're doing it on a class size and trying not to increase the class sizes. But there is the possibility we can add a whole new class with a whole new teacher. And if it's profitable, do it at some point. There's there's the education part of this, but there's the business part of this, too, right? This is school choice is not something that we do because we're, you know, we're being altruistic and we love the neighboring towns. We're doing it because we want to bring in revenue and we want to maximize that revenue as much as we can. That's it. Nice to see you guys. Way nicer places than

051you were just at the wrong meeting. DZ Nick always says the numbers too low. Yeah. I mean, I think to Denz's point, I kind of had a a conversation with Jenn about this earlier. You know, if you want to stay with me for a second from a money standpoint, right, we have 63 kids who are in our special ed program, plus the $16,000 in reimbursement, plus the $5,000 that we get from the state. That's $331,000 that we get from our special ed students on school choice. That leaves us 168 general ed edits. That's $5,000 a piece. We don't get anything else from them. That's $840,000. So if you take those two numbers, it's $1.171 million in school choice funding. You know, now again, me and DZ have had some good conversations around per pupil spending

052in Norton. Um, you know, and again, 19 or or just shy of 20,000. Um, you know, we're at the Desi website. You know, I've obviously had some conversations with Dr. O'Neal about this as well. You know, but if we look at even if we're spending $12,000 per student, you know, if you take those 231 kids, take the $5,000, they're costing Norton $7,000 to come here. Now, again, back to Danza's point of filling classrooms and kicking the lights on and teachers and so on and so forth. Um, you know, but that's $1.617 million. I mean the difference by just doing it that way if we only spend $12,000 per student in Dortmund you're looking at on paper we're actually running a deficit you know from school choice standpoint now without the full analysis it's very difficult

053to find out exactly where that falls you know how many kids and what is that exact number um I just have always gone back I know we have a lot of smart teachers here we have a outstanding administrative staff we have 231 kids in our school choice program. The closest district to us is 75. You cannot tell me there's not another district sitting there being like, "This is so profitable. All these districts are struggling for money. Why haven't they opened up for school choice and have flooded their their school schools school choice students?" You know, I know Mansfield just opened it. They're they're you know, obviously way far behind. And again, we've done this for a while. We kind of maybe if you want to say we jumped ahead of it a little earlier than

054most. Uh, but I do think, you know, I something something's got to give here. And I and, you know, I think that number is just extremely high. So, I think, and again, I'm not against choice. I've said this a thousand times over and over again. A lot of these kids, you know, friends with their parents and they're, you know, involved in baseball and everything else. Um, you know, it's it's not that. It's the simple fact of is is this actually worth it? Is it is it worth adding to sh even if it's three? We added three school choice students to Shannon's uh you know case load. That's now 17. That's now down to 14. You know, now again, we're not people will never get removed. Oh, but if we kind of freeze it for a

055little bit here, let us catch up a little bit. Let us get to a good point. I feel like that might be the right move. U but again, it's it's kind of impossible to tell until you run every single report and know every little thing and know how much you know each kid is 100% cost. So hello Laura Gossip the 9 Allen drive. I I have a couple of questions that I'm just wrapping my brain around trying to understand. Okay. So when we're talking about per pupil expenditure that is the total operational cost of everything divied up amongst the student population. Yes. Okay. So in theory, if those 231 students didn't exist, the per pupil expenditure would still be there. It would just be higher because it would be divvied out amongst this student population

056versus this student population. Correct? Am I right on that? Okay. Um, so then in theory, in theory, if we're going to use the 12,000 as an example, how much approximately would that $12,000 be that is completely consumable, non-refundable, that that child walks away with, i.e. workbooks, school supplies, paper, things like that that actually get burned up. not electricity, not any of that because as we've said that stuff continuously exists. What I'm curious is an approximate amount of money that that child actually costs that goes away that doesn't exist anymore. So, what would we say about $500 of things that like how I'm just just wrapping my brain around this idea of per pupil expenditure, population, what those numbers actually really are in terms of this idea of there being a deficit versus not a deficit,

057like hard money that actually goes away. I think I can't really answer that because to Denz's point and this was something that we talked about last year as well is we don't have not done the analysis analysis of what that number would be right so I'm looking at you know the school choice numbers that we have here right now um you know JCS third grade we have five school choice students LGN third grade we have eight school choice students neither of those grade levels would change in terms of the number of teachers that we have there because you wouldn't be able to cut a whole class for that. Fourth grade, we have 21 school choice students. Perhaps you could cut a whole teacher there. So, I I think it's not a black and white answer

058because you would have to go through and kind of figure that piece out. um what what do we spend on curriculum and supplies and paper towels and toilet paper and all of like all of those things that you know are the hard money the actual hard money. Correct. It's it's really not 12,000 in in our 12,000 world. Correct. like that unless it it comes down to adding or subtracting staff that that's where the where the hard but that but the way that this has been deliated out that's not so much the thing maybe minus that one fourth grade staff member in theory correct in theory. and theory and theory. Okay. Thank you. All right. Between last meeting and this meeting, we've kind of hashed this whole thing out. Um, someone want to make a motion.

059So, we got to person. Um, I would vote and then close it because um, the vote is part of the hearing. Perfect. Make a motion to approve the superintendent's school choice recommendation as presented. So move. You can do you second it. Yes. Because he made the motion. Motion. Yes. So second motion by Dan, seconded by Sher. So all those in favor of supporting Dr. McNeil's recommendation. Is that the 10 or or what was on? Oh, that's Dan is going with what the recommendation was. So the recommendation that from Jen, but it was on this paper, not my little thing about two moving two people. So the motion that Dan is reading is a recommendation from Superintendent O'N which is the numbers you have. So we have a motion by Dan, a second by Sher. All

060those in favor? I I two. All those opposed I. So, that motion fails. Do we have another motion? Um, all right. I motion to do um the amended school choice numbers with seventh grade as two and then ninth and 10th grade as five, seventh grade, second seven. I thought we were talking, right? And that was move to n. You should do me a favor. do that motion over and just read how many students in each grade so everyone knows this official public record. Okay. So, I motion um for school choice for the following 202526 school year to include when we go grade by grade, first grade 0, second grade zero, third grade 0, fourth grade 0, fifth grade 0, sixth grade 0, seventh grade 2, eighth grade zero, ninth and 10th grade five. Second. All

061those in favor? Three. So that motion passes. All those opposed. Two. So that motion passes. Three to two. School choice is good to go. The third motion. Thank you. All right. Yes. And I will take a motion to close the public hearing on school choice participation. Second. All those in favor? All right. Uh, now we're back into public comment period um for our normal April 16th agenda. Is there anybody in the public who has anything to say? Good. Moving on. Uh, vote to approve the minutes of March 26, 2025 open session meeting. School committee. Everyone get a chance to review the minutes. I'll entertain a motion to approve. So second. All those in favor? I. Uh Mr. Cohen with warrants. I've reviewed and approved the following warrants. School expense warrant March 26, 2025 $39,993.88. School

062payroll warrants March 20th, 2025. 1,140,6.7. I wish to enter that into public record. Well done. Just I would just about to say the last warrant read. Thank you. Um next up, uh just Antonio with a student rep update. All right. Good evening everyone. Um from the GCS. Last week our second graders had the opportunity to work with staff with science and engineering education development seed, Inc. on designing prosthetics for injured dogs. Teams of second grade students work together on coming up with a design using available resources and then had a chance to test their designs on stuffed dogs. This week, our entire our entire school community is gearing up for your JCS fun run which is being held outdoors through the school day. Parents and guardians will have the opportunity to come and cheer on

063their students as they run. And then from the yell, this week we are getting ready for break. Students are doing are doing well finished things up before uh before the vacation. This week is our final of our 2025 ST March Mathness tournament with our 15 home rooms all matched up against one another in a bracket style tournament competing. We're looking for each student to do their 60 required puzzles per week with the class with the better percentages moving on to the next round. The first round has home rooms from fifth grade versus fourth grade and our final two home rooms for Miss Lean's fourth grade and Miss Hannon/M Winter's fifth grade home room. It's been an intense battle and we'll be crowning our 2025 SD Mark Mathist Champion after this week's final competition. Couple weeks

064ago, our students did a fantastic job on their ELA MCAST putting in excellent effort effort taking their time and making sure they answered all the questions and all parts of the open responses. During the MCAT days, our students start the morning with a morning recess, then a snack in the cafeteria with all their friends. and we moved their specials to the afternoon so that the day is pretty enjoyable one for our students and they deserve it for the effort they put in. We are so proud of them. Last Friday night, April 11th, we had our Hey PTO music bingo event. There are prizes, concessions, music, and lots of family fun. It was a great night for all those involved. After break, we are getting ready for our math MCAST for both grades and science mcast

065for fifth grades. All we ask again is for our students put their put forth their best efforts. And then from the middle school, middle school sports are in full swing with both our basketball and softball teams off to good starts the season. The girls are currently undefeated and the boys only only lost this season came in an extra inning yesterday when they lost 1-0. MCAT season is well underway at NMS and all three have completed the ELA portion of the exam. Clubs continue to roll along with the N at NMS with many of our clubs doing some cool and exciting things. Our woodworking club recently finished their American flag projects. The Ruby Skew Club recently finished their latest Rubik's Cube portrait of Mr. Abdul which is on display in the rotunda. The literary magazine club

066is getting ready to publish their magazines of student work in the drama club is creeping closer to their showtimes for Annie on June 5th, June 21st, sorry, June 22nd and June 23rd. Uh, a group of students led by Benson Chang and Lee traveled out to the Florest Grove Middle School in Worcester to do a workshop for the playbook initiative and project 351. Approximately 30 students travel to Worcester to discuss issues related to race, bias, and discrimination. This trip served as an eye-opening educational experience for both groups of students. Lastly, NMS is working on gathering materials for our time capsule and getting ready to open our time capsule, which is has been buried by the flag pole for the past 25 years. And then last but not least, from the high school, the big thing at

067the high school this week is a battle of the grades. Um, the seniors are winning by a lot right now. Um, students have been dressing up for spirit days all week with battle of with the battle accumulating in in Friday's half day where students will compete against each other in activities to earn their grace points. Seniors have been winning for the past two years now. Just saying. There will be a pep rally at the end of the day counting the winning grade. We also have 35 industry, schools, and other organizations going to present for juniors and seniors at the opportunity for tomorrow. That's all I have for you. Thank you very much. Uh we're going to skip the next agenda item uh on AED. So, we're going to go directly to number eight, which is

068uh updates on Reed's uh DHH program. Dr. O'Neal and Mrs. Maderas. All right. Thank you. I'd like to invite my colleague Dina Maderos up um to the podium to share some info about the reads program. Thank you, Dr. O'Neal, and thank you to the school committee members. Uh this is actually a presentation that I um created for the board of directors for Raids collaborative. Um Norton is one of our esteemed members as are 19 other communities as of um July 1st. We have added Whitman Hansen and uh Brockton city of Brockton as among our members. Uh one of uh the programs that we are very proud of is the Reed's uh deaf and heart of hearing program. For the past 10 plus years, the Reed's deaf and heart of hearing program has been hosted by

069your community by Norton public schools. As a relatively new executive director, I became the executive director July of 2023. I was told uh very clearly uh by the program director at the time, Dena, we love being in Norton and it is a wonderful relationship. Our kids love it, our staff loves it. Whatever you do, preserve this relationship. It's been so rewarding and um we are more than pleased to be part of your wonderful community and to be accepted by your staff and students and administration. Um I was sad to hear that over the years that hasn't always been the case for the deaf and heart of hearing program. uh the deaf and hearted hearing program has been housed in other communities or different portions of the program and they haven't always felt the warmth and

070the warm welcome that you all provide for them. Uh and that means a lot. It means a lot when you're on the fringe when you aren't always able to communicate with all the adults and the peers. Some of our staff are also deaf. So, I can't say enough about all the wonderful things I heard about Norton. And I can honestly say after being the executive director for a year and a half and then some um everything I heard was clearly not an exaggeration. So um again a sincere gratitude for all that Norton has done to work collaboratively with Reeds. As uh I started with uh Reeds, it did become apparent that um space has become an increased issue. The read deaf and heart of hearing program is continuing to grow. There is a continued need

071for our services. Uh as well as there's continued need within your own district for providing specialized services for your students as is the right thing to do. It it is to keep students within your own community and as such more and more communities are building programs within. So students that you would typically send out of district, you're trying to keep in your district. It's it saves money and it's the right thing to do for kids. So absolutely the right thing. So we have our program growing. We do need a couple of additional uh classrooms, but we also have Norton uh needing the spaces that we uh currently use. So, what I have here is just a synopsis. For those of you who don't know me, I probably can't talk a dog off a meat wagon.

072So, I will try to speed it up from here on out. Uh, and just letting you know the situation and how it became apparent to me. Again, historically, I can only go back till July 2023. So, just to kind of present uh Reed's deaf and hearted hearing program by the numbers uh here in Norton. When I did present this, I I did also include that we have a program at BP and you'll see that that's delineated. Uh but currently for this school year and the numbers as of 129, which really are similar numbers uh for right now, we do have uh two or three pending referrals, but we are currently still at 52 students enrolled prek to grade 12 within um the whole program. Keeping in mind seven students are at BP. So you have

07345 here um physically in Norton. In preschool there are nine students. We don't uh typically have our preschool students included in any of the mainstream classes in Norton simply because our little ones are really just trying to acquire um language. Some of them have parents who are hearing, some of them have parents who are deaf. Uh but they really are trying to just acquire the basic foundation skills for language and having that substantially separate um class time is really what they need. They might see friends potentially um at recess or playtime, but it's not really an inclusive program. The rest of the programming K through 12, we do try to offer uh inclusive opportunities and we are grateful for for that opportunity. That really is what makes our program stand out. Um, in our area

074and in the state of Massachusetts, we just had uh a family uh travel from another state from Washington state actually. They're traveling to different states to see which program would be best for their child and they want to and they are willing to move to whatever state will provide the programming for their child. So programming for death and heart of hearing is difficult to come by. The state does have a few programs uh but none within southeastern Massachusetts that are comprehensive as the program through reads. So um you can see by the numbers that um here are our classrooms. Our K1 class has eight students and we do have students participating in specials and two attend meeting grades um two three. Our classes are multi-grade. We usually have at least two grades uh within the

075classrooms. Our 23 um classroom has six students and two are participating in partial inclusion and all students get to participate in specials. Grades four, five, there are three students uh for those classroom uh for that grade level. There's one full inclusion and one who's fully included and uh two students who only attend specials. Grades six through eight, we have eight students. Three are fully included, three partially included, meaning they go out for certain subjects and um and specials and things like that, and two students who only attend specials. Grades 9 through 12, uh there are 18 students. Five are included in six out of seven classes. So, they have an academic support class separate from uh full inclusion. It's generally considered full inclusion. Six out of seven. uh three and four out of seven classes

076are being included and one and two out of seven classes for total high school uh numbers and then we have seven fully included at BP. As far as staff members that are part of our program, we have 10 full-time teachers. We have 13 full-time specialized assistants thanks to the opportunity for inclusive um opportunities for our students. When I started, we had 13 or 14 interpreters. That's only a year and a half ago. We now have 17 full-time interpreters and two part-time interpreters to be able to provide that access for our students. And we have four full-time specialists. That includes SLPs, speech language pathologists, SLPAS, assistants to speech and language pathologists, and counselor. Here are the building spaces that we currently occupy within your district. Uh we have I always mispronounce this school's name JC. Call

077it JCS. JCS. Okay. Thank you. Uh at JCS we have three classrooms. We have a prek classroom. We have a classroom for K1 and a classroom for 23. We have an additional classroom space that's used for speech and language literacy and counseling. Kind of break up that area with some dividers. Uh and then there's an additional OTP room space. may not be necessarily um the full capacity of a classroom. At the uh Henry A. Yell Elementary, we have two classrooms for grades four through five. We have one classroom with classroom space which is you uh which is housed for our uh administrative staff, our program director, team chair, secretary um coordinator of um and interpretation etc. And we also have one speech uh literacy counseling all specialist kind of space room. At the Norton Middle

078School, we occupy two classrooms for our grades uh 6 through 8. There's also one additional specialized service space. It's actually 0.5. It's shared with the technology department. And then we have one additional OTP space. At Norton High School, we have for grades 9 through 12, it's the media room space. It's not really a full classroom, but um it is sufficient for the needs that we have. Uh in addition to it, it's like an outgo and it has two other, you know, attached spaces that we use for speech and language, building literacy skills, counseling room spaces. Um and again, those none of those spaces would equal a full classroom size. uh but they are um useful unique spaces that we access and at BP we have uh some spaces there total for uh building space uh

079being accessed we have 10 classrooms uh that we access in Norton and we have 6.5 additional spaces for specialists and we truly are embedded in uh the Norton community. We have a student who plays on the basketball team uh with support through interpretation. We have a cheerleader on your team. We have our students who my understanding also are in band in middle school. I believe I've heard woodworking mentioned uh for an afterchool activity. Uh we have there's a play. I'm not sure which one, but we have a couple of students either participating or helping out with the play. uh our students are everywhere and again you wouldn't even try out you wouldn't go for any of these things if you didn't have a level of comfort to even try. So the benefit to that is

080truly that continuity. They're here from prek through high school. So by the time you get to middle school you have the courage to try out for an activity or an area of interest or an extracurricular. that really means a lot to a student. And that's why, you know, when I first came along, they're like, you really want to preserve that. Not many programs like this have that continuity of prek through high school, of getting to know a community and feeling like you're a part of of um what's going on and that you develop friendships. Kids know who you are. Um here when the space concerns arise I did get detailed and then of course I have myself listed like on Bob Dole for those of you that are my age you'll know that reference but

081those of you who don't look it up. So when I came on in July August um I was informed by Dr. Craig, who was my predecessor, uh, the executive director for Reeds, who was in the process of retiring, that DHH, here's the priority for you, Dina. DHH only has a one-year contract right now in the books, which means that um, we won't have a place to live after June 24th, unless we come up with some plan, hopefully an extension with Norton because um, we feel that that's such a strong relationship. Dina, if you don't mind, I'm gonna jump in for just a minute just to save everybody long story. Um, so the biggest concern that I had when I met with um with Dena was specifically around two spaces. Um, number one um the high

082school uh Norton High School. Right now, our REIT students are in what we call at or what we called at one point the TV studio. It's a very interesting shaped space of um three smaller rooms that were actually designed during the addition and renovations to be a TV studio for our um video and media students. And so it's three small little spaces and it has actually worked very very well for for the DHH programming for their students because they have little small workup like breakout spaces. Um but what we are seeing is an increase in um our specialized programs at the middle school needing to move on to high school. And as everyone who works at the high school knows, while we just did an addition and renovation 10 years ago, we really weren't looking

083forward I think to some of the needs of you know educating students 10 to 15 years down the road. Um, additionally, JCS right now we are, you know, pretty much at maximum capacity there. Um, but one of the things that we've found is that we need additional classroom space for some of our best programs and LBC classrooms. And so therefore, when I share that information and Dina and Rebecca shared that they also need an additional preschool classroom because they're growing. Well, 2 plus 2 equals four and we can't make space out of nothing. So just for I don't want you to worry about going through the whole process. So if you want to talk about the the new building. So what it came down to and what I um explained in the next few slides

084were the efforts made and the communication that was ongoing. Um and we have been talking through this since I began 2023. Yes. And we met actually met in July of 23 because we were both in the new superintendent induction program together. So correct we spent a lot of time together and I have said to the DHH program uh to our staff because they're like we don't want to leave. And I said well none of us want you to leave. I don't think Norton wants us to leave and we don't want to leave Norton. Um but there is a space concern and a space issue. Uh so as we tried to figure out how things could work and again I can't say enough wonderful things about the superintendent you have and her level of compassion as

085well as wanting to keep this relationship going. I think if it had been a new superintendent in Norton that didn't have the historical perspective of DHH program, I don't think she would have tried as hard, especially as a brand new superintendent, which is a a big role and I've commented my appreciation repeatedly. Um, we did look at different things that we can do. Um, I did my due diligence and I know um, Dr. O'Neal did her due diligence. Uh, they've tooured spaces. We've looked at every nook and cranny and we were able to work out an extended contract for yet another year which would conclude now in June, June 2025. So we were able to squeeze out another year um but with the clear indication that another year after that may not be um squeezed

086because of the needs from both um communities from both programs. And what I did is I tried to find room within our other member districts and we were not able to be successful with that because everyone is jam-packed within our member districts. I reached out to everyone. No one had room. I reached out to non-member districts. I reached out to Mansfield. I reached out to Easton. I reached out because we also want to stay within a regionalized area. It really became apparent that, you know, we really need to think outside the box. And uh our program director was like, "Hey, let's see if we can actually find a neutral space and maybe we can still access a community and bring our kids for inclusive opportunities if we can somehow magically find a place that would

087be close enough." So, we started looking and like a little Christmas wish, a building did appear right before Christmas break in Norton and it's um only a few miles, not even a a a mile from JCS and we looked into it and uh I don't want to bore you with everything, all the pieces, sharing it with our board uh and expressing the need. Uh the board yesterday did approve for us to go ahead and sign a PNS agreement and we um have executed a PNS agreement as of this afternoon. So I can actually tell you the property is at 399 Old Colony Road, Norton. Uh it's actually next to a very nice bakery, which is probably not a good thing for me, but uh it will it will uh certainly be a wonderful opportunity for

088the DHH program. It was used as an adult uh learning facility, so it's already divided into classrooms. It will need some cosmetic upgrades. And again, we've looked into all those pieces and done our due diligence before going into any kind of agreement for it. Um I can tell you, uh the benefits certainly outweigh our other opportunities. We don't have another place to live. So, if we are able to, which we've been approved to purchase this building, which fiscally we are in decent shape as a collaborative to be able to purchase the building, it will be a um a five-year uh loan. And um we will be able to move as of September 2025 all of our classrooms from JCS to free up JCS for your students and your um town needs and we will be

089able to free up the high school which I've been referring to as the bookends. What we are planning to do is we still want to give our kids all those inclusive opportunities as much as possible. So, we are going to also be purchasing two vans through Reed. So, we'll manage our own transportation for these two vehicles. And we already have staff that have volunteered, uh we have people that will be able to be licensed to drive these vans. And we um through our good relationship and talking to staff and administration uh we have the support of the Norton administration to carefully work through a schedule so we can minimize the transportation of our students. So our students can be included say all everything they need is in the morning and then they come to us

090in the afternoon for a little bit or you know whatever the student needs based on their IEP we are going to carefully orchestrate by making sure that they access that. Maybe our students get dropped off as they normally do in advance and they get included and then we go pick them up for whatever portions they need outside of your buildings. Again, for those grades, grades four through eight appears to be sufficient space and projections look good when I spoke with Dr. O'Neal that we could carve out a three-year um contract. When we looked at that and we looked at um that is the picture of the building. Um, when we looked at the expenses, we currently were projecting that we would pay Norton for a rental fee for the FY budget of 130,000 for the

091spaces. And what we discussed with um our business manager and meeting with Dr. O'Neal and her business manager and also meeting with Miss Russo is that we want to make sure that we're not jipping any of you because we are accessing your curriculum. We are accessing your inclusive practices that we in in discussing it with my business manager, we're like, "All right, 130,000 for the spaces. we're not going to need some of those spaces because we no longer need JCS and we won't need the high school, but we want those inclusive opportunities for our students. What would be the fairest way because we want to make sure that we're compensating uh our partners and uh it was discussed that we would pay 50% per pupil cost for ed, you know, for the students. So, in

092other words, instead of like nickel and dimeming, okay, this student is only going for two classes and that's going to be this portion of per pupil and you know what I mean and doing those kinds of things, just flat out every one of our students um that's tied to Norton would we would pay 50% of the per pupil costs and that that means like our preschool, you know, our um K through 12 students that are going to be accessing it and that actually means means that the funding for next year would be $229,98. So, you would actually keep your classes, but you'd be getting more money for including our students, if that makes sense. And we're still working through the contracts. We haven't signed anything yet. We haven't signed anything. We would really like a

093three-year contract so people could sleep at night, but so I just wanted to mention that nothing has been cut. Nothing has been. We're still working through that. But it's been, you know, as um Mrs. Madro said, it's been a great partnership to kind of think about ways, creative ways to keep reads here in district and to um continue to have them as part of our school community. And I ideally we would love to stay in Norton. Um if it turns out that you can't continue to house us and we need to be able to maybe try and be included in another community. It gives us a little more time to be able to do that as well. There are a couple of other member districts that would love to have the program and have said

094you know we you know we love the program. We love reads. We just don't have the room but we are in the process of building a school. we may be able to in two to three years. You know, we're redistricting uh based on a building uh that we just were able to get in one of our districts and they said we just need time to redistrict what we're doing and settle ourselves. We may be able to take on some of the programming. So there's never any security when you're a collaborative because you do rely on being able to be welcomed and accepted in different communities if you're going to give your students those inclusive um opportunities. And our students for the most part I mean they do have multiple disabilities sometimes. Sometimes they you know

095have the hearing loss or are deaf and may have a learning disability but many times they're very typical students like anyone else. they just happen to have a hearing impairment. Uh so we want to be able to be in a community that provides those inclusive services. Ideally, that's what we want. Um so as Mrs. Madera said, um we are going to be working with them. Um the board just approved yesterday the purchase of this building. Um so this is, you know, basically hot off the presses. I'm sure you guys went right to work as soon as we got off that call. Um, but what we'll be looking to do is looking at the student schedules at Norton High School, um, and figuring out a way that they don't have to come back and forth from

096this new, um, space multiple times a day. Um, and we've also, you know, made the commitment that um, they will have a space while they're there. It just might fluctuate from um, block to block based on what is available. So they would have a space if students are not in um included in a in a classroom. But the way the schedule rotates and flips that they they you know need to hang out for an hour before their next class or you know have their academic supports. We can do that within our own space. Um we'll do the same thing at JCS for these students. Um as you saw at the beginning of the presentation a lot of them are are all included in specials. So perhaps we are placing them in classrooms where we we'll

097have to be creative with the schedule and be strategic. Okay, that this third grade classroom and this second grade classroom are all going to have specials at the same time just to kind of help with that scheduling piece. Um we're very fortunate that um not only is it right next to Flaky Crust Pies, but it is literally about a 3minut drive from JCS to their new building. So um I I really, you know, as Mrs. Madira said like having the inclusion opportunities for for the reads students is so important and for those of us who are educators that have seen this program over the years and what a impact it has on our school community for our Norton students for the Reed students um it's it's just an incredible incredible program and I really did

098not want to see it walk out the door so um there is going to be a lot of collaborative planning in in, you know, the coming months as we're, you know, finalizing what this is going to look like. Um, the Yell and the middle school are going to remain as is uh for the time being and then we will, you know, as things come up and it we'll go from there. Administration that is currently taking space at the L will actually be at the new building. So, they will have the administration there. So, that actually frees up an additional space there. Yeah. So, and that and that's great, too, because as you said, it frees up another space and maybe we could do something with that. Um, otherbody has any questions, concerns? I mean, I

099think this has always been a positive partnership. Um, you know, been around as long as I've been on the board here and I and I think maybe you remember this, Dr. Maybe you share that. I believe we did a survey of students on on like world language offerings a few years back and ASL is by far the top choice because a lot of our students being compassionate wanted a way to better communicate with our guests. Not that they were treated like guests, but they knew that they had disabilities. And unfortunately, we weren't able to work something out to kick off that. But maybe that's a future plan. But it was it was I remember the presentation. It was overwhelming to see not only are our students accepting, you know, our guests, but now they want

100to be really in tune with them and and become uh able to communicate with them. So, it was it was, you know, upsetting when we couldn't get the program kicked off, but it was it was a remarkable, you know, occurrence that our students wanted to take things further with some of our guests. Um, it's been wonderful because over the years Reeds has offered a number of times free um, sign language classes for Norton staff and I know a large percentage of our staff have at least taken the very intro one. So that's really amazing as well. Any other questions? Um, I think the first thing is I'm glad that there's a logistical plan to obviously keep the kids included, you know, within Norman public schools, if you will. Um, Jen, Christina, I guess what does

101this kind of mean um for FY26 budget and then obviously three years down the road, what is I guess kind of what is this all going to look like? Um so as I mentioned earlier nothing has been finalized in terms of the contract but we're working um Christine has taken the lead on this with um the business manager from Reeds Lindsay and they've been working um you know back and forth on this. So ultimately what it would mean is that we would be taking in funds um not necessarily through facilities as we have in the past but instead through that tuition line. Um I believe the committee may recall um a couple meetings ago we talked about that one student we have from Dyon Rhobit that attends one of our specialized programs and we accepted

102tuition um from Don Hobith in order to have that student here. That would be very similar to with the way that we set this up. Um but those are logistics that quite honestly until the contract settled we haven't kind of um really looked at it too much. And it's important to note that while we will be taking in money from tuitions, we will be losing money in rentals. So, it's um it's definitely a benefit I think for everyone involved, but um until we really finalize those numbers, it's hard to kind of say. And then what is the I'm just reading this quickly like it said Norton per pupil assumptions 200 just called $230,000 using 50%. So, I'm assuming 50% is going to reads 50% potentially is coming to Norton. Is that correct? Correct. And then

103that number $230,000 is divided by T number 45. 45. So the number of students that are included in the program. So what does that equal out to for double check we used the number that was on the DESI website. It's the foundation budget per pupil. It's not the um 18,000. So okay. What what do we have 45 from the program? So So it's it's basically you you also are taking out the preschoolers because they won't be accessing anything. True. So you're taking out probably around $5,000. So now you're looking at like 36 students if you're going by the current estimate of who we have now. And what we determined was you can only estimate by what you currently have for population. Correct. So we're using um current numbers to assess for next year and then

104we similar to the way we do school choice. Um but as as Dina mentioned it is well I'm sorry as Christine mentioned it is the foundational budget for people that is a number from the department of education. Okay I'll wait for my questions anything else. Thank you very much. Much appreciated. Thank you very much. I don't know how to get on this. All right. I was not hired for my tech skills. Absolutely. Uh, hi. My name is Rachel Kierney. I'm an inclusion teacher at Norton High School and I just wanted to take a minute to offer our condolences to Dina and to all of the staff um at Reeds and their students. They had a very untimely death in their program about a month ago. Andrew Kemp, who was a very valued member of the

105Reeds program, the Norton High School community um passed away very unexpectedly and it was a devastating loss to his colleagues, his students, his family. Um I was lucky enough I worked with him this year. He uh was the Reeds teacher in a geometry class where we have several sophomores in the Reeds program. um he was a wonderful person. He was a a very valued colleague. And so we just sort of wanted to take this moment to offer our condolences again to to all of the staff and reads all of the students. I think it's my understanding most of the students that he worked with he had worked with along the year. So he had you know these kids had been working with him for most of their time in the norm public school. So it

106was a a very devastating loss to the program. um we will miss him, the students will miss him, the staff will miss him. So, we just want to again say we're very sorry for the for the loss. Thank you so much for that. And on that note, um when you are hurting and all of you know because you've lost sorry to thank you so much for that. um very much a difficult loss for DHH and your community has also experienced quite a bit of loss this year and I can't tell you what a support it was because I got a call right away from Dr. O'Neal uh from Mr. Cersei, we call him Vinnie and and um and the staff uh the leadership staff um pouring out not only their condolences but offering their resources

107and uh it was greatly greatly appreciated. again, can't thank you enough, uh, and all of you for being part of your community. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up, too. Um, anything else? We're good. All right. Next on is the superintendent evaluation, discussion, and vote. Um, so this is my first time doing this, so I quickly spoke to Jen about it uh earlier today. Um, so everyone's seen the obviously you guys all did your individual evaluations and then I also uh I compiled them all and put them together just for the public record. I'll kind of walk through a little bit quickly. Um, we have to by law I guess uh evaluate the superintendent um during each year. We've obviously moved this time up a little bit just so the members who are on

108the board with our town election being at the end of April um we try to move it up to April. So that way the five house who are sitting here can actually do this correctly. Um it is a little awkward because this is the only position that we have to review uh in public. Lucky you Jen. Lucky me. Um you know but basically we did a uh sum summary evaluation report from the um from Jessie. We just basically go through exactly um kind of you know where where Jen's at. Um for you know I'll just kind of quickly go through some of this. Um her biggest things, professional practice goals, student learning goals, and district improvement. Uh she met all of her professional practice. Uh her student learn her student learning goals and her district

109improvement goals, which I'll go through a little bit more in depth. Both got significant progress. Uh she was proficient across many standards. Uh instructional leadership, management, and operations, family and community engagement. Uh we actually gave her exemplary there. Uh professional culture proficient. Uh just reading some of the comments from the school committee members. And again, I'm not going to read all of these. We'll probably Did we post this on that? Yes. So, it will be posted. Um, it's actually already in the packet online. Perfect. So, really? Yes. Correct. So, if you guys really want to go into that and go through, that's great. Um, you know, I just think some of these things that I think are are very important. Uh, Dr. O'Neil has demonstrated, strong leadership, and effectiveness across several key areas over this

110past year. One of her notable strengths is her deep commitment for to community engagement through consistent outreach, open communication, active participation in local events and forums. Uh she's continuing to build meaningful relationships with families, students, educators, and community stakeholders. Uh this is definitely strengthened the trust and collaborations throughout the district. Um obviously with our, you know, financial stuff, we we mentioned, you know, the strong grasp. uh if you sat through our budget hearings of how much clearer they were laid out uh that's credit Dr. O'Neal and obviously Mrs. Hatfield and the admin team and uh overall um you know one of the growths that we would like to see is a little bit more of organizational management continued efforts to establish clear assistance to find accountability especially around student behavior and teacher attendance and streamline

111uh procedures to help enhance the district's overall effectiveness and align daily operations with a broad broader strategic vision which brings me to my next point of u the strategic planning committee has now met twice um so that's another you know step in the right direction if you So uh in summary, Dr. Dr. O'Neal remains a strong asset to the district, demonstrating leadership through her community connections, fiscal responsibility, and innovation approach to problem solving. Um what else is kind of important on here? Um we obviously go through all of her goals that she set up. Um you know, she's in a pretty good spot. Um whether it be proficient or you know, definitely progressing. Um I don't think we have too much more. Uh obviously Dr. Neil continued to do a good job with instructional leadership.

112We've seen more uh more growth at year two. Um and obviously having the assistant uh superintendent Dr. Aman kind of settling into his role as well working with many of you out there with the new curriculums. Uh we kind of expect that instructional leadership area to continue to grow and reach new heights. Uh obviously talking about the budget you know from you know sitting here for three years and I think you know uh Dan and Sher will definitely agree you know just seeing the progressive uh you know making it clearer to read you know not just a huge Excel file with a bunch of line items and everything else. Jen and Christine have done a phenomenal job I think definitely this year and even last year just kind of highlighting exactly where we're at and

113what we need to do. So, uh, I think our biggest thing is that she does a great job is our community engagement between the newsletters, uh, constant communication. Um, she probably, well, she she kind of has that open door policy. Um, you know, so whether it be, you know, school committee member, individually, um, you know, teachers, parents, community members in general. Um, she does a great job in terms of making sure, uh, people are heard and and, you know, hearing their concerns or or, uh, hopefully some of their positive feedback. Anything else anybody wants to add? Great job, J. Thank you. Just be brief. You guys don't have to do this publicly. So, thank you all. Uh, next up is uh, which is actually kind of good timing, I guess, is a vote to approve

114the superintendent contract. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Oh, sorry. It's a vote. Good call. Thank you. Okay. Um, I will entertain a motion to approve Dr. O'Neal's evaluation. So, moved. Second. All those in favor? I. Thank you all. Uh, now moving on. Uh, vote to approve the superintendent's contract. Um, so current Jen's contract is uh within the language. She obviously is uh signed a three-year deal um back in 2023 just 2023. So 23, 24, 24, 25, she would still be in that same contract for next year. Um, which would be the same contract that we've had with the same amount of salary and all that fun stuff. Um, this contract is actually extending Jen um for another three years after next year. Um, so basically this gets us to a point where Jen will be with us

115for the next four years bearing something crazy happens, but we don't see that happening. Uh, hopefully she doesn't leave us. Um the uh I mean I guess can I take this over to you or what do you want? Do we just vote on this? What do you want me to do? Um you we can talk through what the terms of the contract were if you want to or we can just say it will be published online later you know after um it's not really a big secret. Everything's public record but um ultimately um I'm grateful to have the opportunity to stay in Norton. All of you know that I've spent my entire career here. Um, it's a little bit crazy to think that when this contract ends, it will be June of 2029. Um, and

116I will have a college sophomore and high school sophomore. Um, so that is just, as my friend Karen Whiter says, banana pants. Um, but um, grateful to the school committee for giving me this opportunity to continue my work. Um, and like I said, the language wise and everything else didn't really change too much. So, if you are interested in seeing it, all contracts for all of our non-UN admin and our union contracts as well are on our uh public schools website. Um, I will entertain a motion to approve superintendent employment contract from July 1, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. So, moved. Second. All those in favor? I Thank you. Um I just saw Allison walk in which is great. So we'll go back to um our number seven uh acknowledgement and vote to accept donations

117of AED students. If you could come join us podium that would be great. So I I want to welcome um our wellness committee member. But the important thing is did you mind? Oh okay. Did you have fun? Okay, thank you. It's gonna be fun. Um, I want to welcome our wellness committee member, Allison Drad, um, who also works for the American Heart Association. Um, and earlier this year, she approached Martin Public Schools in conjunction with Sisters at Heart and Senator Paul Feny, um, to help us procure AEDs for the outside areas of Norton Public Schools. Um we're super excited that we have um I believe seven that are coming and um a total of nine. So yeah, so we'll have um outdoor AEDs at Norton High School, one um kind of over near the multi-purpose

118field, one over um near the snack shack. Um and then one behind the yell by the tennis courts, one behind the yell near the tennis courts. Um we'll also have one near out out out back of JCS near the softball field. Uh two at Norton Middle School, one in the back for the soccer um fields, and then one closer to the front tennis courts, pickle ball court, playground. Um and so this is really amazing. The AEDs were donated as well as the outside um they're like weatherproof containers so they can be outside whether it's 100° outside or negative10. Um and we've actually had a few issues in the last year or two um at our own events where we had um the AED used at JCS earlier this year. We had um one used at

119a football game a few years ago. So, um it's so important to have these um devices accessible. They save lives. So, I'd like to number one thank Allison and her work and and the sisters at heart um for approaching us with this idea and this donation and I'd like to offer her some time to speak about the organizations. Um thank you so much and I'm sorry I was late coaching the baseball game. um that I would just say on behalf of both the heart association and sisters at heart and I'm sorry they couldn't be here actually one of the was undergoing heart surgery actually so um they couldn't be here they've worked really hard they um started in um north of Attabaro and then um I had been working with them and asked them to

120come to Norton um my son is a uh third grader at the LG and plays a lot of sports so I have always been really passionate about this and had been bringing it forward to the sports boards um but obviously ly there's a price to that. So I'd just like to thank Senator Feny in particular who has worked for the last couple years to get a specific line item in the budget for these defibrillators. I really do hope that we never have to use them on the field. That would be my hope. Um but they are there if they're being accessible. Um they'll be open um at all times. Like um Dr. O'Neal said, they're in these secured boxes. You can call 911. The location will be on the box. So, you'll be able to

121tell um EMS and fire where you are and hopefully they'll get there. Even at a quick the quickest response they can be, it will still um be really important to start CPR and have the defibrillators available. Um we know that it can happen whether it's someone that goes into sudden cardiac arrest or gets struck in the wall, gets struck in the chest and goes into cardiac arrest. It's really important to have them. So, I'm really I'm very thankful that Norton was open to this um and can't wait to have all the fields covered. So, thank you. I appreciate the support. Thank you, Allison. Um, and these will all be installed the week after April vacation. So, um, spring sports are starting up and we're, you know, I think there was a little bit of a

122delay getting um, them up, but we are, um, scheduled for the week after break. So, thank you so much. This is an incredible donation. I am extremely grateful. It was a very easy thing to say yes to, and that doesn't always happen. So, thank you. Yeah, I can't take your knock. You know, obviously it's a huge benefit to Nor public schools, but uh I think also just in Nor community in general. Um you know, as Dr. O'Neal alluded to, you know, you had two in the last two years, you know, both of them were where people were visiting, you know, and watching the kids games or grandkids games and whatnot. So just so super super um you know thank you so much for the work that you did on this because it is uh so

123very important. All right we do have to vote to accept that. Um so I will entertain a motion to accept the new AEDs at our um schools and fields. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I thank you very much. All right. And last but not least uh obviously um this is Mrs. Sherry Cohen. It's her last meeting with us. Uh she's not seeking re-election in our town, our town election is uh you know in not not this Saturday but the following Saturday. Uh Sherry's been an obviously a great friend um you know even a mentor you know coming on the school committee. She's been at this for a long time. Uh her heart is we're definitely going to make her cry now. Um you know she's been you know a wonderful uh wonderful colleague

124up here with us. um you know her heart's always in the right place and has always tried to do exactly what's best for our students uh in the town of Norton. So can't thank Sher enough, but I'll turn it over to Dr. Um I think Nick said it very well. Um Sher has been a member of the school committee since 2016. Um and one of the things that Sherry always says when we're having difficult conversations is I want to do what's best for the students of Norin. and throughout the course of her nine years as a school committee member, she has always brought that to the forefront of the work that we do here. Um, she always puts kids first. Um, and I have been very grateful to have Sher on my team um, during

125my last few years as a superintendent, but also um, she's a wonderful friend and a wonderful person to have in your corner. So, I have something for her. So, I'll come up over here and she's going to come and join me. We've apparently got a sign and flowers. I'm more of an Irish goodbye. appreciation. Norton Public Schools recognizes Sher Cohen for her dedication to the students of Norton as a school committee member from 2016 to 2025. I'm sure you need to mine. [Music] You want me to share it? [Music] If you don't want to, we will. So, that's your decision. Um, thank you. Honestly, I, you know, I thought people were here for school choice conversation, so I'm a little surprised. I knew when my friend Robin showed up that something was up. Um, it's

126been it's been a good nine years. It's uh we've had our ups and downs, but at the end of the day, like Jen said, you know, I I really tried to do everything the best I could for our students. Um, I'm proud of the work that we've done. I'm proud of the the friends that I've made. They're lifelong friends. Um, and that's that's it really. I just want to thank you guys. It's it's been a great run. Thank you. If we haven't seen it here yet, we're gonna get there. Let's go, Jerry. We can do this. Um Shannon Taylor, JCS. Um, I served as president um of the Norton Teachers Association for five years. It felt like all of those years were COVID years, but a significant amount were were. And um we're we're gonna

127talk someday about like before COVID and after COVID, we kind of already do that now. But I think being a school committee member during COVID, being any person that was public facing and having to make very difficult decisions in the moment with random information coming in from all different places and all different sides and you're hearing from your neighbors what they need and you're hearing from some the scientists, we're hearing from this and that. um you led with your heart throughout all of that and at the end of every conversation it was okay so what are we going to do next and how where do we go move forward it was never that we're going to stay in one place and that's something that I've always appreciated about you and the past nine years that

128you've been doing this but in my in my experience with you it was never where do we stop is how do we keep going and how do we keep moving forward but you always have that great lens on of leading with your heart and you can see it when you can see when you when you talk about um the different things that come up, different items that come up. You you haven't just skimmed over it. You've read it. You've asked questions. I know you've asked me questions. I know other people here have said, you know, Sher will reach out. She'll ask us, "What do you think of this? What else is going on with this?" She's not afraid of the conversations at football fields or other things where people might not agree with everything that

129you do here. Um because and as much as I know how much those decisions weighed on you because we had those conversations together, you you still led with your with your eyes forward and where do we go? What's what's coming forward? Um, I'm not. Um, there's something about being a teacher and looking at a school committee and not really knowing, do they understand what I do? Do they really get what my job is and how I can love it and be drained by it in the same moment. I love my job, but there are some days that are hard. But to know that there are people that are sitting on the other side that are making those decisions that also can see that pressure because they feel it themselves too. There's something really beautiful about

130that, Sher. And you can't It's just a a mold that you've created that I'm not sure how to fill. I just need you to know how much it has meant to for the tears, for the for crying when things are exciting and for getting like, you know, I just we've been through a lot together and I know you guys have a thankless job where you're getting paid nothing to do this all five of you, right? You're here on your own valition. You're you're reading all these things. You're you're putting yourself publicly out there for criticism, for for whatever it is, and you've done it with such humility and grace. Um, I I I love you, Sher, and I I hope the best for you. I hope that another night like this, you know, I mean,

131Danette got to see a beautiful building another night. So, that was good. You'll come back and see us. Um, but you you truly are something special. Thank you. Anybody else? All good. Um I just Cersei I guess I'm going to be here as 13 Brick Street Lord mask because one of the things that Sher did beyond working in the school committee both as a as a parent and um which impacted our lives now I might get tearful that doesn't happen um but also um as a director of counseling is her work with ITC and the impact that had on so many people in this town. um and she carried that forward despite also being here um and doing all the things as school committee and I I think it would be remiss for us not

132to to take a moment to thank you at this time for that because again both as director of counseling as a as a a member of the community who was impacted by that. I can't thank you enough and so many families I'm sure would would say the same thing. Here we go. Peter Wiggins the mayor and I thank you Sher for your nine years on the school that you part for the kids and you did very well in your nine years and I thank you very much from the still at le games. Thank you. Thank you Sharon again. I think we could be here all night praising Sherry. Um, I met Sherry gota be 15 years ago. Um, when she was starting up parks and wreck, I I may with DZ have had some conversations

133with her about joining school committee nine years ago. So, I I guess I apologize. Um, it's been a privilege to sit here with Sher for nine years. We've we've had spirited discussions. We've had knockown dragouts. We've had uh laughs. She's had tears. Um but her humility and her ability to really do what's best for our 2200 students is remarkable. And it has been absolute privilege to be here with you for nine years. I'll tell you it's it is not easy for me to sit here and listen to all of this stuff. Um because I don't I don't do any of this for any of this. I do it because I genuinely care about people. Um so to sit here and listen to this and not be hysterically crying right now and just like the way

134I am right now. Um I just want to thank each and every one of you honestly. It truly means a lot. I saw it on the agenda. I thought, "Oh, Jen, do we really have to do this?" um for you guys to take time out of your nights to be here to do this for me and the things that you've said. I I do truly appreciate it and I thank each and every one of you. Thank you. All right. Uh other business? Nothing for me. Just a few quick reminders. Uh obviously annual town election next Saturday, April 26th. Uh, and our next meeting is Wednesday, April 30th, back in this room at 6:00. I will entertain a motion to move. Last second. So move. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you very much. Have a

135great night. Thank you. for me.