Quincy School Committee: May 7, 2025

001like to call to order the May 7th at 6 PM meeting of the policy subcommittee of the Quincy School Committee. Um, this is a meeting in hold. Do we want Yes. A meeting in? Yes. Do we want to call attendance or we have a quorum? Can I just observe? We have a quorum. Okay. So, we have two items on the agenda that we want to get through. First item is the proposed revised school committee policy review 9.11 grading systems. I defer to Dr. Perkins and Mr. Moran. Should be There we go. Oh, hang on one second. Try that. Here we go. There you go. All right. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Um, tonight, uh, our focus, as Mr. Gutra just mentioned, is discussing some of the possible policy amendments, uh, both when looking at attendance

002and grading. Um so more specifically uh our attendance uh and grading policy was um looked at by a proposal team. In other words, a group of people which I'll mention momentarily uh that really uh worked together to uh draft the language that we have for you tonight. Uh so I want to share with you and acknowledge those those members. Uh and I also uh want to go over the current policy status. So, just taking a look at what the current policy says and some of our reasoning as to why we wanted to take another look at it and propose some alternative language, some some amendments to the existing policy um as opportunities for enhancement. Um especially when you factor in um things like chronic absenteeism. I believe when this policy was uh originated, chronic absenteeism

003as it's defined today uh didn't exist. And so there's certain things that have changed since the origin of this policy that you know it's it's our task of making sure that we're up to date. So we we're going to share uh the current policy status with you. We're also going to talk to you about the uh proposed amendment language. So we'll break it down into just overall objectives and highlights what we're hoping to get out of the language so you know what the team's goals were when we were putting this language together. And then obviously we'll share with you that specific language of course our next steps. So if if language were to be approved, the steps we would take uh to carry out uh the kind of the roll out of this new policy.

004And of course, we'll answer any questions uh and address any comments that you may have. So as I mentioned, this um everything that Dr. Perkins and I are going to be presenting uh tonight is put together by a team. Uh that team is comprised of those names there. So Gail Cavalo from the QEA, Michael Ellis from Quinsey High School. So he's and I'll say their titles because we were intentional in terms of making sure we had various perspectives uh when we were discussing the the development of the possible policy language. So again, uh Mr. Ellis, the ELA department chair uh over at Quinsey High School, Principal Gilbert from North Quinsey High School, myself, uh Dan Pacho, not his official title, but we'll just say Aspen guru, the one who has to figure out how to

005make it work behind the scenes in Aspen. Uh of course, uh Dr. Perkins as the team lead. Uh Bill Rearen, uh guidance department chair over at Quinsey High School, Marissa Smith, dean over at North Quinsey High School, and Chris Tierney, uh our data coordinator for the district. So we really wanted to make sure of course that both high schools were represented in this conversation but that various positions uh were uh represented during this conversation and really the idea there is looking at it from different perspectives trying to anticipate if a change were to be made what are some potential issues that might stem from said changes and we need to anticipate that and either adjust the wording or come up with a particular measure to address it. So that's we were very intentional in making

006sure um our team uh was well represented across the two schools and and I do just want to thank uh all of those members. They really put in a lot of time, a lot of thought and everything we're going to be sharing with you is based on input from our discussions and our planning. Our objectives as a team, we wanted to discuss the strength and weaknesses of the current policy language. So just taking a look at what's working, what isn't. Um, also anticipate as I mentioned potential issues associated with any changes that we were considering on proposing and then of course developing the new language based on uh what our discussions brought us to in terms of what do we think is going to be most effective for students, their families, things of that nature.

007So uh just making sure that we could develop language that served those uh priorities as we carried out those discussions. So starting with attendance policy. Um so I'll just share with you there's you should all have the language of the policy uh as a whole. However, I just wanted to pull out one core piece and just read that for each of you uh and for anybody who might be listening so that uh we kind of see that the core of what we're focusing on here. So students are expected to be in class 100% of the time. Students who have seven or more absences uh in parentheses not school approved or unexcused uh from class or school during a marking period shall fail for that term with a grade of 62 or less if they have

008earned a lower grade. And so it would be a 62 if their let's say their earned grade was higher than a 62. If they were absent seven times or more unexcused it would be brought down to a 62 which is a failing grade currently. uh if they had let's say a 58 average it would stay at a 58. So it's 62 or lower. Um and then on the fourth absent the parent guardian uh shall be notified. So that's the language again not all of it but a core part of it that is uh current today. So some of the concerns or let's say uh you know opportunities to enhance that that kind of pre popped out to us uh seven or more absences per quarter uh converts an earned grade to a failure of 62%.

009So that's the gist of it, right? So if a student misses seven days unexcused, if it's excused, it's not applied towards the seven. It's important that we say that as many times as we can so families don't get worried if there's a real medical issue. We're not penalizing a student for a legitimate medical reason. We're doing it for those unexcused absences. That's what this policy would mandate us to do. So, a couple of the issues that come from this. So, it allows up to 24 absences per school year without academic consequences. In other words, if a student only misses six unexcused days within a quarter and then that's over four quarters, they could miss 24 total school days unexcused and not have those academic consequences applied. Now, as I mentioned before, my assumption is this

010language originated before chronic absenteeism was defined as it is by the state, which puts us at 10% of the school year. In most cases, typical enrollment that means 18 absences. So theoretically, under this current policy, a student could not have any academic consequences towards uh missing six days per quarter, 24 for the year, still be identified by the state as chronically absent, and yet there wouldn't be necessarily an academic consequence for that. Now certainly you have guidance teams you have a lot of people working to support that attendance but as far as the how this applies to grading. It's certainly an important detail to to make note of. So it's important to consider that as we develop new policy language and we certainly have uh as we propose to you. It does not mention a

011school year maximum limit of unexcused absences. So in other words, it's only focused by quarter as opposed to in addition to a total amount for a year. Uh so we tried to add in some language that addressed that and then it also uh as I mentioned so it currently enables students to be identified as chronically absent without that academic consequence. So a student could have 19 absences chronically absent and yet academically there's no impact as a result of those absences. And I think just the gist of it is we need to look at everything we can to help promote attendance. We can all agree students cannot be educated if they are not in school. And so that's really the drive of what we're doing. How can we create we've uh Dr. Perkins and I along

012with so many SLT members, educators throughout the various schools, uh you know, building principles. We've put together so many initiatives from a supportive lens in terms of helping our students attend, but we also have to hold people accountable when they're not, when it's unexcused. So, it's finding that balance of supporting as much as possible, but also making sure that students are held accountable when they exceed what we deem as as excessive, right? And we would use the chronically absent as kind of our definition uh for excessive. So, just some highlights and objectives that we have in our proposed amendments before I hand it off to Dr. Perkins. So we wanted to create language that as I mentioned holds students accountable for the unexcused absences emphasis on unexcused. We want to reduce chronic absenteeism. So another

013another hope of this potential amendment would be to reduce chronic absenteeism uh and also minimize the amount of failing grades uh for those students who who earn higher scores. Now I didn't speak to that yet so I'll clarify. If you look at highlights, so the the first one is brought the threshold to four or more unexcused absences. So in other words, what we're going to be proposing, what Dr. Perkins is going to share in the language is that we move down from seven. Right? So currently it's seven or more to four or more. So right off the bat, we want to bring that number down. So that way if a student is absent three times, right, they don't, you know, they don't um uh get four or more, they're absent three per quarter. Now they're

014at 12 for the year. Not great. We certainly want to try and get that student to enter the school more and not miss 12 days, but now they're no longer chronically absent, and there's a little buffer before they would be identified as chronically absent. If they were to hit 4 days, now they have academic consequences, which I'll talk about momentarily. But if they were to hit four days of unexcused absences per quarter, uh that would eventually put them in violation of this policy and that would be a total of 16. So even then they're not yet chronically absent. Typical enrollment is 18 days as chronically absent. Right? So the idea is that a student would be absent 16 times. They would have the academic consequences. They're not yet chronically absent. That's a measure to try

015and bring that chronic absenteeism number down. 18 is a very important number and we want to try and get as many kids below 18 as possible. So another key point is shifting the emphasis from grades to credits. This is another big change. So not just moving from seven down to four but shifting grades to credits. So in other words, currently if let's say a student has a 70% and they're absent seven times in a quarter per the and it's unexcused per the current policy that student would go down from that 70 down to a 62 which is a failing score. That's what would happen. And now that student uh theoretically the rest of the year could be impacted by that score, right? because now that's averaging in uh two to four quarters. What we're proposing,

016what Dr. Perkins will share in the language is that we want to shift the emphasis away from the grades and to the actual credits. So, we'll go over the specific language of what we mean when we say credits, but we want to try and shift the we'll say the consequence for students who are missing excessive school days unexcused away from grades and focus on credits. And we'll explain that a little bit more uh momentarily. We want to incorporate yearly totals as I mentioned along with quarterly. We want to promote credit recovery options. Again, we'll speak to that momentarily. But again, the idea is if a student is losing credits, we also want to give that student an opportunity to earn them back and we'll talk about that in a little bit. Uh and we want

017to address students who miss individual courses. So during our teen discussion, this was definitely a topic that came up and a lot of educators shared with us a concern of you might have students who are not marked absent for the day because they arrive to school late. But if they also, you know, if they're also dismissed, okay, so let's say if you take a student, they arrive at 9:30 a.m. So now they're tardy for school. And if they're dismissed at 1:30 p.m., now they've been dismissed, they're leaving school early. So they're not marked absent, but they're missing classes. And that's a problem when it happens on a repetitive basis. So what we wanted to do was create language that didn't just address the day-to-day schoolwide absences or the school day absences, but the classroom absences.

018So if a student is missing, let's say um his or her math class excessively, this would also be uh brought into this language here. so that even if they're present in school, if they're missing particular courses excessively, then they could possibly lose some credits. Again, we'll go over the language momentarily when Dr. Perkins uh shares some of those details with you. And finally, we do want to incorporate other incentives uh for attending school. So, in other words, if a student is struggling to attend school for non-medical reasons, for non-school approved reasons, we're looking at uh the removal of some of those privileges that students get to participate in. In other words, we need to make the priority coming to school. That should be the first priority. If there's consistent attendance, by all means, that student

019those students should go and enjoy those extra things like a prom, extracurricular activities, things of that nature. But again, we need to prioritize school attendance there. So, we've also incorporated some language that could remove some of those programs for students who are missing excessively uh via unexcused absences. So, those are the objectives and the highlights. I kind of we wanted to start with that just to make sure you all as you were being uh as Dr. Perkins was explaining the language to you, you understood our intention. That's what we're hoping to do as a team. These were our priorities. We certainly welcome your feedback, but I'll pass it off to Dr. Perkins. Thank you, Mr. Morani. Uh, I do just before I go over the language, I know Mr. Morani mentioned a team, but I

020do just want to again thank them and in particular, I really do want to thank um Gail Cavalo, the president of the QEA. She was extremely helpful in putting together, as was um the vice president, Michael Ellis, who's also the department head. Um the entire team was excellent and we really got some great feedback and um so we're really happy with the work that we accomplished and we're excited for your questions and comments. But I do just did want to take a minute to just thank them for their support and their assistance in putting this together. Um so what you have in front of you is you have the full language uh the edited language in front of you but this is kind of just a summary of that. So, we didn't put the entire

021policy in these slides. We just put what we thought were the big ticket items. I do just want to point out that in the in the um the attendance policy, we did edit the although it's not on the screen, we did edit the middle school days to match the high school days. So, we did So, when we talk about the four or more, we also put four or more in the middle school language. So, we wanted we were trying to get as streamlined as possible with both policies. So, um students I'll just go right to it. This the first sentence is exactly the same that they're expected to be in class 100% of the time. Students who have four or more absences not school approved from class or school during a marking period shall receive

022a reduction of 1.25 credits for each class missed. A student who exceeds 15 total credits within a school year may be required to meet with the principal, assistant principal, and or designate along with the students parents or guardians to establish an attendance plan. On the third absence, the parent or guardian shall be notified. Um, and so we did, you'll see a lot in both of the policies, we used a lot of may, uh, we may do this, like for instance, when Mr. Morani talked about the incentives. It's an option that if a student is really struggling that we may use use incentives as a carrot to get that student to come to school. Um so we're we're really doing our best because we want our students to be in school. That is the priority. So,

023loss or reduction of course credit due to this attendance policy infraction will not require a student to repeat the course, nor will it impact a student's grade point average. However, the student may need to pass an additional course to earn the credits necessary per the Quinsey Public Schools graduation policy. So, they may need to earn additional credits and we'll talk about what we have talked about in terms of what credit recovery could look like for students. Um, but I but you know it doesn't necessarily if they pass that course even though they were out in over the attendance policy time frame. They don't and they but they pass that individual course they don't necessarily need to repeat that course but they do need to make up those credits somehow someway in order to graduate. So

024um just going on so this is unexcused tardies and dismissals and again Mr. Morani mentioned it, but this is something the team felt very strongly about because oftent times students will come in late or they will get dismissed and it is the same classes that they are missing all of the time. So, uh it really does impact their their progress um in the classroom and again it's about educating students and that's not what's happening if they're not in their room whether they're tardy, they're dismissed or they're absent. So students with unexcused tardies shall be issued the following penalties. So we did edit this a little bit. In the previous language it was five tardies. We have on the third tardy in a term this it will result in a mandatory detention. The rest of the

025language is exactly the same. So I I won't um go read that to you. And then on the fourth so we went down from six, we went to four. on the fourth and subsequent occasions in a term it could result or it may result in further disciplinary action. This is changed a little bit. I think in the previous language it had said it might result in a suspension. We said disciplinary action to give the principal and the deans and the assistant principal some leeway. Uh and then students who miss half or more of a class due to unexcused dismissals, tardies, and or other non school approved pro uh purposes shall be considered absent from that class. And then to the credit recovery options for attendance. So students who lose credit um will have the opportunity

026to um recover credit. So we we already have our traditional summer school programs. We have our Quinsey evening high school programs and we also talked about other uh school um school approved programs. So for instance, Saturday schools, vacation programs, online uh you know options for students to recover courses or they could students could potentially have contracts with the principal or the teacher to make up some of those credits uh that they were missing. Especially if you have a student who first term is over the three credits, say they're absent six times first term, but then the second term they are attending and they are coming and they're not chronically absent. We would absolutely expect the school and the principal to work with that family to figure out a reasonable option to make up the that

0271.25 credits from the first term prior to the end of the school year. So they would work with the teacher, they could put together an attendance plan to make up um whatever they needed to so that they could get those credits back. So we we intentionally left the other school approved programs a little bit broad because we see this as something that there could be lots of ways that students could make up credits. Uh and so for the second policy is the grading policy. Um and so uh I will go through this again. You have this in front of you, the edited version. So um just to review what the current grading policy is. Currently we have a numeric uh system at the high school level. And I will say we did a lot of

028research on the grading policy. We looked at surrounding towns. Quinsey is one of the few cities that in at the high school level uses a numeric grading system. Most school systems in Massachusetts use the letter grading system. Um, and so currently we have le the numeric grades from 0 to 100. And again, another unique thing for Quinsey as Mr. Morani said is that the minimum passing mark is a 63. Um, with other passing grades ranging between 64 and 100. And then we do still have letter grades for physical education which are satisfactory and unsatisfactory. Um and at the middle school level we do have additional courses like art music that also use um satisfactory and unsatisfactory and students in different points could potentially receive an I for an incomplete course or an M for a

029medical. Uh so the 63 is unique to Quinzy. Other districts the passing score is a 60. An F is a is a 59. So um that is absolutely we could not find that any place else that a that um the passing mark needed to be a 63 that an F was a 62 or below. So that is absolutely unique to us and um you know that we have the different levels of courses and so some of the things that we talked about and the reason why we're bringing this um to you today is because the passing mark for us is greater than most nearby districts. I think we would say pretty much all of them. We couldn't find one that had the same passing mark. Um, and so this complicates the transcript review process. So

030when a student moves in, if they move in, if a student fails with us today, they're going to get a numeric grade. So say they get a 45 and they've failed. A student could move in from Boston or from Weimoth or from Brainree and they have an F on their report card and that F is going to translate to a 62. So our students in Quinsey actually fail with a lower grade than a than a movein student. So there's like an equity issue there that we'd really like to resolve. In Quinsey public schools um students experience three different grading systems which we think is a concern. So they have the standardsbased grading system at the elementary school. They have letter grades at the middle school and then they have numeric grades at the high school.

031So we really feel strongly that we should align that. Um the maj as I mentioned the majority of districts in Massachusetts use letter grades and also the majority of colleges in Massachusetts use letter grades. So for all of these these reasons we are recommending that we transition to letter grades. And so our proposed amendment language would be that um report cards are issued to students at the end of each quarter. In addition, students will receive progress reports from all teachers at the midpoint of each quarter. So they do currently get interim reports. Um and students will receive a letter grade for each course. The letter grades are as follows. A plus A, A minus, B plus, B, B minus, C plus C, C minus, D plus D, D minus or an F. Um and then

032physical education would remain the same. It would be an S for satisfactory or U for unsatisfactory. And again we c the students may also receive an incomplete or an M for a medical for any course. And obviously the course levels are the same. And we are recommending that we move our failure threshold to match the surrounding district. So that we are recommending that an F would be below a 60. So a 59 or lower. So if you fail with this letter system, you would it would equate to a 59. And there is there's a few more changes in the actual um policy. Uh we we cleaned up some language. We crossed out the interim reports were in there a couple of times. We put it at the beginning of the new language and took out

033some of the outdated u information. And we al also made reference in the new policy. uh we're suggesting to make reference to the program of studies. We have a really wonderful program of studies document that includes a lot of information and so we really want to direct families um that are looking for information to things like the program of studies and the handbook and um and the syllabuses of course. And so the next steps are that we're here tonight uh presenting it for you to review and to provide us with some feedback. um you know if we if you have uh revisions that you'd like us to make, we will make those revisions and we are hoping that prior to the end of the school year that you would vote on uh a new potentially

034updated policy in these two areas. Um and then so that we can hopefully implement this in the fall next year and that we would work with the IT department. Um we would ensure that attendance and grading is being tracked based on our new language. We would love to create a web page both for attendance and for grading that is comprehensive, easy to access where parents can find all of this information. Um and uh we certainly need to do some student and family outreach and communication about these changes and staff outreach and communication because what we we definitely don't want to happen you know we are doing this to try to incentivize or motivate or you know encourage students to come to school and also to streamline our grading process. But this the intent here is

035not to be extremely harsh or overly harsh or penalize students who have absolute legitimate reasons for not being in school. We want to abs, you know, reiterate that this is unexcused absences that every that the part of our policy uh is very clear that that we're proposing to you tonight that the principal has discretion. So if there are extenduating circumstances, if something comes up, the parent just needs to reach out to the school and the principal does have discretion and can work with that family u if we need to in those kinds of situations. And there's also an appeal process. I do just want to point out one more thing about the about the um about the grading policy is that we are suggesting that we wait uh I'm sorry the attendance policy that we

036are suggesting that we wait a year that we start with the for the seniors so that we we expect them to follow the policy however we don't deduct the credits next year because we're not sure what the unintended consequences of that would be for seniors with not a lot of time to make up those credits. And so what we don't want to do is cause a problem for someone to graduate. Um so so that is so we are suggesting that uh we start deducting the credits next year with the class of 2027 which would be the juniors. So we freshman sophomore juniors would would this would go into effect for seniors. We would expect them to follow it but we would be a little bit we wouldn't be deducting the credits to make sure that

037everybody graduates. And with that any questions? So, I know there's a number of questions. First of all, thank you. Important discussion, especially in light of the changes at the state with the chronic absenteeism definition. We're up against the clock for the 6:30 meeting, but the vice chair has said that we can continue the subcommittee meeting. What I'd like to do is start with members of the subcommittee if I could if they have any questions and we'll go to the full committee and I'm sure there'll be plenty of questions. Mrs. Kah, is that you? So, this is a lot. Yeah. And I have like the three different packets from the, you know, the different things that it sent us. Um, one of the things that I, you know, there are some places where things are at

038the discretion of like a principal or, you know, someone in the building. Um, I'm a proponent for making sure that we have the same conversation at every level in every school, you know, and there's a couple of places where I see something like um, in the middle school section, it says the nurse council follows up on consecutive absences or after a pattern of absences by speaking to the student. So that's like on the first page of the middle school and this is just an example meaning what you know that nurse and counselor they take it upon themselves to see a pattern of absences and they speak. So when would we do that? when would you know would we have a a district-wide saying at the fourth um absence we're going to bring them in the

039counselor is going to talk to them or you know what I mean like I I think we have to be very clear with all of this that every school has the same process language um you know recommendations it I think they all have to be the same in every school so that we're not saying someone in one school has a situation that based on the principal's um you know ideas that okay well we can make an exception here but then the same situation might be at a different school and it's not going to get the same kind of result. So um and that can be something else I don't know if it should be in this policy or not but I is that something that you have a a thought about like have you thought

040about that making sure that some of the stuff is consistent across the board? Yeah, we so we did put on the bottom on the bullet underneath there, we put um three days for the middle school, but we can repeat that at the top that if it's through I mean right now the schools call in middle school all of our schools call. If a student is absent, they they call and if the if unless the parent has called in. If the parent has not called in, then the school will call and do an attendance call. Um but the in terms of the nurse or the counselor, we could certainly put the you know after the third day to match the rest of the policy because we we've been going by like three days. So four or

041more is kind of our threshold with for both policies. So we certainly could just add that number in there that the schools that that would be the expectation which I would believe that the I would honestly say that probably the nurses do now if a student is out for a you know a couple days in a row especially at the middle school people do call and check in whether it's the nurse or the counselor. So I do think that's the typical practice but I like on the third day maybe on the third day the nurse or the counselor will you know um because even there's a place where it says excessive dismissal should be reviewed by the principal assistant and principal and or designate um this review may be initiated by a faculty or staff

042so should that be initiated by the third day you know and instead of just being I think that's maybe in a couple of places where for me I felt like we should have a little more detail so that it's not left up to anyone to kind of determine when they're going to do you know have something um and so then and like in the middle school one it says the fourth and subsequent occasions in a term may result in further disciplinary action as determined by the principal assistant principal or designate even that like so if the principal at central has their determined disciplinary action is it going to be consistent with someone at Southwest, you know. So, I mean, that's again something that I think I hate to put too much on the plate and

043changes, but I think that maybe that might be something we might want to think about. I'm just throwing it out there and my colleagues can can um can weigh in. Um I also had a question about um the credits. So where you have that the credits are going to be okay. So four you get four unexcused you get four it's four unexcused absences and again we need to make that clear unexcused if it's not if you're excused and you have a notice all that you could be out for a week because you're sick and whatever the problem might be. Now if you miss if you have four unexcused absences you receive a reduction of 1.25 credits per course right? And that's every quarter, correct? Okay. Now, what this is saying here is that um if

044a student exceeds 15 total credits within a school year, they may be required to meet with the principal, assistant, principal designate along with the students parents to establish an attendance plan. Are we waiting until the end of the year for that? Like, so could they be losing 15 credits in two quarters? I mean technically it could it could and our assumption when we wrote it is that it would be identified as that 15 arrives. So whether that's you know second quarter, third quarter or fourth quarter whenever that 15 credit limit is hit that's when it's addressed. So it wouldn't be wait we wouldn't wait to address it to the end of the year. No. Okay. So like 15 credit 15 credits could be if they have four classes 1 2 3 4 that's five in

045a quarter right 5 10 15 it would be like three quarters if a student is really excessive and it's a maybe it needs to be less than that I think is what I'm thinking because if a student is taking five how many courses they take a a quarter they take eight at Quinsey High or seven at North okay so eight would be that's eight nine 10 whatever the math. I'll leave that to you. So, okay. Okay, that makes sense. Then, um and then I think um in a communication piece with parents for me would be um do parents really understand the credit piece and how the credits really impact their students and graduation and what they need. So, if we add this in here, which I think that's I mean I leave that to you.

046Um, I think we really need to figure out to make sure that we are communicating that as soon as if this policy is implemented like consistently in the beginning so that people understand that this can really impact the kids in when they're going to graduate. Um, so that would be that would be one thing that really making sure I'm not I don't know if if you find that families really even understand that piece. Do you do you um I I think as a student progresses along maybe in high school they understand it more probably when they first start in high school they don't really understand it. Yeah. Um but there are requirements like you need this many years of you know uh this many credits and and the credits in order to progress to the

047next grade level. That's what our current policy is. So you need however many um you know credits in order to become go from a freshman to a sophomore you know like those kinds of things. So, I think people understand it as they progress on, but we definitely recognize that this would need to be uh strongly communicated that we would have to do a real PR campaign to push this out so that families know. And I I will say that, you know, I in in my opinion anyways, and I think that Mr. Morani and the superintendent would agree at the middle school level, the amount of because there isn't the amount of outreach or work or um things that go into getting these kids into school. And it's not to say that the high school doesn't

048do that. They do. But these students come up and these families come up understanding that what chronic they're getting letters saying you're chronically absent. We're doing all these things at middle school. and then they get to high school and they can have six six freebies six freebies right in the first term and there is literally nothing we can do about it. there is no incentive, you know, and and so I think that, you know, if you look currently right now today at the grade level for each of our um grades, right, just take Quincsey High School for an example, the freshman class on an average ranges around 94 to 95% attendance. Our senior class is around, I don't know, 89 somewhere around there. It gets progressively worse as the years go on because they know

049they know that they have six days that they can play with each quarter and and it's going to be okay. Yeah. I I I personally don't have any issue with the four. I think that's appropriate and it's fine. People have their opportunity if they're not well and they have issues that you know they have excused absences. That's fine. I think my biggest thing is um parents understanding the credits because you know parents are usually looking to see if you're failing a class or doing well or whatever by a grade. So I think that's super important for us. Um 16 days is I think fine. It's under what DESIE is is requiring from you know a couple of days less. So that gives us some wiggle room. Wiggle Yeah. wiggle room. Um, and then I and

050I and for me, um, if there's some language in there that makes it, consistent communication, consistent protocol and procedures for all of our schools, I think is important so that we're not going to have a situation where someone's going to say, "Well, they did it this way and my other kids at this school and they're doing it this way." I think that's important. So, absolutely, we can tighten that up. Yep. And that's it for me. Thank you, Mrs. Lebo. I I just I find some of the the language confusing for me. So, I'm wondering about the parents in the first attendance a statement. You said you don't call it an unexcused absence here. You call it not school approved. So, I I think it should be called an unexcused absence because that's what we're calling

051it everybody else. Y. So, that really confused me a lot in that particular thing. And then in the in the next there was another thing up there too. Oh, where you say a reduction of per course a student with the principal when it gets to the 15 the 15 it should say a reduction of 15 total points because it doesn't make any s that didn't make any sense to me either you know who exceeds a reduction of 15 points if that's what you're calling it up top I'd like you to call it down there just just to make it clearer for parents and then in the C paragraph I'm really confused about that so absences require a parent guardian approval after the third absence, a valid professional note is required. After the third absence in

052a row, a consecutive days just so if a kid is absent three times in a term, their parents note doesn't work for them on the fourth time they're absent. You're requiring a professional note. So the the professional note, that's what we that's actually what we currently do. So if a student is, you know, absent, right now it's the six, but if a student is absent, in order to make those absences un to make those absences excused, we require a note. So maybe we just need to, you know, clarify the language. But yeah, that that that confused me. It really did confuse me. And then also in that paragraph, you say that um parent or guardian on the day the student returns to school semicolon religious observance. I think it should say religious or cultural because

053that's what we have in our I think it shouldn't just say religious there because our calendar I believe says cultural so I'd like that changed and with respect to what Mrs. Kahill shared about part two number two on the other page. I respectfully disagree with that. I think it's incredibly important that the principles have some discretion. They know their kids. They know their kids' families and the principal at Central does not know what that kid's going through. So I I I understand her wanting some consistency, but I don't you have to give the principal some some discretion here because they know the kids. They know what's going on in their families. I that's just my opinion, but I I really I feel pretty strongly about that. And you want to hear about my grading system

054issues. Okay. Oh, I have one question, too. Students who miss half or more of a class due to unexcused, dismissals, ties, and or other non-school approved purposes shall be considered absent from that class. I don't see that in the policy anywhere. It's in the PowerPoint, but H I don't see it. I couldn't find it. [Applause] It's on the second page. H in the attendance policy. Yes. Yep. So, at what point do they are they considered absent from school? If they So, typically So, they come in at noon time. Yeah. I mean, I I they would certainly be considered absent for all those classes that they missed. They wouldn't necessarily be considered absent from the classes that they attended. It's a way to game the system. Yeah, it is a way to game the system, but

055whatever. Um I I really think the grading policy is a huge huge correction. We've been talking about that for 10 years that it should be grades. And I love the fact that there's a bottom line. So no kid, especially the first turn, winds up with like a 40, right, or whatever, which is almost impossible to recover from. You can't bury a kid. Yeah, you can't bury a kid. You used to be able to bury a kid, but you can't bury a kid here with this. So I am very very pleased with the uh with the grading policy. Um I haven't got any clarification language on that at all. So I think it's well done. Thank you. Complete support. Thanks. All right, we have a lot more questions. We're going to go Mr. Bgolie, Mrs. Perios,

056and then Mrs. Yi. Thank you for all the work. It's a monumental task. It really is. Um, as Mrs. Lebo said, we've been looking to get um the grading system consistent at all levels, you know, because it's confusing when you go from elementary to middle and high school and you get three different grading systems. So, I'm glad that we're finally moving into uh getting letter grades at the high school. Um, just to follow up on on Mrs. Leelo's question, there was an unwritten uh understanding that if you attended class for the first three classes and then left, you were considered in school. You weren't considered absent. Now, I'll just give you an example as to what happened to me with when I coached. Uh Tom Brady won the Super Bowl. They had a parade. Uh

057we had a game at Situit. My kids were told, "Uh, yeah, you can go to the parade as long as you go to the first three classes or whatever it was." They all did that and they were all penal uh punished for that. So a after the fact um and we had to forfeit the game that night against situ because our kids were told that it was okay because there was nothing in writing and I still don't see anything in writing to address that and I would like to see that somewhere. At what point in the day are you considered absent even if you come in? So I think that the complicated thing about that, Mr. Begulli, is that according to the Department of Ed, if you are in school, I think until like 11:30

058or something, you're considered present, even though if you get dismissed, you may have missed, you know, the last couple of classes. Um however that's why I I actually think this policy actually works for that because although the student you know may according to the department of ed may be considered present when you look at it's the difference between a whole day versus individual courses and so the student even though the student might be considered present in terms of attendance if they are unexcused dismissed in the afternoon they would be marked absent for those classes and and th that that then could potentially fall into this credit reduction. Mhm. So we are actually holding and I think that's why the teachers felt so strongly about making sure that we incorporated um tardies and dismissals is because

059kids do leave they do you know when once kids turn a certain age in some cases they can dismiss themselves right you know um and so I think that that was one of the reasons why they really felt strongly because it's not just looking at it in terms of a school day attendance it's also looking at it in terms of by course Okay. So, is there any place where we can put that in in terms of we we could. However, I I would be a little bit nervous about doing that only because I feel like then that is telling kids if you're in school until 11:30, you're all set. You know, you can you can leave after that. So, I'm just I would just be a little nervous about the wording of that because certainly

060we want kids in school all day, right? Girls, don't tell anyone that. those two um credits to progress from one grade to another. You addressed that. You didn't address um going from middle school to high school. Um and I think that's an issue. It has been an issue where kids who are in eighth grade um have failed miserably in their coursework yet they go to high school. Mhm. And they're no they're no more ready than uh my first uh kindergarten grandson to do to to do that. I mean, it's like we're setting them up for failure if we don't have some type of consequence or, you know, do we retain kids anymore? You say no, you can't move on because you haven't um satisfied the requirements for going on to the next grade. We don't

061often retain them, but we do use summer school. So, we do have, you know, we have, we're going to talk about summer school later in the meeting today, but we do have summer school programs and that, you know, we target for kids who are failing, you know, all of their courses are, you know, significantly behind. We also have alternative programs like the PASS program and, you know, that we use for to really help those kids. So, we don't typically retain because we we don't want like a 16-year-old in eighth grade, you know, at at middle school, right? So, um, you know, so, so it's it's a balance. It really is a balance. But, you know, once obviously once they do hit high school, as you know, and I think it's what you're saying is that

062once they fail everything, they they they won't will not have the credits to progress to the next grade level. And so, those are those are students that I know Mrs. Papiel works with all the time, I work with all the time, you know, where we're and that's why we are so fortunate in Quincy that we have so many specialized programs. I think that that's more of the way to go to help some of these students who are really struggling and failing everything is to is to look at like how can we get them into a program that can support them and get them back on track. I'm just concerned about the kiddo that says, "Ah, I don't have to go to school. I I don't have to pass anything because I can go to some

063school. I can go to a program or right and then move on and then I'm still not prepared." Yeah. Yeah, it's not like being in class and uh having rigors of of requirements uh from the teacher that you're in front of. And I I have another question about a lot of our kids are tardy. They they uh think they can sleep in till 9:00. So consistently missing the first period. Yes. And if it's English, that does happen. Mhm. And is that English first period all through the year or do we rotate the um the class? The two high schools have different schedules. So they do rotate somewhat, but North rotates differently than Quinsey High. Um so like North Morning I think rotates, but not their after like their middle block stays the same. Um, and

064don't quote me on it, but they do they definitely do rotate in uh and Quincy High rotates too. It was like a day one day one, you know, they have an eight period. They don't have eight periods every day. One of those classes gets, you know, you you don't there's one class you don't have every day and and the schedule rotates. Okay. And then eligibility of explaining that, Mr. Murray. Eligibility. Okay. A kid uh fails two classes, they're not eligible for athletics. Am I correct? I would I would have to look at that policy language. I I don't know for sure if it's exactly two failures equals I think I think it's a is it two failures or is it that's an MIA policy. Am I correct? Okay. I believe it's two classes. Yeah. Yeah.

065So we we haven't even mentioned that uh here and I think we should I think we should put it front and center that you know you feel two classes you don't you can't play. Uh that's that's that's the requirement that that was the whole purpose of progress reports when we implemented progress reports years ago. um that you know the coach was responsible for his kids even in the offseason. Mhm. Because a kid that's failing fourth quarter is not eligible to play in the fall, right? Um so I mean those things are I mean they don't affect the whole population. I'm sorry. It's in another policy. It's in athletics. Repeat that. Uh that policy that you're talking about with regard to the number of failures that makes you either eligible or ineligible to play athletics is

066in a uh athletics policy which we can get you a copy of. No, I shouldn't know that because I'm the chair. Nobody else said Mr. Bgoli. I am because I know I'm looking at the time. Mrs. Perios, thank you. Um thank you for the work. Uh the grading the grading policy I'm totally on board with. No questions. No concerns on that. So there's your good news. Um I do have a bunch of questions and concerns on um the attendance policy. However, um I thought maybe I'd start with the middle school ones. Um and maybe you could guess where I'd start with this, but the middle school attendance policy. Does this uh does this apply to the fifth graders that are at Point Webster and Southwest? I would I mean not typically we don't typically I

067mean we we don't have an attendance policy for elementary school um so we just work with those families work those cases and I will say it you know it can be for some kids attendance can be a concern u but usually in the elementary school it's not as large it's indivi it's like smaller populations of kids um but no I would say it would be six to eight so can we specify that can we say that this is not applicable to fifth graders at Point Webster and Southwest um to make that clearer for that. Um so what credit impact is um you had said you wanted to make them the same between the middle and high school. What credit impact is it for the middle school kids? There is no credit impact, right? There's no

068credits at the They don't have credit. So there's really no, you know, um there's really not any kind of uh academic um disincentive uh to being absent four or more times. Correct. I think I think that I think it's harder for kids to keep up at middle school honestly when they're chronically absent um you know just because of their developmental age and you know what the things that they're um just dealing with at the middle school level. But I also think that a big difference that people might not be aware of between the middle and the high school is that when students get to high school, when they turn 16, which a lot of freshmen are kind of on the cusp. They're like 15 or, you know, just about to be 16, we have no

069juice to keep them to school. And and not that we do this often, but when they're in middle school, you know, if you're not sending your student to school, we could potentially be calling DCF. Like we we could be filing. There's things that we could be doing. You know, it it because they're little, but that but when they hit 16, that that doesn't apply. Um and so we can't use that. So, you know, so although there might not be academic um, you know, penalties, there's certainly s other significant things that can happen to chronic, you know, people that are chronically absent at the at the we and again, we don't do that lightly or often, but every once in a while at the middle school level, we do have a student who and and it's

070really hard because when they're little, you know, you're not you're you're really it's not the student, you know, the student isn't getting themselves to school, you know, and and families have so many things going on, you know, we we just really we try to work with them. We try to remediate that issue before ideally we'd love to remediate that issue before they get to high school and it does that start to have consequences that impact their academics. No, for sure. Um, last question on middle school and then I have a bunch for high school, too. But, um, for the middle school policy, it says that all absences require a note of explanation from the parent guardian. Um, I don't think that's it. Does that happen? I mean, I've called my kiddo out sick a number

071of times and never provided a note. I'm sorry, what? Where are you? Um, so the middle school attendance um in tardiness policy about halfway down that first attendance page, it says all absences require a note of explanation from the parent guardian. I think that's just that we didn't change that. I think that just was existing language. We didn't edit it. I mean certainly if the committee wants us to, you know, take I I do I think that every parent writes a note. No. But I think that we you do expect parents to call, right? Could we put that in like a call or a note? Just I mean just to reflect what's actually happening. I I've never been asked for a note um when one of my middle schoolers was out. So just if that's

072not what's happening and approved, then maybe we should just update that. All right. So the high school um attendance is where I have kind of a bunch of questions. So bear with me. Um, so on paper, I understand what we're doing. I understand we don't want kids out for 28 classes. I get that. I understand chronic absenteeism has been a problem that we've been addressing. But if we're talking about at the worst 89% of our kids are in are in are not chronically absent. It feels like a lot of change and effort and work to to really just address 11% of the high school kids. And I fear that this is going to have a lot more consequences for the 89% that are actually doing the right thing. Um, but that just may not quite

073understand. To Mrs. Cahill's um point, I don't know that families quite understand the excused versus the unexcused, whether you have to have a note, how that note gets um taken care of. Like for instance, I think this is how it goes. Um, just hear me out here. So if a kiddo in high school feeling sick on a day gets dismissed whatever time 11 12 they get dismissed they go home the next day they go to the doctor they have a sore throat right they take they check for strep you get a note from the doctor that day is excused the next day strep test is negative but they're still feeling crappy they stay home the day after that still kind of feeling crappy stay home so we have one excused absence out of that four

074day window Um, and if we want those second two days, those last two days to be excused, the kiddo has to go back to the doctor and get another note because that first note isn't covering the fact that the kid's still sick. So, what we're sort I guess my my real uncomfortability with this is the e inequity it's going to provide for families that can't afford to pay multiple co-pays for a doctor in a week or that can't take multiple days out of work to take their kid back to the doctor or transportation issues to get to the doctor. So, I just worry that um we're going to sort of have some inequity issues where people can't get that doctor note every single time and these are going to rack up super quick like that.

075I just explained that happens in my house all the time. 4 days it's you don't want it to be that way, but it just is. Um, and what are you exactly supposed to do about that? So, I just worry that, you know, it's going to create this like my kid has to go to summer school because they had, you know, one week where they were pretty sick but not sick enough to go to the doctor every single day. Um, so I just don't quite know how we're I like I say, on paper I get what we're doing, but I think in practice this is going to create a lot of problems for kids that aren't the chronic absenteeism problem, right? This is just a kid that has a wonky week or two or, you know,

076and if we're sending kids to school kind of sick, everybody's going to get more sick. So I think saying we want them to be there 100% of the time is, to be honest, kind of unreasonable. Um, and if co taught us anything is to stay home if you're not feeling good, so you're not spreading it to everybody else. So I I don't love what we're doing here in that aspect. Um, so I don't I maybe do maybe I'll just pause there. I do have a couple other questions, but maybe I'll just pause there. Yeah. So I think you know when I said the 89% that's the daily attendance that was the daily attendance like the average daily attendance for the senior class. I don't think you can like equate that to 11%. That doesn't take

077into consideration the kids that are chronically absent. Like so Quinsey High School alone had 32% of the students last year were considered chronically absent. That's huge. Right now alone I I don't even know. We might have 200 I mean the list is massive. Just at Quincy High alone, I'm not even talking about North. There's 200 over 200 students that we are watching um right now and have been and and I don't even that doesn't even count. That's the kids who are on the cusp, right? So that's like the kids who are just about to be chronically absent, but they're technically not violating our attendance policy. They're under the days, but I want to I I'm pretty sure it's around 200 and that doesn't even include the chronically absent kids. So the crown there's already a

078whole host I don't I I do you remember the number I wish I had the number with me but it's significant of students um who are already at this point in the year today considered chronically absent 25% yeah it was between 25 and 28% today at Quinsey High School are considered chronically absent and there is there is no we are trying everything to get these kids to school but right now our policy is is absolutely in disagreement with that. It's 100% in disagreement with that. We have a mandate from the state. It's the schools held to that for accountability purposes. You know, we sat here with these principles and, you know, and expressed concerns about the chronic absenteeism numbers. We certainly have expressed concerns and take taken that on as an initiative, but our the

079school committee's policy does not support that work and that that's basically what it comes down to. I totally understand what you're saying and I think I would never expect and and I think that that's on us and we need to do some work with our nurses and with our school administration. I would not expect if you got a doctor's note and your kid wasn't feeling good and that student was out, you only need one doctor's note. We're not going to make you go back to the doctor 15 times. So, I think that's on us for communication to make sure that that's clear to the nurses and I and and the people in the buildings and I will personally take that on. Um, you know, and we certainly can update you on that and share that

080with you, but I feel so strongly that we have to do something about this policy. It it it is hurting us. It's hurting our kids. Yeah. No, I I totally get it. And I think that if we did just do and maybe there's other things with um, you know, just better communication with if you want to take a cultural a cultural religious holiday. Absolutely. better communication with how you do that to get an excuse because I know if you just call in, we're sick. You know, it can't be anecdotal. You need to have a note. So, we need better communication to families that that's how they need to get an excused absence. But, I think working with the nursing staff for sure at the high school, I know they're pretty strict about it. Um, so

081I know we we really do I mean, you're dealing with a sick kid. You don't want to have to, you know, dot every eye and cross every tea to try to, you know, meet when your kiddo's sick. You know, you're trying to deal with that. Obviously, it's the same sickness. So, I appreciate that. Um, and I think working with Miss Pio, sorry to interrupt you, Miss I would we we could absolutely put some doesn't need to be school committee policy, but some procedures. We could write out, you know, with um Andrea Huer and write out some procedures that we share with every single school. So, I think that addresses Miss Cahill's point, too. and we can share those with this the committee um as well to act you know write out procedures for some of

082these things that people have concerns about so we know it's fair and it's equitable and everybody's handling it that you know the same way obviously with the you know when you have extenduating circumstances giving the principal that latitude to be able to do what they need to do for that family. Gotcha. And just the last um area I wanted to just ask a question about was the credit recovery. Um, so first I'm just wondering how um, so as you mentioned, Quinsey has eight courses and North has seven. So if we're missing full days, we're talking about Quinsey High having to make up 10 credits and North Quinsey having to make up 8.75 credits. So we already have a little bit of an inequity there. How many credits are each fullyear course worth usually on like

083an average? So they have five five. But I will just say it's not really an inequity because the number the credits are don't work in the same way at both high schools. So the number of credits that you need to move from say 9 to 10th at North is less than it is at Quincy High. Okay. So that's been historical. That's actually was actually in our other policy that we did recently. But so even though they might have to make up less credits, it's just as important because they have they need those in order to move to the next grade level. Okay. So is there um so you're saying basically if one one term this happens a kiddo at Quinsey well both actually schools would need to make up two classes in the summer's worth

084of credits two courses for missing four days in one term you would have to make up two not necessarily they have to make up 1.25 25 credits if it's only been once per class. If it's only been one if it's only been one term, right? So, if they miss four full days of school, they have to make up two full years worth of credit classes over the summer. That feels a little extreme um to take two full classes worth of for missing four days. Like if a family goes on vacation, you're now having to take two full the equivalent of two full classes. Is that even work in Saturdays? I mean, that's it just feels a little hefty. No, I see. We talked a lot about that actually, but I think that that's why we

085put other school approved because I absolutely think that in C and again this is something maybe it's not doesn't belong in a policy but maybe in terms of like what this could potentially look like you know um because you know if you're first term you that happens to you you know and then you recover second term I absolutely expect that the teacher and the principal and the family and the student are going work together to figure out how that student can make up those credits because especially what we want is for the student to get back on track, you know, and the student to come to school. And so the student starts coming and they hardly ever miss and for, you know, now second term they're doing awesome. They can come to come up with

086an attendance plan for how the student could recoup those credits, not having to go and do, you know, a full uh summer program or whatever. I'd like to see those options listed a little bit just a and I know you want to keep it open-ended, but I'd love to see like what some of those ideas are because it feels like it just feels a little too nebulous for me to sort of understand to be comfortable sort of saying, you know, because a lot of this isn't on the kid, right? So, I mean, in high school, you still have parents driving kids. So, if they're tardy, if they're late, that may not be on the kid, that may be on the parent. And if they have to go on vacation, if their family plans a vacation

087for a week and takes them out of school, that may not be the kid's decision. And so I'm sort of that's I'm sort of trying to allow for those items where like it's not really fair to have a kiddo come in the summer to take two classes worth of credits if it's their family's decision that they're going to see, you know, some a family over in Japan or something for the week of vacation and the week after. Do you know what I mean? It's it's a little it's it makes me a little uncomfortable on that. Yeah. So, we what we could do is I don't think it should go in the policy because I do think we should we do need a little bit of discretion, but I do think that um that what we

088could do is type up some a list of like what this could look like some examples of how we could intervene and share that with you all at the next meeting. I also just want to say if a student not that we condone vacations because we're not condoning vacations. However, we do have written into the policy that if it's for like a a family situation or something, you know, that th that family can appeal to the principal and the principal can grant that as an excused absence. We're not talking like Disney World, but you know, if there's, you know, we do recognize that we have students that have to travel for funerals or life things that happen. Um, and that we would expect that that would then be considered an excused absence. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

089And to Miss Kahill's point, hopefully that would be a little um equitable across the schools of what would be be allowed. Y um so yeah. No, thank you and I appreciate the uh the time for the questions. Mrs. Huley, thank you. Um thank you for the presentation. Um be brief because I know we have to get to our main meeting. Um, and um, so with the middle school and as you pointed out about the vacations, if we could put some of these things would be great to put in like make sure they're in the handbooks because I get asked that question a lot about family vacations and if we could put right in the handbooks that family vacations during the school year are not condoned following the absence of student is expected to make make

090up missed work at the discretion of the teacher. I mean that that right there that could put put right in the handbook, you know, beginning of the year, have the principal talk to the students about that and make sure the students are aware of that. So when it's happening at home and the parents are planning the trip to Disney World that they know the kids can say and this is middle school, they can say, "Hey, mom, you know, my teacher said this and they hear it at the beginning of the year." Yeah. Um, also with that same note with the um the loss of privileges um at the beginning of the year when the principal has all the kids in the auditorium and he's telling them the rules of the the year. That would be

091something that would be great to bring up at the beginning of the year and also put that in the handbook so that they are aware that if they are absent, the amount of times that would be reflective of losing privileges to go to the prom, they would know this at the beginning of the school year that this could be a possibility. So, they are aware of it. So, it's not like a surprise at the end of the year when they're absent all these days and they're being told, "Hey, this is a possibility." They now know it at the beginning of the year. Um, and when they are, um, I have my scratches here. Um, the, um, mandatory detention, is that scheduled detention? Because I know for our high schoolers, a lot of them have jobs

092or a lot of them are watching their their siblings after school. So this would be have to be something that would be checked with their families to get coverage and so on and so forth. So would this be a scheduled detention? Okay, that might be something we might want to add so they know that. Um and when they are parents are calling um to say that my student is not going to be in school, my my child is not going to be in school today. Um, are they reminded that they should be sending in a note if they're sick or or whatnot or if they have a are they told this over the phone? Um, I do think they are reminded of that. I I don't want to say every single time, but I I

093do think if someone calls and says my student has streped throat, they say just send in a note. You I do think that that does happen. But certainly, I think probably, you know, we I mean, I I definitely have heard the concern to tighten that up a little bit and um make sure that we're communicating that to the to the schools and that that's clear. All right. And this is something that could also be put in the handbook. Make sure that it's in there that if if you're being called out that you're sending in a note. Yes. Um thank you. Thanks. All right. I have one question and then uh we'll talk through next step. So, you said you did a lot of research on grades, uh, the letter grades, and everybody universally practically does

094letter grades. How do other communities deal with the 18 excused absences? We're doing four a quarter, right? Essentially, so that's 16. That gets you to 16. So, you have a little bit of wig. What is the discussion that you've had with other districts about how they're managing? Well, the the we definitely we got the credits from other districts. I don't remember. I think it was might have been Brainree, maybe. Brainree. Yeah. Um, so we definitely looked at other districts as well. I I think we're in line. Everybody uses the chronic absenteeism language. I would say the majority of districts use the chron they may not be um as specific as ours, but they all reference the chronic absenteeism language. They all that is absolutely you know the case. Got it. Um okay. So your objective

095here is to get us to take action uh at at the next meeting. I'm assuming you're going to get us a revision. We'll get you the revision. So my my preference would be that it could be on the actual agenda at the next meeting so that we could h have a discussion if there is. And then um I guess we we've historically had a policy that it has to sit for a meeting. I assume that's the meeting that it sits and then we can act on it uh at the meeting in June. Is that your desire? That would be wonderful. Okay. Any just make one second? I just want to um go back to the point with um Mrs. Lebo too about the principal discretion and all that and I think what you mentioned we

096don't ne necessarily have to change that in the policy but maybe have procedures yes as a as a side you know side document that will lay out what all the process and procedures will be. So the policy can be that and then just have something that gives us an indication of how principles across the board would deal with special occasions or special instances and we can draft that and share it with you at the next meeting. That may not necessarily have to be a vote. I don't know but the policy. Yes. So certainly to review and let us know if you have any concerns. All right. Good. And then just two things I want to say. One, I want to thank the vice chair for allowing us to go 45 minutes into the school committee

097meeting tonight. And two, I think collectively we should think through when when there are big issues that are coming before us allotting enough time in subcommittee. So if we had to dial it back 30 minutes earlier. So I just say that for whoever is coming before subcommittee in the future, you know, chat with the with with the chair of that subcommittee to make sure that the 15 or 30 minutes that are allotted are going to be sufficient to deal with the issue. Yeah, I appreciate that. We uh subcommittee stands adjourned and I'll turn it over to the vice chair. Hang on. Sorry. Should I go over to my seat or is not coming here? the um school committee meeting for Wednesday, May 7th. Um let's all stand. Oh, we need a roll call, please. Mr.

098President, Mrs. Hill, preschool student representative. Thank you for being here tonight. and North Quinsey High School student representative Amy Tan. Thank you for being here tonight. Perfect. Let me get their mics on, too. Um, let's stand for the pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And we do not have any memorials tonight. So, we're at the um open forum section, which is an opportunity for community input regarding the Quinsey public schools. Community in this context is defined as a resident of the city of Quinsey, a non-resident parent of a student who attends the Quinsey public schools, or a non-resident employee of the Quinsey public schools. After giving his

099or her name and address, each speaker may make a presentation of no more than three minutes to the school committee. An individual may not exchange their time or yield to others. Residents or non-comm community persons may submit written statements of up to 300 words to the school committee at QSC open forum at quincseyublicschools.com by 400 pm on the day prior to the posted school committee regular meeting. Written statements will be posted on the school committee section of the Quinsey public schools website by noon on the day of the posted school committee regular meeting. Is there anyone here tonight that wishes to speak? Try that. Good evening white vice chair and fellow community uh school committee members. My name is Kylie 42 president. I'd like to start with thanking Miss Lebo for the years of dedication

100to our community and children. Thank you. This week is teacher appreciation week. It's heartwarming to see the post from QPS PTO's and fellow parents sharing their stories of how teachers changed their lives for the better. I've seen the dedication of my children's teachers during conferences and via print and electronic communications. I don't know if the administrative staff is uh considered teachers, but um they'll be they're teachers in my book. In attending the school committee meetings, I see firsthand the dedication that you have for our children. Uh whether it's around the concerns of students missing school, which we spent 45 minutes talking about, um and the strategies, how to best get them back on track, or making lunch fun and interesting by exposing them to different cuisines, or the concern for our students um safety and

101looking for solutions such as renovating Delica so that Lincoln has the capacity it needs to best serve our children. Or in I think last or two weeks ago uh in the meeting where some of the staff walked us through pivotal response training that's being used for our special ed students. I see hear and feel their enthusiasm and dedication and got a taste as well. I can go on and on but we only have three minutes and we're running late too. uh on Monday listened in on to the city council meeting and was glad to hear about the 4.2 to 6.6 million increase funding for our schools. I look forward to learning more about that budgeting process. Um happy Mother's Day to my wife, my mom, and all the moms out there. And uh looking forward

102to next weekend's multicultural festival. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, thank you. Um, next we will move to the superintendent report. Superintendent, thank you. Thank you and good evening everyone. Hope everyone is doing well. First item on my agenda is student recognitions. Uh, congratulations of course to the North Quincsey High School academic dathlon team for winning the division 5 championship at last weekend's national finals. It's an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations to team members Matthew Amador, Louisa Bayenzi, Emily Co, Matthew Lynn, Marco Mano, Dani Palawal, Philip Wang, Steven Yu, and coach Benny Diamore on this amazing accomplishment. Again, division five championship as at last weekend's national finals. So, congratulations. Uh, Southwest Middle School grade 5 student Alexander Lee recently won an odd contest sponsored by St Math to to design a banner that will be used

103in schools across Massachusetts when the 80% completion mark is reached. So, congratulations to Alexandra Lee. On May 8th, mathematics curriculum coordinator Kim Quinn will be presenting at the DZY Math Leaders Network meeting on May 8th. Kim will share Quinsey public schools experience with the high dosage math tutoring which was recently reviewed with this committee and of course how we rolled it out, what we learned, the benefits uh etc to math educators from around the state. So thank you to Kim Quinn for doing this on behalf of the Quincy Public Schools high school athletic updates. Last Friday, May 2nd, athletic director Kevin Mahoney presented the request for boys ice hockey to become a co-op team at the Patriot League athletic directors meeting. The request was approved and Kevin has now submitted the request to the MIAA

104for approval and we're expecting to hear back later this month. So that uh that is in progress and moving forward. Uh in your backpacks is a copy of the letter from the New England Associate Association of Schools and Colleges, NIASK, confirming the continued accreditation of Quinsey High School. The NES Commission on uh public schools re commended Quinsey High School on a number of important areas including the staff's dedication to supporting students and the collaboration and connection between adults and students that promote academic and emotional well-being, reinforcing the school's commitment to addressing diverse learning needs. Special thanks of course to principal Ford, Assistant Principal Ed Smith, the department chairs, teachers, and administrators for all the hard work that went into evaluating and documenting the many strengths of Quinsey High School and showcasing the school for the

105NES team and of course thank you to the school committee for participating in this process as well. Uh the feedback was excellent and again congratulations to the Quincy High School team and thank you to their team as well. At your places is a copy of the spring contest schedule for our elementary, middle, and high schools. A highlight of the school year thanks to the music department staff is also included. You'll also be sent calendar invitations, so you can attend these events as your schedules permit. Um, the Quinsey Public Schools and City of Quinsey events, and there are so many events, so I'll try and go through them as quickly as possible. There will be an English learn a parent advisory council meeting on Thursday, May 8th on Zoom to review the new EL curriculum and

106share information about summer programs in Quinsey with families. The annual Quinsey High School fashion show will be held on Thursday, May 8th at 6 p.m. in the Lloyd Hill Auditorium, featuring the original creations of our fashion technology students assisted by students from the broadcasting, graphic design, culinary, and carpentry technology programs. The Snug Aba PTO is hosting a Touch a Truck event on Saturday, May 10th from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. This is a free family event and all are welcome. On May 12th at Quinsey High School and May 20th at North Quincsey High School, students from the healthcare technology programs will be recognized in pinning ceremonies. This is a traditional ceremony for healthcare workers, marking the transition from student to professional um status. So congratulations to the healthcare tech students as they reach this great

107milestone. And again, thank you to all of our CVT teachers, too, who made this possible for our students. Among the concerts scheduled uh for May and June are several citywide programs, including the high school spring recital night on May 14th at 6 p.m. at North Quinsey High School and the elementary and middle school strings concert on May 19th at 6 p.m. at Quinsey High School. Saturday, May 17th, is going to be a busy day in Quinsey with the annual grades 5 to 8 robotics competition being held at Quinsey High School beginning at 10:00 a.m. The Quinsey Multicultural Festival will return to Pageant Field from noon to 3:00 p.m. showcasing the diverse cultures of our community through music, food, and art. The Monontlair Elementary School will host the 89th annual May Festival from 10:00 a.m. to

1084 p.m. The day will wrap up with the concert on the Common at 400 p.m. at Hancock Adams Common featuring the Quinsey Symphony Orchestra, singer Todd Angley, and the combined Quinsey High School Coral Group. So, that will be an amazingly busy day, but also an amazing fun day as well. On May 19th, both high schools will host future educator signing day ceremonies recognizing graduating seniors who will be pursuing careers in education. Each student invited an educator from their elementary, middle, or high school career who played a significant role in influencing our students career aspirations. We look forward to potentially welcoming, of course, these students to the QPS staff in the future. The annual ash show will be held on Monday, May 19th at 5:00 PM at Quinsey High School and Thursday, May 22nd at North

109Quinsey High School at 5:30 p.m. The Quinsey Public Schools physical education staff is hosting community fitness night for students and parents in kindergarten through grade 5 on Tuesday, May 20th at 6 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Stadium. The Quinsey Retired Teachers Association is hosting their annual scholarship ceremony on May 20th at 7 p.m. at the Central Middle School auditorium. The QRTA is celebrating their 75th anniversary this year and Quinnsey Public Schools is grateful for their continued support of our graduating seniors each year with an amazing generosity through their scholarships provided to over 20 students from the two high schools. So, thank you to the Quincsey Retired Teachers Association. The middle school spring track uh season will come to a close on May 21st with the citywide track meet at 3:30 p.m. at Fax and Field. And

110last but not least, our newest QPS families are invited to the Welcome to Kindergarten Parent Academy on Thursday, May 22nd at 6 PM at Central Middle School to learn about the curriculum and learning opportunities for their students. So, with that, I know there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on in the city. It's all exciting stuff. That does conclude my superintendent's report. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Parios. Thank you. I just had one quick question or um request. Um Mr. Movie, uh when we have these, is there a way to put the time and the location on these? I know a lot of parents sometimes refer to these for different citywide the agenda itself. Yeah, exactly. Just so um you know, if someone's interested in going to the community fitness site, they can easily

111find out the time and the location. Sure. Um it's great that we have these on there and just love the full information. It' be great. Absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Um old business, there is none. New business, we have the city of Quinsey FY 2026 budget overview by Mayor Ko, which um Superintendent. So, uh good evening again everyone. Unfortunately, the mayor could not be with be with us here tonight. it was his intention to review the city budget with you in particular the allocation that will be made to the school department. He does intend to do that at the next meeting. Of course, we will present our um budget to you based on the bottom line that the city gives us. Um I can tell you that the bottom line that the city

112has given us is very very generous. It is an increase. It will allow us to level fund and continue all of our programming without any layoffs or reductions in programming. Uh that also includes summer programming as well for our kids. Uh which is great. I have to thank the mayor and of course I'll be presenting to the city council on Monday night and I'll thank them as well for their generosity and support year in and year out of the school budget. Uh it is a healthy budget. will um give of course a breakdown of that budget to you um uh at our next school committee meeting and I believe the mayor will also review with you prior to us presenting uh what he normally would have reviewed with you tonight. Um but again the budget

113is very healthy. U thank you of course to the Dr. Perkins and Mr. Melanie and the SLT for helping us uh develop uh the um budget necessary to uh maintain all programming and staffing uh in the school department. And I think that you'll be pleased uh with the budget presentation we'll do at the next school committee meeting. Thank you. Um next on our list, we have new business also um Quincsey Public School summer program, Dr. Perkins and Mr. Morani. Okay, thank you very much for having us again. We are really so thrilled to be here to talk about the summer programming. I you know we've said this before uh we you know given the state of affairs that is you know around the nation and and in Massachusetts in terms of budgets and cuts and

114all the things that have been happening you know we weren't sure what our summer programming was going to look like this year and so I just have to say a big thank you to Mayor Ko and the school committee always so supportive. This is Quinsey does a phenomenal job at summer programs. I I really do not believe there's another school system that does or city honestly that does as much for for their kids as Quinsey does uh in the summer months. And so we are so so blessed to be here and so excited that we are able to tell the parents out there tonight that we're bringing the summer programs back. So um so we will just kind of quickly go through them. You've heard them many times before. So, uh, if you have questions

115at the end, you certainly can ask, but we we won't, um, you know, go into too too much detail. So, obviously, the goal for us, summer programming is to provide high quality summerlong experiences, which I absolutely think we do, um, very very well, and our uh, programs are aligned to the pre prerequisite standards for the next year's grade level. Um, we really have developed these programs and and we're constantly tweaking and adding to them to make sure that they're focused on academic but also enrichment also accelerated learning uh and social emotional support as well and opportunities for wellness activities. um so that we're really focusing on the whole student and uh we're really focused and have been for years now on providing a range of uh opportunities for all different interests, all different types of

116students. Um so that there's something hopefully for everyone in our summer programs. So back again this year, we've had this for years and years. A tweak to this is that a couple years ago we added math but bridge to reading and math. It will be again at Clifford Marshall Elementary School. It's a four-week program. It's an invitationonly program and it runs um from Monday through Thursday. It is focused on literacy development for students um entering grades 1 through five and math fluency and number sense skills uh for those students who need some assistance with that. And also back, this is a very very popular program is the Quest for Learning program. Um, this is an enrichment and acceleration uh STEM summer program. And this actually there's a little bit of a change to this one.

117This one is not at Beachwood Null this summer. It is at Bernazani. Um, so that's a little bit of a tweak. Uh, and so this is a four-week summer program again for students entering grades one through five. And they do so many fun things at this program. They explore uh literature and authors and different topics. They um work on humanities and civics and uh engage themselves in science activities and technology and math. So they pretty much cover the gamut. And with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Morani to talk about middle school programming. Thank you, Dr. Perkins. Uh so we are making a slight shift at the middle school level. So, summer boost will continue on. So, that's a four-week program and that aims to help students who are struggling academically entering six,

118seven, and eight. So, those are middle school students who are uh struggling. And our goal is one to help them fill the gaps if they were struggling to keep pace uh with the cohort of kids that they're with uh and or help them avoid regression over the summer. So, summer boost has not changed. Uh however, hands-on STEM uh has changed. So if you remember last year we had two we had STEM academy and we had hands-on math. So one issue we encountered with that was uh with hands-on math we had let's say one group of students who were going because they were struggling with math concepts and they really needed to learn kind of the the concrete uh aspects of math so that they could build uh to the abstract. However, we also had a

119lot of students who were very advanced in math and they were taking it to another level. And so what we decided to do was to take the concepts from hands-on math and embed those in both summer boost. So hands-on math, the actual uh supplemental materials, the um the hands-on materials that will be used will be used at summer boost and it will also be used at hands-on STEM. Now, the nice part about hands-on STEM is we also are bringing STEM Academy in there. So, again, we're kind of merging these two programs. And so, instead of running STEM Academy for two weeks, we're now we've merged it to hands-on STEM and we're going to run it for four weeks, broken up into two two-week sessions. And I do just want to point out that those are

120independent of one another. So, a student could sign up for just session two for two weeks. A student could sign up for just session one for two weeks, or a student could sign up for one and two if they wanted to do a four-week program. So we felt that met met the academic needs of our students and also offered a little bit more flexibility for students who wanted to engage for longer periods of time because if you remember last year STEM Academy was two sessions, one week each for STEM Academy. So this allowed us to kind of create more opportunity for the wide range of learners that we have. They're both at Central Middle School. They both run for the same four weeks. We have Quinsey uh Summer Theater Arts Academy. really nothing to change

121there because it's such a successful program. We will intentionally do that in the afternoon. So if there are students participating in summer booth, something of that nature, they can still participate in Quinsey Summer Theater Arts Academy. So it's a great program that culminates in a show that they write, they produ, they being the students write, produce, and perform in. It's always a great program. So we consistently uh we we we're lucky to offer that along with our other programming that will take place at Quincsey High School. That's for students entering grades seven through nine. Shifting to high school programming. So, we will offer our credit recovery programming as we have in the past. Like last year, ELA, science, math, and history will all be offered as opportunities for students to earn uh their credits back.

122One thing I do want to point out is as far as registration goes, there is a registration link in the brochure which has been uh that is published that is accessible. I'll talk about that in a little bit. But there are two walk-in registration dates that I just want to verbalize here. This is written in the brochure, but Quinsey High School, we will be having a walk-in registration Tuesday, July 1st, 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. And then at North Quincsey High School, Wednesday, July 2nd, 8:30 to 11:30. And again, that's if you don't feel comfortable registering online and you have some questions about which courses you should take, you can walk in. We'll have people there to help you with that. You can you repeat that? Absolutely. So, the walk-in registration at Quinsey High School is

123Tuesday, July 1st, and that will be from 8:30 uh a.m. until 11:30 a.m. And then the North Quinsey High School will be Wednesday, July 2nd, also 8:30 to 11:30 in the morning. And then the program will begin the following the following Monday, which I believe is July 7th. Uh we will continue on with ladders to success. So, we have 30th grade students. Just a quick reminder, it's the same criteria. We work with principles to identify and select those students, but we look for students that might that might fall into one or more of the categories. Economic disadvantage, English learners, special education students, and or uh homeless students. Summer Youth Works, I I think you could kind of frame this as an extension of Ladders to success. We have 140 spots. 112 students are returning from

124last year. They'll get new opportunities uh from uh in terms of their participation. They'll have a new assignment and we do have uh we work with approximately 40 partners once again to help facilitate those opportunities for so many students. So, we look forward to that. Great great way for students in both 8th grade uh entering 9th and then also our current high school students to earn some money during the summer and get some great experience. We have the early college high school pathway summer academy. Again, uh same programming with the exception of three courses being added. So, three additional opportunities. Uh writing for professionals, business ethics, an intro to so uh introduction to so social work. Those are three courses that we did not offer last summer that we are offering. A student can earn

125up to eight credits. So, if they're taking a lab, that's four credits. If they were to take two labs, they would get eight. So it's anywhere from six to eight depending on the courses they select. So those are college credits that they can earn over the summer. We're very lucky in the city of Quinsey that we have so many students that can take advantage of this. And I do just want to add that we have students I I forgot to mention this in the last one. We do have students that are part of the uh summer youth works institute. They get to work part-time and also participate in some of these courses as well. So we have students that can earn some money over the summer while also earning some college credits. great opportunity. And

126for our special education program, uh we have again the CARES free kindergarten program. This is a fiveweek program. It is invitation. It's based on a student's IEP and it's in order to prevent a substantial regression. This this year, we're happy to announce will be located at the Dr. Victor Christopharo Learning Center. Uh so that's very exciting. We have the CARES in the learning center program which is the students basically older than kindergarten um who will it's a five-week program a half-day program Monday through Thursday and it will be located at Southwest Middle School this year and again it's based on a student's IEP. Uh we also have a couple of other special education programs. These have been in existence. We have the transitional kindergarten program that is part of the bridge to reading. It's located

127at Clifford Marshall. Again, it's a fiveweek program. It's for students who are in the transitional kindergarten classroom. Uh and then it's it's in order to prevent regression. And then the language development class program, again, also a five-week program at Clifford Marshall for students who are in the language development program. And the middle school program um is located at Southwest Middle School. So then although we have the preK and K uh program, our CARES program that are going to that's going to be at RDLC, we actually have a new program that's going to be at RDLC. And this is specifically for the students in the K to8 uh separate day school. And so we're really excited about this. This is actually a six-week program that will be located at the RDLC. The hours are a little

128bit longer. Again, it's Monday through Thursday. And this is because a lot of our students, as you know, that either were in out of district programs or maybe would have traditionally been in out of district programs, those summer programs are typically longer. And so we developed this in order to provide that same experience within the district. Uh and then we have a social connections program. This is a great program. It's actually been in existence for a bit. It's a five-week program at Southwest Middle School and it's for students who need social communication assistance. helps them learn to engage and interact, work in groups with their peers. They take field trips all over the city, um, learn to self- advocate, and it it's actually a really, really nice program. So, we're excited to bring that one

129back. And then for English language learners, we have our two programs that we've had for a while. We have Camp Can Do, which is at Clifford Marshall. It's a four-week program and it's for students entering grades one and five who are at the emerging and developing level for of English language proficiency. And then the middle school program is for students in grades six to nine and it is a four-week program at Central Middle School. And it's it works uh it focuses on English language proficiency specifically in speaking and writing. And they also do some really fun stuff. They u work on science and civics. they learn about Quinsey history and again they also travel all over the city and um do some really cool things. And so um we also have within all of our

130programs opportunities for social emotional and wellness support. So we uh our programs include opportunities for mindfulness activities. We use the social thinking curriculum um and so uh you know we incorporate that within there. We have opportunity for credit recovery through egeneuity which is our used to be Excelis and now is egenuity. It's our online credit recovery program. So for students who can handle that we prefer for students to come in because we think it's more effective but for students that can handle it um you know we do have that off as well. And then we also continue to use open parachute uh lessons throughout the summer. And we have lots of sightbased and field trip activities. So we have field days. We're really thrilled. I think last year we really started to be able to

131do more field trips. Maybe a little bit the year before and and last year we pretty much got back to like where we had been. So that was really exciting. We have summer crafts. We have people that come in like drums alive and rainforest reptiles comes to uh bridge and a couple of other places and then we take community bass field trips and we have guest speakers and presenters. This we mentioned I think at the special education subcommittee but we are so excited and um you know thank you Mrs. Lebo and Miss Hubli for uh helping us get this into the district and of course Mayor Ko um the I can bike program that will be in Quinsey. So for people that don't know this is a program that works with students with disabilities to

132teach them how to ride bikes. Um so this will be offered the week of August 18th. It's for students with disabilities that are aged eight and up. It is a fiveday program and the sessions are 75 minutes um for each session. So once you sign up for one session, you do have to be there every single day at that time for 75 minutes. So, it it is a commitment and we do ask that if people are interested and want to sign their children up that they make that commitment because it it will there will be a waiting list and we would really hate for someone to lose a spot um if a student can't be there all five days. And uh it does it builds confidence and joy. Uh it has a really huge success

133rate. I think it has like a 95% success rate that the students at the end of the camp will be riding bikes. How many how many kids can I think there's about 40. We could take eight per session. So 40 students. Um and so the the uh registration has not gone live yet. This is its own registration. So the QR code is right here. I believe the registration goes live on May 12th. Um and it is you do have to sign up through the I can bike website. So, it's not it will not be with we can potentially maybe um add a link for on the website or something for students who are or families who are interested, but it it won't be in the other registration packet. It is its own separate registration. I'll

134turn it back over to Mike. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Perkins. So, once again, we'll have our free summer lunch program. Thank you to um Sarah Dufour and her team uh in food services. So, one item I want to point out. So every everything is the same as last year with the exception of the we will not be having the lunch at Lincoln. It has been moved to Southwest and that's simply for those uh kitchen renovations that are occurring over the summer. So it's at Southwest Middle School uh all the same time window 11:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Parker Southwest 2 Community Center, Snug Harbor uh and Mont Clair. and just wanted to in addition to this robust uh programming we have for our students, there's still quite a few educators working behind the scenes

135over the summer as well. So, we just wanted to highlight a couple of those. We will continue with our ongoing initiative over the summer of curriculum mapping. So, we're just looking to get more courses mapped with some consistency between the two high schools. The priority subjects are listed there, world language, social studies, math, science, and ELA. So that is the focus at the middle school level. We're going to have teachers working on the new curriculum amplify Desmos. So the idea of uh planning what that roll out will look like for the next few years. But Desmos uh is a great curriculum with lots of potential that we actually use at the high school level already. So we're very excited about that. But we do have to put in some time this summer to get ourselves

136ready and prepared. Uh same sentiment with science. So, we had a bunch of teachers um this year pilot uh many of the units. So, now the focus this summer is looking to see where those units if those units uh fit within our pacing guides. So, we're going to take some time this summer to see where those units can fit within our pacing guides. And I should just add Gizmos has turned out to be a great great tool. I've heard every teacher I've talked to raves about that and a lot of students that I talk to really love that platform that gives students the opportunity to access digital simulations. And so the thing with Gizmos is it's a it's a great curriculum supplement. So we want to be very targeted in when and where we use

137that throughout the year because it can help from an instructional timing standpoint. It can save teachers a lot of time so they can go deeper in other areas. So it's a very efficient tool. Not only is it extremely engaging, so we want to be very strategic in how we roll out open sed and gizmos together. Uh and then at the elementary level, I'll just kind of quickly go through these. We have another SCMath rollout preparation and planning period. That's for Athetherton how who is the new recipient of the 18 grant. So all those other schools will continue on. However, we're adding in Athetherton how to that. We will have a foundations of math course offered. uh that is led by both uh Miss Quinn and in math interventionists. We have Orton Gillingham summer coursework um

138the desi literacy launch institutes and soaring to summer school success which is a science of reading PD that teachers are able to participate in gives them a lot of great resources that they can then bring with them uh for upcoming school year. So, a lot going on. In addition to all this programming for the students, we have a lot of educators hard at work over the summer getting ready for the 2526 school year. So, when we look at what's next just regarding summer programming, um so outreach to students and families, that's already begun in terms of the invite only program. So, those invitations have been sent out. If there's a particular parent or guardian that's thinking they should have received one and they haven't, I would encourage them to contact their principal and just check

139in on that. They'll be if they don't know the answer, they'll certainly connect them to the director that would. Uh the registration is now open for all programs. So people can register for programs. That the brochure went live yesterday on the web page. Principles reached out to families and communities. They'll also include that link in their newsletters throughout the next few weeks while the registration period is open, which we're leaving until tentatively until May 31st. So, we'll monitor numbers. If we hit capacity, we'll have to evaluate whether or not we can expand capacity or close it down, but we really need to kind of tighten everything up by the end of May to be able to to move forward. Um, and of course, so one thing I do want to add, it's not on here,

140uh, but I'll actually just go to the next slide, uh, if people need to see that brochure, we do have the QR code right there, but it's, uh, pretty simple to get to to. So, www.quincyublicschools.com summerrcene 2025. So, it's very simple. We try to keep it as accessible as possible. And the agend, the uh, brochure is right there. So, they can either either view it embedded on the website or they can download their own copy. it's totally their preference, whatever whatever is easier or they can scan that QR code. So hopefully uh more people are aware and they can sign up uh for the programs of their choice. But with that, you know, I thank all of you for your support and of course, as Dr. Perkins mentioned, uh thank you to to Mayor Ko.

141There's so many districts out there that are making drastic changes to programming over the summer and to programming throughout. We're lucky that we get to offer the same robust program that we have over the years. So, thank you to all of you for your support. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for the time putting into developing the programs. Um it's so important for families to have these fun, highquality um free programs at the um to have to keep their kids engaged and learning over the summer. So, thank you for making that a priority again. Um and thank you to all the educators that are taking the time to to deliver the courses uh the programs to the kids. Um I just had a couple questions. Um the summer boost program

142for the middle school program, the summer boost. Yeah. Um I noticed the other middle school programs listed the grades. Um what are the grades for the summer boost? Is it entering six through eight? Sixth to 8th. Okay. I'm just uh again just to be really clear with because that did go home with Point Webster kiddos and you know fifth grade Point Webster kiddos think that they're middle schoolers, right? So, um, just to be really clear on that, just, uh, what grades we're talking about. So, um, if we could maybe add that in either this year or next year if it's too late for this year, uh, just kind of remembering that. So, it should be in the brochure. I'll I'll double check that and look into that. If there's anything that's out there that doesn't

143specify, we can update. Absolutely. Thank you. Um, and just again, my uh, two cents on the Theater Arts Academy. I just it's such an incredible program. Um, and the other benefit is that it's later, so kids can sleep in. If you have, you know, uh, younger teenagers that, uh, that are sleeping till 11, it's a it's it's an option for them. Uh, and they do a great job, Mr. Ducet, and the team there are fantastic. Um, the youthworks program, what age is that? Uh, is there a minimum age on that? So, that's our current eighth grade students. Um, the summer summer youth works. Oh, I'm so sorry. Let Let me just get I was thinking ladders to success. I I think it was Keith. Yeah. and 9 through 12. So, they think they have to

144be 14, right? Yeah, 14. Okay. So, 14. I think the link that I saw on the online or the piece of paper or the online one, something like that, I think it said 15 on there. Um, so I just want to I don't know if it says that on the link, but just maybe take a quick double check on that one. Um, because a lot of freshmen are still in the 14. Yeah. Group there. So, um, that'd be great. And then, um, field trips, do they cost any money on during the programs? As you said, a lot of them have field trips. None of them have a cost associated. That's great. Uh love the expansion of the special ed offerings. Um and uh last question. The summer lunch program, I noticed on here it says

145that the kids need to eat at the site. Yes. Is that new this year or is that always been that way? Oh, it's always been that way. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. I just want to make sure I pronounce your name correctly. Meridula. Okay. Go ahead. I think it's on. It's on here. Is there a button there? They are both They are both on. So there you go. There you go. Yep. It's like magic whenever you want. So thank you so much for the presentation. Um I didn't know a lot of these existed, so I actually learned a lot as usual. Um I just have two really quick questions. for the high school programming, the summer pathway to success, like the course recovery one. I'm not sure if you mentioned this,

146but you said it's a walk-in registration. So, is there like a limit or is it like first come, first serve? Um, so I there's not really a limit. It's So, it's credit recovery. So, if you if students are interested and they need that like they failed a class or whatever, um we we work it out. So, you know, we we we are so fortunate. We have such wonderful teachers that um run that program and Mr. Lane is the one that kind of organizes it. Um he's the in charge of it and they do a great job. So, if a student has a course that they want to recover, we'll get them in. Okay, that's great to hear. Um also, in midst of all these like amazing programs, is there a way, and there probably is

147just I didn't do elementary in Quinzy, so I'm not aware. Is there a way that all the parents get all these information? Yes. Yep. Yep. So, we it's online. Uh principles the principles send it home to the parents. Yep. So, yeah, we do a huge blast. Yeah. Yeah. I just I guess I see it because I'm in high school so I program. But that makes sense. Yeah. No. Great question. Thank you. You all set? Good. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. Um, next on our list we have the um updated QPS don't move. QPS bullying prevention plan. Dr. Perkins and Miss Pilate agenda to me. All right. Thank you again for having me and Dr. Perkins again and Mrs. Papiel. Uh, so um, it's that time. You know, the last time we

148updated this was two years ago. uh the regulations actually specify that you have to update it every two years. Um and so that's why we're here and I think we did maybe a few meetings ago let you know that this was in the works um that we were working on, you know, updating it. So not much has changed. Go to the next slide. Oh, sorry. Uh so not much has changed uh in terms of the policies and the procedures and the regulation. So, um, the just for people that aren't aware, uh, the bullying, uh, policy came into effect in 2010 in an act relevant to bullying in schools. It was updated again in 2014. Um, and is part of the law, the district, all districts are required to have a bullying intervention and prevention plan.

149So just to quickly review what is supposed to go in the plan, there needs to be definitions um about what bullying is, what cyber bullying is and what retaliation is. Uh we have to have procedures for reporting and investigating and also collecting data on um bullying. We do need to identify a range of disciplinary actions. Uh we have to have procedures to help with safety and restore safety to the victims. Um, and we um need to have procedures for notifying parents or guardians of the victim or the perpetrator and also letting them know if there's going to be criminal charges. Um, and then a provision for professional development for the staff and a provision to inform parents and guardians about the bullying uh prevention curriculum. And finally, the plan must be developed in consultation with

150stakeholders, which Mrs. Mrs. Papiel will talk about how we did that uh for this update. There must be a public comment period which we just had recently and um that it needs to be available on the website which we're very fortunate. We have really a a nice uh bullying intervention and prevention plan that Kelly Powers had started and now will be updated with um Katie Delaney and it's supposed to be updated um by annually and the procedures for investigating reports of bullying and retaliation need to be consistent with the school district policies and procedures for investigations which they are. And with that I will turn it over to Mr. who will talk about uh the things that we did. So, good evening everybody. Thank you for having us. Um I thought it was really important

151and Dr. Perkins thought it was really important that we actually had the sites do the presentation in partnership with their PTO's. It's one thing to get a message at the district level, but families and students are really just connected to their sites. Um and they want to know what's going to happen, you know, if there's an incident or if they have a concern. Um, so it was great that um, all the principles did that with their PTO's. They covered the definitions. Um, the fact that there's a prohibition against bullying, um, bullying versus conflict, um, how they're going to communicate with parents, what they can expect in terms of discipline, um, protected categories for students, just the bullying and prevention intervention plan. it's a big document for someone to kind of read through. So, it was

152good that they could kind of summarize that and what it looks like in action in their buildings. Um, just having that shared understanding um like how are we going to handle this together? Like what can you expect from us um if you have a concern and how how we're going to try to help everybody involved. You know, it's important to um know that sometimes there'll be social learning kinds of interventions that might happen. maybe it isn't a bullying incident, but we're still going to address the issue and help kids navigate conflict when it's conflict. Um, so those things are really important and the fact that they get to ask their own um, administrators questions and give them input right there and then. So that was one way we got some feedback about the plan and

153um, how things are going to work. Um, as Dr. Perkins mentioned, we do um you know have on the website we had um a commentary period. Thank you Laura Owens for always posting things in the community notices so that um people knew how to um provide feedback um where they could see the implementation plan. And then we also did um a questionnaire survey and that was posted from March 21st to um April 3rd. Um the commentary um period was was longer. So that was February 12th to April 3rd. So we got 61 responses um from the survey. We did um kind of summarize the themes that were in the like an open-ended question um to get feedback um besides the the other questions that we had and people really wanted a clearer um communication about

154the the district's policy and the school response. So I I feel like we did a good thing when we did um bring it back to the sites for that because again they had more personalized um experience in kind of getting those answers. But I think there's always more we can do um so that people understand um what the policy looks like. Um people wanted it it translated and just more accessible to everybody and you know we're taking that in and we're going to see how we're going to do that. that's a very manageable thing to do. Um, people feel like the punishments were too lenient. Um, you know, when there's a bullying incident, that's their, you know, their experience. They felt like, and I think that's a little tricky because we can't always say what

155the consequences are. Um, but, you know, it does make us think that we we're not sharing maybe enough that we take everything seriously, you know, um, because we can't share the consequence. That's that's hard. But I think we have to work harder at making sure people know, hey, we understand your child was impacted. We care about this. This is how we're going to create safety. Um this is how we're going to address um maybe the student that crossed that boundary and made that mistake and help them move forward in a more positive way. So um we got to be more creative in in trying to get that across. Um and then more bullying prevention programs. And I think also too, you know, we have a lot of programming. It's built into the open parachute um

156platform and things like that. Um it's built into um steps to respect. Um it's, you know, it's pro-social skills. That's prevention as well as very specific what is bullying versus conflict. Um you know, how do you um how do you make the report? like those those things definitely are prevention too. Um in in understanding like how to be a upstander versus a bystander, you know, those are very specific things on bullying. So when people see the pro-social stuff, they might not necessarily think that's bullying prevention, but it is. When kids have good social skills, they're less likely to become a target. Um not that I'm I don't mean to blame targets, but you know, more so that they can, you know, kind of stand up for themselves. Um feel empowered. um in that way um

157or and they're less likely to um cross those boundaries that we don't want them to to cross when they have good social skills. Um so I think those were all really good suggestions and good for us to know. Um we did um make some uh additions to the implementation plan. Um there were three um major like initiatives that we we did. So, we did the youth risk behavior survey and within that we looked at how kids felt um in terms of safety to and from school um how much teasing and name calling, online cyber bullying, dating violence. So, we looked at a lot of things um we crafted those questions um because we wanted to elicit like hey you know what's the scope and you know of this problem within our school system um at

158the high school level what does that look like? Do kids feel safe? Um so that was really valuable information for us. Um we also worked really hard with um we I should say the the health educators worked really hard um with Dr. Haley um who is the creator of Open Parachute. She loves our district and we love her so much. Um but she really wanted to know the impact of her programming um for us over the last several years. So she did an extensive study using uh pre and post surveys um for learning so that we're making sure that kids understand the concepts and they're able to kind of util utilize strategies. But she also looked at other data points like discipline referrals um attendance um achievement and things like that. So we're waiting for

159those results. She's analyzing that information. So that was free to us. Um, and I think it's really great information for us to see like, you know, we're investing a lot into that open parachute program. Let's see the impact that it's having. So, I I'm really happy about that. Also, the Sandy Hook um promise program. I thought that was a huge implementation. The the I got to say the principles um the counselors, the teachers, the health interventionists, and the health educators, they dived right in. Those were schoolwide initiatives grades 6 through 12. They have promise clubs at each site. Um and that is really really valuable um you know uh interventions to make sure kids aren't feeling isolated that kids are connecting with one each with each other in a more positive way. Um and schoolled

160um studentled initiatives. So I'm excited about that and that will continue for next year. But that's all part of our prevention and intervention programming. So, um we do have like a website um obviously the Quincy public schools website I mean a page dedicated to um bullying prevention and intervention and you can find resources there and they're listed um on that slide. Um and we um appreciate that so much because there are links for resources. So um Mark resources um desi resources, nets smarts like things that um are coming you know becoming challenging for parents especially the online stuff. So, we also have um the anonymous reporting and I just I got a report over the weekend. A student made a a bullying report anonymously, but we were still able to address the issue because of

161the information that was provided. So, we were able to do an intervention. I still don't know who the student was that made the report, but I think that's okay because we were able to intervene still. So it is valuable that that you know students and um caretakers are making those reports. So I appreciate that too. Um so that that kind of does it for our updates. I know there's not a lot ton of changes but it's regulation so we can't really kind of mess around with the language but we're trying to build upon and have the resources that are meaningful for um students and families and um teachers and administrators. And that is it. Um, Mrs. Hugley, thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation. I realize you can't really do too much, but

162I appreciate the update. Um, I do want to say that where it says the punishments are too lenient for the bullies. I I do hear that frequently from parents and I think a lot of that comes down to um their child is going back to school and then they see the person there that hurt their child and the child comes home and tells their parents that they saw them at school and it doesn't reflect anything to them that anything happened and that child is now seeing that fully at school also and thinking well nothing happened right and that child in And so it it is sort of a a mental impact on the student that was bullied like twice because they're getting the bullying incident, then they're also getting the after the fact of coming

163home and telling their parents that they saw them and not feeling like anything happened. So I I agree. If there was something more that could be in that, I think that's what parents are searching for, just something to be able to say to their child. Maybe I know they can't say everything because you can't disclose everything, but something. And I feel like that's where there's a loss that the parents can't really explain to their to their children what's going on, right? And that's hard hard for a parent to see your child hurt and not be able to fix it, right? To have any kind of a fix. And that as a as a parent is I can see that being difficult, right? And I I I just do want to reiterate that the principles are

164really good, you know, about making sure that they're addressing those issues and creating safety plans and talking to classroom teachers and the counselors are checking in with kids and monitoring and, you know, there's no easy fixes to these situations, you know, but it is ongoing and they do take it seriously. No principal wants their um students to feel unsafe in their buildings. They take that very personally um because they want to make sure that kids are happy and healthy in in their school building and that they can go to them. You know, the principles, they're they are like adjustment counselors themselves because they do so much and they care so much about um their kids and their families. So I I but I do understand you know people are scared to death that you know

165their their child's being hurt and they want them to be safe and you know it is it is hard but we want to work with people and families just to make sure that we're doing everything we need to do and that they can be reassured that we're going to keep them safe. Thank you. Thank you Mrs. Lebo. Yeah. Um to that point, I think it's also important to let the parents of the target know that the the perpetrator also has some needs, right? Um because I mean there that's they have a problem. If they're doing that to other kids, they have a problem also. And so I think if they could express that a little bit more that you don't have to talk about what it is, but that you know, we support your student

166first, but we're trying to support this student to have better behavior. and not to be doing it. So, I think that's it would be nice to have some sort of discussion around it because people do feel that way, you know, that their kid is just thrown back into the masses. Um, I'm so happy about the um open parachute thing that she's doing that. I think that is because we have put a lot into open parachute and I think it's gonna show stuff, but I'm I think it's so great to have that data. So, that's awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Thank you very much. It was a great presentation. Thank you, Mr. Mayor Cop today. Thank you. Um, excellent presentation. I love hearing about this stuff. The, um, how many incidents annually do we

167have reported and what's the breakdown at elementary, middle, high? So, I did pull those numbers today, but I I have to caution you. I get end of the year reports. So sometimes people give me the reports at the end of the year and I really compile everything at the end of the year but at like for a snapshot right now what I have um there's about 13 reports at the high school level 30 reports middle school level which is typical which we know that you know this stuff really does peak at middle school um and 11 reports at the elementary level. And what's the breakdown between inerson and cyber? Oh, I I didn't I didn't do um deep dive into I would say most of it's online. Starts online and ends up in school. Involves

168it like it might not it like it's it's not necessarily oh this is only at school or this is only online. It's both. Yeah, probably 100%. And then can you just speak a little bit about the bullying curriculum at different levels and how that may impact the numbers of incidents. So I think you know um the report from open parachutes really going to help us with that to see if there's any kind of correlation. Um but you know we have long you you want there to be a correlation. You you want the training and the teaching yes and the curriculum to to drop the number of instances. So when will you get the results of that? Um probably it probably shortly. Um you know share that with us. That would be Sure. Yeah. I think

169that would be more scientific than what I'm going to tell you. Do you know what I mean? Anecdotal. So thank you. I I don't have anything more. Appreciate it. this part. Thank you. Um, and I so appreciate that the um, the schools did the presentations this year. I think that was really, really helpful being on two PTO's. I heard it at Quincy High and I heard it at Point Webster, which is great. Actually, I wanted to um, just let you know and what you kind of have here as to uh, just comments from everyone here. The community comments sort of sort of mirrored what I was going to mention sort of came out of those meetings. A lot of it was just a um an increased awareness that not everything that parents thought was bullying

170is bullying by definition. So just kind of making sure that that definition, that clarity is sort of keep, you know, continue that communication on what that is. And even though it may not be bullying by definition, we're still taking that seriously. I think that sort of came out of both of them was the surprise that some issues weren't considered bullying that they, you know, you would just think would be, right? Um, but I think that so that uh just a little bit better clarity on the definition of it. Uh but again that we take all of them seriously and that um what sort of came out of both in and other anecdotal from from parents from other schools is that even though we have a plan and we have supports and we have you know

171two of the most empathetic people I I know right here before us and I know that you're there for families we still do have bullying we still do have these issues. So just the acknowledgement that we still have work to do even though we do have a good plan and we do you know support families it is still happening. being a priority. I think we need what came out of both meetings and it was sort of something that Mrs. Hub alluded to is better communication that we can't share what happens to the perpetrator because it's just same thing like nothing happens to them. Well, of course something happens to them, but they're minors too and you can't. So, I think we have to just keep kind of pushing that we are doing that but everything's

172protected. So you you may not see it, but everyone has a you know a ramification from this a consequence. So just sort of being generic about it, but kind of keep pushing that out that even though you're still going to see that person in school because they have a right to be in school and but we're taking care of it. We're supporting their needs like Mrs. Lebo was saying, we're we're helping both parties. But um we don't want you to feel that it was you know in futility that you made that um bullying claim because something happened from it. So just again that continued sort of because everyone wants to know who did it, you know, what happened to them and I think in just social media just the way the world is, everyone kind

173of wants to know that, right? What happened to that person? And you know, we're not always entitled to that information. So especially in this situation um and then the last thing I wanted to say is so in the presentations having it delivered at the school, the um info was citywide. If I remember correctly, it was a lot of the like instances the numbers were citywide or I don't know if it was broken down by group, by middle school, high school, or if it was just all together in one big lump. I kind of forget. I It's usually I usually break it down by level. Okay. So, I think that if we're going to have the schools do it, it might be better to have the actual school data because a lot of times it's like,

174well, we don't know if it's our school that's driving this. Is this really a problem here or is it So, I think a lot of that conversation came up at both PTO's that I was hearing it at is well, is it our school or is it another school? And if it's going to be school-based delivery like that, it might be good for at least the principal to have that information so they can sort of answer some of those questions if that's helpful. Even if they could describe themes of what they're seeing at their own site is Exactly. Like we may not be seeing as much of this category, but we're seeing a little more of this category. So just something to sort of bring it home to that particular so it's not principles sort of

175opining on the whole level you know districtwide where they may not feel as comfortable discussing that portion if it's not happening there. Um but this is great. It was a great uh a great opportunity I think for parents to really engage with the material in their PTO's instead of just sitting on a Zoom call and just sort of listening. So thank you for doing that and also looking forward to the open parachute responses. That's great. Thank you. Thanks. Um Amy. Oh, hi. Hi. Um I have a couple questions. So at the high school level when students are involved in bullying that results in criminal um investigations and active like court cases, what are we doing at the school level to one ensure that students those students who might share a class with those students are

176feeling safe and two to make sure that like what we're adding on in addition to what they serve as court is fair I guess. So like court proceedings and things like that that that's separate from what happens. We still have an obligation to educate but sometimes it becomes so unsafe and if it rises to a certain level then we would look to you know maybe that other student might have to do a different program or be in a different place or so you know it really kind of depends on the seriousness. um you know, thankfully we don't have a lot of um bullying situations that end up, you know, at court thankfully. Um but we do create safety plans. We create space um in a building if that's going to provide enough safety. But we

177really have to be sure um if there's criminal charges that people are safe together. Um but we always have to educate kids no matter, you know, what the circumstances are. So, it just it just kind of depends. Yeah. I guess my question is like they might not necessarily be charged, but you know they were at the scene and does that will you bring a char will you act against them or will you not? So, there's school consequences and then there's like criminal um charges. So, they're kind of two different things. I Yeah, I think I think Amy I I don't know if I'm going to answering what you're asking, but I think so. So, you know, if say a student something happens outside of school and and somebody people are involved is maybe what you're

178asking, right? And then there might be criminal charges. Maybe some students are involved in criminal charges and some students aren't. Um, but we have we only have like so much jurisdiction over what happens outside of school. If it impacts the school day and it, like you said, it starts to impact other kids feeling safe in the building, then yes, we would intervene. That doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to press charges against them because we try not to do that. We don't want high school kids to end up with criminal charges. That's the last thing we want. Um, but we will intervene like Mrs. Papiel said, we will do safety plans. We might move students classes. We might like rearrange their schedule. um you know we do that kind of stuff you in and in

179some cases you know extreme cases we may even move schools so we do it and again as Mrs. Peel said it really depends on the seriousness of what's happening and how many kids are involved and um but we will if if it's potentially going to impact the school day and it's pot and sometimes we suspend you know it really like it really does depend but if it's going to impact the school day and it's going to cause a safety issue for other kids in the building we absolutely will intervene. I guess my question was that was a really good answer. Um, I guess obviously you don't have jurisdiction of what happens outside the school day, but obviously that will impact what students are feeling, but they might not necessarily voice it, but they're like they're

180seeing this kid at at school and they know they're sort of involved in this. And um I guess if it's not QPS and it's not like the victim is not QPS and it's outside of school hours and obviously we're doing something to make the students feel safe that are directly affected and directly interacting with these people. But are we doing something as a school to rather than sweep this under the rug, we acknowledge the issue that's happening? I think we try to do that when we know about it. Um, and again, our key is, is it impacting the school day? So, when something happens on a weekend or after school, unless it's like right on the way home from school or right on the way to school, our key is how much is that trickling

181over? If it's impacting the education and the school environment, then then it then we have to intervene. Um, so that's kind of the threshold, which I think most people maybe don't necessarily understand. I think a lot of people think when things happen on the weekends, you know, that the school district somehow owns that, but and sometimes we do, but only if it's impacting the school day, you know, and we're talking about if that student doesn't have like charges. If the student has charges, then we're definitely, you know, intervening. Um, but um but if it impacts the school day, then we are intervening. And I think when we know about it, we do try sometimes, again, it's not always, like we talked about today, it's not always something that everybody sees, but we try to work

182with those students and those families to make sure that those that you know those people feel comfortable. Yeah. Um, thank you, Doula. No problem. So, you mentioned that a student Is there a way to parents my younger less on their friends? A friend can tell their parent about the friend being bullied and a parent can make an report without exposing the person but also making sure there are consequences. Yes. So there is the reporting form is for caretakers for parents and for students. It's for anybody that wants to make the report. Does it go directly to the principles or goes to me and then I try to figure out where it's happening. So sometimes people put the information in or not. Sometimes um like in this case the student gave me an email um address.

183So I encouraged I emailed the student directly and I encouraged that student to tell a trusted adult what's happening. Um that we would do the best we can to address it given the information, but please go see your counselor and your principal. we want to help you. They didn't do that, but we still there was enough information that, you know, um we were able to address the issue. Um and it was it was something that was happening online, you know, but still it was significant enough that the student felt uncomfortable when they came to school. So, um, we're trying to make sure that kids, you know, you c it's really hard to separate the online stuff and then how kids feel when they come to school because like stuff can be shared and so like

184lots of kids might be involved and know about it or whatever. So, um, we really do our best to address things the best we can so that school is safe and healthy. Yeah, I totally agree. So there's there's a way for the principles or high school. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that's but that's exactly what happened. So I get it. I was able to figure out which school. I shared it with the principal. Principal's like, I'm on it. um addressed it that day, communicated back to me because you're right. The people in the buildings are the people that are supporting kids, you know, I'm kind of up here. So, yeah, it's a good point. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think we're all set. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank

185you. Okay. Next, um Quinsey Public Schools FY2025 budget transfer. Mr. Melany Usually, um, we make a transfer at the end of the year and we'll be coming with you for that again. Uh, but as you recall at the, uh, budget meeting, uh, that we had, we said we were about a $1.6 million surplus on the, uh, salary side and a net $1.6 million deficit uh, for expenses. Uh so we're running low on funds to be able to pay special ed transportation and tuitions. So uh we're taking the step to uh ask for a uh transfer of funds uh to address the shortfall currently. So would like to transfer into uh special education tuitions $1 million uh special education transportation $1 million. Uh and the monies would come from salaries, the $1.6 million surplus that we

186had mentioned before. and $400,000 from natural gas. Uh fortunately, we had a very uh warm heating system except for a brief uh blast in February. So, uh I think this would be the smartest thing to do just to make sure we don't run in a situation where we're not paying our bills. I make a motion to make a motion to second. Second by Mrs. Hubley and um on the motion um Mr. Molini, would you just be able to um refresh my memory? The 1.6 million for the salaries, was that all educator salaries or what salaries were those? Uh the majority was educators. Uh but uh there was about 500,000 uh from um uh bus drivers uh and there was a deficit uh in uh AIDS because we have a significant increase in AIDS uh based

187on the needs of our special ed population. So it's a net $1.6 million overall. The majority of it is from educators. Okay. I um I I'm still a little uncomfortable that if if we had that in educators that we keep that in educators. I think there's always more need for more teachers in the reach program and you know the band program all all of those programs. So I'm I'm still a little uncomfortable kind of just wholesale moving that over. I understand at this point we've this is this budget and we're kind of here now. So um I'm going to vote to approve this, but um I it does make me a little bit uncomfortable to sort of move salaries over instead of trying to find other if we foresee a $1.6 million uh you know

188surplus and educators. I'd love to be able to see that sooner so we could actually bring on more educators in the tail part of the year um if we needed that. So I I know there's we had all the principles before us and said could you do with more specialists or more this and everyone said well of course we could do with more of that. So um this is an opportunity that I I don't want to let kind of keep going. So if you're noticing that I'd love to get a heads up a little sooner in the year that that's going to happen next year. So thank you Mr. I just want to say that if we didn't do this, we would be in a rears on some of these bills and we we have

189to do that. We have to balance our budget and if and I think Mr. Melanie does a great job with that. Um but I we couldn't have kept that money in there and hired more people because then we would be I mean these people are causing the transportation cost goes up because we don't have enough bus drivers. So it's sort of a balance I think. And if I remember correctly from the budget meeting, you did say that a lot of this was from moveins that we wouldn't have been able to actually have at the beginning of the year. This this was caused by people moving into our moving into the positions and then it was a lot of breakage uh midyear breakage from uh staff. Exactly. So we wouldn't have seen this at the beginning

190of the year to do what Mrs. Partio is suggesting. Thank you. Okay. Question roll call. Mr. Begulli. Yes. Mr. Kel. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks, Jim. Um, next on the agenda, we have new Squantum Elementary School rooftop solar PV authorization. Mrs. Hub, I mean, yeah, Mrs. Hub. Thank you. Um before you you have a memorandum that was sent to the superintendent from Paul Hines Commissioner Department of Public Works who is requesting that we uh have a consideration for a vote tonight um that state that states under the provisions of chapter 30B as well as any other applicable statute or regulation the rooftop of the new Squanum Elementary School be deemed available for lease or license for the development installation in operation for a renewable energy facility for the period

191of 25 years from the start of the energy generation. We could have that for roll call vote for tonight. Do we have a we have a motion? Mrs. Lebo second. Mrs. Hubley on the motion. This is solar panels. Okay. Thank you, Mr. I got you. Yeah. Um to you the superintendent. Does this mean that to produce our energy? Correct. Just the way the way that it it's worded deemed available for lease or license for the development. It doesn't say I know. I understand. Unfortunately, this is Yep. And it's also got it. Okay. All set. Okay. All right. Um, we had the first and the motion and um, roll call, please. Mr. Mr. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mr. Mrs. Thank you. Okay. Next. Social Educational Collaborative Board representative. Um, I believe is the superintendent. So every year

192uh the um law requires that this um board appoint a representative for the social educational collaborative. Typically it is the superintendent in each district that belongs to the collaborative. Obviously Quinsey is a member of that collaborative. I've ser served in that role since 2020 and I would just ask that you um make a motion that I continue to serve in that position. Um and does require a roll call vote. So move. Motion second. Second by Miss Hubley. Roll call, please. Mr. Begley, yes. Mrs. Cahill, yes. Mr. Gatro, yes. Mrs. Hubley, yes. Mrs. Lebo, yes. Mrs. Perios, yes. May Coke. Thank you. Um, review of school committee policy book sections. U Mrs. Lebo. Yes. So, we had an incredible presentation from uh Bridget Vaughn and uh one of our middle school teachers on how we select

193books and um really a great presentation and but we did notice that our policy has not been updated in a long time. So, we're going to revisit our policy and make sure it at least matches what's going wrong at at the MASC. So, I'm just going to refer that to teaching and learning for that. And next item, same thing. Um, we're going to refer that to teaching and learning so we can take a look at those policies and see which of those need to be updated. Great. Thank you. Um, next on the agenda, oh, I'm sorry. Is that a good question? um for that item H uh for the the programs of the gifted students. Um I I'd love for that to be a uh meeting of the whole when we have that particular meeting.

194I'd love to be able to hear that and be part of that conversation if that's okay. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Ko. Up next on the agenda, we have the consent agenda um which is for a roll call vote. Can I move to approve? Second. U Mrs. Lebo, Mrs. Hubley, a roll call vote, please. Mr. Begley, yes. Mrs. Cahill, yes. Mr. Gatro, yes. Mrs. Hubley. Yes. Mrs. Lebo. Yes. Mrs. Perios. Yes. May. Okay. All set. Additional business. There's none. Communications. Upcoming school committee meetings um at 6:30 p.m. Regular meetings on May 21st, June 11th, and subcommittee m meetings. We have May 21st, which is a tenative policy. May 28th, which is budget and finance, teaching and learning. June 4th which is um QPS budget hearing facilities security and transportation reports of subcommittees quarterly budget and finance

195Mayor Ko um isn't able to do that can report he'll report at the next meeting he'll report at the next meeting um special education Mrs. Perials. Thank you. On uh April 30th uh last Wednesday, we had a special education subcommittee meeting um and we had three items on the agenda. The first was a presentation um about the pivotal response treatment um in Quinsey public schools with um Southshore Autism Center director um Michelle Sullivan and Jamie Shaughnessy and um director of special education Julie Graham. Uh, and the PRT is an evidence-based uh, intervention that focuses on teaching foundational skills that make it easier for the special ed child to learn other to then learn other skills. Um, there's a little bit more information about that in the poll meeting minutes. Um, you can read that online.

196The second item on the agenda was a review of the audit district student placements uh that we have in our QPS district. And that presentation was given by special education director Julie Graham and coordinator Jennifer Larry. And uh Miss Larry clarified that out of district programs are specialized programs that are not available within the school district. We currently have 157 students in 40 different out of district schools. Next year we're they were projecting that there will be fewer uh 143. And um there was some conversation about how keeping students uh not not sending them out for out of district and keeping them in district at the RDLC is um providing the district with a savings of about 90,000 to $200,000 per student per year depending on the stu school that they would have been placed

197at. So there's some savings there. Uh and the last item on the agenda was a uh Quinsey Special Education Parent Advisory Council presentation. Uh an update from President Sarah Wood highlighting um the growth. She highlighted the growth this school year and the participation among K to three parents. Um she uh mentioned the IM bike program and thank you to Miss Hub and Miss Lebo again for for bringing that uh making that come to be. And uh upcoming events for the CPAC are a parent support meeting on special education law on May 27th and June 7th is their end of the year celebration and full meeting minutes are on the website. Thank you. Um teaching and learning Mrs. Lebo. Yes. As I said, on April 30th, we had a meeting um and our literacy specialist, Bridget

198Bomb, was there along with a central middle school eighth grade reading teacher, and they explained to us how the books are chosen um in all of these great resources that we have in the district so that we can actually look at books and find out that um they actually are culturally responsive or uh age appropriate and and current. Um, we also heard information about um, if a teacher wants to get get a new book, there's a process in the way for them to do it and there's all sorts of supports. They said that they like to pick books that are mirrors and windows, giving students voice views of the world that they may not see. So, also see themselves in the world and also see other things in the world. Um, Mrs. Hubby Mrs. Hublu

199wanted to make sure that there was student feedback in the in the textbooks that we were using and that is done. and they said um informally, but we do they do because some of the some of the books are not all that popular anymore. Mr. Regali was very concerned that the classics are still in place and the classics are still in place. Um and we talked about if a parent objected to a class text, could they could they opt out and there are options to do that? Um could be referred to the student. So, it was a great meeting. I really thank them for that presentation and that's it. All right. Good. Okay. Thank you. And um let me see I turned the page. So we are going to be going into executive session and

200we will not be returning. So meeting is adjourned. Have to do a roll call. Wait, sorry. Roll call for Oh, executive. Motion and a second. Okay. Motion. Mrs. Lebo. Second. Mrs. Hubley. Roll call. Mr. Beal. Yes. Mrs. Cahill. Yes. Mr. Gotro. Mrs. Hubley. Mrs. Lebo. Mrs. Bios. Thanks everybody. Thank you everyone.