BMR School Committee - April 10, 2025

001All right, good evening everybody. Uh, and welcome to the school committee meeting for April 10th, 2025. Uh, we're going to call the meeting to order. Uh, if you could all stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Introduction of members. Matt Catalano, Milville. Charles Dunton, Blackstone. Sarah Larkin, Milville. Dan Keith, Blackstone. Carrie Goddette, Blackstone. Jane Reio, Milville. Joe Spagna, director of finance and operations. You want to go? Maya Gier, student council president. Jill Pilgalerani, assistant superintendent, director of student services. And Jason Defalco, superintendent. Student rep update. So, our spring sports are now in full spring with our track teams, softball team, lacrosse co-op, tennis team, and any other

002co-ops all having myriad of games and practices and meets scheduled for the coming weeks. We have some new special activities during Charger time that are beginning this week for the month of April with industry executives for career exploration in law enforcement, EMT and firefighting, small engine repair, and financial literacy, which are designed to be more vocational and kind of give people a peak of what career options are out there. So, I am leaving my regional board position, but I have convinced one of my great friends, Julia Corenzic, to run for my spot, and she will be launching her regional campaign next Wednesday at the CDMASC conference at Oakmont Regional High School in Ashraham, and that will be the final regional conference for the year. I have my first MASC executive board meeting on April 12th

003at 9:00 a.m. at the MSA building in Franklin. Mock exams are coming to an end with the last one being tomorrow with the AP World History Mock exams. And it's going to be time to start prepping for the AP exams which start on May 6 with AP Chemistry. Tomorrow night we have BMR prom. It is going to be from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. at Kirkbr Country Club and Lincoln RARI. But if you want to go to prom, you have to be in school until at least 10:33. So, you got to make sure to have your note if you want to leave and you got to stay in school until then. And that is all for today. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Uh this is our reorganization meeting. So, if some of you tuning

004in are wondering why the superintendent's open in the meeting, it's because um this is our first meeting with our um newly elected school committee members. So, congratulations to Carrie and Jane. and uh we will uh start the reorganization process. So uh we'll entertain a motion for the chair of the Blackstone Millville Regional School District School Committee. I'll make I'll make a motion that Dan Keefe um for chair of the school board. Second. Any discussion? Any other nominations? Any other nominations? All those in favor? Hi, Dan. Meeting is yours. Thank you very much. Thank you uh for reappointing me to this position, I think. Um okay, next up for the reorganization is um nominations for vice chair. At this time, I'll open up nominations for vice chair. I would like to nominate Tara Larkin. Motion made

005by Carrie to nominate Tara Larkin. Second. Second by Chuck. Any other further any further nominations? At this time, I'll close with nominations. All those fa in favor of Tara Lockin for vice chair uh signify by saying I. I. I. Any oppo oppose? The eyes have it. It's unanimous. Next, I'll open up nominations for district treasurer. I'll nominate Carrie Godet. A motion made by Tara Locking to nominate Carrie Goddet. Second. Seconded by Matt Canalano. Any other nominations? At this time, I'll close the nominations and call for a vote. All those in favor of Carrie Gordet for treasurer signify by saying I. I. I. I. It's unanimous. And finally, I'll open up nominations for the district secretary. Nominate someone who's not quite here yet. I willing to accept a motion for uh Tara Scobby for district secretary

006if someone is left. Motion made by Tara. I'll second that. Seconded by Chuck. Any That's what happens when you're late. If you want any uh any other nominations hearing none, I'll close the nominations. All those in favor of Terasco for district secretary signify by saying I. I. I. Any oppose? The eyes have it. It's unanimous. Congratulations to everyone. And onward and upward for new school year uh uh school committee year. Um next on the agenda is consent. Agenda A, warrants. I'll take a motion to approve the warrants. So moved. Motion made by Carrie. Second. Seconded by Matt. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? The eyes have it. And next up is the approval of minutes for March 6, 2025 and March 20th, 2025. So moved. Motion made

007by Tara Locken. Second. Seconded by Chuck. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All right. I I It's unanimous. I I will abstain. And one abstension uh from Miss Reio. Uh you want to do the I'm going to get the do the public forum or do Sure. Yeah. Okay. All right. And so we just for those of you here with us tonight, we after public forum, we're going to move the um agenda around just to for a student presentation and just to uh uh move our auditors along. So we're going to take them out of order after after public forum. Next on the agenda is public forum. Um this your opportunity to address the school committee um with any um any concerns or issues or or positive things anyone may

008have. So that the floor is up and open. Uh Melanie. Yeah. And you can come right up in order. Good evening. Melanie Raino, resident of Milville, born and raised in this town. Um I did send an email earlier today to the school committee addressing my concerns with athletics. Um spring athletics has been chaos. I feel the athletic director needs some help and assistance um especially what she was brought into last year. Um I myself took it upon I took it upon myself, I'm sorry, to reach out to the town of Blackstone yesterday to help fix the Roosevelt field that has been a mosh pit. The boys haven't been able to play on that field correctly, batting practice, sliding to practice fully as a team. Um the town took care of it right away. These are

009things that need to be communicated between the district and the town for these things to get resolved. Um, they don't have an LCRE, so pitching is not done properly for these boys. Uniforms. They don't have proper uniforms. They don't have pants. But yet, the varsity does. We used to have three teams in this district. Middle school, JV, varsity. Where are these uniforms that we used to have? How often are they purchased? Things we need to look at for the children. We want these children to succeed. We want them to be athletes. If we want them to stay in this district, it's fair that they get everything. Um, game schedules, there's three different schedules. There's Arbiter, there's the school website, and then there's Sports U. Three different schedules on every site. As a parent who works

010full-time, who has more than one child that other does other activities, trying to manage and get them from one place to the other, it's stressful. Very stressful. A game was just added for tomorrow. Fine. But again, things need to be more structured. And if she needs help, we've got to get her that help, please. I want to be able to keep my second child in this district. He's only sixth grade. I'd like to see him stay here. He's a great athlete. A lot of people on the school committee know who he is and how good he is as a player. And I'd like to see him continue in sports. He came home tonight. He didn't play because we took varsity kids down to play on JV. So, he sat there. He's been practicing for three

011weeks. Didn't get a second of playing time. So, why do we have two teams versus three? Because baseball is the only sport, I'm sorry, basketball was the only sport that we had cuts in. There's 20 kids, I think, on the varsity team, and I think there's 14 on the JV. Plenty of plenty of kids to have three teams to give every kid an opportunity. It's all I ask. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before you guys get going, I'll just ask you to say your names. Identify yourself uh for the for the record. All right. Maya Gier, Ellen McCort, Izzy Goddette, and Kyla Moore. Okay. Hi everybody. Thank you for having us tonight. We are all juniors over at the high school. Um we are enrolled in AP classes. We are captains of sports teams.

012We lead STCO. We're NHS members and so on. Um so in our position as student leaders, we wanted to come here and use our student voice to share some of our concerns about the new cell phone policy that's being piloted this spring. So for us like at the end of the day the true purpose of high school is not necessarily to further someone's education but more so to teach them how to be prepared for the real world through that furthered education. We feel with this new cell phone policy that there is a lack of real world preparedness. The students are not being t taught how to be self-responsible. If I sit down and I go all right well I can either scroll through Instagram for 25 minutes or I can get my worksheet done. If

013I don't get my worksheet done, I'm not going to pass the class. I fail the class. I don't graduate high school and it's that. But when you take that ability of choice away from the students, they don't have the ability to learn that your actions do have consequences and that at some points you do need to say, "All right, I need to put this distraction away and I need to be able to get what I need to get done." And then as they move into the real world, as they move to college, as they move to their um jobs, no college lecture says, "All right, everybody, put your phone in the box. We're having a lecture." It's either you sit there and you pay attention or you miss out on the material. And same goes

014with any job. No one goes around, "All right, everybody, turn in your phones." It's either you get the work done or you get fired. And we just feel that with this, the students aren't being taught how to be self-responsible. They're not being taught how to be self-motivated and it's just setting them up for failure. And it seems that in this proposed policy, we are disciplining every single student in the high school for a couple of kids that just won't behave with their phones. We all do our work. We all like to have our cell phones, but we're not the type of kids who are just going to sit on them all day. We're not coming here from a standpoint of, oh, we want to use our phones to scroll on Tik Tok during AP Lang

015during AP Lang for goodness sakes as well, but we we find that this is disciplining everyone like a group punishment. So like one kid misbehaves at lunch, everyone has silent lunch. We see this as kind of a silent lunch for everyone. And we also find that this is so much more than just a tool for distraction. This can be an educational tool. There are so many classes where you have to use your phone to really do the class. We offer virtual high school classes at BMR and there are instances where you have to take a picture of your work and upload it and submit it. And if you do do not do that within 10 minutes that your assignment gets erased and you're not able to submit it and it gets marked late. So phones

016can also be an educational tool as well. The amount of times where I see kids with headphones in during study so they can focus or listen to music or have something else in there so they can better pay attention or so they can better learn the material through their cell phones is very often especially in our cases. Um, one specific concern we did have was about safety. Um, we've had a couple lockdowns throughout the years for kids with medical emergencies. Um, specifically, I think our freshman year, there was a kid who fainted. Um, and 911 got called by a student who picked up their phone and took that initiative. Um, and unfortunately with school shooter threats, really, just to say it plainly, that is a concern. and having our phone in our pocket or in

017our bag versus up in a box in the front of the classroom is precious seconds that we can't afford to not have. And although it is unfortunate to try and plan policy around a whatif, it's a really common what if that we really can't ignore. Um, we also just want to bring your attention back to when we had yonder pouches at the middle school and just um see how that went over it. It ended up only lasting a couple months because of um you know the logistic difficulties for administration. Um and us high school students have a lot of other factors going on in our lives outside of school. We have jobs, we play in sports, we drive cars, things that require us to use our cell phones. Um, so it's not it would if

018it didn't go over well at the middle school level, how are we expecting it to go over better at the high school level? Yeah. And schools do not buy all of their students cell phones. Cell phones are students personal property. So when the administration is taking them all away, even if it's for increments of time, that creates a liability on the administration. For one, today we were test driving this in our Spanish class and Kyla accidentally picked up my phone. That one's an accident, but that presents the issue of people can steal people's phones. If someone's going to the bathroom and doesn't get back before the end of class and their phone is left there and that box is wide open, some kid can easily pluck their phone, steal it, sell it on eBay, and

019make a buck. No, I'm serious. That's an issue. And that also presents the fact that what if the teacher were to drop the box and the cell phones to be broken? Who pays for the cost of the cell phones? Who is liable for that? And what if the students like break their phones while they're putting it in the box or the box somehow damages a student's phone? This week during the test drive of this process, we actually had a freshman student whose phone case was broken due to the cell phone box. We also in any policy that is made, we believe that there should be student voice. We advocate for student voice all of the time, but when it comes to decisions being made, they're being made for us and not with us. At this

020point, we are old enough to make genuine genuine thought and contribute to conversation in a positive and meaningful way. And when policies are being made, we need to be included. There is nobody in that high school that understands what that high school is like better than the students who experience it every single day. All we ask moving forward is that students are included when policies are made so that we can have that interaction and that understanding of what it's really like. Um, speaking of student voice, we had our vice principal, Mr. Ducharm, come into our Spanish class, um, one of the classes that is piloting these phone boxes. and he told us that he was aware of plans for next year to be removing phones from study periods that kids currently they can do whatever

021they want during study within reason. You can scroll on your phone, you can do your homework, it's your choice to be productive or not. But Mr. Ducharm told us that from his awareness, from what he had heard, that may not be an option next year. that study may be taken away as a time to use our phones. Um, a big concept that Mr. Ducham especially has pushed up the high school is our time. That there's breakfast, lunch, charger time, study is our time to go on our phones, talk with friends, do whatever we feel like doing, and then there's your time, staff's time, administration's time to teach. Um, and study has always been presented as one of these our times where we make the choice to be productive, to do something that's good for us

022or not. And I really think that this idea of taking away study, taking away phones from study, I really disagree with it because I think it is taking away the need for students to make the choice themselves to be productive because I need to be able to make myself focus on work and sometimes I can't. whether I'm gonna scroll on Instagram or do a coloring page if I know I'm not in the head space to focus. I'm not going to be able to focus phone or no phone. But sometimes I come out of my AP classes, I come out of Spanish, these difficult classes, and I just need to turn off my brain and scroll on my phone for a bit. And that's an option that having the privilege of study, we have the privilege,

023but also the responsibility to make that choice. Yes, we know that there is an issue, a cell phone epidemic, so to say, within all of the schools where kids are using their phones where they aren't supposed to and they are getting distracted in their coursework and something needs to be done. But I'd like to bring up the concept of equality versus equity. Not one solution, one solution isn't going to fit every single kid in that high school. All kids are different. Not every kid is addicted to their phone. There are a lot of kids, kids like us, who rely on our phones for communication and as an educational tool. So, we can't have a one-sizefitsall solution in this issue. And we do not believe because of that that this policy is a good fit for

024our school because of the fact that it inhibits kids who aren't even part of the problem. It actually creates more problems because we would have to find workarounds across our normal study habits. I normally have my AirPods in so I can tune out my surroundings so I can focus. What am I going to do now? It creates more problems for the kids who aren't part of the problem. Thank you. Good. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on one second. Are we uh we're just going to leave it at that for now? Okay. Well, you guys are a testament to the education here at BMI with that presentation. I mean, that was phenomenal. Whether people may agree or disagree with certain points, I just noticed that you guys were were seamless. Um,

025you did an amazing job. Um, I couldn't help but notice though you all referenced your phones while giving on your phones. So, to give you just a a a view into the future that if you're sitting here, we're making policy and things like that. if you look in the in your phone when you're making policy sitting up here, uh people out in the public can request what you're looking at on your phone. Uh so just just a just a heads up in the future, but you you guys did a tremendous job and I commend you for that and you are there's a reason why you guys are in leadership because and you've you've shown us here this evening. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Nice work. All right. Anyone else

026for public forum? Okay. We're going to just um skip down to the um report of the superintendent. Mr. Superintendent, the middle of the year data. Yes. Thank you so much. Uh I'm going to uh ask Mrs. Fowlis and our high school team to come forward. Um to our committee and to our community tuning in. Um, at our last school committee meeting, we heard our middle of the year data presentations from Milville Elementary and uh from our middle school and as promised, the high school team is here tonight um with uh members, additional members of their student leadership um and uh a member of the school's instructional leadership team, the content leader for our English uh department, Miss Roarge. And so, welcome um welcome ladies. Thank you so much for being here. Our all female team

027here. Yes. Power and fours. And they're going to walk us through high school's uh middle of year uh data this evening. They have that. All right. Do you have the clicker over there? No, we don't. That's okay. I I'm really bad at editing. That's okay. Let me grab Let me grab it. Here we go. We got it. Tim's got it. I know, but Tim, I'm the clicker. I forgot to bring Do you want me to do the clicker? You can do the clicker. I'll do the clicker. You do the clicker. You make sure. I'll do the clicker. Introduce. Um Yeah. Why don't we start with introductions? I'm Clover Maloney. I'm a sophomore. Jill Thou, principal of the high school. Hillary Rober, English teacher. Ivy Maloney, eighth grader. All right. So, we're going to start with

028the ELA data. Um, so you can see our um our eighth, 9th, and 10th grade data up on the screen here. The majority um we're seeing we still have some work to do, right? So in our across all three grades, you can see that those two lower categories of not meeting and partially meeting are still holding too many for us and like what where we would like to see. So we really want to start to push we see small jumps between the not meeting to the partially meeting. But we really want to see more of that push from the not meeting into partially meeting. But then on the flip side of that, in that exceeding expectations, there are a good chunk of our students that are sitting contently in that meeting expectations. So, we want

029to find ways to be able to push those kids as well into those exceeding expectations. Um, two things that we've seen across the board when we're looking at the data in terms of what skills are they really starting to struggle with or they tend to struggle with, vocabulary is one of them. Um, so a lot of the STAR questions will have something to do with vocab, but the other one has to do with author's purpose. And when they're talking about author's purpose, it's a higher order thinking skill, um, of going beyond just, you know, what does the text say? Um, and answering those lowlevel questions, but the author's purpose piece requires a little bit more of that inferencing that we're really trying to focus on in all of our classes from 8th through 10th grade.

030Um, we can see also this is our special ed data for ELA as well. Um, kind of the same idea. Um, right. We're seeing a lot of the the not meeting the red and the yellows hold the majority of those kiddos and we really want to see them pushing into that blue that meeting expectations and then higher. Um, for the SGP, we're not where we want to be in all of the categories. We really want to hit that 50 mark or higher. So, in some of them, we are. Um, you'll see in our ninth grade, those students seem to be progressing where we want them to be. um our 10th grade is where we need to focus our attention the most in terms of getting them to make that progress to make those jumps from

031one level to the next for ELA. So the author's purpose piece when it came to looking at those skills that they're lacking in or they tend to struggle with um it kind of led us into focusing on the writing piece with literary analysis because that's what they have to do. It's more of an analytical writing where students are asked to make inferences about what the language is telling them. So looking at literary elements such as diction, um foreshadowing, all these different pieces and then taking it one step further to not just identify those things, but then to also explain what is the author trying to show, what message are they sending us through their language. Um so that's something that we've been really focusing on. We've had a little bit of progress in their writing

032growth when it comes to that. Again, STAR doesn't necessarily have the writing component, so we wanted to make sure we were adding that in with another assessment. Um, but a couple things that we're actually adding into to really like push this even further. Um, a lot of their warm-ups now are geared towards specific literary analysis. So, they'll get a prompt and they have a quote that's we're giving to them. Um, and they then have to take that and in a 10-minute span, um, at least a couple times a week, they're practicing that skill. Um, we're also putting into practice that tier 2 intervention. Um, I know this past week I had a group of boys that might not have been super happy to spend charger time with me, but we sat down and we did

033some literary analysis during charger time. Um, and we worked through the process together. We looked at the quotes, we looked at the language, but the the group that I saw struggling the most. We're going to take them back during charger time and really focus on where are we struggling and how can we make sure we're doing this the right way in the future to kind of push them further with literary analysis. I kind of just went through all of that. That's okay. Um why don't while you're while you're looking at that do you want to speak first to English before we go to math and so some of the things you're doing we have eighth grade and 10th grade to just talk about what you're doing in the skills in ma in English. So right

034now um I know this week we had a test on we've been looking into the Holocaust and we've been reading a bunch of survivors poems and like writing about sharing their stories. So the test and essay we had to do this week, we had to write about the connection both authors made to sharing their story and not letting people forget about the horrible and the horrible effects of the Holocaust that had on people. So in our essay, we had to compare and pick quotes from both poems and excerpts and compare them and like try to find the common theme and the message they were trying to get out to the audience. Great. Um, I'm in AP seminar, so it's not a conventional English class, but we've been working on developing persuasive writing skills, and right

035now we're putting together an individual writing assignment, which goes towards part of the end of the year like college board grade. And we've just been analyzing sources, um, checking uh, credibility, putting it all together to form an argument, and finding different perspectives and lenses to look at one issue through. And they're working really hard in that class. Really, really hard. It's a great English class. Really excited to have that. Math. Yes. Go next. All right. So, math. Um, so math is in two different um phases. So, we have the STAR testing like we have we have for um math for eighth grade, they have the HMH, which is their um curriculum. So, they have their um testing there. So, what you're seeing in this data is the um different five categories for HMH versus four

036categories for STAR. Um we're seeing, you know, we're at the 6040 as far as actually on grade level. Um we're in the 60 uh% with um uh on grade level and above with that 21 nice sitting there ready to do some work and and move, but as we know it could go either way. Um we're moving in the right direction. You want to see the minus in the red and the yellow and the growth in the um blue and the green. Um so that's where we are for for eighth grade. and you'll speak to a little bit what we're doing in eighth grade shortly for um algebra 1 and geometry in our ninth and tth grade. This was the first year we're piloting I would say piloting because we're learning a lot as we go

037along. Um a different type of assessment. This is a they're still using our curriculum, the Savage curriculum to create these um questions, but the exams themselves um are all teacher level and it's all on grade level. So this is all content that is in the standards versus star. Sometimes it can drop and you can be depending if you get an answer wrong then you go into this category and this bucket and this bucket and this. This is all on grade level. And the one thing that we did here that I just want to note is that from each one of the biggest things is you know you forget what you learned at the beginning of the year and you so we need to learn we need to go over that. So the three um pieces

038that you see, the three topics that you have here for algebra 1, but also in the geometry slide, those are the um standards that um were touched upon in term one. And now they're seeing it again in term two and in term three. Um they're just reviewing that that data in term three right now. So we are seeing that we're able to do either via through intervention or through repetitive do now is where we're going to bring those skills back and build on that. um we are seeing growth. We still have again same thing with English. We got a long way to go. We've got places to go and people to see as far as math is concerned, but um we were starting to have that conversation because we do have math MCCAST coming up.

039And so we're going to be looking at the math boot camp that we've done in the past. Uh last year we're doing that in the review. Um and just wanting to make sure that we continue to push the rigor and the and the critical thinking. Um, I think I'll uh have you both talk about what you do in math and then I'll kind of wrap everything up. So, what do you what's what's math like for you? So, um I'm in algebra 1 and we've been working a lot on like MCCAST prep and things that are going to be on MCCAST in the future and in this year. So, we usually do like active things to get our minds working in the morning or like in the afternoon when we've been sitting in classes all day.

040So, we walk around and there's usually like I know my favorite thing to do is the station work. people that have different problems up on papers around the room and we get to go on our own with clipboards and solve them like with a partner usually and it's really easy to work in groups because it's you can get two people's opinions and you don't end up getting everything wrong if you don't understand the topic and you can get different opinions from each side and it we've also been taking a lot of notes which as I know is something I haven't been doing in math before in previous classes and we've been taking notes at the start of every topic and like going through examples and writing how to do it correctly in your notebook along

041with the teacher And I think that's really helpful because to study, which I usually I used to be confused on how to study for math tests, but it's easier to like rely back on my notes and know that these problems and their answers are right because we went over them with the teacher. And I find that really helpful. That's it. Um I'm in geometry and my class is like both freshman and sophomores since it's a step away from algebra 1, which we took before. And we've been mostly working with like it's like collaborative kind of cuz we'll have whiteboards around like on the different walls around the classroom and we'll just have to like show our work. It's the same questions for everyone but we have to show how we got there which I feel

042like is helpful because some kids like if you do it in your head then you don't remember how you got there and how you solved that certain problem. And just seeing the ways that other people solve problems like differently. It it might be easier for some people as well. Love that. Jill, before you wrap up, can I just do a quick like a 30 second explanation? I was going to do that, too. Yeah. If you're listening um to the different types of assessments that we're doing and you're and you're curious about that, um as just kind of a refresh, last spring, we had students um and members of our school-based instructional leadership teams and principles talking to the school committee a little bit about our assessment system and us kind of making some quarter turns

043in terms of how we were approaching that. So, uh, as just a reminder, STAR is that adaptable test. So, it's in the- moment feedback to the student. As the student is getting the, you know, as they're reading the passages and getting the questions right, it's going to actually ramp up the level of complexity of the text the kids are reading. Um, and we used to have a similar assessment that we use for mathematics. It did the same. So not only would it show uh the students, staff and parents, you know, how the uh the level in which uh students are reading on as far as their Lexile level or their grade level. Um but it also showed them uh showed us their their independent and their instructional reading levels. So you may say, you know,

044the results might have said we have a eighth grader who's reading at a 12th grade reading level um and as an independent level, but their instructional level might be, you know, 10th grade or 11th grade. So we get a lot of feedback from that piece. What we did different and we kept that for ELA, but we added a writing component so we could actually measure their progress in writing. Um what we did different uh this year in mathematics uh actually is a is a kind of there's a little variation at each of the different grade levels. Um and so we heard from the elementary and middle school the last time but um for today at the eighth grade level we're using what we call HMH which is just the name of our the publishing name

045for our math program into math. And so at 8th grade the students are taking essentially their diagnostic test. And so it's that set of skills that they need to master by eighth grade and they're taking that essentially kind of similar test measuring the same standards across the year. So we can see the growth on those grade level standards. So it's not an adaptable test at all. It's actually fixed. It's saying here are all the things you need to know by the end of eighth grade. And then we're slowly measuring the progress as you go, which was why you saw some pretty big gains in eighth grade as far as kids moving over to the um on grade level or above grade level categories because we're measuring those grade level standards multiple times. So you can

046actually see the kids mastering those as they move throughout the year. Um that's a really different type of uh assessment than an adaptable test that is actually measuring students real time uh abilities in that moment. Um the other piece that uh Jill and the team were discussing at the uh algebra 1 and geometry level is actually different. And so uh what we're doing at that level is after our first kind of diagnostic and looking at where the students uh fell at each of those courses because again it's course specific. It's kind of less grade specific and more course specific is here are the power standards that the students are going to see. And Jill mentioned this like repeatedly, they're going to kind of spiral back to here are those key power standards and they're listed

047here. Exterior angle theorem, parallel and perpendicular lines and uh transversals. So these power standards that kids are going to keep coming back to. So we keep assessing on these standards not only because the curriculum is cycling back to them, but the students in their um either their um they call them station rotation or some of their centers. um that teachers are working on these standards repeatedly. So, we should see uh additional mastery as again as we continue to assess them quarterly. We actually have our Q3 assessments uh coming up that we looking at with our math department um and reviewing the data with them in upcoming uh professional learning community meetings. So, I just wanted to put that little plug in because it is different. Um, and I remember the, you know, having the discussion

048with the committee that we're trying some different things this year to make our our assessment far more meaningful to our kids and to our staff. So, yeah. And it's been a challenge because we don't have we've got, as I said, we've got 25 pages of data for each class and trying to figure out what that means instead of having a report. It would have, you know, star you can hit a button, get a report. We like the report. Are you doing this for science too or we are just for math and just for math and ELA? Yep. Right now just for math and um and ELA although math the science department does have a team goal as well. But no and uh you know I will say uh just to give a shout out to

049um our 10th graders um and our eighth graders. I know the vote for the state that MCCAST was not part of the graduation requirement. had several conversations with people after the first day that um didn't quite put the effort in that they could have, but I it was nice to see that on the second day they were. Um we did have 100% of our 10th graders take the MCCAST and show up and do that and our eighth grade as well. We've got math coming up. We're taking it very seriously. It's uh still there for scholarships. It's important to get the feedback from um our our our students. uh you need that you need a passing uh grade on that if you want to get the seal of biliteracy which is a growing piece in our

050district as well. So um that's all really important and uh I'm really proud of the the work that the students are doing. Um, I'm really proud of the reflective nature of my teachers, the staff. They they saw numbers that they were like, "All right, let's let's get in and let's get to it." And um, and you know, put pushing the rig the rigor. We were we did a learning walk today with our students who are saying we want to think we want to give us opportunity more opportunities to really think critically. Um, and I think between these six young women that we saw today, um, you can tell I'm a very proud principal of the building and good things are happening. So, thank you. Any questions? Guess not. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very

051much. And and Miss Fus told me this evening that she still had to uh find a prom dress. Yes, I do. So, remember that as our student representative said, you have to be in school till at least 10:30. 10:30. And they all know they get 33. 10:33. and they get called down and then we have two lists and then we highlight them and then we release them to go get their Mr. Superintendent the boys get their hair done. Yes. Make sure she doesn't go dress shopping before 10:33 tomorrow. You're right on it, Miss Fell. All right. Thank you very much. Moving on to uh we're going to jump over to the business office FY24 audit review. Gentlemen, Good evening. Evening. I'm Bob Brown and this is Sean Dorsy. Um, we've been doing the audit here

052for four or five years now, I believe. Uh, the audit went well. The audit opinion we give is a clean opinion. Um u unmodified they call it. Um it's a large financial statement package. Um uh I just wanted to walk through a couple of the statements. Um there's actually three distinct sets of statements in this package. Um page uh 19 has a statement and net position for fiduciary funds. Uh the fiduciary funds in this district are postemployment benefits trust fund and private purpose trust funds. Um the page after it is a revenue expense for that for those two funds. Uh this is the only place this information appears. Um and then going forward, page 14 has a a balance sheet for what we refer to as the fund level funds. It's kind of on a

053cash basis. It has a general fund which is similar to how the district would report um to Jesse. uh financial information. Outside of the general fund, all the other funds, special revenue grants, revolving funds, gift funds, capital projects get combined into a non- major fund. They condense it. Um if there's one activity that constitutes 10% of assets, liabilities, revenue, or expenses, we have to break it out as a major fund. And in this case, there's a capital improvements fund uh that is broken out separately. This is pretty much cash basis. It doesn't have fixed assets or oped liability or pension liability. Um so it's it's prepared on a different basis. Um this statement then is the the starting point for the full acrual financial statements. Um these numbers are taken and modified um for full

054acrruel adjustments which result in a statement in deposition on page 11. Um this statement is just all the um prior statement combined in but then add in uh bonds payable pension liability postemployment benefits liability acred interest fixed assets um uh very large full acrruel adjustments. Um the on page 11 the uh total fund net position is in a negative 23 million. Um most governments are in a negative because current accounting standards require that you put your entire pension liability with the county in your financial statements and as well as the postemployment benefits liability in your financial statements. Um about 10 years ago these numbers weren't in here. uh they were being phased in and then they uh decided no more phasing in. The whole liability hits the books. It doesn't didn't affect bond ratings because

055bond raiders always knew those liabilities were there even though they weren't in the statements. Um how it affects your bond rating going future is how you fund those liabilities. Uh the county liability, you're in a county system with everybody else, so you're funding it in a structured manner. Um post-employment benefits is different. Each government is doing it on their own. So eventually there could be moderating differences depending on how one government funds their postemployment benefits trust fund as opposed to another government. Um uh the audit went well. There were no actual audit adjustments to to note of uh speak of and uh uh Joe is doing a good job and we look forward to next year and thanks. If you have any questions, I'm here to answer whatever they may be. I didn't have a

056cell phone in high school. But you want to be an educator in 21st century. And uh I think I was 28 in college classroom. The total liability for the OPED is 98 9,800. Is that what you have there? Oh, it's more than that. 30 million. Um postemployment rel Oh, sorry. Related to postmployment. 30, 362. Yeah. Couple above that page 11. Yeah, I'm looking at it. Oh, yep. Okay. I saw the other related to the net liability for both OPED and pension essentially stayed the same. Uh there was not much change for the whole year. Um when you look at the number you have to also take into account there's a deferred inflow and a deferred outflow th those change as well as the the liability number. So the net of all those um for OPED

057just changed $729 which was not a great plus because we contributed $100,000. Um page 20 shows the activity for the postemployment trust fund. We contributed 100,000 and had net investment income of 27,000 and employee contributions of about 18,000. you we'll see that number continue to all of our employees contribute from their uh salaries to OPEC. So, yep, you'll see that change over over time question. Oh, sorry. Uh was that Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. You you already got started. Sorry, Dan. Yeah. Um that number for uh OPED was higher before um wasn't it? Yes. And how did how does that get reduced? We uh which is great contribute. Yeah. Uh well the district did start an OPED trust fund that started contributing contributing to it. Um I don't recall how many years

058you've had that trust fund going but three years. At least three or four. How long have you last year? Four. So yeah. Yeah. So this is would be the fourth fourth year this town meeting, right? Yes. Yes. And we negotiated with all of our bargaining units for them to contribute uh and all the administrators contribute. Yes. So I think the combined towns were doing about 100. The towns the district was doing about has been doing about 50. Yeah. The district when when END comes back certified if the money is there the school committee moves that in and then the employees contribute close to 20,000 a year from their salaries. And so this will be so we're all putting everybody's putting in Yeah. So this will be the third at least the third year of the

059district of 50,000 correct. Yep. Yeah. So so the town's put in will be 300,000 another 150 from the district and probably another 60 from the from the employees. Fair enough. Thank you. All right. Any uh any other follow-up questions? So, we have a good report, Cod. All right. No find. No finding is Yes. Pretty good, actually. Good news. No finding is always a good finding. Yep. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, gentlemen. [Applause] Okay, back on track to the agenda. School committee MSBA update. Dr. Defalco, defer to the superintendent. Yeah, just very briefly. Um we have um our next meeting on April 23rd and that's an important meeting. During that uh school building committee meeting, we will be reviewing what is called you'll hear called a PDP, but it's a preliminary design proposal

060or plan. Um and uh essentially it's a very high level sketch um of um kind of a of a I don't want to say it's actually a design of what is being offered uh as far as what will the feasibility study will result in but it actually takes a macro look at the different grade configurations that are being studied but from the perspective of you know square feet um special education classes, general education classes, you know, cafeteria space. Uh it's a very high level of, you know, what the different configurations might look like. Um I would argue the piece that's probably uh equally, if not more important than that is the education plan. So the education plan is being worked on right now and that plan really captures essentially the vision of where the high

061school is going next. So you are going to see things like our pathways and the expansion of that work that's happening now uh laid out in that uh section of the uh PDP if you will. Uh you're going to see the high school uh draft schedule. Um you're going to see the uh portions of the middle school in there. Remember the design that was submitted uh at least in the statement of interest was a 6 through 12, but we're studying 6 through 12, 7-2, 8 through 12, 9 through 12, renovations, the renovation, addition, new construction. There's so many different uh models. Um so it's a very comprehensive document that all needs to be submitted to the MSBA. Um, the piece that's a little kind of wonky about the process is, uh, if you talk to

062the architects about this and we're all in agreement, that really should come at the end of the feasibility study because that's that's really when we're putting forward uh, what the actual design should be. Um, it feels a little bit of kind of cart before the horse or whatever that expression is to be doing this piece now. um because we're looking at so many different grade configurations and we're looking at so many different types whether it's addition, renovation, new build, um it feels a little backwards. Um but that being said, we're taking the education visioning work that we've done that we talked about at the last meeting uh and we are integrating that into uh the education plan as well. So, um the school committee will have um that document at our May meeting and the

063school building committee will have it on April 23rd um to review before submission to MSBA. So, quick update there. Any uh further questions or comments? Thank you, Mr. Superintendent. Thank you. Next up, Milville Elementary water update. I get a feeling the town of Milville has some good news on this matter they received today. Hi, thank you for having us. Um, should we introd because some people didn't get sworn in before the meeting. Details, minor details, minor details. Swearing in, swearing out. Richard, how are you all? You're still Oh, no. You're not vice chair. Oh, did you get um So, we got our update on our grant application today, which is great. So, we are approved the for the $1 million. So, on Monday, we'll be getting an email with a packet to fill out and

064then that's it. And then we we start buying stuff. and we met literally yesterday with our water operator about the um equipment that is needed and they already have a supplier lined up and they're just waiting for the phone call that yes, we're going to buy this. So, it should move very very quickly um once the money is in the account. And I brought the email and it just says and it's actually big enough I don't need to put my greeters on. It says, "Good afternoon. Our Boston drinking water program received approval from EPA today of your grant award in the amount of $1 million. I expect you'll receive the grant application forms from the Boston office email on Monday. Thank you for your diligence in pursuing this funding to continue providing treatment of the

065drinking water at the Millville Elementary School. Congratulations and please let me know if you have any questions. So, it's been a long road. Yes. Jude's bag of money. Yes, bag of money. She came she said if I can bring a bag of money in next meeting. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know if there are any questions. Yeah, I did bring the email in case anyone wanted it for their records. I printed off a couple copies, but I think Peter also forwarded it. Okay, so you have it already, too. Okay, I'll forward you. I didn't actually forward it yet. I'm going send it after your Oh, thank you. Yeah, but at least you have a copy, Dr. Defalco, so that everyone else can see it if they want. Absolutely. Thank you for that work. Nice

066work. Yes, it was a long time. Is there any questions on that? I guess I just What is the timeline or will we when will we have a timeline? So the um as I mentioned so yesterday I spoke with the water operator. They basically have a vent a supplier waiting to sell the equipment and then there is um a pilot study because this is the first time we're using this type of equipment in Massachusetts. So Milville will actually be groundbreaking for water operations in the space. Um they're using the same equipment for the same type of issue in New Jersey. I know in New York I believe um and it's just a chemistry issue. So basically the water that we're pulling from the well seems similar to surface water. And so this uh apparatus will

067work on the iron, the maganesees, the total organic carbons and PAS. So we'll actually be quite ahead in terms of the requirements for PAS and water at the Millville Elementary School. So and that's it's only like a one or two week pilot study. I can get you exact details. Tara, it's fast, which I was surprised because nothing with this has been fast. Um but yeah, so it should once we get it installed, it's like 30 days basically end to end is my understanding. And I'll verify that and send an email to Dan and Dr. Mr. Chairman and Dr. to Falco, so you guys will know. Thank you. I guess it's just um I I don't have the notes in front of me when we've gotten really deep on how this all worked, but um just

068as a matter of results so we can make decisions on. So when you say the pilot study is one to two weeks, they're expecting at the end of the pilot study the results to be Yeah. Positive forward. That is quick. Good. Yeah. And then there'll be what? Monthly results that we'll track or how Okay. So we do monthly testing now. Yep. And then um and then there's one number that they do that's the quarterly test. All right. So I've been essentially meeting with uh the chairwoman and Peter monthly I'd say at least. Oh yeah. At least every week or so some. Yeah. And so and and they've been very upfront with uh your your current water operator kind of waiting for this. So the the there was you guys weren't they weren't heavily maintaining the

069current system knowing that you know they were just chasing the tail because this was coming. So some most some of the recent results may not look will look what we the results for March are much much better because I told them that we need to maintain the water operations like that's what we're paying them for. So I know it might be more work now but this is what the contract is. So they kind of stepped up. So March is better. I don't remember the exact numbers. I don't have them in front of me. And then they just did a water test recently in April too. and they expect that to be a lot better, too. So, they should be coming back down. But, this is going to just take care of all that. The issue

070has never really been cleanliness. It's been consistency. Yeah. Mhm. And and um so, you you um Yeah. So, you have the uh the water the it's going to be the same water operator. I mean and and this also helps you I you know you had to increase your water operations budget. Um and so this helps you actually this year with that operations budget because the grant allows you for the operations with this new uh this new type of technology. So that's that's a it's a it was a good day good news for the Millville budget today. I know. I can't believe when when Peter text like hey we have the email. I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" Yeah. So, cuz she said, "You can ask me every day." And I did ask her every day

071starting this week. I'm like, "You said." So, I'm checking in. I only ask once every week or two when I ask you. So, um Well, I do we do appreciate the We've come a long way in in the last year and a half with Yeah. from beavers to a million bucks. That's a pretty good turnaround, huh? Yeah. Exactly. So, and so you guys have uh voted on uh supplying bottled water y until this this thing this operation for all of next year if you want fully up and running. Yeah. And you guys already committed to that? Yep. For all of next year regardless of the status of the water. Um just to provide assurances. So we're back to it's your water system. You're committed to providing the water bottled water until this is Yep. um

072resolved till you're up and running and fully compliant. Uh the D is fasttracking this which is good because they're giving you the money and overseeing. Sometimes these operations could take months or a year in licensing. So yeah. So you guys are all ready to go as soon as you get the check in the bank. Yes. Essentially. So well that's wonderful. Well, we will uh we will um I think we'll have we have to make some decisions on the next school year coming up. Anyhow, u in the near future and this is kind of the news we were I know my I personally have been waiting for and uh Jen knows that I've been waiting for that and I think Peter knows that I've been waiting for that news. So I it couldn't have happened at

073a better time. So, I just um I I working with Jen, uh she's been very um uh committed and um and and consistent in her in the in the board of selectman's uh pursuit of this solution. So, I it's been a pleasure to this point. Thank you. We had our ups and downs as a committee and a board. Uh but we're coming to a a resolution hopefully that 30 years in the making. So I I applaud applaud you guys for uh being consistent on on this and and and persistent. So um so we have some new information to look at and we will be discussing it and and uh hopefully moving in the direction uh north of this building is is in the very near future. Sounds good. So I'll put I'll uh reach out

074to our water operating timeline for the pilot program and just confirm it's one to two weeks. That's what we've been told which I still find shocking. Um but so we'll get that and then when everything will be complete and like I said the vendor is just waiting to sell the equipment to us. Well we have a our water filtration system in Blackstone and then we have a schedule on that and and the and the testing essentially is that the D is there for that short period of time. So they're cons they're like testing on site and and so there it's they're very thorough uh with it. So that's I think that's why that period is of uh aggressive testing is so short. Yeah. So all right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank

075you and congratulations. Thank you. Uh next up is to approve the amended school year calendar. Mr. Superintendent. Yes. Again. So we have a few changes to the 2425 calendar. uh just as a result of uh some school cancellation. Um the new uh last day of school for this school year for Milville Elementary and the middle school is June 17th. That is a Tuesday uh and will be an early release. And the new last day for uh BMR is June 18th, uh which is a Wednesday, and that'll be an early release day as well. So, uh the high school had one additional cancellation day than the um elementary and middle school. Uh motion to approve the amendment of the 2425 school calendar. So moved. Motion made by Tara Scobby. Second. Second by Chuck. Any further discussion?

076All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? The eyes have it. And then next we have the uh 2526 school committee car uh school committee calendar. And so this of course is a superintendent a tenative calendar which we which sets up the Thursdays. Yeah. Um and then just a couple of small changes uh to the calendar to the proposed calendar for the school committee for next year. Um the first is we added a second meeting in October. So the meetings would be on the 9th and the 23rd. Uh you may recall the October meeting this year was incredibly long because we had MCCAST and goals and school improvement plans and all the things with that. So, we added a second meeting so we could thin that out a little bit. Um, and

077then, um, I actually think that was the only real change on that. The rest of it remained similar to this year's calendar. And then, of course, the January, uh, budget workshop dates are always determined by the school committee on the 8th of January. So, that'll be the 8th of January, 2026. But other than that, it remains uh pretty much the same as um this year's calendar. Okay. Any uh any questions on that matter? Okay. I'll take a motion to approve the school committee calendar for 2526. So moved. A motion made by Jane. Second. Second by Tara Lockan. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I I. Any opposed? The eyes have it. Next is a vote to reertify the FY26 budget. Mr. Superintendent. Yes. Um, so in your packets, we

078have a updated uh budget certification sheet. Um, it it's all here. So, if we want to do the readaround thing that the committee normally does to reertify um if the committee chooses to do that. Um but the um big change is um a $150,000 that we were able to identify through uh actually Joe was able to identify through various accounts to try and get the assessments down to the towns. I know it's not exactly what Milville uh necessarily needed, but we did take another crack at that to try to get um the assessments down. Um that $150,000 we would use to prepay tuitions uh for next school year for our at our students at our collaborative. Jill was able to work with the our collaborative to identify students and put up a prepayment schedule um

079to help with that. Um and what the reertification would do in that reduction of $150,000 would bring Blackstone's overall assessment for FY26 to 3%. Right now it's at 3.9. So it would bring it down to 3%. And it would bring Millville's uh overall assessment, which is currently at about 2.6% to about 1.6%. Um so it would come at about a percent uh savings to both um both of our uh member towns. And so I don't know if the committee wants to go through and and kind of reread all of the motions and do all of that. And essentially what we did was we reduced the additional um contribution from both towns accordingly based on their percentage. So that's kind of Joe. I don't know if I missed anything on that. No, no, that's right on

080target. Uh is there any uh any questions from the committee? So um Mr. superintendent. So, um essentially we would um there must be just then two motions for the additional for one for each town, right? Yeah, we could do a motion to adopt the gross operating budget because that uh gross operating budget is $150,000 less than the initial gross operating budget and then um I'm looking down. I think both the assessments maybe it would be the two at the end, right? Is that the best way to do the is it the two at the end or the two in the middle? They're not going to Where is it? They're going to be the addition. Oh, here it is. Yes. My apologies underneath the um that the above reimbursement total. Those two pieces underneath I think

081it's these two guys. So one, three, and four. Yeah. One, three, and four. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. The total gross and then the overall um assessments and none of the other lines changed. Right. That's right. I no because the other um number motion number five is uh the revenues and then the motions at the bottom motion six and seven are the capital right Joe I don't think I'm missing anything right no one three and four are the only lines that have changes in them and three and four the only changes are to the additional um amounts for each uh for each town And the last motion we don't have to meet we don't need to make to close it off close it up because it's the alternate presentation would already do that. No,

082we're good. I think we're okay. I mean, if the committee wants to, we always can. I can't I can't cause any harm. How about we just to one three four we'll go right around the block. We'll start with you, Matt. If if if there's no objection, let's just read them all and that way there we don't uh you know this happens. There's some technical thing that shows up if it's going to show up on the day before the Millville town meeting or something like that. We'll have to reconvene and you know we know how it goes. We it happens to all of us. Yeah. Well, it would happen before Milville because they're first. That's the only reason why I said that. Yeah. So, yeah. Sure. Uh, I move to adopt a gross operating budget for

083the 2025 2026 school year in the amount of 29,872,530. Motion made by uh Matt. Second. Second. Uh, we're going to go with the first second. We'll go with second by Terara Kobe. Any uh further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? The eyes have it. like to make a motion to uh move to apply the following reimbursements to reduce said gross operating budget for the 2025 202 26 year chapter 70 1280,08 regional transportation $856,952 school choice tuition 181,2 $234 and charter school reimbursement at $222,116. The above reimbursements would total 13,340,310. The total operating budget for 2025 2026 is $31,94,716. A motion made was that $718. Oh, sorry. Yeah. $718. Thank you, Chuck. A motion made by Chuck. Second. Seconded by Tara Scobby. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify

084by saying I. I. I. Any opposed? The eyes have it. I'd like to make a motion to move to assess the amount of 11,941,486 to the town of Blackstone to be applied to the operating budget for the 2025 2026 school year, which includes $8,980,523 for the minimum contribution, $1,145,28 in exclusionary costs, and 1,815,935 $5 in supplemental investments. Motion made by Terara Scobby. Second. Second by Tara Lock. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? It's unanimous. I move to assess the amount of $3,813,963 to the town of Milville to be applied to the operating budget for the 2025 2026 year, which includes 2,845,313 for the minimum contribution, $374,585 in exclusionary costs, and $594,65 in supplemental investments. A motion made by Tara Lockan. Second. Seconded by Chuck Dutton. Um, any

085further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Any oppose? It's unanimous. I'll make a motion to apply the following amounts to the gross operating budget for the year of 2526. Excess and deficiency 485,696. Medicaid 190,000. Revenue from user fees 82,000. Revenue from gate fees 15,000. Revenue from classroom rental 100,000. Uh revenue from prek tuition 395,233. Second. Uh mot I made the motion seconded by uh Carrie. Any further discussion? You said 485696. It's actually 458696. Just reverse the numbers. Oh, that's all. All right. So u just to clarify my motion uh my motion uh the first excess in deficiency is 458,69 uh6 as corrected by Mr. Catalano seconded by Kerry. Any further discussion? Thank you Matt. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? The eyes have it. like

086to make a motion to move to adopt a capital and interest budget in the amount of $339,98353 to be assessed solely to the town of Blackstone which includes $99,5203 for the JFK boiler windows project, $149,2425 for the roof projects and $90,5395 for the BMR high feasibility study. Motion made by Carrie. Second. Seconded by Ed Shane. Uh any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? It's unanimous. I move to adopt a capital and interest budget in the amount of 163,983.99 to be assessed solely to the town of Milville, which includes 67,68929 for the Milville boiler project. $66,675.75 for the roof projects and $29,618.95 cents for the BMR high school feasibility study. Motion made by Jane. Second. Seconded by Terrace Kobe. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying

087I. I. Any oppose? The eyes have it. I move to certify the alternate presentation of the total budget representing only monies moving into and out of the general fund. This presentation will be used by the department of revenue in the calculation of excess and deficiency. A motion made by Matt second. Seconded by chain. Um any further discussion? All those fa in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? The eyes have it. Uh, and that's the last vote, right? Understand that. And, uh, just coincidentally, um, every Millville motion was made by a Millville rep and every Blackstone was made by a Blackstone rep. I know how that went around. That's fine. Um, it's a good night for Millville. I think you saved 60 grand on your water operations and another 40 almost 40,000 um, on

088your assessment from the district. So, we're moving in the right direction. Yeah, I still have some comments actually on the budget. Uh on the new budget we on the newly accepted budget. Yes. Come on up. You don't have to let No, come on up. It's we have it on the agenda. So I appreciate the changes that were made to the budget. Like that was really good. Um but it's still a lot for us. Um, if you look at where we were on the we tried to pass an override to kind of close our deficit and it failed and it was spectacular in failure. Like there was people don't want to pay more taxes in Milville. So we really have to tighten our belts and I think one thing that's difficult is that I did see

089a member of the school committee advocating against the override which is fine but then we can't come to this meeting and then raise the budget. I know it went down a little bit but it really does need to go down more. Um, and for examp um, and I know we haven't always been collaborative and there's been tension, but for example, on the feasibility study, I voted yes on that and it passed in Millville and that was because I wanted the data to make a decision to vote and I think the community should have access to that data. Um, I know some people will say no regardless. Um, and but I had mentioned that we could use stabilization to cover that cost and we can't make that recommendation anymore. We're going to have to pay for

090that in another way. So, I appreciate the effort, but I just want to make sure that if you if we're fighting an override, that's okay, but please don't come to this meeting and then raise the budget when you're not allowing for the override. They should be an alignment in activity. So, but in closing, I do want to say I am very appreciative of this. When I saw the post over the weekend from Carrie, I was like, I can't believe this is happening. I really did not expect it. So, I don't want to seem unappreciative. But in Milville, we do need a little bit more help. Well, I'll I'll respond to you there. So our our increase over last year for the town of Milville 1.59% now it's down to which is 62,000 on um uh

0913.9 uh around 3.8 uh 3.8 million um and so we can keep that growth rate for the next couple years. Well, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I understand. And and I understand your maybe your frustration. Um this wasn't this year. Well, yeah. So, and by the way, Milville is not the only one with certified free cash in this district. So, that's and and that's common. It's not an uncommon thing. Um stabilization fund is to one of the things is for your bond rating and to be secure if you have big issues that may come up. free cash I would assume you would anticipate using to fund the feasibility study. Um, well, we're going to be using it to balance the budget. Yes. But ideally, you would want to use that to sure fund the offsets.

092Yes. That the feasibility study that Milville voted for. So, I I do get the the concern on your on your end. And I will say if the growth rate keeps at this rate and then taxes can catch up, it will that's also works for us. If we can keep the slow increases going, Mr. Chairman, you've needed it. You've needed uh the water situation fixed for almost 30 years. You've needed an override for 20. How about that? That's the reality of it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no. Well, it failed spectacularly. So they don't there's not a desire for an override in Millville. It wasn't no, it was no. So, well, I commend you on those efforts as well. Yeah, you sound like my husband. Good job, Jen. Yeah, you you Well, they cannot No one can criticize

093you for not giving enough information. I will say that. Thank you. And thank you. So, thank you. This was honestly I was surprised and really happy. So, I hope I don't appear ungrateful because I I really really am really really surprised. Your voice is always completely unexpected. Welcome to be heard here. I may not always agree with it. We may not always for the most part. Long as we're civilized, that's what matters. Thank you very much. Thank you for and good luck to your uh newly uh well almost newly formed board of selectmen once they get sworn in this year. Congratulations on your re-election, Richard. Thank you. Okay, can we just uh take a motion to adj We have to do this evaluation now. Let's end on a good note. Like Milville got their water

094like Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're going to end on the best note you've ever even seen. All right, let's have it. Actually, you've seen all the work that's in here already, frankly, because yeah, it's the work we're doing. Who's writing those notes, by the way. I'm going to grab the clicker. I'm not getting up and walking out. I'm grabbing the clicker. Well, maybe some of you are just like, "Yes, he's leaving." No, we don't have to sit through this. Where's the audiences? They'll lock the doors behind them. So, this year, um, I have a special guest who is going to be presenting with me. Uh Jill and I are gonna actually Sorry to interrupt. If I would have known that I would uh Jill and I are going to tag team this um and uh

095we are doing so because um you'll notice that these are not just my goals. These are the district goals. So um this work happens because we've got a great team that are that are pulling the wagons as we heard tonight. Um and that team frankly includes our students. And one of the things that I hope the committee was able to see in the last two meetings um was that our students are plugged into this work. Um Joe Fowlis mentioned a learning walk that happened today that um we have a team of folks that are heading out of state going to Arizona uh for a week to study other high schools. Um and our students are going with parents and administrators uh to go in to see what other promising practices are happening um across frankly

096across the country that we'll be bringing back to the high school. Um and so um the students are very much involved. We heard from some tonight about you know you know not being fond of a particular pilot that we're that we're doing. Uh and that's okay. It's it's good, right? This is good stuff. We want students uh to be very much part of this uh process. So uh you saw some of that, you heard some of that in the last couple of meetings and uh tonight uh Jill and I are going to walk through uh just some quick highlights um on um the goals as far as where things are at. Um very similar. I know many of you are used to this format, but we did uh Jackie sent out yesterday the um slide

097deck um with all of the evidence hyperl. So um really easy to navigate. You can just click on the actual piece of evidence, it'll come up and next to that evidence, as we've done in the past, it shows you the focus standards um that the evidence is being used to uh to highlight. And so uh these are the standards uh that the school committee approved in October underneath uh each of the four areas um on which uh I'm evaluating. U I won't read through the goals. I know the school committee is very familiar with the goals. Uh it's also very small font. Um so I actually can't read that unfortunately anymore. But um the student learning goal is really broken down into two pieces. There's a curriculum focus and there's an instructional uh focus. Uh

098and again this all anchors directly back to our district um strategy or u known also known as our blueprint. So uh there is a variety of evidence here and I'm going to Jill and I are going to talk through uh certain pieces and Jill's going to tee us off. Uh Tim uh we met with before uh the discussion this evening so that he could actually pull up the evidence so this will flow a little bit smoother. Um, but we are not going to walk through every single thing that's on here and look at that evidence, but rather just highlight a few key pieces that are helping us move towards uh meeting the goals that are outlined. So, I think Tim is going to be pulling up and again, this is in your packet. We're going

099to get to this in a minute. It's a tool that we use as part of the work that we're doing with our learning acceleration network. We refer to it as LAN. Um, this was um we got it was grant funded. It's through DESIE. Um and it supports our district leadership team in setting and achieving certain goals that we put out there. And this year um our team is we have our middle school principal Jenny. We have our high school principal Joe, myself, Jason and our lead instru um coach uh Mary Colinino a part of this work. We are working with a consultant from the learning acceleration network and we've identified our focus going into this is the ELA area. So what we've been able to do which was really great if you look at this

100chart up here what we did was picking ELA but we have certain standards that we look at. So before we started this work we were as a group doing a learning walk and we met with our consultant and you can see on here what we did um and Tim if you can scroll up just a little bit more too just so they can see the whole form. We had to calibrate our understanding of what all of this meant and which what what does a four mean? What does a one mean? But you know what does it mean that when we're seeing in the classroom not meeting and there are different areas that we're looking at and the work that we're doing here is to help our to support our principles and coaches to build their

101capacity so then they can support our teachers in building their you know the teacher capacity. So the form that we're using now and this is to collect patterns and trends as we go through classrooms. We do this as an entire group. So although we have regular meetings with our consultant Mickey um to talk through what we're seeing our goals, do we need to add, do we need to make quarter turns, we're also as a full team going into every single ELA classroom at the middle school level and every single ELA classroom as a team at the high school level. And we're using this form to develop that. What we did find on this form, just to um our preliminary results, is our culture of learning when we go into our classroom, it actually comes out

102really well. we're strong in that area and also the high quality materials we're using. So where we're focusing more on a team is the questioning and the tasks, the high quality, that rigor, and also the amount of responsibility that our students are taking for the work. So we're focusing on that. The other thing I want to throw in there, we're also doing um which really isn't part of this, but I think it's important at principles and myself, we're all participating in a program for our English language learners. in this form we're kind of revising get to also look at those kind of you know um in the classroom. So this has been a really a great process. I know you all work know that we worked with focus school in the past. This is just

103kind of pushing our work forward. Um so it's really been a great experience. We're really hoping to be able to continue with them um in the future. And it is collecting patterns and trends and our principles are actually collecting those patterns and trends. So when we meet them on a with them on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, they're showing us what they're seeing in those classrooms and we're able to address those amongst the whole faculty. And just to build on that, that's one of the helpful things. So when we meet with our principles, they actually pull up their Google sheet. They drop all this data into a Google sheet. It's anonymous, so they're not saying which teacher is what, but they just put it into this document to see, I was in 18 classrooms. Here's

104where we ranked out for culture of learning. here is we ranked out for um uh students being responsible for their own thinking in the classroom and one of the things we heard I mean I just want to make the connection that we heard directly from the high school team tonight is that this is an area that they're working on and I think during the learning walk today the students had some conversation uh with Miss Fowl about this like we need to get the students thinking deeper and thinking more and we need to get the teachers doing less work the students need to be doing more work um and the teacher work should be happening during preparation time, right? That's where their sweat comes in. The students sweat equity, so to speak, should be coming into

105the classroom where they're actually carrying the water instead of the sage on the stage that we all went through, the teacher up at the white, we know this teacher up at the whiteboard or a blackboard for us probably. We don't think we had whiteboards, but um right doing all the things and you're just sitting there taking notes and at the end of the period, the teacher's exhausted, right? FYI, that really didn't work well for us either. Just putting that out there. um and it's not working for the kids. The students need to be doing that work. So that's what Jill's really talking about is capturing the data that's helping to drive that forward. And we heard a bit about and this isn't a surprise. Teachers have this. They know what we're coming in. They know

106what we're looking for. So they understand, you know, when we're going out to those classrooms. So um any questions on the land? Great. Great. Um and connected to land, I just I'm going to jump into the next piece of evidence. Um Tim, I believe it's the our thinking cla uh classroom. I don't think I don't know if we have a slide yet, but when we're talking about students taking ownership of their learning, um I Mrs. Ramka kind of spearheaded our thinking classrooms. Um but you'll see in your evidence there there is a video in there um that tells you all about what the thinking classroom is all about. Um and also some video u some clips in there of our staff that actually did this activity did activities during one of their PD days. And

107the thinking classroom is for all classes. Um, and it really is, and you're going to see this again when we get in um to a a later piece of evidence because remember all the things that we do even lay in and thinking classroom is throughout. And what the thinking classroom is is um it's taking taking the um the stage on the stage. It's it's giving the ownership to the students. Um and we got to watch it in action too. And I know our leadership team also did it together and at our principal PLC which will bring up they got it. There's a problem that's put up on kind of a whiteboard. Okay. It's got to be erasable and the kids are put into groups and you'll have one student who has the marker who can't

108speak who's just working through the groups when the other kids are telling them how to work through it. They're having conversations and no one can hide. Everyone has to be actively engaged. So it's going from what they call in this stud being a student in studenting you know just kind of sitting and take it all in to being actively engaged and thinking you know as part of that work. So that started again it was it was uh started at our middle school there's work being done with our staff there and I know our other principles they're starting to work on that as well um at our high school and in our elementary schools. Um and the kids seem to love it. when we did our ILT they came and talked to us about it and

109they said we really do like it and kids will tell you in the past I could just sit there and not say anything in what we called group work they actually are thinking and have to take an active role in all of this so this is again another concept that we're moving forward and it it seems to really be you taking off the kids are really enjoying it and if you want to learn more as Jill mentioned we actually put um I think it's about 45 minutes but we put a video link in the evidence where uh the author of the research uh in the text actually runs through where this all came from. The significant uh very significant study that was done to lead to and it's just so interesting the actual percent of

110students um that are actually thinking and applying their thoughts in class versus what we might think when we walk into a classroom because again we all sat through that right in rows with our notebooks and all the things. And he talks about that like we actually was a very small percentage of us that were actually engaged authentically in the learning. Many of us were just transferring notes. Uh and when you think about the different levels of questioning and the different levels of thinking we want our kids to do and the type of problem solving they need to do, transference is at the very basic level. It isn't bad, but you can't live there. And so, um, the author of the research, uh, does a really nice job of explaining that, um, and then essentially kind

111of laying out what the strategies are to use in the classroom to combat that. Um, I went to a training with, uh, a, uh, seven, sixth, seventh grade team. Um, and it was great. I did the training with the teachers, um, and partnered actually with Mr. Dwolf. Uh, he and I were had to do the vertical learning together. And, uh, it was a really great experience. The key is making sure you got the right question. And so again, the teacher's challenge is looking at the content that needs to be taught and developing those really challenging questions that lead uh to real kind of deep discussion uh and rigorous thinking around that. And just one of the quotes I pulled up to finish on that, it was and this isn't a presentation, but it's the gold

112the goal of building thinking classrooms is not to find engaging tasks for students to think about. The goal is to build engaged students that are willing to think about any task. So kind of summarizes it really does think classroom. Um thanks Joe. Y um the next piece of evidence that is uh just up uh for review and again there there's many other pieces in um uh your evidence for this particular goal but is our vision statement for our literacy work. Um I think just some of the highlights here that are really important and all the details are outlined in the evidence. Um we took a different approach to our curriculum uh review and renewal process for this year. We actually uh separated out into a two-year goal. So you'll see literacy again for next year

113um with a very strong emphasis on writing. And uh we have a um a team of teachers from across all three buildings developing writing expectations that are both horizontal across the grades but are also vertically running through all of our um through all three of our schools. Uh they are using an anchor text called the writing group that is a researchbased text that is helping to guide and steer that work. That's all outlined here. Um but for next year uh as the writing committee is continuing their work and by the way you'll have an update from them and from our assessment committee in May. Um both groups are coming forward to give the school committee an update which is uh which is great. They want to share their work uh because they're really excited about

114the progress that's being made in our classrooms. Um but um a more kind of immediate change you'll see next year is we are replacing as you know through our budget process. We are replacing the middle school um literacy program and we're changing it to study sync. Uh we're doing that because that is the program that is at the core of our ELA work at the high school. So we want to make sure that our 6 through 12 literacy program is aligned. Um so we are leaving our elementary program uh wonders in place. So that'll be PK through uh five. Jill brought that into the preschool as well. Um, and then 6th through 12 will be u the study sync program. Although when you get into 11th and 12th grade, the courses are are real unique

115like British literature and some of those other courses. They're not clearly using Study Sync, but the core um core grade levels for literacy at the high school are using that as their core program. Um, so you'll hear a lot more about the literacy work, particularly as it pertains to writing um, at our May meeting, but there's a lot of great information that actually outlines the timeline, the process, and what's still to come um, in your evidence for uh, for this evaluation cycle. Um, and we'll go back to the slide deck and we'll move to the next goal. We haven't found a seamless way to do this yet, but Tim is really becoming an expert at this. Um, our next goal is focused around student health and wellness. So, I want to start and take you

116back to the fall on Rachel's challenge. So, you'll notice in your evidence is actually a link to the website. Um but remember Rachel's challenge just as a quick summary is um it was a program um presentation that was presented it was after Coline um in memory of this one of the students Rachel Scott who lost her life that day and it was a program that was presented across all of our buildings in the fall and of course it was you know presented at grade appropriate levels. We had you know our high school who heard more about the story and our littles heard more about you know the the kindness aspect um of it. So, it really focuses on that kindness, compassion, and positive school culture. And it's not just a one-time thing. There was a

117presentation, and I asked, you know, to get some additional feedback to share with you that our buildings, how they're moving forward with this. Um, if you at Milville Elementary School, if you ever walked into the building, you might see a chain, um, you know, with the construction paper chains. And actually, the students earn those chains for showing different acts of kindness. Um, and it's hung around the school. And um Christina mentioned to me that they their goal is to get all the way back around the school and she does anticipate they're going to be there. So we're recognizing kids. It's not just talking about it, but when we're seeing that um they're doing that. Um we're also um they do review the concepts as part of their guidance program because Rachel's challenge also gave us

118resources to help do that. Um at the middle school, I know that the middle school they're in different classes they're working with Rachel's challenge whether it's their enrichment and guidance. Um they've made some kindness quote posters. Um they've done some activities for kindness and you know nobody eats alone in the cafeteria. Um they're doing kindness quotes that they're actually presenting you know in the in the morning announcements. Um they've done some empathy stations when it came to the guidance classes and they're also using our program. Um this year we have able to purchase this through a grant our Nagant 360 which has a social social emotion component and we also have that threat assessment on that. but they're using those lessons that um connect to Rachel's challenge for empathy, compassion, kindness, and action. Um and

119then we also had the um what their seal team is doing. They're actually putting a challenge together um again to create their chain across the school. And at our high school, they all signed all the schools had a banner that they signed um that you know to make the challenge to for change and to be be change. During the advisory, the students are also um doing lessons related to, you know, accountability, appreciation, kindness. Um they did a Rachel's challenge um lesson about paying it forward um which focused on empathy. Um and during the month of May, they're going to be a lot of lessons of acceptance for all. So, it definitely is a program we brought. It was it was um very emotional for some. Um I will say at the I went to all

120of them and our littles were so loud in it. It was great. They got them going. They got them yelling. They got them really excited, but it was just to take away that message about kindness and compassion, you know, forever for all. The students um here, the elementary students, uh approached us and asked for buddy benches. Um, so if you're not familiar with that, um, that's where if you have a student at recess who's looking for a friend, um, they can sit on the buddy bench and and you know, a classmate will come by and sit with them or maybe pick them up and say, "Hey, come, you know, come, you know, play football or or shoot hoops with me and that kind of thing." So, we did we did put buddy benches here to

121help them with their goal of increasing um, kindness. So, we're really proud of the kids for advocating for that. Um some other things uh some other pieces of evidence here uh before we jump into the men's and women's leadership piece. Um student focus groups. This is something that's been really important. Um we have just a snapshot summary of one of our focus groups here. Uh but um Jessica Sinclair, HR specialist, and I um have been having um uh various meetings throughout the year in all of our schools uh with just students and with our staff. And so we'll talk about the staff one um in a few minutes, but the student focus groups have been really uh really helpful uh in terms of sharing with us kind of what's working and what's not, what they're

122looking for. Um and they're holding us accountable. Um we were talking with our Millville students about some of the um clubs and activities we have and actually Elijah who was here uh for the MOI presentation uh he was very quick to remind me we mentioned this to you the last time you were here and so we did put some of the clubs in but they weren't all the things that that u that the kids wanted. Um so they sent us back with a task list uh of getting in the other second half of the club. So we working with the PTO. The PTO put in place quite a few different clubs, Legos and some other things uh for the students to be able to do, but I am anticipating I will hear from Elijah and

123friends when we go back uh that it still isn't enough. Um so that's okay. Uh we are working on that. We actually have a survey out right now. Um do you want to talk about that Jill quick? Sure. We have we did have some interested members of the community who are interested in expanding our programs after school for Milville. So, we did get together a survey um for not only our parents to ask them what would you be interested in, what are the interest areas, what are the hours, if there was a fee, um you know, would you be interested in a program? Um just to kind of get a sense of what people were looking for and we also sent a survey to our staff because we want to know staff interest of do

124you have any interest in presenting any clubs? What is your availability? What is your interest to do this? So, we're hoping to get all that feedback. It went out I think about a week ago. So get that all back just to see, you know, are there some additional things that we can do for um our Millville Elementary school school students and if we have any Milville families that are tuning in. I believe as of Sunday we had 40 uh folks who had taken the survey from Milville Elementary. So just keep beating the drum out there. We want to get uh parents insight on what are the things they'd be looking for if we were able to expand after school um opportunities. And so um we're definitely hard at work on that. Um and then uh

125not hyperl here but in front of you this evening is the afteraction review from our tabletop with the mass emergency management administration. Is that Mima? Something like that. Yep. Um and um so that is for the committee's uh review. uh we did not want to link that uh because this will be posted um on our website and of course you know issues of safety we always keep um so um one of the things that I can share as a highlight um our uh work with the local police departments from both communities local fire departments um and you'll see the results uh bore out uh so strongly that uh MIMA actually handed us off to Homeland security. They said, "There's really nothing else we can do to help your district. You've done all the things." Uh

126so we just had a meeting with Homeland Security, believe it or not, uh who their homeland security office uh in our area came out and we asked them to uh essentially test us, come to our schools and tell us uh what we can do better and different. So they were out, Joe, was it Tuesday this week? Joe was with him all morning, I think, on Tuesday, uh touring the facilities. So uh more to come on that um which I know test us. It wasn't give us a test. It was look at our facilities. Tell us what we can do better to do a right. Yeah. It was not a tabletop drill. Thank you for clarifying that. Um so we'll get some feedback from them uh which we'll share with the committee in executive session. Um

127as the committee knows and I hope our community knows, we spend a a significant amount of time on school safety. Uh we don't talk about it publicly because we're not supposed to. Um, all this information is, you know, is is open to public consumption. Uh, and we keep our, uh, safety plans, uh, confidential to protect the safety of our students and staff. Uh, and we will continue to do so. But I would ask any of our families who are listening, if you have questions or things you're wondering about, I will meet with uh, anybody um, at any time to talk about this work. I know Jill will, I know Joe will as well. Our school resource officers are also deeply deeply involved uh, in this um work. So, but wanted to make sure that the

128committee had um the um draft feedback from MIMA. Um but the other just piece of evidence I want to highlight here and Tim will pull up uh is just a real quick snapshot of the men's and women's leadership group. Um one of the things um that I heard from the school committee in my end of year evaluation was, you know, the work we're doing with our men's leadership is is excellent, but we need to expand this to our young ladies. Uh so we did and I will say the addition of our athletic uh director has been wonderful because she has been actually um spearheading this work with myself and Mr. Ducharm. Um and so uh just a few photos here. Uh our students are not only doing service learning uh locally at our uh food

129pantry but also again in Worcester at the uh PRA um community center. Uh but we also have expanded that to career and college readiness. Um, taking them on a tour of Wester State was awesome. I can't underscore the importance of showing our kids uh what's possible and helping them develop a vision for themselves. It may not sound like a college tour is, you know, all that significant. It really is. And getting our high school kids on a college campus and letting them see that they belong there if that's something they choose to do is really powerful. Um running parallel to that, equally as powerful, uh we are bringing them uh to the BV Blackstone Valley Ed hub to give them a crash course in all things careers from welding to manufacturing uh and looking at

130what the different career opportunities within the Blackstone Valley are. Uh so um our boys went uh already and our young ladies are going next week. I'm sure they will be uh in the welding equipment and doing the virtually welding which is really awesome to see. Um but we're excited about um the work continuing and excited about um the young women's leadership group that we started um through this work. Um with that, you also heard Maya mention earlier um this week we teed off um our an expansion of our charger time with uh members of our local police, fire. Um Scott is running our small engine repairs which we'll hear about later. And then uh the vice president of marketing from Dean Bank um was also present this week for financial literacy for just our seniors.

131So all the seniors uh took the financial literacy class. I think tomorrow is the last session of that. Um and so we are looking to expand that even further. So if we have other partners that are listening, we will be reaching out to Southwick Zoo. We are going to be tapping on our own um early childhood educators and asking them to run an early early childhood course uh through charger time for our students um as well as continuing to work with with police and fire. It I will tell you one of the coolest things was going in and seeing one of our alumni from last year um in our who now works for our fire department teaching our current students how to actually put on the fire equipment. Um really awesome. You talk about it

132kind of coming full circle. Uh these are our alumni now coming back that are not only serving our community uh and keeping our community safe, but are now teaching our students how to do just that. Mrs. Fowl has said um the feedback she's getting from the kids has been amazing uh that are taking the police fire and the small engines uh a small engine repair group. I did I might have learned how to change the oil on a snowblower from Scott on Monday. Not sure I can do it yet, Scott, but you might have learned. It was pretty cool. Yeah, it was pretty cool to see. Um, moving on to the next goal. We'll wait for uh Tim to kick us along here. Next, we are going to be talking a little bit about our

133staff support. Here we go. Thanks, Tim. Oops. Um, so our staff development and support goal. Uh, we have a significant amount of evidence in here. There is we are doing so much work in this space to try to help um grow and support our educators at every level. And Jill is going to review a few pieces. Sure. just a few I just want to bring up there. Um the first one is what we we started this year is some lesson studies. Um it's more of a um a different approach to professional development. Temp. I think we have a the a little chart for this. Um and it's really focusing on teaching practices and student ach um student progress. Um we have teachers who would teach in the same grade or in the same content area

134who meet with the team. by the team. I say it's the teachers, our coaches, whoever's coaching in that building and our lead coach. And they actually identify a lesson that they're going to teach. They do this together, okay? And they they plan for it. One of the teachers then takes that plan and they teach while the rest of the team is observing. After that's done, the team gets together and they talk about what worked, what didn't work, how can we tweak this, um are there different interventions? um they debrief and they revise then and it has to this is done quickly and right in a row because then the teacher who didn't teach the first time then takes all that feedback and then teaches that lesson to her kiddos. Then they come back together and

135said, "Oh, look, this worked. This didn't work." It really is helping refine their practice. And why this is great is this isn't just for our new teachers. We have very seasoned teachers who have done this work together. And you you get something out of it because you're you're having a conversation first. You're implementing it. then you're having an opportunity to go back and revise and the next teacher is able to go in, you know, and change some things up. So, we're doing this at um I think the high school is coming up. They have some lessons that are being there. We've done that a lot in Milville and also at the middle school. So, we've done it for grades and we've also done it if you know two science teachers or, you know, two history

136teachers. So, we're doing that as well. And again, it's it's we are looking at as professional development, but it's a different approach to it. It's a collaborative approach and it's going really well. the feedback from our staff. I know people in the beginning were very hesitant and a little bit nervous, especially some of our seasoned teachers, but after they went through it, they did find it was really productive. Jill, do they all get an experience with that? Not all of the teachers have. Um, but there has been, you know, teachers. It could be some of our newer teachers that are doing that and some of our seasoned teachers. It would be great for everyone eventually to do that. Absolutely. Um, but our coaches are also involved in that. But it really, it really has worked

137out well. It's open to everybody though. It is absolutely open to everyone. We encourage, you know, people who we really think could benefit from that. And some of our amazing teachers are, you know, are doing this with with other teachers as well, and they're getting that feedback. I never thought of that, you know, cuz think about it. You're in your classroom and we have a coach go in there, but having your colleague with you, too, you really be able to give that feedback to to support each other as you go through this. Yeah. So, it's working out well. And some are strongly encouraged. Yes. Yes. Mhm. Um so the lesson study I just wanted to touch base on. There's also some um evidence that you'll see in there. Um I there's not a specific slide,

138but you'll go in. We um have our two program that for our two and three-year-old me, not three-year-olds, two and threeyear um teachers that they um uh engage in a mentoring program with other stu with other districts. We actually um connected Bellingham, it's Bellingham, Oxbridge and us. Um and they do meet. It's, you know, they have three formal PD sessions altogether and each ho town hosts one of those. But what it does is it gives those teachers the opportunity because it's a little bit different than our first year mentors which is you have an individual mentor, you do have coaching, you have all that support. It's bringing those um staff members together as a whole and they may do they do professional development, they do learning walks as a group within each building. So they're

139seeing the other districts, they're being able to talk about that. they're able to give some feedback and they also work on things like um which is in your packet a problem of practice. It could be that one of the teachers in another district or in our district may present may be presenting something. This is what I'm seeing. There's a template of how you do that, but they're able to talk through it, you know, as colleagues. What do you do? What would you see? What are better ways to approach this? So, it's been really nice to do it. We do a lot of work within our district with our teachers together, but having other districts come in with us, and in this case, it's Oxbridge and Bellingham. It, you know, it kind of broadens what you

140see. we're able to go to their schools, you know, and walk around around and see what's going on there and have those conversations and they also come to us. So, it's really nice to have that. So, we've been doing that. Um, and then finally, which I we enjoy doing this as well. This is our second year. I think our mentor the second and third year teacher mentors are in our third year. We also have I think you know within our district we have um PLC's our professional learning communities amongst our teachers in the grade levels with the courses but and we also have three principles in our our district and sometimes you know you think about it they're a single principal in a building so for the last couple of years we have joined forces

141with Bellingham and Hopedale and we have regular meetings with them and myself Jason their superintendents and directors also attend but it's an opportunity for those same types of things um we do you know professional development principles bring what kind of topics our principles actually also present information um at these PLC's and one of the ones that I mentioned before are um thinking classrooms Jenny actually as a principal presented that to the entire group um and there's a her whole slideshow is in there and we actually she actually had all the principles get up and engaged in an activity I think it was about was it about cats or I don't remember what it was but cats and rats cats was a Yes, so many cats. Yeah, catch some rats. But they were up there trying

142to, you know, have conversations and figure it out and follow the rules. So, um that's really been great and it it does it good connections with other schools and other principles um who are there when we do that and we do we meet on a regular basis and it's great. into this piece. Um the u our three districts were asked to present this summer at the uh state superintendent conference this model. Um because there are many small school systems like ours um and our collaborative approach to how we're trying to get and develop and build leadership in this kind of PLC, professional learning community format um is being recognized. So, we were selected and um asked to present at the superintendent conference uh this summer. So, uh we'll be sharing this really good work with

143our colleagues from across the state. Um and then just a couple of other uh quick pieces on this. Um as I mentioned, the student um focus group. So, we also have our staff focus groups. So, you'll see a piece of evidence. It's just a summary point. Uh we've had two meetings um with our staff and we ask the principles to um identify uh our friends and colleagues who are not shy. Uh and so they have done a great job of getting our educators in the room with myself and uh Jessica from HR to give us the straight and direct feedback. Uh and they are they are uh very happy to do so. And so that I really do appreciate those conversations in each building uh because you know these are educators. They're working very hard

144and they will tell us what they need more of, less of and you know how we can um work best to support them. So uh you'll see just a summary uh from one of our visits in there for that. And then the last piece I just want to highlight quickly um I linked in here for uh the committee is our staff spotlight. Um, one of the things that it and it can be sort of easy to miss because it's at the bottom of our web page, but every month we actually have a new staff that we're highlighting from each one of our schools and really kind of bragging and showing off. Uh, very welld deserved. But you can see the we just linked the uh the spotlight form so you can see what that looks

145like. And then we um linked the April staff spotlight. And if Tim, if you wouldn't mind clicking that, um, it should bring us to our three April uh, spotlight folks, one from each building. Let's see if it comes up. Hopefully, it's here. Yes, Jason, with you saying that the spotlight, I did notice it as the bottom of the website and you don't notice it. So, maybe we can tweak that website. Can we post it to on the top of the district Facebook page? Oh, yeah. That's You might be able to. Yeah. I have to see how it would interface with that. But yeah. Yep. Um, and this is great. And we have so many faculty that frankly could these four folks that were picked this month and now they're getting picked on, but that could

146be up here. They're getting recognized. Yes, they are getting recognized. You were getting paid on this. There you go. Um, but um, we're proud of all of our staff, but you know, this month we're highlighting and focusing on these three uh, individuals. And so, um, each month we we select a three that come from the schools. Um, and there's always a nice little kind of summary and a nice photo of them. So, um, we'll see if we can move that around somehow and get it, um, kind of get it rearranged, but we're very proud of our staff. And, um, and it's all staff, not just teachers. It's all staff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've had folks from Matt Walker that were, you know, highlighted to some admin assistants to classroom teachers to IAS. It's awesome. So,

147it really gives us a chance to celebrate our our staff. We talk a lot about the like, you know, the professional development and the support and the mentoring and all those things are good things, but like this is great. You know, we we also have a variety of staff breakfasts. Uh we actually have one coming up. Um um National Administrative Assistant Week uh is next week. Nope. The April vacation week, sorry. But next Thursday, we're doing coffee and dessert at the end of the day with all of our admin assistants at central office. So, uh, we don't talk about those things a lot, but we do those, uh, we do those types of activities, uh, to celebrate our staff as well. And I think the staff enjoys when we cook them breakfast. Yes, Jill and

148I also do breakfast for them. Uh, I will say Jill's a little bossy in the kitchen, but that's okay. Y, absolutely, I am. I will try to make the, you know, pancakes and she comes over and it's too much batter there. Put more chocolate chips in that. Yeah. So, that's a lovely experience. I own it. Absolutely. Um, so we do we a couple times a year we make breakfast for uh our our staff, various groups of our staff to thank them for what they're doing. So, Scott, I think you love the French toast, correct? That I make. Absolutely. I was looking at Scott thinking he's waiting again. Does he get something? hint of cinnamon in there. Um, so we're grateful for our staff and and definitely take the opportunity to celebrate them when we uh

149when we can. But lots of information there for you to review in terms of how we're working on that uh particular goal that will also we hope help with retention. Um so we did go back and look our fiveyear uh sixyear staff retention is right around 80%. Um so you know certainly want to continue to push that higher but that includes um retirements as well just as an FYI. So and the last two goals are actually really easy. We can kind of breeze uh right through those. Um the uh next one once this comes back up uh these are all super familiar is our district strategic plan and Jill's just going to touch up there. So you know we're we're finishing up with our blueprint 2.0. 0 and we're going to be moving on. I

150guess we'll call it our Brooklyn 3.0. Um, but it's, you know, I think, um, Tim, I think we do have that. We've started with, again, we know the charge away. Our promise is still there. Um, but what we've tried to do is look at our goals and we are going to keep the same focus areas. We're looking at curriculum, instruction, the whole child in the community. But we're looking to really refocus those goals based on the work we've done now and the data that we have back. Um, what I do want to mention, which is most important about this, is we actually are going to be having a community forum. Um, um, it's going to be Tuesday, May 6th. Um, it's here in this, um, media center here at the middle school. It starts at

1516:00 from 6:00 to 7:00. Um, because we want community input. We want to hear from our parents, our community, our community partners, town governance. Um, we just want to have a discussion, be able to gather that input and feedback just to see where, you know, everyone's ideas are where we're going. Now, I have a question. How are you, besides presenting it right here? How you putting that out to the community? When can you just clarify your question? When you what do you mean by putting out to the community? Like, how is that conversation going to go? We know that it's happening. Yeah. Oh, um, email, Facebook. Okay. Yep. But you remember when you That's okay. We bring up the blueprint all the time and this is something we always go back to. We call it

152our, you know, our northstar and everything that we do is anchored back to this blueprint. So, we want to make sure we get it right again. So, if you're tuning in, please join us on May 6th, 5,6. There you go. Yes. And then the last goal um is on our feasibility study. Um and so I know the committee is very well verssed in where we are in that. But as as far as evidence is concerned um there are two different uh pieces that are linked here. Um the um one of them is the actual timeline itself. So um when you have a moment take a look at the feasibility study timeline. Um and then the other that is linked here and I know you had um copies at our last meeting is the education visioning

153work. Just as a FYI, I did ask the architect for I said put this 65 pages and five slides. Uh and then those five slides, we're going to take that on the road um on the road. What does it mean? It means board of selectmen. It means finance committees. It means public forums. It is everyone and anyone we can get in front of senior centers. Uh and we'll be having that conversation with the school building committee. Uh because as we know, this really is a community uh piece. So, uh, everyone's got to own their little part of it and and get in front of different groups. But, um, this is really important because this kind of thing can very easily get shelved and no one ever talks about it. Um, who's going to look at

15465 pages of just narrative. So, um, DRRA uh, did very quickly boil that down to five slides uh, and sent it to me this week. Uh so we will be taking that show out uh on the road to get feedback from our communities and to give them a sense of what our education visioning um um individuals had to say about where they think the high school should go next. So that is it as far as um our midcycle evaluation. happy to answer any questions not just now but of course as you're going through um the evidence uh between now and our next meeting in May um that you might have or if you want to meet and go through it together happy to do that as well. Any questions on the superintendent? I'm just going

155to go back to the um the MIMA study um the results of the the tabletop exercise and um earlier in the meeting we had to red we did the school budget a school um calendar because of a situation that took place and that's why the high school didn't know the date a day a day after and and and I people do not understand how extensive our security and efforts are in our cooperation with the towns. That's intentional because uh we want to keep it secure. But no, in that situation um there was a a a post on social media the next day suggesting that the uh the complex had, you know, no security after dropping a parent dropped their their children off. And so that's the worst thing to say uh on social media suggesting

156there isn't any security there. Um but the idea of the police officers and the and the security that we had there is sometimes not always to be obvious and but there was plenty of coverage in in that building that day. And the other thing I wanted to point out is uh especially in the last couple of weeks of um you know information that goes around the uh the internet and social media as far as I mean the school I suppose we can always do better in our communications but I I don't know another um institution in the two towns that provides as much information and attempts to provide as much information through these platforms, whether it's the website, social media, and it's even recognized by the Massachusetts um emergency management agency, that the school has

157extensive system and protocol in place to get messaging out to parents and families regarding any incident and and any information. These protocols allow for multiple persons to disseminate uh messaging quickly and we use these platforms. Yeah, we do. And and this, by the way, platform is one of them, but and this is probably the least monitored form, you know, from people at home, but it it's the information's out there if you're really seeking it um seeking accurate information. So, I just wanted to add those two points and and thank you for the presentation. Any other questions regarding the Does anybody regret not adjourning before we start? All right, we'll move on to the business office. Joe, the floor is yours. Thank you for not adjourning. You'd be missing all of this. Um, well, we're we're

158sticking around for Scott. That's right. That's right. Did say we're going to end on a high. That's for Alaska. Uh, for budget journal entries, you'll notice in your packet that there's only three this time around. Um the first one is mainly just an adjustment to break out the um medical and dental expense for an RBT from the salary line. It was co-mingled so it stayed in the same fund. The second one was to set up a new grant, the innovative schools uh learning excursion grant that was just awarded. It was just initial setup for that grant. And we need to on the third one allocate some funds to do some calibration on our audio meter account with the under the nurse repair. So, it was just a small adjustment there to cover that expense. And

159that was all for the past month or so, unless you have Any questions for Joe on the budget journal entries? I I'll take a motion to accept the budget journal entries presented by Joe. So, moved. Motion made by Carrie. Second by Tara Squared. Any further questions? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? It's unanimous. So the next item is the personnel report. You have that uh in front of you to be placed on file. Just indicates the two new hires and a couple of retirements and resignations. And then the expenditure report is the next item. Um I keep I keep finalizing my projections. They're getting a little bit more accurate as we go through the end of the year. One thing I want to mention about this report, it does not

160take into account the $150,000 additional prepayment. So, when you look at the projected ending for the year, well, roughly you subtract $150,000 from that number. Um, I don't there's nothing surprising here. We do I will have continue to do my reccalibrations to cover some individual line shortfalls with the uh surpluses and other lines, but you'll start to see those budget requests coming forward as we move in. Um we've started uh preparing for FY27 by doing the purchasing to build up our supplies that we can utilize in the next fiscal year. You'll start to see that start happening here, too. Uh and we look like we're in great a great position. And I I I I expect the number at the end to climb as opposed to reduce less than 150 obviously as we draw to

161the conclusion of the year. Does anybody have any questions on that report and that concludes that for myself? Joe, while we have you um we you did give us an update on the national grid. Yes. But I did put in front of you um when you came in on the um football field lighting. Yeah. I got in touch with the company that's looking into doing the proposal for us. And one of the things they were trying to do is they're were incorporating EV chargers into that proposal because they felt they could take some of the incentives and uh granting opportunities that come along with those and build it into the football field lighting to create some savings. mainly around a power supply that would be brought in for the field. Those are gone. It's dried

162up, no longer available. So, they've gone back to the drawing board to prevail proposal without that included in it. Um, so unfortunately, I don't have any really good news right now, but it is being worked on, hasn't been forgotten. I did include in that piece of paper, I asked them just to give us some kind of an outline of what they're thinking of when they talk about the lights. And you'll see in the picture they're showing the power supply coming in on the red line and the four lighted posts where they're estimating those will be placed and that's what they're basing their proposal on. That's really all I have for that at this point in time. Working on it. Thank you very much. All right, we'll move on to the facilities report. [Applause] What do

163you I don't know why you're excited about this because it always cost money. You know, I was thinking about that when Jason said we'll end up high. I'm like, no, we really won't. Every time I come here, it's it's it's love to come one day and just say I have nothing. This building's great. We'll get a new building hopefully. All right. So, the high school um there are several damaged floor tiles in the cafeteria. What's happening is um due to the extreme cold weather we had. That's a cement slab that's on the ground. So, when it got really cold, that contracted and the expansion joint that's in there spread open, cracked all the tiles. Um I did cons confirm with UEC, our asbestous consultant, that those tiles are not asus. They have been replaced once

164already. So, we have to go ahead to go ahead and change those out. So, hoping to get that done over April vacation. Um, the baseball and softball fields that we're responsible for maintaining are in good playing condition, but that being said, if you get heavy rains and the field gets soaked, there's no place for the water to go. And it is our responsibility to make sure that these athletes are safe. Last thing we want is somebody blowing out a knee or achilles heel or anything. So unfortunately sometimes we do have to call the games. Um track and field the shot put nets were put up and the discus nets and I know those have been up for a while but we haven't had a meeting since. Um all the lines have been painted for the

165competitions. Um I did ask that the high jumps get blown off and weeded out. Um and that has been done to the best of my knowledge. Uh we did move several bleachers off of the football track. We put one bleacher by the softball field, one by the baseball field, and one by the tennis courts. Um the beginning of March, we had a drain valve in the boiler room that somehow backed out. Don't know how that happened, but it was leaking pretty severely. Um, I was away on vacation, but when I got the phone call and the video, I made the determination with Joe that we needed to get a company in here ASAP that could fix it. And in the past, we have used a Customs plumbing and heating and um, they were able to

166come right out and address the issue. Other companies that I spoke to wanted to shut down our heating system, drain the whole system to replace that valve. And it is the only way you can do it because the valves on the heating system are so rusty that you can't turn them without possibly breaking something. And in this case, you couldn't even turn them at all. So, they were able to just back it out enough, put some thread tape on it, screw it back in, and it stopped the leak. Um, however, I did get an update from Industrial Burner today that they will be coming out to change the circulator pump. That has I know you don't want to hear that name. Um, they made it. They are coming out to change the circulator pump um,

167April 24th. So, at that time, they have to drain the system down and replace two shut off valves, and I'll have them replace that one at the same time. Um, so that's that. Also, um, one of the compressor heads. We have a big compressor down there that has two heads and that compressor maintains the pneumatic systems for the heating systems in the classrooms and all that. Um it's always run on one head. It alternates between the two compressors. So um that will be repaired by&m compressor. Um middle school uh we got an alarm that triggered saying low water temperature. Um, inside the generator there's a heater block for which is required for diesel engines. It keeps the water warm. So, extreme cold temperatures, diesel starts up and runs. Um, seeing how we don't have extreme

168cold temperatures right now, it's not an issue. Generator is functioning as it should. Um, this is something that will get ordered and I'll replace that myself. It's only like a half hour job. It's very simple. I replaced it once already. Um, also we had a thirdf floor restroom sinks in the faculty bathrooms. These sinks are back to back go down one drain. It was clogged pretty good. Um, head custodian actually took the sink off, tried snaking it, and after several attempts, we were able to get that cleaned out. So, that was done in house, which saved us some money. Um, same thing. J JFK Maloney um had a back compressor motor that was just the electric motor that has been repaired that's up and running during the week of February vacation the 28th 24th through

169the 28th complex experienced two power outages. When that happened the boiler stayed running but for whatever reason they were drawing a lot of electricity and these are fairly new boilers that shouldn't be happening. So, I did confirm with FM generator they're going to come out um I believe this the 24th as well and do what they call a load test. They'll start the generator up, shut the building down and just run on emergency power. And that'll tell us what it runs for one thing and if there is adequate power or if there's an issue. So, that'll be done April vacation as well. uh Nova Elementary School last Saturday. Uh I received a phone call around 10:00 a.m. that there was an alarm coming from the generator and that turned out to be a low water

170level alarm. Um I was able to silence it and just take care of it the following day. And BMR charger time, small engine repairs. I was lucky enough to be uh get nominated to teach this class. [Laughter] Scott, that is a lovely way of saying that. But I will tell you, I enjoy it. I I think I missed my calling. I I should have what you're doing. I shouldn't have went into teaching, but I should have stuck with automotive. No, just kidding. Um, no, it's been a blast. I mean, small class, which is good. It gives us enough time to to really work, you know, one-on-one, hands-on hands, and each one had a machine to do. Um, what we did was we gathered up all 10 snow blows from the district, brought them to the

171high school, and I taught them how to drain the oil, refill it to the correct capacity, check, double check, make sure the oil levels right, because you don't want to blow an engine up. Um, greased all the fittings located, showed them how to locate all the fittings, how to grease them. Uh, check the internal belts for wear and tear. We haven't gotten to that yet, but I'm hoping to do that tomorrow. It's just a matter of tipping the snowblower upside down, taking the covers off, showing them where the belts are, and it's a blast. Um, and then add the fuse stabilizer to the gasoline to make sure the gas is good, the carburetor stays fresh, and it's ready to run next winter when we need them. Not that we're going to need them, but if

172we need them. Then I would have also like I'm going to pull a spark plug out and show them how to read a spark plug because if you take a spark plug and look at it, it can tell you so much just by the color, the uh carbon that's built up on it, if it's running rich, running weak, uh lean. Um so stuff I'd like to teach him. Uh unfortunately, this stuff isn't taught anymore. I love it. I love that Joe is doing it with you, too. Yeah. So, I want to mention that, too. Um, in addition to myself, I pulled in Joe Mali. He just has such like a great relationship with so many of the students in that building. But he does. He really does. I I He knows every student. It's unbelievable.

173Awesome. What viscosity motor oil are you using on snowblower oil changes? 30 weight HD. Okay. 5W30 in the winter. Dan, do we need to put you with Scott? Charger time. There isn't much difference between 5W30 and 30. 30 weights in the summer when it's heavier. It's either from Okay, moving on. Right. Next, I'll be your next class. Okay. Before we let you go back to the track. Yep. Uh the boards on the runways for the jumps, they need to be replaced. Oh, okay. You pull one out and just maybe measure it and you can put it back in so they not difficult. No, I'm sure you got the I'm sure. Just got to get the right thickness. Yep. It's just plywood. Plywood and a like a pine frame or something. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Noted.

174I was just giving you a hard time in the motor oil. So, yeah. I'm familiar with where all those snow throws came from. Yes, you are. Remember a time you don't give me a hard time? It does. But no, I really enjoyed the class. It flew by. I can't believe, you know, in just a half an hour. It's two and a half hours. 10 snowblowers. That's Oh, we can get you more to change oil. I said we can get you more if you want to do oil changes. I need a weed whacker fixed. Small. Yeah, small repair. Small engine repair. There we go. We can have a class on just stringing a weed whacker. I think we all can use that. I know. I've done mine hundreds of times. Teaching them to start. I can

175never get the thing to come out of the other thing. If that makes any sense. You know, you put the screwdriver in, you try to pop it. Technical, the technical term, the thing into the other thing with the screwdriver. out with the screwdriver. With a flaad screwdriver. Yeah, something like that. Got it. Thank you, Scott. Thank you. I really appreciate you doing that. Thank you. A blast. Thank you for that. Yep. You're welcome. Addition for the kids for sure. Yeah. Facilities use requests. Few of them. One recently added right from the parks and arts. Yes, that was uh in should have been in front of you. Uh and that's your seat this evening. There are three dance performance and the school the dance step of greater oxbridge the uh PTO and then the pox and

176wreck as a backup in case there's a rain issue for the Easter egg hunt. The egg hunt. Make a motion to approve all three requests as presented. Motion made by uh Tara Lockin. Second. Second by Jane. Any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? The eyes have it. And surplus items IT department. Yes, there's a list of uh items. Um Chromebook shells, keyboards, four monitors, uh 20 mice, three computer shells, and three broken printers. The IT department to get rid of I said we have mice. Oh, that we got rid of you said. Yeah. Yes. Did those mice escape from the snow? From the cat and rat display. That wasn't getting away without something. Scott, did you release mice from the snowblowers? You haven't checked the belt yet. That's

177where you're going to find them. Make a motion. Thank you. It second. Motion made by someone and seconded by someone. Tara. All right. Tara S or L or both. Yeah. Tara L made the motion. Seconded by Carrie. All those in favor signify by saying I. Any oppose? The eyes have it. So, um, Mr. Superintendent, we going into the executive session. Yes. So, we're going to do school committee forum and then we're going to go be going into executive session. I would not be coming back in front of the camera to adjourn. So, uh, school committee forum, uh, anyone. Yes, Tara. Um, I would like to address the students who came tonight. Um, their concerns about the cell phone policy. Um, I did see that there was a policy subcommittee tomorrow. It looks like that's on

178the agenda. I don't remember it coming to us at all to this group. Right. We didn't hear anything about that. It's not a policy. It's a pilot. It's now it's a pilot. Right. So, it's a pilot. Um, do we know like where did it come from? Like was it just like a policy someone thought of it or what did staff or administration ask for it? Yeah. Do do you want to touch on that matter or go? Yeah. So, this was pretty much born out of the recent events that we've had um stemming from cell phone usage and we're just trying to look for a way to maybe curb that, you know, and hearing from the educators and the admin uh in the buildings. um they're all seems to be at their wits end with the

179cell phone usage and there's a lot of from their point of view is there's a lot of um different tactics taken by the teachers. Some teachers have it under control, some teachers don't. We're looking at this from a perspective of trying to support the teachers in any way. So we are just really looking at this. uh we sat with the principles of the uh buildings and you know it was thought of to use this locker as a as a pilot. Um so it really just kind of was born out of that. Did I miss recent events? I don't know what the lock the the threat made to the school was okay use those as the correct. Okay. Yeah. Um the other there's no way sorry I mean no way ever to stop all of it

180you know but we but I would like to correct a couple things that they said. Um I know that they said that in college there nobody removes their phone and that is not correct. I sat in on a class at an Ivy League institution and all of the students put their phones into lockers when they walked into the to the classroom. There are multiple discussions on multiple higher education sites about that. There's a new not not new but relatively new novel about an anxious generation and um and the phone use and the you have read I have yeah read and and I would challenge those four students and actually any other students to to read that because it just really is significant. The other point that they made was that you know in the workplace

181people have their phones and that's not a correct statement either. There are lots of work places that have priority where you you put your phone in your locker before you enter or or where you are automatically dismissed, you know, because of the, you know, nature of what their business is or whatever. And what they were saying about that is like you as an an adult or responsible person, maybe, you know, they're not adults yet, like you know the repercussion. You use it, you're in trouble. You don't That's what I took away from that. Yeah. But but I guess I'm just saying if you're going to make a point, make a point with correct data and information. Um because I think the world is changing the way it looks at cell phones, higher education is work

182workplaces are um even families are um and I don't know what the policy or the pilot is. And I think it's important that as a school committee, if it becomes a policy, we have input into that. We always have had in the past. Um, but I also think the students, it's a great learning opportunity to really see what the studies are out there and and not just their own reflection of I want my phone. I don't think the students necessarily were saying that they want their phone. It's more that it that there was no repercussions done. We didn't do the if your phone is out it's being taken. If your phone is out twice it's, you know, now it's being stored in the office. It went from your own personal responsibility to it is entirely

183being locked up and following on the heels of the disaster experiment with the yonder pouches. I mean that I don't even know how long that lasted at the middle school to now be and that was done through grant money. Now, we're looking at something that will be done, I'm assuming, with our budget money. So, much like the yonder pouches, we talked about that. I mean, that was the first thing that I brought up, too, because again, I'm not sold on any of this. We It's the process. The process is you try things. If they don't work, they don't work. And you you take an honest approach to it. I appreciate the process got mixed up when the word policy got thrown out. I so I appreciate the the students coming tonight and I agree with

184a lot of the things that they said because this isn't a this isn't a you know policy says and it the policy committee says and it's done. We know that it's going to come to the larger committee anyway and we're just trying to figure something out. We're hearing the feedback from the educators from the admin. We're trying to just you know we haven't and this was really just myself and um you know Jason having a meeting. We haven't this hasn't even been sused out with the policy subcommittee either. So this is not a policy. It's not even to that point though. It was introduced to the students as a policy. It was emailed to the families as a policy. It was specifically said to the students as a school committee policy. Make a piece on

185that. Policy means something to us. It really doesn't mean anything to anybody out there. They call everything a policy. They literally everything is a policy. I'm constantly correcting people like that is not a policy that's a procedure that is not a policy this is a pilot that's not a policy that's a rule you know in the handbook the school committee policy means something very specific to this governing board and it should but your average kind of Joe Jane no offense Jane on the street it it doesn't it doesn't mean the same thing to them everything's a policy and it's not we know that I just wanted to and I think it was it was corrected that it should not have gone out as you know sold as a policy cuz it's not it's not that

186at all. We all know that we're we're all here on the same committee. We haven't voted for it on it, you know. So, we should all understand that. Um and that's just not how the process works as we all understand. Can I ask a question as to how the staff were chosen that were running the pilot because I know they were asked if they were staff that were interested and so some of them do the um the challenge we have is some uh it's a bit of the wild west. Some staff do nothing and then some staff enforce the school rules. Some staff don't with cell phones because they don't want to get into it with the kid student. And some staff bought the little slips. So some staff use the slips. You come in

187my room, you put your phone in the little like the little shoe slip thing. Um and so, you know, the idea came from that kind of, you know, what could we get that would kind of replicate that? Um and could, you know, at least test it out in a few classrooms and see how it works. The staff volunteered. So, from what I understand, the administration at the high school asked, you know, staff who would be interested on that, and five came forward and volunteered. So, some teachers were already using a slip in their classroom. Yep. They weren't the little cases, but it was like, you know, like the shoe rack thing that you put them in. So, yeah. So, when you when you walked in the and you can see them, you'll see them hanging

188in the classrooms. Uh, and it just was a total lack of consistency, which was another issue. Uh, study hall too. I would challenge. Uh, I don't think that's what study hall is used for. It wouldn't count on time on learning either, just FYI. Uh, if you walk by a study hall, you will see every student in that study hall just scrolling through their phone. It is a epic waste of time. And so, I would challenge and push back on that too. That is not that is not them time. That's actually student learning time that counts towards our hours of time on learning. If reviewed, we would not have that qualify for t time on learning. I don't think kids need that 4550 minute break to scroll on their phones. Like I just it's an epic

189waste of time. I I just want to clarify one thing. It's not the policy committee meeting with that group of faculty though. Erin and I are in the policy committee. We're not meeting with those faculty. It's you and Matt. That's all I want to clarify with the I was looking up some I was looking up something with my phone but for the purpose of something else. Um, okay. I think everybody got my response to the parent. Did Did I do that right? Okay. Yes. So, so simple. Yeah. Okay. Um, I have other question. I'm not sure if I'm getting the BMR SDSC emails. I don't know if they're getting they're getting to me, but that okay for another. But so the um so this came I think to a surprise from us over the weekend,

190right? Did I someone brought it up to me over the weekend or maybe Monday on I think you addressed it in your Yeah. Was it Friday? It was weekend. Yep. Thursday or Friday. I think Terry Well, if you sent it an email then I it brought to me over the weekend then. So um yes um it was Thursday. So this but this is a pilot in five classes and [Music] um and so there's some miscommunication on a policy but there is there is no policy approved by the by the school committee but the administration can implement these pilots. So, I mean I you you kind of emailed us saying, you know, I it went out ahead of the school committee, but Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, sorry, dude. And and and this is a pilot to

191see what what the effects would be. And immediately we're having effects and and I think the the girls did a great job tonight. And you know, they did a phenomenal job. I did there there were a couple things that I didn't fully agree with, but the overall presentation and um was professional commitment to to their their argument was was phenomenal, you know, and and um but it's like I responded back to that parent, it's just a pilot. We are going to take that data like we do every with everything else. It'll go to the subcommittee. It'll end up coming. you know, you guys will consider what to present, maybe nothing, maybe everything to the school committee for its consideration and we'll we'll make a determination there. But we are getting feedback immediately on this and

192and uh that's a good thing. I just think definitely was an issue last year with parents with the yonder with the middle school kids. So, I can imagine high school is probably going to be a bigger deal if this I don't think there's disagreement among anyone in this district that the yonder pouches were were an absolute but I feel like the kids are going to do the same thing. They're going to throw an old phone in that box and keep their real phone like we're going to end up there's a million thing there's a million things that anybody can do. I mean, you know, back when we were going to school, you couldn't chew gum either. And, you know, you used to stick it to the roof of your mouth. There was ways that you

193got to way around the rules at all times. So, you know, newer tables, there's no gum. If if we can't recognize that having cell phones is a distraction, we know this. I mean, on every level, and every facet of life, cell phones are a distraction. They really are. So, you know, and to the students points, very well taken that it is not it is an equity versus equality thing. And, you know, it's you know, the end, you know, we don't punish everybody for for the few. I completely agree with that. But we also can't leave the few behind that can't control themselves because we have an we have an obligation as a school district to make sure that everyone succeeds. So we have to we have to look at every every option. And on the

194safety side, and this is where, you know, we talked about this just a few minutes ago, you know, it doesn't relate directly, but I mean there the problem was a cell phone being used in relation to the school which drew the school as a target and we have to recognize that. We have to recognize that that's that's a that's a truth. So how do not saying that that's what you know that it's the larger body of students but I if that's a a symptom of the you know of the disease then we we have to fix it I don't think that's going to help that kind of fully because if they can do that after school absolutely they can do they can I mean it can happen yeah there's then there's no stopping anyone from

195using any cell phones for video or anything on public grounds anyway so I mean we can't stop it completely Um but we can we you know if we can figure out a way to to make it better. The other challenge that may come uh down is um to every school district is the attorney general attorney general's bill that was filed to ban them like straight out ban cell phones K to 12. They're a no-go. No cell phones. So this whole discussion may end up being um you know kind of a moot point if that law if that bill passes. Yeah. I think part of what irritated the students that presented tonight though was when it was presented to them in one of their classes, it was, "Oh, we know you guys won't have a problem

196with this. You're you're the good kids. You won't have a problem with this. Just put your phone in the box. It'll be fine." And to your point, there are ways around it. The kids who can put their phone away during the class period are the kids who will just follow the rules and stick it in the box. The kid who can't control that urge is the kid who's going to throw an old phone in the box and still have their phone in their pocket. So, I think a piece of what they wanted to get across was that why are we not working on consequence policy as opposed to the everyone stick it in a box approach. The turning off before class starts doesn't work. That's what they're supposed to do then. They don't do that.

197No. And then what are the consequences for not doing it? You do they're taken and you if you go to Linda see Linda Salom's office we enforce that if the kids keep doing it but go look at Linda's desk it's covered in cell phon and it and it's a it's a it's not an issue to to BMR. It's not an issue to BMR. It's an issue countrywide statewide and hence the attorney general saying they just need to not be in the schools period. and and even then the kid's going to find a way to have it in their, you know, the shoe phone, whatever the case may be. But the plain fact of the matter is we not only have to look at a student's perspective, we have to look at the teacher in the

198room perspective. It has gotten out of control. You know, no, I don't have my phone, but I've got my earbuds, you know, the hidden ones that are in the ear, and I'm listening to something that's, you know, put away in my backpack or thrown in the box, but still turned on. You know, I it's just if if the mission of the institution is learning, yes, we have to learn how to control and how to follow guidelines and have consequences for not doing that. But we have to make sure we have an environment where the education material gets across and it's not getting across to somebody watching a movie while you're trying, you know, while they're supposed to be doing their group think and and and doing their their group projects and their, you know, interaction.

199It's not just a a student perspective. It's a teacher perspective. It's a learning perspective. It's an outcomes perspective. We just looked at, you know, what are our outcomes? How are we doing? Well, part of the outcomes are impacted by the people who aren't following the rules or are are lost on their cell phones. So, you're right, the the higher level kids who who know how to manage and know how to use it as an educational tool are usually the ones who are most impacted by a a policy. But all means all. And it's our mission to educate the students, not to get them to watch a video or chat with their friends or or be scrolling. So the policy subcommittee has a meeting tomorrow anyhow. Okay. So you guys can come back to us with

200that. Atara, do you have anything else to add for good and welfare? I do. All right. Now, let's go to the mom, the parent who came about sports. Um, her issues are valid. Someone breaking in. Scott's probably finished. Scott's probably found another snowblown. Yeah, he's next project. Um, the town field is and the the wetness. How do you control that? We don't have a doa stadium. Yeah, I I I don't think Well, yeah, the town's usually very good at taking care of our fields. I think her point was that the town didn't even know there were games scheduled. Oh, and then she just uh uh Don, it's u Darlene. Darene, she needs a little more time to get things under control. Yeah. And that's what I she seemed to be saying asking like how can

201we help support her more? So, I know when we talked earlier in this spring season, you did say that you're trying to give her more support. Yes. um the multiple schedules. There still are some ongoing issues that Is it okay to can I Oh, please address some of the concerns cuz I so I spoke um that I don't know if the email went to the school committee or if the mother the parent So the parent called the high school, the one that came this evening um and uh asked um the admin assistant of the high school, will you please give me all of the school committee email addresses? And you know, Linda said um you know, hang on a minute. Look, so she called over to my office and said, "I think there might be

202an issue." Is that I don't know. It's a little loud over there. Oh, Joe's check. Joe's checking on the Yeah. Did everybody get that email that Jason's referring to? I did. Okay. Okay. It did come to the school committee. Maybe you're not on the I'm not on the school committee. Okay. I don't think I am either. It doesn't show on the breakdown. Um I had a conversation with the parent and asked her and she shared her concerns from the email. Jackie forwarded the email to me so I had a copy of it so I could talk to her about all the specific concerns. Um and then um had shared with her of course you know by all means you know you know please feel free to come to school committee night and share your concerns

203with the school committee um is okay it's our director of facilities banging a door trying to get it to lock properly. Oh okay good. Um I asked her how the discussion went with the athletic director. Um she had said the athletic director's got a lot going on right now. Um and to which I I you know affirmed and said yeah she's very busy you know did were you able to share these concerns with our athletic director with the administration at the high school. Um I didn't get an answer to that question so my assume my assumption was no that there wasn't an discussion with her. Maybe there was um but I didn't get a direct response to that which is okay. Um so I did discuss the concerns with the athletic director. So, uh, I

204will just share with you, um, what she shared with me, um, regarding the parents concerns, uh, the, uh, varsity coach had offered to move the LC screen down for pitching and just hasn't gotten around to it yet, which is fine. That's okay. It's not his responsibility. So, Scott's actually going to take care of that. I know that was one issue that was brought up. Um, the scheduling piece that was mentioned, um, Arbiter automatically syncs with SportsU, uh, so those both will match. Um, but what Darlene shared was when a game is canceled because of weather or the field was frozen, which was the case, uh, before they update on the website, she tries to rebook the makeup game. And so sometimes it takes her and the ad, she said upwards till, you know, 2 3:00

205in the afternoon of that given day to try to update. So she said they're not going to match immediately. Arbiter and Sports You will say it right away when the game's taken off or the meet's canceled, whatever. I guess it updates immediately, but our website won't match that. So, we just have to make some decisions if we want to keep using those, you know, ven those different venues or not. Um, she shared for JV, um, that JV teams only received the jersey tops. That is what they have had for uniforms over the past few years. Um, so, you know, she said she's happy to do something different. She just wasn't aware of that. Do we still rotate purchasing of uniforms? kind of sort of kind of when they aren't lost and have to be bought

206and then found the it's just being different. It's not her fault. Schedule of Right. That's Yeah. A beautifulation forms literally. So those are just some of the concerns that So Scott's taking care of the LC screen. Um Oh, and on the scheduling issue, this this was an important one. Um so Scott and Adam from the Blackstone do the field lining together. And so she thought Scott was giving the schedule to Adam because they line the fields. So she didn't realize that she was supposed to give Adam the schedule. Uh, so she did. She gave it to him and she's like, "Well, now I know. I just thought because they were lining the fields that Scott had given the schedule." Scott get her schedule. She They meet every week. Scott, Joe, and Darene. Which one does

207Scott follow? I'm sorry. I'm wondering which Yeah, because some because the schedule's like the one on the district is different from like you said for your points that you said to Arbiter. So, which one does Scott get? He follows a SK. So, she Darlene updates that schedule sometimes daily depending on the weather, you know, if games get cancelled. She updates Joe and Scott and uh the high school administration when there are changes. So, Scott works off of what Darlene tells him the schedule's going to be that way. Printed schedule, right? Not he's not looking at a website. No, no, no. Yeah. No, cuz Scott would maintain the ball fields at the high school, I imagine. And and then and then him and Adam work together to do the Yeah. pretty much does the Yeah. Adam

208will prep the field. I think Scott does the lining with Yeah. Yeah. So she just thought that Scott had given Adam the schedule. That's all. And that schedule is going to keep changing because we're going to get rain and I don't know. We had sleep the other day when I got off the highway coming up here. So I mean we're going to keep getting weather events. So that's going to keep shifting. Um, so the uniforms, the bottoms for JVS, they just don't they just wear their own baseball pants. And that's been the case for several years with my experience with my kids. Um, varsity has pants, but not the right sizes. Another issue, not really a anything we can control. Every kids, every year they're going to be different sizes, so you get what you

209get. I would think it's probably easier when you supply your own pants at that point than especially pants. A jersey you can make work. One of the players actually decided not to play. So Will is now out of a men's large and he's in a men's medium. He's in eighth grade. It's a very big pants. Just kind of funny. You can't take them in for He cinched them up. He He made them work. You can't do anything to them because they have to be returned. I can't do no custom tailoring. Um what was the other some updates on that? Yeah, I guess just um as of this afternoon the the website still didn't match towards you. So um but that was just the varsity baseball and that was the only reason why I was asking

210what Scott gets. I didn't realize she meets with him weekly but if he's looking at that it might not match that. He actually meets twice a week. I meet with the all of them on Thursdays. Scott does usually meet on Mondays also just him and um and Darlene and we have Darlene is on our central office leadership team. So every Monday our core team Joe, Jill, myself, Mary, Scott, Darlene, we meet every Monday morning at 8:30 like you know clockwork and we run through our priorities for the week. We cross you know kind of cross check with each other to make sure the right hand knows what the left hand's doing. It's it's a really structured um meeting. Dan Saltzman, our tech consultant's also there. So, we have the entire team around the table. Doesn't

211the um so our school uh schedule doesn't it's not linked to arbiter. So, Abiter and what is it? What you call it? Abiter is linked to sports. Those are linked together. So, why don't we eliminate the one that's causing the problem? Let's open it down cuz it may be the most accurate. No. Oh, and that's the say it's those are on a daily. She she's changing those and you're you know it's just not getting updated quick enough on aer which you there's you can't make it any faster. Yeah. There's no control. Yep. Again, why the kids use their phones in schools? They check their sports schedule for the day. They actually get a notification. Well, they might not. We see it as parents, so I'm sure it goes to their phone, too, because they have

212to download Sports U. But they actually got a notification during the school hours that the JV coach was informed that the game was not was, am I saying it right? Not away and it was home or vice versa. Change of venue. Yeah. Yeah. It was back it was at home. It was not at midmon. Yes. Yes. So that notification gets to the sports app during the school day. It's probably from aer. It's because it was a message from the coach saying he was just notified from the I'm not the familiar with it familiar with aer but not the sports you and I'm just I my email went to my junk junk so my BMRSDC email so I mean in the uh in the um I never in the email Tara just pointed out to me

213access to the restrooms at Roosevelt. So, um, now that they have the schedule, they can do it. Yeah. And and so and and I'm sure Scott knows this, but Celeste is very responsive as well. So, like whatever you guys need on these things. Um, but I think now that it's all um, yeah, there has to be a a line of communications with the town and the district and and I think this exercise is cleaning that line up and I think darling getting familiar with the offdist sites now. Um, assuming that Scott was making that that communication. So I can assure you so the pox and racks and blacks on in the last two days with my communications have been very responsive to you know to um help out the district and I even saw the

214superintendent there this afternoon hanging around the town hall carrying the baseball carrying a duffel bags and baseball. I may or may not have taken a picture of that. Oh god. And he stopped me from responding to a Facebook post regarding the override in Milville. So I may have you may have saved me some political points there too as well. See the face was missing. And I just had one more. I don't know. Jason, have you heard anything about the school lunches with the whole um federal stuff like will we that continue next year as of now? Yeah. All systems go for now um for the universal free that's state law. But I didn't know if it would impact trickle down yet. There'll be no impact whatsoever. The budget, the state budget picks up the difference

215of what the federal budget doesn't pay for. Well, well, the state budget the taxpayers pay for those lunches in Massachusetts. Yeah. They're reimbursed. The It's a reimbursement, man. So, we that's a law in Massachusetts. The legislature would have to go back and repeal that law. I thought it passes a law some. Yeah. And so in 2023, I think the summer of 23, so there is no way the legislature, no matter what happens, and the federal government is going to say, "We changed our mind and we're not giving kids lunch." But the budget line is the difference between what the federal government does not cover what it costs. Is that's all I was trying to say. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I'm I'm I'm agreeing. Yeah. I think it was 3.4 million uh for the entirety of

216the state on on the federal contribution. So that would challenge that was going to school children to begin with. So anyhow moving on getting back to the uh the other thing though we had discussions on on on and knowing that uh Darlene had her hands full coming into this year. We do have survey do we we we do we have surveys we you know after was it mentioned after the seasons and have we gotten any results from those on on on the two seasons. We do player parent surveys on the season. Okay. So, we did the spring uh fall and winter seasons. We should have results from those surveys. It's Yeah, it started with winter. I I'm not sure where the survey we did fall ones, too. We did. Okay. So, that's just par is

217parents and students, not coaches. Nope. There's no Okay. can whatever tools we can give her for feedback or whatever, I am all in favor of it and any support that we can give her. Um, it's a learning curve just coming into the district, never mind the nuances of Blackstone and Milville. Mhm. And then now the the parks, the facilities in Blackstone and and and Blackstone owned and Blackstone and District owned. So, even as far as the uniforms, I mean, I went in and saw what I thought was one storage space of uniforms and then discovered that there literally there were pieces of uniforms shoved in numerous spots all throughout BMR. Like, there was nothing that made sense. And it might be like three softball jerseys over here, but six softball jerseys were in a different

218closet. And then there were three pairs of baseball pants. Like there was no rhyme or reason to any of it. So yeah. So that's not on Darlene. Like that's what she came into. So So hopefully though, I know she has said that there's like that's she's got like bins that she's trying to now track the seasons in. So hopefully that won't be an issue in the future that it's there are no retro uniforms available that you cleaned out all these. Now we'll be able to go in and see. We may not have to sell them. We can reuse them. They're back in style. They will be. Yeah. Oh boy. Uh uh Tara Lockan, do you have anything to add for your good welfare? That's my three for today for the whole last year, my promising

219future. I want to circle back to the surveys. We're going to we're going to move on to now Tara Scoby's going off. No, we we do get feed the she did implement the surveys for parents and players and they are anonymous. Maybe we do get a coach one. Maybe we that way they can give some input on what the district they think can improve or offer support. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we can if that needs to be an agenda item. I don't know. I can I can ask her to put one together. Okay. Um, and thank her for being here this evening, too, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, I did see her. Yeah. I think people should know that she was here if there were any. She's working very hard. Yeah. Very, very hard.

220Um, okay. Is anything to add to that? Chuck, you might as well throw in something. Nothing. You already got I figured you'd top it off. Chuck's easy. He just wants a couple pieces of plywood. Uh Matt, all set. Anything to add over uh Carrie or or Jane? Just happy to be back. I'm we're happy to have you back. H nice to see your smiling face back on the school committee. Thank you very much. Looking forward to it. Okay. Hey, I'd like to thank the student representative, the student presenters this evening both um in in in good in in um I always say public forum as well as uh with the uh principal of of the um high school and Miss Rober is it? Yes. um and the town of Milville's success with the acquiring that

221grant, our auditors uh for giving us a clean bill of health. Uh you um Mr. superintendent and and Jill for your lovely uh presentation this evening and um the engagement with everybody and um I look forward to a good productive positive year. Congratulations Carrie and Jane and I also would like to thank uh Lindsay for putting her name in there and running a campaign uh in the interest of the district. um uh thank her for her efforts and bringing attention to the school district um and the all the good things that we do. So with that said, we are not going to adjourn here. We're going to go into executive session and we'll we're not coming back to TV. We will adjourn coming out of executive session. It's now when we tell Tara that she

222was Yeah, I left her a note when she came in. I got a note passed. So I wish I came with a notebook, but Oh, no. You don't. It's recorded. All right. So, we'll move into the we roll call. Oh, yes. All right. Well, the secretary interrupted me when I was on a motion. So, I'll take a motion to uh um go into executive session with the to discuss the strategy respect respect to collective bargaining and not to reconvene over to the session. Motion made by Matt. Second. Seconded by Chuck. I'll do a roll call. Jane I. Kerry. Yes. Tara. Yes, Matt. Yes, Chuck. Yes, Tara. Yes, Dan is a yes.