001I'd like to call to order the June 17th Penro School Committee meeting. Um, this is all being recorded. Um, if you have any questions in the communication sheet, but uh, if you at all join me in the pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. We have two, okay, we have two folks here. Um, public comment. I'm Tara. I can't make out the last name. Gendra. You can't read my chicken scratch. Gendra. Kendra, fantastic. Um, understand the microphone is for the what I call the viewing audience, but if you could speak clearly and towards the microphone, that would be absolutely wonderful. Thank you. I
002was more prepared with my phone, but I had a 2-hour commute and it died. So, I frantically written down hopefully I get all it in. Um, I came here today mostly to address the email that came out the other day to I think all the parents in the community in in regards to layoffs that have happened. Um, it feels quite a bit like Groundhog Day for me today. I came to this exact same meeting last year to discuss this exact same issue. The library is where our children go to learn to feel safe. And now it looks like we now went from full library to one semester of library to from what I hear now no semesters of library. So I really want to address that. I know that I probably won't hear anything back
003today and I just as a parent feel that I should advocate for our children. So, um, let me see. Again, I'm skipping a bit. I'm actually quite shocked to hear that we have to do this again. Honestly, um, last year I I believe that we were all taken very seriously. I know that the parents as well as the community have made it very aware that we didn't love how it went this year and now we're all scared for what next year looks like. Um, I do want to thank the school committee for the email. The transparency was great as a parent. I appreciate that from you. I went the wrong way. All good. Um, so my child is lucky. He has parents. He has aunts. He has uncles. We take them everywhere. We take them
004to libraries. We take them to bookstores. We take them to book fairs. Not every child has that. Not every child has the confidence to ask for that. Um, what are we doing about those children? Those children who are going to be lost. Those children who may struggle with reading but now won't have access to the books that they need. um those children who find the library as their safe space because that's just where their personality is. Who's going to help those children now? They don't have a me. They might not even have a grandparent. Who advocates for them? Um as a school board and a community, we all decided that joining the Votech was, as far as I can tell, one of the greatest things we're going to do. We're going to spend millions of
005dollars doing it. And now, as I walked into the room that says stream proudly outside the door, we don't have that. We have all of these beautiful machines to do 3D printing and to to teach our children the art of science. Who's going to do that? We're about to send them to the Votech and I believe we start our first class in 2027. Those children will be prepared. But what about children my child's age and younger who don't have access to library, who don't have access to stream. How are they going to prepare for the votech where other school districts that we're joining have been doing it since they were in kindergarten, first grade? We're now not getting it till middle school, high school. If that's their first entry into the um technologically enhanced world,
006how are they going to keep up? How do they possibly align with the other kids that they're about to go to school with? What confidence will they have as they walk in there? I I don't know. So now my choice as a parent is this. I can pay to send my child to private school classes to learn these things, which is the exact choice I had when he was four, right? I could stay where I was in a town that we loved or I could move here to a school district which was better to give him the opportunity to be better educated. So now what what do I do as a parent? Do I keep him here because we love his teachers, we love his school and then buy outside classes where he gets to
007learn to keep up which is essentially what the the lowest bar is, right? We teach our children to be educated. We teach them to be kind. We teach them to advocate for himself. How can he do that if he doesn't even know what he's missing? So that's essentially my backwards question here is what's next? What are we looking at as parents as a school district? How are these children going to get that advantage back? Because they had it and now they don't. So where do we go from here? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Tara. Uh Paige. Hello all. Um I'm going to try and read from my phone here. Um I'm I'm reporting today about um this the policy subcommittee that met recently and some people at home may not realize this but at
008subcommittee meetings you can't speak as a citizen. Um you're just there to observe. So I'm speaking today on uh on on the topic of a absentee policy. Um at the time of the subcommittee meeting uh there was definite encouragement in particular by Mr. Talbot reminding parents that administrators in each school want to work with parents and have the ability to use common sense judgment to address absentee issues as they arise. And um a couple of different points were made in that regard. And ultimately um Sue Ballinger had brought up some issues where parents felt that they were completely disregarded. And I have seen firsthand that although it's wonderful to say that common sense should prevail um in my own family that did not work and did not work at all. So I just want to
009present that discussion and that situation so that everyone's aware of how that went down in my family. In spring of 2023, my daughter was in the middle school at PCMS. One Sunday night, she was outside after dark playing tag with friends and stubbed her right toe really badly. Um, the next morning she was scheduled for gym class and to play kickball. So, in light of her injury, I wrote a note to her gym teacher and I copied the nurse explaining her injury and asking that she participate in a non-kicking or running way. For example, walk the track or lift weights or keep score. I advised that if her healing didn't make steady progress, I would take her for an X-ray and then would update them. My daughter was also on the track team at that
010time and continued to participate in practice, but again was not running, just for a few days. At the end of the week, she was doing great and had had no need to see a doctor. I assumed she would then begin participating in gym as I had only asked them to give her a short week-l long reprieve, in part because of the nature of the game that they were playing. However, MCCAST testing and other events delayed her return to gym class for yet another week or so. And then her teacher continued to keep her out of gym class even though she kept reporting that she was indeed better. She would go to the nurse and tell her she was better, but the nurse did not contact me or take my daughter off the injured list. She
011insisted to Ka that she get a doctor's note. Ka came home and told me this, and I told her to politely explain to the nurse and to her gym teacher that she never went to the doctor, her foot got better, she didn't have a note, and that she was fine and could go ahead and participate. Ultimately, a few weeks later, the nurse called me, insisting that I take Cora to the doctor to prove she was well. I was at that time taking a lot of time off of work for a serious injury of my own. I was financially strained by my injury and was banking time and finances for a treatment plan that would ultimately cost me tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket, as well as months of lost work that year. I
012explained to the nurse that I had never taken core to the doctor as it was a simple stubbed toe, but a tender one and one that shouldn't be playing kickball. I told her I had no intention of paying a copay and losing work hours to prove that indeed she was fine after stubbing her toe. And this had been now almost a month after the injury, and she had been running and participating and competing in track the whole time. The following day, I provided Ka with a note outlining my review of her toe as a medical professional, albeit not a human doctor. I explained again that Cora had stubbed her toe and had no lingering injury. I encouraged the nurse to evaluate Kora's foot for herself as a medical professional and to put her back in
013gym as I was not and would not be taking her to the doctor because she did not have an injury. I thought the problem was solved. But on the last day of school when the middle school kids have their fair day and bouncy houses, etc., I got a tearary emergency call from my daughter that she would have to sit out because she needed a doctor's note to participate because of her stubbed toe almost two months prior. The nurse had never taken her off the injured list, had never escalated her concerns to anyone who could solve the problem, but had resolutely insisted Kora continued to sit out of gym class and was now keeping her from her final funday of eighth grade. So, I rescheduled my morning appointments, ran down to the school, met with Mrs.
014Mc Mrs. McGonagal and the vice principal and ultimately resolved the issue. But um it wasn't first without having to hear a whole discussion of how core needs to advocate for herself and that we do require doctor's notes, etc., etc. Um my daughter did advocate for herself. She tried repeatedly to explain to the nurse. Um but not once did the nurse, even after I wrote a pretty darn firm letter saying, "I'm not taking her to the doctor. enough already. Um, she never escalated it to anyone who could solve the problem. She just kept Cora out of school, out of gym, excuse me. Mr. Talba and others assessment that administrators are encouraged to be partners with parents and to use common sense in these situations. If that were true, this should never have happened. The insinuation during
015the policy meeting by many there was that these situations don't happen unless parents are not willing to work with the school. My daughter missed over two months of gym class due to a stubborn nurse. Fortunately, Mrs. McGonagal resolved the situation, but it took a lot. I was trying to do the right thing when I sent in that note. I didn't want the gym teacher to think my daughter was trying to get out of class, but that she had an actual reason for not participating. And what I got was a lot of hassle and disrespect of both myself and my daughter. And I know I'm not the only one with a story like this. Now, I'm not saying kids should just miss school willy-nilly, but we need to be respecting parents and our nurses and our
016other staff, our gym teachers, etc. They need to know that they can escalate things and have a discussion somewhere else because it's not happening. So, maybe the policy needs to be changed, maybe it doesn't, but there definitely has to be discussion amongst the school about how to proceed and elevate these things so this type of situation doesn't happen. So, thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. anyone's signed in. So, I guess we're okay there. Uh, acknowledge and schedule visitors. Oh, do you have a paper? Oh, just a quick question. I can't help but ask when it comes to policies and whatnot. I've got to assume that the school department has their own policies. My question would be, has the school committee itself had a chance to review those policies? And if
017so, how often are they reviewed? Okay. Can I just ask who you are and where you're from, if you don't mind? Oh, my name is Brian Logan. Brian Logan from Penro. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. So, yes, the school committee has a whole policy manual. It can be found on their website. It gets reviewed pretty regularly. We just did I'm sorry. Even if you speak into that, unfortunately, I can't. Okay. So, the school committee has their own policy manual. You can find it on our website and it's reviewed regularly. They just did a full review of all the policies um all through of last year. So, Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Good. Okay. Acknowledging the schedule of visitors. Nobody believe. Any adjustments to the agenda? Nope. Any communications? Nope. Approval of the
018bill schedule. I think that's done. I think I saw it come through. Uh consideration for approval. School committee meeting minutes of June 3rd. I will take a motion. I have a minor edit. Um sorry. Uh, it needs to switch from Katrina Delaney clerk to Katrina Scarciotti clerk. Okay. I think we need a motion to talk about. Oh, okay. If I'm not mistaken, possibly. All right. So, I need a motion, guys. I'll take a I'll make a motion to approve the school committee meeting minutes as edited for June 3rd, 2025. Can I get a second? Second. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, that's the only edit we need to make that change. And everybody's happy with that. Yep. Okay. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstaining. No one. It's unanimous. Natalie. Yay. I get to do
019that again. I'm all happy. Superintendence reports. End of year. So, I brought five friends who are going to talk to you about how great the school year wrapped up in their buildings, some of the things that they want to highlight. Um, and then I'm I got an idea that maybe some people are going to talk about what they're excited about for next year or what's happening in the summer. So, whoever wants to go first. I can go first. It's the middle child in this. Um, so it was a great end of the year. The last week of school, we had our field and carnival day. So each grade level goes out for half a field day and then half a carnival day where the PTO pays for inflatables while the seventh grade is outside for
020example for the full day. The eighth grade is inside doing team activities throughout the day so it's like two full days. So then we switch it. Um so that was really a great experience and we got really good weather. I had to cancel one day but we adjusted and got some really nice weather. That was a nice way to end. And then we do an end of the year kind of grade eight harbor cruise. And the eighth graders were working mightily up to the very end to make sure they were eligible to participate in the cruise. So that was um great and we had a beautiful night. So um we went on the 11th and we went all the way they had a little bit of a bigger boat this year. We went all the
021way to the Zum Bridge and then turned back around and watched the sunset and the moon and it was wonderful and the kids were really really wonderful and it was a really good night. Um, summer packets have been posted. Our grade seven teachers enrolled all the grade now grade eight students in um the summer enrichment activity. They participate in an LL activity. I would love to come talk to you guys next year about maybe having incoming seventh graders do something like that. Um this is our first year. So that's great. Um so as soon as like the kids are gone, we came in Monday morning. We're just doing lots and lots of scheduling work. Uh we're also having North River Collaborative is bringing two 18 and 22 year old programs into our building. So they
022have been um our custodians are starting with those classrooms first to make sure that we're ready for them. Um, and we're also working on end of year reports, Best Buddies and Unified Reports is something I have to upload for them. So, I'm working that report, our title one report, looking at our literacy and math enrichment and our data from that. And my cap grants, things like that. And we already identified our tours for midish late August for um the students coming in. So, we will be sending out schedules and we posted those on the website. So, our guidance counselors because we are a little more front heavy um trying to prep for the kids coming in um spend eight days before school in the building and then their two days after school because they do
02310 extra days for guidance. Um so that really helpful for us to be able to have them be there that well before. Any questions for the middle child? Thank you, Don. Any of you guys want to pull the mics a little closer too? I'm not sure. Sorry. No, no. I just I'm not sure if they're picking those up, but if you can pull them a little closer. He says yes. You don't mind? Uh Mark, you next or uh I'm happy to go next. Um for sure. So um this year we graduated 169 students. Um every senior was in our building and even um four who were not in our building um all successfully met the graduate requirements. Um so that's that's a nice threedigit number that percentage is. Nice. Um 85% of our students are
024going on to a two or four year school. Um the uh number of um students who are going into two-year schools actually went up a bit this year. And I'm guessing it's because of the the free cost of a two-year school. I think a lot of our students are realizing that while they might want the four-year experience, um they're going to get it in what was before a non-traditional way, right? they'll do two years at a community college and transfer to a four-year school and you know cut their their student loan debt significantly by doing that. We also saw an increase in the number of students going to the trades uh and I think that's a direct result of well certainly society but um our college um and in um career planning efforts by a
025guidance department we brought in representatives from the trades over the course of the year meeting with students who are not necessarily going to college and looking for go to the workforce. So we had some members of local unions in this year talking to our students. So 7% of those students are are looking to go to the trades. Um another 6% are going to the workforce and or a gap year and 2% are going to the military. Um throughout the course of the year some of our bigger accomplishments of course as I talked to this body before about was our NAS accreditation which we earned in November. Um really proud of that. And as we talk about next steps and looking forward to next year, certainly one of the things I'm looking forward to doing um
026without necessarily the pressure of the visit is working on some of those action steps. They'd like us to kind of firm up a little bit uh particularly finding some more common planning time for our staff during the school day. Uh that will be the primary focus next year um for for us at the high school trying to figure how to make that work within the school day. Um we also um um had uh a great deal of success with some other um academic measurements specifically now the AP um participation. Um last summer we learned that we earned uh silver status on the AP college board honor role. Um the year before that 2023 we actually earned bronze status and so we made a leap into silver status last school year. I am interested very much
027uh in the next coming weeks to see uh if we can maintain or even improve that and get them a gold status. Right now we're one small little metric away from earning a gold status. Um essentially there's three criteria there. One is called the college culture and to earn a gold level status there you have to have 65% of your class um experience at least one AP course before graduating. Right? So we have been at the gold level there for two years in a row. Um and I would expect us to be there as well. Um we have were at 67% last year. So they want 65. We were at 67 last year. Um I would expect us to be at that metric again when the data is released for 2025. The next um criteria
028there is for college credit. And what they want there is um for 35% of your graduating class to earn at least one qualifying score. Three or better 35%. Um last year's class was at 47%. So we're well above that metric and I expect that to continue as well. The the one sticking point for us, we've been at silver now uh when we were bronze last year, silver this year. And this one metric is college optimization. And what that means is that 10% of your class takes five APs throughout the course of their four-year career at the high school. They want 10% of your class. Um we run around five or 6% there. Um, so, um, I think with the increase in the number of AP offerings we've had in the past couple years, particularly at
029the sophomore like level, we start introducing them now more to our 10th graders. Um, I I think we have a real good chance to to certainly go beyond 6% and maybe even get closer to that 10%. So, I think July 7th is when those scores come out. So, we're looking forward to um to uh digging into those numbers, drilling down a little bit uh this summer on those numbers. Um, I'm also wildly proud of our students outside of the classroom. Um, you know, on the athletic fields, um, over the course of the three seasons, winter, spring, and fall, we had 86 Patriot League Allstars across all three seasons. Uh, we had five Patriot League MVPs across all three seasons. We had two, I'm sorry, five teams that won league championships. Um, and we had, um,
030one team win a state championship. So uh we continue uh I think to excel um in the athletic arena off outside of the classroom. Uh our visual and performing artists also are excelling uh in terms of our music program. Um we had 10 students accepted to all districts 25 to uh SEMSA and um with the district tryyouts four of our students recommended for all state um to try for all states and two of them um earned that recognition. So, uh, those are some great numbers in our music department. And not to be outdone, our visual artists. Um, we've had six students this year recognized by Rep. Keading in his congressional art awards. We had 10 more recognized by the Mass Association of Art Educators, uh, and their statewide awards, and four more with the All
031Scholastic Awards, also a a statewide competition where our students enter their artwork. So, um, we're getting accolades outside of the classroom. And I don't want to leave our staff out. Um, we had two teachers this year earn um, recognition across the state. Katie George, who was a secondyear science teacher for us, um, earned the exemplary new teacher award by the Mass Association of Science Teachers. She was awarded that back in November. Um, and Megan Msina, who was a secondyear reading specialist for us, was recognized by the Plymouth County Educators Association. Uh, she was given a Rookie of the Year award that was celebrated, she was celebrated back in May. So, um, in and out of the classroom, both students and staff, um, things, um, going really well at high school. Thanks, Mark. Nice job, Donna.
032Also, thank you. Go right down the road. Yeah, we're right down the road. You don't mind, Michael? That's a tough act to follow, Mark. I should have went last. We have, we have no state champions, but um, future, you have future state champions. Absolutely. Um, but it's funny actually as, um, as the folks are walking in today, uh, my reading specialist is right over there, Annie. good. And um Andy's actually did a lot of work right up before the end of the school year getting Miss Melissa from our Peber Public Library here in the building um to really talk about the summer programming and it's always a very big hit and so I appreciate all the work that you did on that. So each and every single grade had an opportunity to meet with Miss
033Melissa in the library actually in the LGI and talk about all the programming going on. So thank you for that. Um the kids are going to be rocking and rolling um there. As far as other things going on, we actually had a successful promotion night that was on Thursday the 12th and we had um several parents kind of hosting the event. Um they always do such a nice job. Usually it's the the fifth grade parents are doing a lot of work for the sixth graders. It's just kind of a right of passage and um they left no stone unturned and it was just a great night overall. Um and we graduate promoted 64 students um up to up to you Donna. That's right. Have fun with them. Um other things we're taking a look at
034right now would be um we're starting to think about those new families that are coming into us. Um so for right now, which is typical in June, uh we have five new families coming into us. Um we have about nine students leaving us. Um I do expect a lot more families to be joining over the over the summer months as well. Um a lot of time right now is being designated um for the facility right now. um just because of our three custodians um two of them are brand new to the building and have never done the summer process before. Uh so I find myself um just spending a little extra time this year. Um we've already gone through every single learning space in the building to identify, you know, what bulbs are out, which
035bulbs need to be replaced, what needs to be painted. Um so we have a ongoing list right now um to take a look at because we have to kind of stagger our time because we're only three individuals that have an awful lot of work to do this summer. So, um, we're not going to get it all done, but we have a priority list going right now. Um, we're also taking a look at some of our storage spaces. Um, and we're trying to, um, uh, identify, you know, some broken furniture disrepair. I may be coming back to you in a future meeting and asking you to access some materials. Um, not too much, but there's definitely some broken stuff that needs to be, um, reallocated and recycled. Um as far as um kind of the plan
036moving forward, um we're already starting to think about our new families and our new family tours coming up um towards the end of August. Um and also um as far as kind of getting into next year as far as the schedule's concerned, we we're taking a look at the schedule very very closely this year because we we're trying to make it a little bit more efficient um for the use of Titan time which um was brought upon many years ago here. I just think there's a little bit better of a way to do it um in the building right now um to kind of differentiate the the um the learning for our kiddos. So, that's going on. I also want to be able to integrate our um social emotional staff a little bit more into
037the kindergarten um grades as we're seeing there's a bigger need for them right now in this building. Um so, I have some ideas on that. Um, and we're going to be also be using some of the the data that we have that we get over the summer from MCCAST to really identify um some of those changes as we talk about the the master schedule, special education schedules, and the Titan time. So, we have a lot going on. Um, and it's only the first week we've been out. Jen, it's the second day. Exactly. Thanks, Michael. Thanks. Um, same little different. Our promotion night was amazing as well. The sixth grade parents always really pull through. Fifth grade parents show up to learn and we'll be good to go from there. We're sending 71. Beautiful. Be ready.
038We're ready. We will be ready. Custodial staff. Uh just like Donna mentioned, ours is already hard at work getting the NRC classrooms ready because their summer program will start soon. We're also adding additional room as well. So, one of our classrooms originally was going to the middle school, but then another one is coming in in that place. And then they're also leaving one other classroom as like a nurse teacher space as well. So, they are already hard at work. Um, we may also in prepping for that move have also looked at lots of furniture and storage and such. So, we may also be coming back, letting you know there's a lot of stuff. It's a lot of stuff. We've also encroached the Hatch building with some of that stuff. At least it's getting some use.
039It's getting some use. The Hatch Building has become universal storage for the town. So, the Penrook Arts Festival, Pemrick Youth Basketball, Santa's Helpers. We're putting furniture through the house. It's like a storage unit, but we're using it. Lot of stuff. Well, it's there. We might as well. Okay. Right. Um really just prepping about what I might highlight tonight. I kind of looked back at our school improvement plan and the achievement and our goals and our hopes. Some of our big highlights or the bigger things that really worked this year. K2, they've been doing the UFI the past few years. This year was really their chance to delve into the fish tank to address the other strand of the rope. Amy um so that worked. They Melinda Celabota having her as elementary curriculum coordinator really unified
040across the district. I felt like our common plannings and our PLC's were much more aligned and locked in. uh she streamlined the benchmarks. Having really good conversations about benchmark data, account planning was a real like good highlight. Looking at I Ready, looking at Lexi and putting it all together. How do we how does this like inform our next steps all of that was really good. The science PLC group especially, the work that they did with where do we want to go, what do we need, what should we do? um their feedback has led to a few pilots set for next year which we're excited about. And then looking at the dibbles data which all the reading specialists have been working tirelessly to help the K2 especially was really promising this year. Our kindergarten at Brianville
041started the year their beginning of the year 33% were a benchmark. By the end of the year, 78% were. Our first grade went from 50 to 76. Our second grade went from 39 to 52. So, it's still a jump, but it's still a concerning number. 52 is not great. So, our focus for next year is going to be what can third grade look like to make sure that we're meeting the needs of those kids. But one thing that Erin Sharon, our reading specialist, highlighted was she looked at the grade one as a whole because they're like the true you fly group who've had it all through kindergarten and all through first. And at the end of their year 1, last year 73% of them met benchmark. This year 76% of them met benchmark. So, it
042seems to be like falling into place and all the work we're putting toward K2 literacy especially seems to be paying off. So, we're hopeful that that'll keep going. That's great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um so, similar to the other two elementary buildings, it's hard to be third. I know. Last but not least, you details of repeating. Um one item I did want to highlight from our promotion night. Um this year we had the opportunity to present a true titan award through PTAB pin broke titans against drugs. Uh Mike Hogburn was out um doing the PTA pledge with a group of sixth graders in our building with the group of sixth graders in our building. Um and after having a conversation with one of our students really recognized um just something unique in that
043student and you know history family story and he wanted to award her a true Titan award at promotion night. So, this was something that we hadn't done in the past. We were a little anxious about how she would receive it, but she was very excited. Her family was very excited. Um, and so we just wanted to recognize her for her bravery, kind of standing up and persevering through some of the things she's gone through in her short life. And she did a great job um accepting that award that night. Can be a lot to stand up in a crowd of 200 people not knowing that it was coming your way. Um, some other things as we look at this summer, we have a host of projects happening at Hopmog. I know everyone's anxiously waiting to
044hear about those updates. Um, we are hopefully getting started on our new playground at some point this summer. So, we are very excited about that. Our new PA system um is happening this summer. And we're also undergoing a big flooring project trying to get rid of some of those rugs that have been in there for quite some time and getting some tile flooring in. So, those are three big projects we have going on in the building. In addition, we also host the district-wide YMCA. So they started on Monday, yesterday, so they're already in our building. Um, so the custodians have to strategically plan cleaning around their occupancy. And then starting on July 7th, we host uh the district-wide summer school program, special education summer school program. So all of those students will be back in
045Havlock as well. We don't anticipate it um impacting our cleaning schedule at all. Mr. Evans has this down down pat with all the visitors in our building, so we don't anticipate that being an issue for them. Um, we also just as a final farewell, we had one of our pair of professionals, Mrs. Velagi, retire at the end of the school year. She has been at Havoc for 29 years. So, it was sad to say goodbye to her, but she is very much looking forward to retirement and spending time with her family and grandchild. Um, and then also just highlight some Dibbles data points as well. Uh, similar to what Jen reported, our kindergarten group um went from the beginning of the year benchmark at 46% to ending the year at 78%. Grade 1 went from
04669% at the beginning of the year to 85% and grade two 64% at the beginning of the year to 67 at the end of the year. So again, we're seeing amazing things with the addition of UFly in the fish tank as well. Sorry. Thank you all of you for all you do and thank your staff, faculty members, custodians, everybody. It's just it's an amazing effort. It's I always I'm proud to say I'm the chairman of such an amazing group of people in this committee and it's just fantastic. So, thank you guys. I have a question if I can. It's I'm not expecting it right now. Um do we have the data on the benchmarks prefly? like what it looked like before we rolled out dibbles right around the time that we started with UFly. We
047may have a year or two prior, but I'm not sure that we have like true dibbles data. Well, it doesn't have to be dibbles. It could be deal. It would be a different tool. So, I'm just Yeah, it's not going to really match up, but there you don't. So, like cuz I know the DRA, right? There's still Don't you know what they are in the beginning of the year and then what they are at the end? Like I know that it might not match, but I'd be curious to know if there's still the growth growth. Yeah, there's I think some of the data that might be helpful is even the early lexia data from those groups. The DR data can be a little bit wonky um depending on how administer how many kids you know
048ended third grade at a third grade reading level or you know. Yeah, I think that we can probably go back and take a look at that through the lecture. I'd just be I'd be curious because, you know, I think the UFI program is amazing and I think just having the showing how much improvement it's made would help encourage continuing to support. Sure, do that'd be a great that would be great to see. I'm al also curious about just the difference between have I know we talked about and approved last year the digital um progress monitoring and how that might have affected things and you know made it easier to keep track of progress. I'm sure that showed a little bit of a bump as well because I know that so we've always yeah we've always
049had the digital tool to track the data. So this year I guess what was the difference? Yeah. So this year they actually can administer it on an iPad. So they're not having to administer on a paper copy and then spend the time inputting the raw data into the platform. So it's always tracked digitally. It's always been tracked digitally. It's just how they It's taking one step out from doing the paper copy and then inputting it. Sure. It saves a lot of time. It gives the opportunity for our reading specialists to then push into classrooms and to work with teachers and students. So So then it affects outcomes probably. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. part of I wasn't going on my phone. Sure. Part of our part of the data that Erin Sharon shared with me focus on
050the like amount of UFly. So I don't this isn't like fully previous but kindergarten in 22 23 the kindergarten group had no UFly and 43% were a benchmark at the end of the year. Yeah. In 23 24 after one year if you that would have been year you fly year one it was 73%. And then this year year you fly year two was 78. Yeah. I'd love to see that. That's like exactly what I was hoping that was happening. So it's good to see that that's effective. Yeah. Everybody good questions? No. All right. Moving on. Subcommittee updates, negotiation subcommittee. Is that done by you, by me? I'm happy to start it and then you all can fill in where I'm missing or the blanks. Um, so we continue to meet all of our contracts are
051up for um successor agreements this fiscal year. So they all expire on June 30th. So we are actively meeting with the PER teachers association um for those four contracts for our five units. Um we have another meeting tomorrow. We had one last week. Um, you know, I think there's been a large volume of proposals that have been shared. I know that has been part of what has taken so much time. Um, I am to understand that there are still more proposals that are coming our way. Um, and for that reason, that was the catalyst for the memo that you all received as families and parents and staff last week. Um, you know, obviously when building our fiscal year 26 budget, there is obviously an assumption made for collective bargaining provisions. um what we've received to
052date far exceeds what we had put in for provisions. So um you know exercising a hiring freeze or the the few positions that we identified for layoffs do allow us some capacity to continue to negotiate over the course of the summer and come to what is a fair and reasonable contract for our unions. Um but understanding that the school committee still has the requirement to be fiscally responsible to the town of Penrook. So looking at what all of the proposals are as a package and figuring out what is the best use of the funds that are available to them. Um each of the principles is here to talk a little bit about what the hiring freeze means for those buildings. So Tara, similar to what you said, we were pretty much right here last year
053at the same time talking about library par professionals and we're talking about far more than that this year. Um and it's scary. It is absolutely scary to think about doing this work. You heard all of the great things that are happening at Five Buildings and now think about doing it with less people and more kids. Um, and really making a commitment to the the quality of the programming that we put forward has always been the focus of this committee and you know we have spent a lot of hours in executive session whether it's at negotiations meetings or this board of five really trying to figure out how can we make this work for everybody. Um, and you know I think that you have five individuals here that are committed to that work but we still
054have a long way to go. Um I don't know if I'm missing anything. Um you know that we've we've been meeting we've been taking the proposal from the teachers um reviewing them but until we really have all of them we can't give back. Right now we to date we've received 50 proposals. Of those 50 more than 40 of them have a fiscal impact. So there's definitely a whole lot of numbers that need to be um figured out as as we work through this. and and we do do that each time we meet um as a as a subcommittee that we're meeting and talking about it. Um but there's still more to come. So without knowing everything all at once, it's it's really hard to figure out, you know, what you can say yes to and
055what you you can say no to. So and we have like the legal obligation of what is it June 15th. So that's why the timing of this was tricky because we we're in active negotiation. The contract is up at the end of this month. Um, but the legal requirement to notice teachers or staff is the 15th. And so I mean it's there's no good right now of this. It's very difficult work. It's hard. Um, you know, there's only so much we can do until we get all the proposals and then from there it's looking at how best we can use what we have. Um, you know, the town of Penrook passed our budget at town meeting. That's a number we have. That's it. That's what we have to work with. Um, you know, and we
056want to continue the quality education and continue um, you know, working together with the teachers and staff. But I think it's fair to say we're hopeful, right? That absolutely. There's so much work that's going to happen between tomorrow and the first day of school in August. And I, you know, wouldn't think that everything that we talk about tonight ends up actually being frozen or we're not able to make some movement on a position or two that that was laid off at the end of the school year, but that we did have to get some flexibility in order to be able to continue to have, you know, open conversations about the needs identified by the union and be able to meet those needs. So, um, happy to talk a little bit about what those words in
057that memo mean in practice if that's helpful helpful to people. Um, so for the layoffs, we did lay off five people um, on the last day of school. Um, of those five people, four of them were paraprofessionals. All four of those paraprofessionals would go into other roles in the district as paras. So, it's they are not being laid off. Um we late we noticed the library parah as as Tara mentioned earlier. Um that was a tough one last year too. There's such value to what's happening um in this library even though our students are only getting one semester of it or one trimester of it now. Um but our three elementary school principles are committed to keeping the library open. There have been a series of um volunteers both at Habamok and North and I
058know it's something Jen that you're going to grow for Bryantville so that students are still able to access the library even if we don't have the full programming upstream. um our technology um director Mike Tinker has done an excellent job of really pushing back into the classroom some of the skills that are are are taught here in stream so that kids are not necessarily missing out on everything. Um the other paraprofessional positions are office paras. So when you enter our elementary schools you see that there's usually two bodies in the office. Um the secretary and the par profofessional um that paraprofessional's role is really really prominent when it comes to special education paperwork. So not having that person in the office will be a definite shift in the culture of all three of the elementary
059school buildings as well as a shift in the the the requirements and who's responsible for a lot of um the special education paperwork that's happening now. A very tough loss for our team chairs, for our for our teachers, um and for staff in the building. The last layoff was the high school librarian. Um, so even though our high school librarian doesn't have a full course schedule assigned to her, she absolutely makes an impact um on children at the high school on classrooms coming into the library to do research projects. We are fortunate that the librarian we have is very tech-savvy. Um, she has done amazing things to help move forward our tech department. If you're ever in the high school, you can see that there's a maker space off to the lefthand side um of
060the the the library where students can come during their studies and use our 3D printers and work collaboratively on projects. That is something that will be missing next year if we have to continue um with with that layoff. As far as the freeze, we do have a whole bunch of open positions in the district. Um administratively, we sat down and discussed what we could freeze um and have the least impact. every single job here matters. Every single position has a place here and anytime we freeze or don't fill something, we are missing out on something. Um, so I don't want anyone to to take this and think that that is less important than something else. Um, but the the best way for us to think about it is to think about what's empty, so not
061affecting a person, and figuring out if we can run our schedules and keep our programming and our class sizes at a place that are reasonable. Again, not the best, but reasonable. Um so we've identified a handful of positions across the district. Um most of them happen to be at the secondary level where there is some flexibility um in programming and there are staff that have multiple lensures whether it's in our sciences departments um or in our world language department. Um but there are a couple of positions that we identified during the budget cycle that were great additions for us for next school year that we were excited about that we have to hold on. Um, so we talked about the math intervention modelist interventionist model at the elementary schools really starting to build um, something
062similar to what we build with the reading specialist a couple years back. We're going to hold on that position for now. Um, we talked a lot about creating a behavioral program at Habamak, a district-wide program. We're going to hold on that for now. Um, you know, recognizing that we hear a lot about student behaviors across the district, pre-K to 12. Um, we had built in some resources with the BCBA, with an RBT, with a coordinator of counseling. We're going to hold on all of that until we have a better idea um of where the finances associated with the bargaining proposals are going to be. Um Mark is really the only one that needs to do some scheduling shifting um at the high school. So, if you want to talk a little bit about what that
063means for class size for some of those positions. So, we identified an open science teacher position, an open English position, a point4 business position, and a fraction of a world language position that we're going to freeze for right now. So, Right. So, you know, it's I'm sure it's not a surprise to most, but if we don't fill those positions, we'll have to um collapse sections um to accommodate for the loss of 1.0 FTE in English and science. Um so that will mean that there'll be some logic class sizes. Instead of running hypothetically six sections of CP biology, we'd be running five. Um same thing maybe for chemistry or for physics or any other science classes. Um that would happen in English as well. Um so we would also probably uh risk changing some teaching assignments.
064People who left school on the last day of school with certain assignments uh I emailed them all saying it's possible that would have to adjust some of those. Um some of our students perhaps in the elective world some of our elective offerings. Um we'd have to um not run as many sections of those. Um, again thinking about that English position, business communication, um, is an elective in an English department. Uh, instead of writing five of those classes, perhaps it's four. Um, and so there's an opportunity, there's a chance that some students may not get that elective, um, if they selected it and they have to find something else that that's available. Um, in the world languages, um, it could impact our ability to offer Latin. Um, right now that vacancy is a Latin Spanish combination.
065um we already have for Spanish teachers. So, if we had to collapse some sections to accommodate the Spanish positions in that uh that job description, we could do that. It's the Latin that we would not be able to accommodate um if that that freeze holds. So, again, as Erin said, not ideal. Um but um we certainly um could do it with some work and some cooperation and some collaboration, we could make that happen. Um, can you just talk a little bit about when you say increase class size like what is it? Was it 18 and now it's 25? Was it 23 and now it's 26? What what is kind of the max number that you're looking at? Yes. All of that. So I it depends right on the subject matter. Um, but I would say
066by and large now I'm talking about on the average we'd see class sizes jump from the low 20s to the mid 20s. Um, maybe you know by mid I'm talking about 25 and 26. um there's always an outlier. Perhaps there'd be some classes at 28, but on the other side of that, there'd be some classes still at 21. They wouldn't all jump up. Um but that's what that would look like. And I know you had talked about also keeping it um for some of the freshman classes, intentionally keeping those smaller in some areas because you know that that's a big jump year of transition and things like that. Correct. And and you know, if we're talking about reducing, we would take the most vulnerable learners and make sure those class sizes are as um appropriate
067as we possibly can make them. For sure. Yes. Y So I think the the big takeaway too is that um it's very student centered like all of the all the programming is still in place, you know, for the most part. The class sizes are bigger, but we're not eliminating any programs except for the Latin, right? except for Latin. Um, but we may have just fewer sections available, just fewer space available, right? We're talking about in totality 3.4 FTE not being replaced. That's uh 18 that's 20 classes. That's 20 teaching sections that will be frozen. So, you can't lose 20 teaching sessions and um and be able to expect to have the same level of of offering and um compatibility with student requests. And one point I want to make is now that we are requiring
068two years of foreign langu language, this is going to especially be tricky because as the kids come through fresh this incoming freshman class and on up are going to need to take two years of Spanish or French and going to have to make it work. We have to have the ability to do that one way or the other. That's right. So I think you just to be fair and transparent the that the the Latin is the is the language that has the lowest enrollment anyways and so that if we had to absorb those students into another spoken language it feels we could do that right because the enrollment most classes was not particularly high to begin with. In addition to the positions that we're freezing there are two four five other positions that are open
069in the district. So there's an elementary position here at North there's an elementary position at Hoba. There's a PE position here at North and there's two PE positions at the middle school. Um we are obviously anticipating filling those, but I've asked the principles to slow down um just just for a minute so that we can kind of have an idea of what bargaining looks like tomorrow and when we can expect to potentially get all of the proposals so that we can plan for that. So those positions are not part of what we're freezing, but I've just asked them to kind of slow down the process so that we can have a little bit more wiggle room if we do need it. Anyone else comments? We're good. Okay. So, we are meeting again tomorrow. So, when
070we meet in July, we will have an update to to give them. Yep. Okay. Policy subcommittee number one consideration first read elementary student handbook. So, in your packet, you have a redline version of the elementary handbook. Policy sub met. I think it was Wednesday. Yeah. Um and talked about a whole bunch of things. um you know there's some global edits to all four of the handbooks that you'll see when you when you get the full versions for a second read. So um some of the gender language he she um becoming there. We talked a little bit about making um the mission statement cohesive across all of the handbooks that's a little bit different in each one. Um so our communication specialists will make sure that it's the same across all of them. Um we also
071talked about adding some wording around fees. Um, you know, during our fee discussion this year, we we really wanted to make sure that as we're increasing fees, that family knows that there are financial support for those that need it. And just adding a little bit of verbiage to that in each of the handbooks. Um, we did go through each of them at um, policy subcommittee on Wednesday. I know Mr. Murphy was there representing the elementary teachers. Um, and some additional edits were made following that meeting. So, at that meeting, we talked a little bit about um you know, really identifying our mental health staff in all of our buildings so that families can quickly see who to contact if there's an issue with their student related to mental health. Um we talked a little bit
072about um the use of restorative practices um for student discipline. U we had a lot of conversation about recess um and you know when we do or do not use recess as a punitive measure for students. Um and and you know I think Mr. Murphy was able to share with policy sub that it is not a universal um discipline strategy to take recess rate from students. We all understand um that that is truly a break for our kids. Um but there are incidences in the upper elementary grades where the teachers do use a portion of the recess time um for that and that's outlined in the handbook a little bit more than it has been um in the past. Um, not sure if I missed any other sweeping edits in the elementary handbook. The bikes.
073Oh, we did have to add that you can only bring a nonmotorized bike or scooter to school. I have to say when we were visiting the middle school and the last day of school, some child brought a quad to the middle school. So, just yes, just in case he felt a little bit too relaxed at the end, we had a little bit of So, that's the part of the handbook that is fun, for lack of a better word, is the kind of like keeping up. I feel like forever we chased ecigarettes and vaping and now we're it's it's scooters and you know my my kids are as guilty of as the next about those motorized scooters but I'm really talking about what is permittable at school and what is not. Can I ask some questions
074on this? Absolutely. Okay. Why is why do we have to have a rule on whether kids can bike to school or not? Like why isn't that a parent decision? Like why does a school can say no like their public roads? kind of a liability thing for them. But is is it a liability if you have somebody's electric bike or Well, no, I understand like those things, but like why does a parent and principal have to determine if Are you stuck on the biking as a privilege and not a guaranteed right? Yes. I I mean, what's the difference of walking to school or like if that's their mode of transportation to get to school? I understand buses, but if they miss the bus, I don't know. I just think it's shouldn't I mean, don't we want
075kids getting exercise, right? But we don't want kids pulling up to school on on motorized scooters or on bikes without helmets. So saying here that the privilege may be revoked at any due to safety concerns or disciplinary reasons. So and that is definitely an issue that you know would be addressed with the parents and or police because it is like a legal requirement I believe for 16 18 to wear helmets. I think that language just originated from where we have I can speak for Hobok at least. We have a significant amount of students who bike to and from school with the warm weather in grades four through six. And we often find that some students are irresponsibly riding down the middle of the road down learning lane getting to school grounds much too early. And
076it's kind of when does our supervision start and the parents supervision end or end. So like that's the part for us that's just a gray area. It's similar to walking. um we don't have students, you know, outlined in in the handbook about walking, but again, if students were walking down the center of the road, I would think it often gets brought back to the school because it's easier to figure out what school they go to than the parent. Um so it's really a safety issue is what we were finding is that kids are just irresponsible riding down the middle of Learning Lane onto Hopmock Street. we're having, you know, teachers or parents call the school because that's the easiest way to kind of report it rather than following the home and reporting it to their
077parent. If I could add to it, just to put it at the high school level with the cause, we it's the same thing with the cars. we have the right to revoke someone's parking privileges and so if they it is a privilege and I think if they don't if they don't handle that appropriately if they're driving inappropriately in our parking lot um you know and I think arriving to school extra early was an issue in a couple of places this year um and there is no supervision of students before you know 5 minutes before the student day starts so and I think like the privilege part is that you're bringing yourself to school and you're going to handle it yourself appropriately and that's why it can be pulled as well. You can think with some
078of the ebikes there different classifications of that within the law and there's different things on what the ages are and how that works. So like an ebike with penalties different than Oh yeah. So there was some legal piece that I'm not sure and we're not going to be able to thinking more of the privilege being revoked in regards to the riding. Right. If you're a unable to ride safely to and from school or you're not wearing a helmet, you don't have a permission slip on file that those are reasons for it to be revoked. It wouldn't necessarily be a consequence for something that happened during the school day. I mean, we could reward it. Well, and I'm also just like this like having it be only specific times like start and end of dates of
079biking season. I I don't know. I just I guess see it as this is more helicopter parenting than it was when kids I don't I mean, I No, I appreciate that cuz we we don't want to completely take away the rights of parents and students to do things, but maybe what we need to do is just reward it so that it's clear that it's about safety. I I don't know what the words are. I get like the daylight hours, you know, cuz I know it's might be dark by the end of, you know, the school day or very closer. So, and, you know, I totally get it. But I guess some of this I feel like well, at the end of the day, you can't stop someone from biking to school. like if the principal
080like where it says the weather, if the principal said, "I don't think it's safe to bike," the students still could. But by having that um and putting that warning out there, it protects us and prevents liability. But then is there going to be discipline for the student if they continue to ride their bike? Like that's where I have I don't know. Hopefully at the elementary level we won't have that issue. But I've been to two of the three elementary buildings. I've never disciplined a student regarding not wearing a helmet. we've had a conversation around it and you know you proactively reach out to the parent and the next day it's resolved um and I think having the language in the handbook is helpful for principles because we can then say you know we we have
081outlined this already in the handbook you guys have already signed you guys have questions about that so it gives us a little bit more leverage for that conversation um I think is helpful did you get any push back from those parents or was were they really receptive about it that's great curious to hear um what other districts have like if other districts have a similar statement I feel like they may. Yeah, maybe we can look that up. We can look at it and share that back with you before the second read. That's a great idea. One thing to add is we also have a separate biking permission slip. So yeah, they can't just log on to pickup patrol and say my students biking home today. It has to be previously agreed upon with a biking
082permission slip on file in the office. And then does it get added to like and then they they can select it in so once they have the once it's on file. Okay. All right. Any other questions? Yeah. No problem. Okay. Recess. I have a I No, sorry. I don't think recess should ever be taken away for any reason. I think that's a pretty hard no for me. Yeah, we we made this we suggested this change based on the fact that it it was being taken away across could have been the the the handbook didn't have any language that said anything about it. Yeah. And I and I know as a parent I've had to look this up because of a need and there isn't anything. So I would rather it say we don't take away
083recess. Like that's how I would word it because I think there's other times to use, you know, working lunch detention, you know, whatever. There's no also definition of it being upper, lower, elementary, but I think recess is crucial and should never be taken away for a student. So, so you had some good thoughts on that during policy sub because we did I did actually say the same thing and then we discussed it. So, um I know we spoke um at length about that and we had talked to policy sub about um really the fifth and sixth grade um not not the entire recess being taken away. Um that that doesn't happen. There are some some circumstances that do u pop up during recess. Um sometimes it's a verbal, you know, back and forth between two
084kids. um that does escalate almost to the something physical and that it does make sense at that point in time to make sure there's some distance between and that and I feel like that's different than being like okay you were yelling in your classroom and hands were touching okay you guys we are going 5 minutes later to recess like that's not okay like I can understand having to leave recess for you know whatever reason but to delay recess or you know like I feel like it's what 20 minutes how long's recess like 25 like I I feel like it should be written the students have the ability to have 25 minutes of outside free time inside recess whatever but I I I don't I don't think I I don't like having any loss of recess
085time for I think it has to be worded very specifically um you know cuz missing assignments that should not lose recess like right like I I don't know I I agree no I agree with you I don't like this I think at the elementary level we often see recess lost at times for recess incidents so like the natural consequence if you're in a physical altercation at recess today yes you may lose recess tomorrow and the following day outside of being removed and that would be a natural consequence I think if you guys disagree because I think other states have put it into like law that kids have to have x amount of time. I don't know if Massachusetts is anywhere near that. I think from my lens like administratively and discipline wise, if we were
086to not use recess as a consequence for things like that, we would see an increase in after school detention. How often do you um like keep kids indoor in from recess due to academic reasons? Does that ever happen? Not really. Not really. Okay. And then the incidents at recess, are those mostly the older kids? Like it's dependent. I think everywhere it wouldn't be. I again I think that the added language about the restorative piece like it's a last resort. So we've already exercised working with the school social worker working on a restorative piece in a social group. Maybe they are staying in at recess to work on a restorative activity. It's not necessarily a recess detention where it's being removed as a consequence, but they're working on an alternate activity guided by an adult because
087of a repetitive behavior. It's not an incident in isolation and then we've taken recess away from the 5-year-old for two weeks. But by that point, have you already tried contacting like the parents are involved? It's definitely progressive. It's not day one the a 5-year-old, you know, been a peer at recess and we're taking recess away. It's definitely a progressive. And I think it usually specified this can't be like the whole class being punished for something. No. And I but that's happened. So that's where you know I feel like right and you and I have talked about this as well is really delineating what's appropriate if it's academic based or if it's whole class individual based. So I think possibly adding language around like I understand you guys you know need to add something. I think
088it's I think I think the wording though um it's used as a last resort is really appropriate here you know. So um the idea being that we don't we're not taking recess away whenever possible. It's in and it we're not taking it away due to assignments. It's due to you know behavioral issues that you know where they have no other con way to have a consequence. I do like Ashley's idea about having it be connected to if there's an issue at recess specifically um because I think that feels connected whereas maybe something else could be solved during lunch or unfortunately maybe after school detention. Um but certainly I think um having the the fifth and sixth grade uh the grades delineated might be helpful. Um sure having the the piece of it being connected to
089a recess issue versus just any issue. What do we know? Did you guys look at what other districts do for their recess? Yeah, there's policies. They have very different districts are all over the place with that. Um, yeah, we can work on the language and see if there's something better. I do think the last resort, but we agreed that there needed to be a change, which is why like would adding something in regards to like administrative consultation prior like rather than the teacher having the autonomy to like take it away from the whole class, checking in with a building administrator prior to I'd like it to say something like signing that consequence. Recess is 25 minutes. We I would never say that. Okay. No, there's a lot of reasons not to say that. But um
090kids deserve to have downtime at this age group and it should be outside and I do so right now there's no words in there about recess at all. So it's complete autonomy at the building teacher level to do whatever they want with recess. So this was an attempt to appease some of the concerns that you all may have heard from a family or two about taking away recess. I can appreciate that the language is not perfect. Um, but it was an attempt at reassuring families that we don't just unilaterally take away recess and there is reasons why it's appropriate and reasons why it would not be. What if we said something like all attempts will be made like before this is taken as a last resort. Something like that. We can work on the language.
091I'm happy to and then something to do with um making sure that it's not due to missed assignments. Sure. I I I think in the elementary level having kids stay in for recess due to missed assignments. I'd rather them do the working lunch. I think that's in that's in there in the last sentence. Yes. So, I think that one that one's covered, but I agree with you. Ultimate. Yeah. But so, is it how I'm just curious like how often is missing assignments require like turn into detention? Detention. Yeah. Well, because the way this works is missing assignments will be made with grade level staff and then blah blah blah blah blah include working lunch detention. though. How often does that happen? So, working lunch sometimes, um the detention for not doing your work. Um working
092lunch, it's just because you owe this work for a very long time and it's not getting done in any other way. Sometimes there are teachers that'll give it to them at lunch. I'm I'm sure there's contractual obligations and you need them to get it done during the school day somehow and maybe they're not getting it done at home kind of thing. And the this year when we've we're trying in an effort to minimize recess, we were using after school detention more frequently. But the breakdown there is when families can't have them stay because we don't have late buses. So like they have to take the bus or they can't get home, right? So then they that makes them don't let them stay. Yeah. Yeah. Question about the lunch the lunch working lunch. They just will
093will they do that in the classroom or do they do work in the lunchroom alongside? It's in the main office. You know, we have a conference room. You know, it's God. I've seen it in the calf, too. Yeah. So, it's it's not necessarily like you're pulled to a separate space. It may be, but you may. And there's kids that definitely would rather eat there, too. So, I get it. Um I've had that happen in my family. So, I I don't know. I definitely No, I hear what you're saying. And it was definitely talked about. Yeah. No, I mean, I appreciate it being added because I've had to look for it before and it's not there. Um Okay. So the other one on page and then we'll fix the secured school network. The page numbers and
094the table of contents will be on. So on page 28 um can we say what school committee policy is not subject to appeal for guidelines for promotion and retention? Page 28. There are page like I think that Oh, at the top in the middle of the first paragraph. Just what I know that's not policy number. It's not a new anything. It's not red line, but just what did you want to do? I want to put what policy they're referring to in the first paragraph. Oh, and like it says, you know, that that it's a the final decision will be made by the building principal based on this information and by the Penrook School Committee policy is not subject to appeal. what subcommittee or what school committee policy that makes sense. Um I really appreciate the
095outdoor research recess winter guidelines. I think the first time I saw that was here last year when we were walking around and I think I even took a picture of it um on page 29. I think I don't like the word using may be held if it's in the red. I don't know how how how is that how do you guys handle where are you talking about recess conditions the first full paragraph there because you know this is cold or heat like how do you guys judge if it is in the red going outside or indoor recess the school nurse right you guys we definitely consult the school nurse and then um you know we're taking a look at kind of the acue weather on your iPhone um and we're we're looking at the chat
096I mean it's it's so much easier to kind of because a lot of times it's just you know it's the it's the game time call. It's getting a little bit too hot out there and sometimes you have recesses the beginning, the young kids going out and then the older kids can't go out because the temperature has just gone up. So, yeah, that makes sense. So, if it's in the red, you do indoor recess. We do indoor recess across the board. Okay. I think I think that should be a little clearer because the way it says it may be held indoors or shortened to limit exposure and I think it should I get the limited exposure in certain situations in this but if it's in the red and maybe adding that you consult with the nurse
097like if it's in the yellow or just you consult with the nurse when needed. between there have been definitely times where I was out at recess and the weather changed drastically. So you go from green to red. Who knows? And I think my last just as a question about the technology like the phone use like what what brought up that change? Yeah. So I I can speak a little bit to that. Um you know we actually the three of us struggle with this quite a bit. um the the kids in the upper grades, grades four, five, and six, um will take any opportunity that they have to be able to use their phones. Our major problem is we cannot um having a student with a 4G or 5G network phone in front of them. We
098can't monitor that. We can monitor what's going on on the student device if it's connected to our internet. Um so it doesn't feel very good when, you know, it's the end of the day and kids are getting on buses and we're waiting for a late bus to come and kids are taking every single moment to get onto that phone. Um, so we what we were trying to do is um we we spoke to to Donna in the past and she's had some really great success and we we continually think about how can we start teaching our kids now kind of the skills and the expectations around having a phone and what are they going to have in middle school. So we we were very inclined to use the language from the middle school. Um and
099so we had talked to Donna about that and u the three of us has spoken about it as well. So that's where it kind of came from. I think the increased use and it's not just the phones anymore. that's the watches and anything that can connect to anybody. We don't know who you're texting. Um, and there's also sometimes where we're texting parents at home during class and it's just not appropriate. It's not. So, if there's something that needs to be said to a parent, we have phones in the office and I need to get come picked up early or whatever it is, but um there are other means to be able to do that. Is there is this continue onto the bus? Like are we expecting kids to be able to use the phone on
100the bus? Not like or this extend through until that's part of the school day. The bus is part of the school day. You should not be using the phone on the bus. I think it's going to be a lot harder to monitor obviously because you know it's but um ultimately I think yeah it's a cultural shift. It's going and I think we're catching it early is important but so here's how that plays out. Okay so we know that kids use their phones on the bus right? Um, but we all look at bus video more often than not. Um, and a lot of times you'll find somebody on their phone and that's just to call down to the office and I say, "Can you come down here? What are you seeing? What I'm seeing, right?" And
101it's usually a non-issue after that. And it's usually a little follow-up phone call with the parents just to let you know, you know, kids cannot be using phones on the bus uh for for safety reasons. One of the biggest issues at the elementary level is on the bus is less about texting and more about the videos and pictures that they're taking of each other and then they just get disseminated and I agree. It's a train wreck. So yeah, that can lead to really not great and it typically starts starts off innocent and quickly progresses. So Right. Right. Yeah. And at that age you really don't need a phone anyway. Like I I feel like it's unnecessary. It's not going to help the school day at all. So, I think for for some families, I've heard
102it's a, you know, it's it it makes them feel safer knowing their child has a phone. So, I think it's it's good that we're not saying blanket, you can't have a phone, but we're having a certain expectation for behavior and when and and how we can use them, which I think is important to address without just saying no phones. Good luck. I think this includes the bus like the bus to and from school, field trip buses, like it Yeah, it's the full time. an extension of the school, I guess, and field trips, but I guess that would probably be assumed. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe add field trips just in case. That's the extent of the school. Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions? Alison, I do have a question. What about um clubs? Would cell phones then
103also be an extension of school day in clubs? Just to be clear. Great. That's it for we'll make a clarification. Yeah. I'm just looking for any any loophole I could find because I would be back yet. So, ladies on this one, we good? No, I'm good. Thank you. Take it as a first. Take it as a motion for first read. Um, so moved. Second. All those in favor? I. All those opposed. No one abstaining. Natalie, it's unanimous. First read. The next handbook is the middle school handbook. There's no large language changes in that handbook. There's really just edits um some of the gender um pronouns that we talked about, some of the contact information, but there wasn't any new sections or or whatnot to to this handbook. On page seven, what is the preface? Seven.
104What page? It's only on the one I have. Wait, page numbers might be different. Yeah. Is it the So, because this isn't on any of the others. I think it's just what she printed it from. But does it say but are under when it So, like I said at the beginning, we're going to unify the mission statement across all of the handbooks. Okay. Good question. At the same [Music] I don't think I had anything in this one. I know I know Donna, you did a lot of work on the hand align with Mark's and the I didn't reread the cell phone, but it obviously fits with what you guys Yeah. Okay. And I think it's good to have that continuity between Yeah. The challenge always is like you have a policy and then it's about
105making sure you're like doing a lot of reinforcement and you know you know kids are much more compliant at the beginning of the year and the end of the year was a lot you know definitely like reminding kids to put it in their backpack. So a policy in of itself doesn't like Right. Totally. It'll take take time. All right. Any other questions on this ladies? On the fire end. We're good. Um, so I guess just kind of with the public comment about does it say anything in here about what kind of notes are needed for clearance for activities based on injuries for sports like the nurse visits? Well, yeah. Like does it specify in the handbook what to miss PE like missing PE and concussions and whatnot? Like what? So those are vastly different things,
106right? So there's definitely so missing PE at the high school level. There's nothing in there that speaks to how you miss PE, how you get excuse from PE and stuff like that with a note talking about absences from school versus absence. No, and I'm talking about individual like in the athletic handbook. Um I believe that there is uh an explanation about concussion protocols, return to play and um things of that nature. Even in the student handbook, but there's nothing in the student handbook. I think there should be based based on the public comment today. I think cuz it is different than the absence policy, but I think having a protocol for like if when a parent sends in a note to say, "Hey, my child hurt themselves um about PE." Having some protocol for how
107that happens, but I mean, I know we're not going to figure it out tonight. It'll have to go to policy, but I think maybe some clarity. I mean, I that definitely something we should, you know, I don't want to hold up the handbook for sure. No, I definitely we can meet between now and then. I definitely appreciate getting this done before. Yeah, like that's huge. But but definitely like you know if I mean what an excused injury is for nonathletic events like not outside of you know when when they're in school. We'll take a look at it. Yeah. like whether it's a concussion, whether it's a stubbed toe, whether they sprain their knee, their ankle, outside of school, inside of school. Like Alison, I know it doesn't jump on you, but I think if you're
108um in my opinion, if you're saying, "Gee, my kid twisted an ankle, stubbed the toe, broke their fingers, they can't take PE. I don't believe they should be playing any kind of athletic." You can't if you're in a phys class and and you don't fizz, you cannot play any games. No, but and that's what I'm talking I'm not talking about like the student athletes. I'm talking about like just the PE in general. Just the student like I twisted my ankle on Saturday. Do you need a doctor's note to come back to PE? What severity of an injury would require a doctor's note versus elaborate concert about that cuz it's an elaborate topic as simple as adding a couple of I certainly don't want to send families to the doctors over a stubbed toe because there's
109co-pays involved and everybody has a different level of insurance, right? But there also has to be a bar. I have $100 pay to go to like clinic, thousand. You know, I think not that this is related to the public comment. Not saying that at all, but I know, you know, when I was when I was in high school, I did not like PE. So sometimes I'd be like, "Mom, want to write me a note for PE so I don't have to do it?" Um, obviously not the case in this situation, but I think I think there's a balance there like you said. So it'll involve a conversation. Well, she was I think that the it was more of a her I think her point was about common sense like a common sense approach to it
110like you know if you stubbed your toe it makes sense not to participate in kickball but you might still be able to walk around the track. Definitely. I think we just need clarity in the handbook and I think we're all in agreement that we need something there so that we're all on the same page and I think it really could fit in all three handbooks potentially. I think it was more around the the the common sense. How are we applying that to the absence policy if that's how we apply it here is what her point was. Yeah, I think we just need if I'm not mistaken for missing a class just to make sure that people know that they are empowered on the staff to then ramp this up to the next person. Not once
111did the gym teacher come to me. Not once did the nurse bring it to Mrs. McDonald when she was out for days. Yeah, I think there should be a procedure that's outlined so everyone knows what to do when. Yeah, that's perfect. All right, everybody good with this? We'll motion to take it for first read. So moved. So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? All those opposed. Anyone abstaining? Navaly unanimous. The next one is the high school handbook. Um you do not have a full redline version of the high school handbook because it's much longer. What you have is the proposed changes. Um, I just want to point out on the first page where it says two years of a world language, that's eight credits, not four. So that's just an edit that typo. All
112right. Um, and then does AP World History count as two years of world history? Is that one of the two? It counts as a count history. Yeah, it's in the program of studies. Okay. Cuz I just want to make sure the three years. Yes. Yeah. But it counts. If you take freshman history and then you take AP world history, then you take a push. Is that two years of US history? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Doesn't count as a world history. The freshman history class is world history. You have to take that. Correct. That next AP world will give you credit towards US1 because it's taught through US1 lens. Yes. Well, I remember we had that conversation when we were doing it that it's it's enough to get be that, but it will. Yep. It's just
113I think the wording we have here of two year you know because we used to do I mean we still do have US history one US history 2 but now there's the AP offerings of we can put that in AP that's a good point that does college was one this might even need to go back to policy for the actual graduation requirement too right because isn't this taken from this is from program of studies this is the language in our program of studies okay I can't remember where so it's not from the compens Okay. Competency stuff is in here too. Y already amended. Um the only other point of note on this page was that um you know we added just some morning around the community service. Um Mark shared a policy sub that there
114was there's a whole host of students that wait till the last year to do the 40 hours. So just um setting up power school in a way that there's a reminder each year that you should be chipping away at 10 per year if possible. totally understand that we can't make you but just a reminder for kids constantly reminding this is the competency language that's in the studies and that's where just making sure that in the state um for since there's no page numbers on for attendance procedures and then it has to do with the um the medical note y is the attendance clerk I know it's not HIPPA But sending medical information to the attendance nurse, I mean attendance. So that's who who the students are giving the notes to now, unless the medical office
115is communicating directly with the school nurse, either through her email or the fax machine. Right now, kids are giving it to the attendance clerk. Okay. And that's covered under Yes. So that's a she's a confidential employee. Okay. Because I know Yeah. Okay. And but and then aren't there some cases that so they then share that with the athletic director if there's a need for any of that? Okay. Can we add something saying that they're that because I I feel like nurses have a you know you know that they're HIPPA but we don't Yeah. that we don't without knowing. So, school districts are held to FERPA, which is a little bit different than HIPPA. HIPPA is a piece of FERPA, but the the training that our staff goes through is is far more comprehensive than just
116HIPPA. Um, and all of the staff here are um trained at the beginning of the school year each year, more of like a reminder. Um, and we do have school committee policies that talk about who receives medical information, only those that need to know or that have been identified as needing to know. Um I and should we when it says we continue to accept medical notes sent directly from the healthcare provider via email or secure vac can we put what those are or they supposed to know based on the pages that we don't have that are the emails we can put the nurse's fax number there and then nurse's email that's fine and it's a the email is a person's name it's not PHS nurse okay and she has a a secure fax and fax
117machine in her Okay. Um, so the purpose of some of the redline language that you see here is just to reinforce the fact that we are looking for paper copies of doctor's notes. Um, and even in the next section, though we didn't talk about it at policy sub. Um, I made the edit to be aligned with the college visits as well. Um, we always assume the best of intentions from our families and our students. Um, but there are times where folks, you know, mark up a note a little bit to to help with an absence. And so, you know, getting a paper copy is a little bit easier um for the administration at the high school to discern whether it's an actual note or not a note. Um you know, we talked for a long
118time at um policy subcommittee about in in how many instances is the note not real? Um and it's very few, but there are lots of ones that look cloudy or, you know, we need to call on. Um so just having it in paper is a little bit easier for us than the screenshot. In addition, we are required to print out medical notes and put them in a student's file. So at some point a paper copy must be made of it. Um so it's easiest for us if you come with it from the doctor. If not um you know if getting a paper copy is just out of the realm of possibility for you please let us know and we'll we'll figure it out. And this is to make it an excused absence. An excused absence.
119Correct. Right. This this section is all about excused absences. And we talked a lot about accessibility and, you know, different family situations and having a printer, not having a printer. And I think this was a, you know, good compromise to the competing areas. Yeah. Most of the time I know the doctor's as you're leaving hand a note and then my kid just leaves in the front seat of the car and I find it exactly 3 weeks later and never turned in. Yeah, we talked about that a long time. One good tip that Sue shared was to take a picture before you send it in or at least, you know, you might scan it something. Um or find it crumpled on the Yeah. In case they lose it or just don't turn it in. Yep. All
120right, ladies. Any other comments? No. Motion to take this as a first read. So moved. Second. Second. All right. All those in favor? I. Anyone opposed? No one abstaining. Natalie, it's unanimous again. Yay. The last one is the athletic handbook. Um so this does include on page four the um language that we have discussed several times at this table about rules of participation and forfeiting for reasons of safety. Um that is included in there. Um as we talked about there's a couple of other edits um just to clarify um you know if if there's a practice before school and the student attends practice before school but then doesn't attend school, what does that mean? And and some of those pieces and then updating um the user fees to be this year's amounts. Can we add
121the 80s email and or we can put contact information? Yep. And maybe for um Katie too and for the trainer maybe. Yeah. Emails, phone numbers, fax numbers. I don't know. Do that. Any other comments, ladies? Um the only other thing I just wanted to make clear is that we did add um the piece uh that was proposed previously about for a policy when Patrick was here as chair and so that did make its way into the athletic handbook. So I just wanted to make sure we name that under page four general participation. Excellent. All right. Motion. So moved. Second. Okay. First and second. All those in favor I opposed abstained. Unanimous once again Natalie. Thank you. Okay. And that's going to bring us to future meeting dates and topics. So we are meeting again on
122July 8th where you'll have a second read of these handbooks. We'll have obviously did I think it is. No, I double check. I think it is. That sounds right. Um we'll have a second read of these handbooks. We'll obviously have um some updates from some of the subcommittees. The plan is for the vocational um planning committee to meet. Um we have a couple of folks interested in proposals for the Hublock playground. So, we'll talk a little bit about um that at Longrange Planning and report back um to the committee. Like I said before, the year-end close will not be ready on July 8th. That's a little too close to June 30th. Um so, we'll do that at the first meeting in August. Um, but if there's anything else you'd like us to put on the
123agenda, I hopefully I'll have a timeline from Teaching Learning Alliance about um the strategic plan that I can share for that as well. I know we talked about the AP um data. Was that coming out on July 8th? Seventh. Seventh. And so we'll share that as part of our achievement report as we go to the fall. So you have some more time to look at it. Makes sense. Like the teachers have an opportunity to Makes total sense. Yeah. Turning around for one day doesn't sound doable. I just was like that sounds familiar. that date. So, okay. And I just saw another note I had. Is there somewhere in the middle school, since this is the high school athletic hand, is somewhere in the middle school that notes the um fees that we raised and changed?
124Um I we can put it in the middle school handbook. Yeah, I think that and then even for the high school one there'd be changes for we als I also mentioned about having the a statement about No, but not for the athletic but the actual handbook for like the fees aren't in our actual handbook the other fees we don't have the the club fees I mean another thing we had talked about was having a statement somewhere in the handbooks or the athletic handbook about if you need financial assistance because the fees did change. Um I guess one piece we had talked about the um our strategic plan. So I was just wondering like if we have an update on when we'll So like I just said uh um teaching and learning alliance is the consultant
125that we'll be using for that. I should have um a timeline from them and we can start to plan out the visit of the July 8th meeting. Oh, got it. I think I missed that. I was listening to No worries. Got it. All right. Anything else? Okay, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. We are going to enter executive session pursuant to chapter 3A section 21A3 to discuss strategy related to collective bargaining as an open meeting may have detrimental effect on the legal position of the school committee as declared by the chair. So move second. Second. Uh by roll call, we'll start down the far end. Katrina I Sue. Yes. Alison, yes. Katrina. Yes. And I'm a yes. Okay. We are now in executive session. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Enjoy your summer. We'll see
126you July 8th.