BMR School Committee - October 13, 2022

001uh okay I will open our school committee meeting for October 13th if we could stand for the pledge please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and if you could remain standing for a moment of silence for Robert Bowen he's a life a lifelong resident of Millville and he passed away last week he did work as the superintendent of maintenance for our district for over 20 years thank you and we'll start with introduction of members Blackstone Dan Keith Blackstone Aaron bonaco Millville Charles Dunton Blackstone Deirdre Farrell interim School business manager Jason DeFalco superintendent thank you very much and it looks like we're missing our student reps tonight hopefully we can catch

002up with them soon I'm looking for the motion for consent agenda a which has warrants minutes of meeting for September 15th and the Motions made at our workship shop on September 29th symbolt motion made by Carrie is there a second second second by Dan any questions or discussion okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed okay unanimous thank you and we have some time for a public forum but I believe everyone here is on our agenda so I will keep moving um I asked Jason to move the agenda around this evening so we could start with our guests in the audience and then we will move over to school committee okay what's up for you thank you thank you good evening everybody um the first item under my report is an update that

003we had to make to our health curriculum and I appreciate very much some of those that work directly on that being here tonight to speak to any questions that you might have um our lead coach and our lead nurse for the district are going to speak specifically to the changes in the curriculum if you want to join us up front but we also have Miss Ducharme Mr euglow and Miss Cole here that worked very hard to put together the updates that we need to have in front of our students so if there are any specific questions uh in in things you're kind of wondering about about how they put this together they're certainly here to speak to those as well so we're very grateful and for our little one in the audience who's this call

004is pulling double duty here so thank you so much hi everyone so in this past spring I realized that um the reproduction sexuality section of the health curriculum was only being taught in a high school at some point in time it had been emitted from the younger grades so I notified Jason and we reviewed the framework which is currently from 1999. it's in the process of being revised but it hasn't gotten to that point yet and then we developed a plan to have the PE teachers work on the curriculum over the summer in order to meet the framework from the state and then Mary joined us and I'll let her take it from here so then we I worked with with Karen and the phys Ed Department from high school middle school and Elementary look

005at the Frameworks and to make sure that we were including all of the the Frameworks into the curriculum um they worked very hard and so the high school um didn't have that much of a change there were just some some words that had to be changed and um then the middle school and the fifth grade where the it were the big changes that they had to be implemented foreign [Music] of each of each of the units and as you can see the the high school um it was not really that much of a change they had been doing this but there was nothing being taught at the middle or in on fifth grade there's also a parent letter um I put in the one from the high school but all grades will get that letter

006for anyone who would like to opt their child out of this section of the curriculum and this letter will be sent each year as an option yep yep I believe you were already sending the letter anyway so the high school had been sending the letter anyway right but A Parent's Choice in fifth grade can be different than exactly so it's middle school or High School did you have a question Jack yeah we kind of options if they opt out do they get where do they go Wellness classes of doing the sexual education part they'll have a separate assignment to be working on the more sport oriented and they'd be in the LMC in the library um they'd be out of the general classroom thank you any other questions um the updated curriculum well I think

007it's extremely important I think it's something we all already thought was being taught so thank you for your time this summer and updating it and making sure that our kids have the right information the best information out there I guess um you said this is in the process of being updated it is they started in 2019 and then with covid what I heard was it was stalled at the federal level for approval but I'm not positive on that okay okay any other questions okay I'm looking for a motion to approve the updated Sexual Health reproductive curriculum for grades 5 through 12. so much you mentioned me by Aaron is there a second second by Ted any other questions or comments for the group while we have them here I I just have one so is

008your curriculum that you've set is that in line with the current yes yes framework so it's not inclusive of what they're trying to change it to no we don't we don't have that yeah do you anticipate any part of this program being controversial or if you don't expect anything controversy religious wise and I think we're up front with that in the first state all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed any abstentions okay that's unanimous thank you again thank you for putting this together for the kids thanks everybody have a good night thank you and no coping for me tonight thank you Karen uh the next item on my report is a review of our 2022 MCAS results um as the committee in the community are aware these results went public a few

009weeks ago and um I have a shorter presentation tonight for our school Community because um if we think back to the 2021 MCAS exam it was an abbreviated test and um essentially the students in 2021 took an exam in each grade level that was one session in 2022 they took the full exam it was back to three sessions and so we have been asked by the Department of Education to not compare the two exams because they were pretty different so comparing the 22 data to the 2021 data essentially is not reliable or valid because the tests were were significantly different so in hindsight I'm looking at and I I wanted to open the discussion this evening with the goal that I had framed for our student learning Focus for the 2000 21-22 school year because

010had I known from the Department of Education then what they shared with us about a month ago I wouldn't have written the goal this way you'll notice that the goal was drafted in comparing the 2022 data to the 2021 data I'm not overly concerned about that but I just wanted to put it out there in front of the conversation just so the public knows that the goal I would have frankly would have drafted it differently and probably would have looked to the 2019 results because there are no 2020 results as the test was canceled that year so the 2019 results can be compared to the 2022 results because the test is is the same frankly um and so the public will notice that as we move forward and look at the results from this year

011um we are comparing it to the 2019 results in terms of how we did in 2022 so we looked at those two years 2022 and 2019 because the test was the same um and also I I wanted to show something a little bit different this evening um for our conversation in that um if you look to the yellow column you will see the Blackstone Millville Regional District results for 2022 compared to 2019 for each grade level if you look at the column all the way to the right you will see the ELA State results now I did that intentionally because I want to draw to our community's attention a few things that I think are really important to notice here and before I get into these results I want to thank our school committee I

012want to thank our our community as a whole and our teachers and support staff for these results because one of the things that you'll notice very quickly is that our school system in most cases not all but in most cases did not backslide anywhere near to the degree that the state averages did that is because as we sat through our reopening plans and we dealt with covid um you might remember that we were sixth in the state from the top with the most in-person instructional time for kids which I know sounds a little strange but we fought really hard to get our kids in school as much as possible in the fact that we if you remember we had our pre-k through grade three and every day we had two classrooms we were zooming from

013one room to the next we had partner teachers Bluetooth speakers all these kinds of wacky things and we also if you remember we didn't do the deep clean day which I don't really know what that was but we didn't do that we actually we used that you know a lot of places had that Wednesday off in the middle of the week to deep clean we didn't do that the kids were in every day that we could get them in um and we just we cleaned every day as we normally would so um if you think about that one day a week over 40 weeks of instruction that's 40 days of learning that's a ton of time that is a ton of time so I just I wanna I wanna kind of reframe that because the

014results we have now are not exactly where we want to be but we didn't see though you the huge step backwards that you look uh to the right column and see that the state took in most cases um because we try to keep our kids here as much as we could and whether um covid the best we could one of the other things I just want to remind our community we were also on the Forefront of in-school testing that was also very controversial but we did it with parental consent because if you remember that was the test and stay program early on if you had a close contact the class was out right or at least those kids in the immediate I think it was six feet um circumference or range of the student that

015was positive as soon as there was an opportunity to turn our nursing offices into testing Labs which was literally what I had to do we had to go through the paperwork and get it approved from Department of Public Health to turn our nursing nursing offices into testing Labs so that we could actually test the kids so if they were negative we could send them back to class they didn't have to go home that was a game changer and I know that the committee remembers I mean we saved hundreds and hundreds of time on learning days for kids as a result well we're seeing how all of those efforts helped us not step back to the degree um that the state averages saw and so I certainly don't want to sit and go through every single

016one of these numbers but I do want to highlight a few things that I think are important because we also saw in some cases reverse Trends so I want to draw to your attention fourth grade as an example if you look at fourth grade ELA as the state we went from a state average of 52 percent of our kids meeting or exceeding standards to 38 as a state if you look at the complex we went from 36 percent to 46 percent so we actually saw a 10 increase remember those kiddos were in school every day right because they were in the younger grade second third grade all the way through we kept them in person every day two classrooms zooming one room to the other room partner teachers Bluetooth speakers all those weird things but

017it worked right it helped in terms of not taking a step back and actually made progress you will also notice that the middle school did take a significant step backwards um and so um there is a lot of work to be done there we know that you are going to be hearing from actually miss catillo who's joining us this evening thank you for being here but you're going to be hearing from our new principal and her team that has been very hard at work creating some redesign plans in terms of how she and the team is going the middle school is going to help reset the teaching and learning here this year we're not going to wait uh but at our October 27th meeting when we present our school Improvement plans um you'll be hearing

018directly from the Middle School team and what they're doing to address some of the gaps that have occurred um over time at the middle school if you look at averages if you're interested in looking at averages you can see grades three through eight Ela decreased on average so we had a 2019 we had 46 percent of students meeting or exceeding grade level we did see a decrease by eight percent but I want to draw your attention to the state that saw a decrease on average grades three to eight of eleven percent so again we don't and and I know our committee knows this but I don't usually use State averages as a like a as a benchmark for us I use our own data to compare our data to because I think that that's what

019matters most but in this case given the circumstances that we would have been in the past couple of years and the fact that I can't use the 2021 data with any reliable in any reliable way we're doing it a little bit different so you can get a sense to see how just how did we fare is com you know in comparison to the state and you'll see at the high school in 2019 and and I want to just bring this back up again and I'm sorry for all these kind of nuances it's just the way that the cards have fallen if the committee remembers in 2019 the Department of Education shifted from the old MCAS Legacy it was called to the new MCAS 2.0 you might remember that on the MCAS Legacy that year we

020were a 99 proficient at Advanced when they converted it to the new exam we were 56 meeting and exceeding expectations remember that was the year with the different cut scores and it was we had two sets of data that was our transition year so that year on the new exam 2019 for grade 10 we were at 99 uh proficient in advance and then all of that got shifted to meeting and exceeding which then dropped our percentages to 56 percent so through all things that were covid we saw a decrease of four percent um uh four percent which is not statistically significant um and and if you look as a state they reduced the state reduced the the meeting and exceeding numbers by by three percent um so we're essentially in Striking Distance to where the

021state was with that um so our kids held their own more or less there again not we're not what we want this data to be but I do think it's important to show the nuances and the differences here and I'm going to look at some other data in a moment that shows really the good work as far as student growth that we were able to do but before we get to that looking at our numbers for mathematics you can see uh again where we were in 2019 were the yellow column so in 2019 compared to 2022 there's a really good story to be told here you're probably seeing the data kind of glaring when you look at the state data compared to us our grade three went from 40 percent meaning and exceeding expectations uh

022in 2019 to 66 in 2022 and again I'm not going to read all the numbers to you but you can see uh the differences but one of the things that I want to bring to everyone's attention is I do think it's really important to note we were really focused last year on math in terms of selecting a math curriculum analyzing our math practices our math materials and there is that expression of what gets monitored gets done and I only mentioned that to say that I think what we're seeing here as a result of people really focused on the math curriculum and the math practices instructional practices and seeing you know when we really focused on just kind of analyzing and studying what we were doing and by the way this wasn't what our new math

023materials yet this was just focusing on a deep dive into what we're using and how we're using it I think we saw some nice some nice gains again not in all places again we know the middle school I'm certainly not trying to gloss over that but I know when we talk on the 27th of October we're going to do a deep dive into all things middle school so I'm by no means trying to skirt over that data I just know we're going to have a much a much bigger conversation about it let me look at the redesign work but again if you look at the averages the three to eight average so how do we do overall in grades three through eight and math in 2019 we were at 44 and in 2022 we're at

02440 percent meeting and exceeding so we did see a decrease of about four percent as a state average in 2019 a state average in grades three through eight math was 49 meeting and exceeding expectations the state averages in 2022 were at 39 so they saw a 10 decrease um and I've left off the state average for 2019 in math I'm sorry about that I can update that and get it back out to the committee and you can see in 10th Grade we did see a step back uh from 49 um in 2019 to 41 in 2022. um and again when we meet with the principals and their leadership teams because we will have their instructional leadership teams with them members of their teams with them on the 27th not only will they talk about their

025specific data but they're going to talk about what they're doing with it and how they're working to address that not just academically but also the whole child uh piece of that and then we look at science again there's some really good news to share and there's some some urgent messages in terms of where our focus is we only test in grades the state only tests in grades 5 8 and 10. so if you look in fifth grade you can see some some good news here in 2019 we were at 56 percent um meeting and exceeding expectations and you can see that in 22 we're at 59 so we saw a little bump whereas compared to the state the state average in 2019 of meeting and exceeding expectations was 48 so we were higher than uh

026they're at 43 now they went backwards we improved our outcomes um which is a really nice story to be told and I have to tell you I met with the staff at the JFK AFM complex this week and the staff at um Millville Elementary as I explained it the Millville teachers the kids either came from there or went through there right because we've been in this kind of merger over the past few years and it was really important that they understand just how incredibly proud We Are I Am of their work this was really hard this was really hard under circumstances that were just not fair to anybody and the fact that we were able to get the results that we did and we were able to see the growth that we did with our

027youngest Learners was incredible um and I and I I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the elementary school teachers did it reconfiguring schools grade levels and teams every year starting when we reopened with covid and we had all kindergartners at MES right and then we built it up right then that next year it was kn1 and then this year the build out's done but I had said to the to the team at Millville into the principal that you know they've all been a new school every year for the past three years and Christina Schaefer has been a first year principal every year since I started because that's when we started this work when she was a first year principal and then we started the reorganization um and so um everybody has worked incredibly hard but

028uh could not be more proud of our elementary team in terms of the work that they have done to weather this with our youngest kids um and I you know it's kind of sharing with them um when when we reopened last year in masks and three feet but didn't need to be six feet and you had kids that hadn't been in school because some kids were full remote for kindergarten you know we're in first grade classrooms and um these God bless them the children didn't know like how to they didn't sat in a classroom they didn't go to PK they couldn't you know they opted for full remote kindergarten and you know I I shared with the committee some kind of funny stories or we're walking through classrooms we're pulling pencils out of ears out

029of noses we're helping kids put their shirts back on like no no we wear clothes in school honey like you put a shirt on because they were at home the kids were at home all day right they were on their computer they didn't they were getting up walking around taking their clothes off you know putting pencils in their noses and so they really had to learn how to do school right um and so it was you know everybody was watched incredibly hard and I by no means I'm taking away anything from our secondary teachers because they had totally different challenges to contend with um pictures of you know kids putting pictures of themselves up in their camera but actually leaving to go play video game but it was like a cut out of I mean

030I mean just the creative things the children did to try to find ways around and not doing the virtual school um and I'm meeting with the middle school next week in the High School uh shortly thereafter so it isn't to take away any of that it was just different challenges but the fact that we saw the results we did is pretty astounding and if you go down to um again Middle School we know we have work to do we're going to be addressing that with the redesigned work and Miss catello has rolled up her sleeves and dug in deep and and started the redesign work with the team I think on day four that you were here so uh has not shied away from that challenge in any way shape or form and now the

031teachers frankly they've been great um and in 10th Grade you can see that um our students in 10th 10th grade science are actually outperforming uh not by a significant amount but by about four percent the state average and again I know we don't typically spend a lot of time on state averages that's just not our Benchmark but it really was the best thing to compare our data to this year given all the circumstances that we've been facing I think there's a major story to be told here underneath our growth percentiles um in in the goal that we had set for our student learning last year we had said that all tested subjects not signs because there's no growth in science but all tested grades and subjects for ELA and math would it would meet or

032exceed at least the 50th percentile of Statewide growth we've done that with the exception of grade four mathematics and we're two points from there so where I mean we are right within Striking Distance in grade six very close again in ela not so much in math 41 as well we don't want to be in 41 the 41st percentile um in grade 8 Ela we're in the 45th percentile so again about five points off um so I I mentioned this and I think there's a lot to be to be spoken about here because even though as we've talked about the middle school meeting and exceeding numbers not being where they are in some cases in at least half they did hit their growth percentiles and again just to remind everybody what this means so when you

033look at for instance our fourth grade ELA we're in the 50th percentile this means that our kids outperformed 50 of students from the year prior that had the same score they had so that's good we want to see that growth in at least 50. um and in some cases it was far stronger fifth grade was in the 60th percentile for ELA in the 70th for math so you can see where we really um we really outgrew our peers um if you look at the grades three to eight averages um and the interesting thing about growth not to get like statistical on it but it's not a mean it's a median growth and that the reason that that's important is because mean is average right and you would assume your average of all these numbers would

034be 50 because they're out of 100 right so like well the average of that would be 50. these are actually median so they're ranked top growth to lowest growth and you move and work your way right into the middle statistically significant and important because if you look at grades three to eight Ela our median growth was 50 which was where we wanted it to be this is to the state not to right it's all it's our city states it's everybody yep and this is compared to 21 19. this is nice yes yep okay because again they wouldn't this is not last year that's right we couldn't compare it to the 21 data thank you Aaron for clarifying that I'm glad you asked that question um and then um for mathematics grades three to eight grew

035in the 53rd percentile so if you actually look at our growth Statewide grades three to eight and Ela and math and then also in grades 10 we're actually holding our own as far as the kids uh progressing at the rate that we want to see and just to make sure everyone is on the same page this is not student to student this is not student to student this is our curriculum and our instruction to the grade level yes yep it's all the individual kids collectively put together so this gives you a grade level snapshot is that is that here yeah just making sure that everyone knows we're not comparing students to their own progress from the net from 2019 right it's the uh the state data yeah that makes a grade level yes yes okay

036explain that okay so that's a snapshot of where things uh or where things stood I will say uh because you know we we look at this data now as like an autopsy because this was from our students at the end of the year and we've already completed our beginning of the year assessing with students on Star and uh we have our data meetings next week where we're meeting with our school-based instructional leadership teams to go through all of their data and you might remember you heard a bit about this from our principles in the spring but they use their end of year star data and then they integrated this over the summer to build all their RTI and intervention groups so this data is already in use that's important so actually I think this would

037be a great segue into um if we can go out of order a little and go to school is the superintendent evaluation for 2122 this is the only data we were waiting for which Jason did present to us um on September 29th um so we've had a chance to finish his evaluation um and I feel like it just makes sense to jump a little from instead of him going on to his goals for next year we should wrap up last year so if everyone has their document that I shared via email and I left one on your table I'm just going to go through how we rated Jason collectively as a committee we do speak in one voice for his evaluation and he is evaluated in public so um based on his goals and his

038presentations to us with his evidence we have all taken the time um to rate Jason um based on last year's goals were a little bit late this year because we were waiting for the MCAS data um but we will wrap that up tonight so I'm just going to go through and give Jason his ratings based on our one voice so standard one instructional leadership Jason exceeded that goal student learning also instructional leadership Jason met that goal his overall rating for standard one based on the evidence submitted is met um I think many of us use the star data evidence that he submitted for this um using the curriculum with Fidelity um and Jason provided many examples um for these so that was the easier one standard two management and operations Jason met the environment goal

039um sorry standard scheduling and management information systems met overall rating for standard two based on the evidence submitted Jason met standard two standard three engagement seated standard three communication exceeded so overall rating for standard three was exceeded okay and standard for cultural proficiency met continuous learning met overall rating for standard four is met and then diving deeper into Jason's goals which is really the work around all of the standards that we're just notating um professional practice School for the district strategic plan blueprint 2.0 Jason exceeded this goal um the evidence provided of came throughout the year with the meetings with Carrie Purcell and um I think it came full circle when the group presented to us in June I think you had in here by June 1st and oh July first sorry um and you

040know that work would progressed through the year and we definitely all saw that so exceeded for professional practice School developing the blueprint 2.0 District Improvement goal academic acceleration Jason met this goal that was by the end of 2122 100 of our schools will show evidence of all students having Equitable access to improved core and intervention instruction as measured by star mcast 2.0 and RTI student performance monitoring and then District Improvement goal Capital planning Jason met this and we are hopeful to be in the process of being accepted by msba and we'll see a continuation of this into next year's goals I think many of us feel that this would be an ongoing goal and we'll see you tonight we will see it student learning goal which is what was just presented to us the MCAS

041results um Jason's goal was by the end of the school year of the 21 school year all students across subgroups in grades three to ten will see an increase of at least 10 percent in meeting or exceeding expectations of the 2021 MCAS results on Ela Math and Science MCAS 2.0 and um also move at least 50 into the 50th percentiles sorry 50th percentile in ela and math on a Statewide student growth and this is the last one that we just finished I do have it here I might have erased it and um though the results that were just shown were not a 20 a 21 comparison they were compared to 19. we do know that it came in as some progress being that we didn't meet the 10 percent um as stated in that goal

042um Aaron did you get the diversity and Equity inclusion I'm sorry I was gonna ask the same thing yes sorry about that I went from the district Improvement goal for diversity equity and inclusion Jason met that goal a great great work here it's important and I think we will see some continuation of that one as well as it's something that the state is focusing deeply on um even we're going to talk about it a little bit later but even the masc conference is um based on the diversity equity and inclusion for all students did anyone want to add any comments or read their read a comment off of not theirs specifically because we are one voice so that is the conclusion of Jason's evaluation for 2122 and we will be moving into his new goals

043so the work never stops um but and even for our new newest members you'll see how this cycle begins and you know you kind of came in and saw the work finishing now you're going to see how it begins as well with the um creation of his new goal [Music] um I think it was a strong year I think it's with your evaluation and we always appreciate the time and energy you put in um it's always above and beyond they don't ask we're not asking for personal opinions we're going off of your data and your evidence but um it's it's great to see everything come full circle and you know the work does pay off so thank you very much thank you for the opportunity to serve our children I appreciate it very much and

044as you said the kind of drum beats on here I just need to get the other uh slide deck put up so I can walk through the goals which you do have in your packet so we'll be moving back to the report of the superintendent school year 22-23 superintendent goals which yes everyone does so great and I do appreciate very much the time effort and energy the committee put into the feedback I definitely have read through every single one of these comments multiple times and I hope you see that reflected here in the areas that the committee uh has stated clearly they'd like to see some additional Focus uh brought to so I can highlight those as soon as we jump into the work and I should mention too we will be moving into executive

045session after this meeting to um finalize the part of the evaluation where we talk to Jason about his contract and anything in there um we do discuss in executive session but in our next public meeting we will publicly announce what agreement if any we came to with Jason based on the conclusion of his cycle here and if you're ready you can go into next year um uh thanks Aaron so let me say one more thing sorry we don't usually do this all in one meeting usually we finish the evaluation in late summer and then and this is the the meeting that you would be presenting your goals so we're on time for this but we were late for the wrap-up of his evaluation sorry no no worries um thank you um so as I was

046sharing before I hope that the committee sees your comments reflected here both in a couple ways one in the focus standards where I'm going to be putting a lot of attention to which we'll talk about in one minute and then the other in the goals specifically and those things are obviously very much hand and gloved and connected um but if there's something that you don't see here that you want to see just let me know but I did look very carefully through all of your feedback to make sure that we we captured the you know what's what's important to the school committee and the work that we're doing moving ahead what you will miss this year from our first slide is our little fidget spinner that had the what the hell the whole child the

047community because we are implementing our new blueprint so while it's still very much at the core of our work our blueprint 2.0 is really focused on ensuring that our portion of our graduate attributes which are right at the top character citizenship collaboration communication and critical thinking the five C's that is how we spell success in BMR are very much at the Forefront of of our work moving forward um so the next piece to to Really highlight is the focus or are the focus standards and um this was something we started a few years ago I think after our first year together thinking about how do we better get our work organized around a few um specific pieces of the work and do a couple of things really well instead of evaluating uh and having me

048focus on the 32 indicators that the state has put forward in their rubrics which I don't haven't met a human being yet that can do all of those things well or focus on all those things at once so I really was appreciative when we started this process because it actually allows me and our team to get really focused in a couple of areas under each one of those standards and so this year um and even as recent as last Friday reconnecting with Aaron going deeply through your feedback the committee was super clear about where they wanted to see the focus this year particularly as it related to these indicators and these standards under these standards so I did I literally went back and looked at the feedback and I opened it up and I and

049I literally listed like the number of times that each one of these things was mentioned by our school committee members and what you're seeing here is the summary of that um so you know for instance um underneath instructional leadership you know six different members I think it was six or five or six mentioned assessment and they mentioned this specific indicator uh and so that says to me let's think a little bit deeper about the types of assessment how we're using our assessments uh and and um you know what we're doing with that and so you'll see that the summary here of focus standards is really connected directly back to your feedback and my evaluation so if you're if you're curious as to where these came from you can go back and look and see you

050know collectively what everybody had said and and what I then did was take these and actually looked at the goals and looked at the through lines to make sure that I had all of that right and that it was aligned and connected like that it should be easy for these Focus standards to be the core of the work if we have the goals right right so like if I don't have the goals right or I have these off there's going to be a disconnect so I went back to make sure that I had these I had them right in terms of what you all shared and I had them connected and anchored to one another so underneath instructional leadership there will be a focus on assessment and student learning this year underneath management and operations

051there will be a focus on environment and human resource work underneath standard three engagement and family concerns and then underneath professional culture high standards and managing conflict now for our for our newer members and for anyone at home that's an interested there is a rubric that like clearly defines what all of these like you know 1c1f2a 2B what these Focus standards are what proficiency looks like um and so I'm I'm using that as my Benchmark to make sure like I've got this right in terms of what does this work actually look like and sound like in practice so I am going back to that rubric to ensure that I've got um not just the right Focus but that I'm doing the right work within each one of those areas that makes sense um I don't

052tend to typically read the slides to people and I certainly don't want to do that um tonight but I do want to spend just a couple minutes on each slide briefly because I think it's important for our community to have a really good sense of where we're going with the work um the first district Improvement goal goal excuse me and there are three um is really focused around creating a system that works for all students um this is really important um and I know that the committee and the community is very aware of this but as we think about the importance of every single student all 1500 of them in our school district and the the similarities they have and the differences they have we think about the importance of ensuring that we've made space

053for every one of them there's not one student in our school system that does not matter and that is not important and so we are taking on at a deeper level the work of creating a system and striving to create a system because I will say striving I don't think we are there but that that really looks at the kind of the ties that bind us the similarities that we have developing that sense of self-awareness to understand you know not only ourselves but others and how do we work together best as a school Community to be the best version of ourselves and so if that sounded like a lot of gobblego what it specifically means is what's written here in terms of kind of the what and the how we're going to do it and

054more importantly how we're going to look to measure this um I guess that would draw everybody's attention to the four bullet points in the middle which is really about selecting the right material so this year we're looking at Social Studies curriculum um and uh we will be spending a lot of time on our lead coaches facilitating that work uh Miss collino who was here this evening to talk about the health curriculum strengthening our Collective capacity and understanding the differences within our school community and identifying the strengths that bring us together and I know that um you know I mentioned that a little bit earlier but that's a really important part of the work and I wanted to share an example because I think recently there's been some conversation about some instances at the high school

055you know that have been a challenge and that we're working on but I I be remiss if I didn't mention um we had a family in crisis over the weekend it was very public was on social media um and I had reached out to the to the mother of that family by the time I had reached out to her she had heard from four or five different members on our team and had already been incredibly overwhelmed by the support from the community that she and her children have received so I want to mention that um and and I and I wonder about that we had a discussion with the principals today like our community is incredible at that we know how to do that we know how to come together we know how to support

056each other we know how to really help one another kind of lift up when when we're in a situation like that um and I think that is such a strong foundation so I mentioned that because I I think we have an incredible place to build from um with this work and now it's about just getting better at it and you know how to make sure that in All Occasions the best version of ourselves show up and how do we support each other um through all types of all types of issues um and so I'm looking forward to this piece of the work I think it's going to be just a really important part of of how we work together as a community um the third bullet is really anchored in that idea of creating a

057safe space for all students and what we're looking to do to our families that are tuning in and hearing this is going to be a challenge but we need engagement we need kids involved and I say with the utmost respect to to all of our families in our school Community we tend to have the same 100 kids that are doing everything well we have 1500 kids in our community we need to expand that we need more students involved in athletics and music and clubs and extracurriculars so I urge our parents at home tuning in get your kids involved get them off their phones get them off their apps get them off their video games we have late buses have them stay after school have them engage in clubs and activities I know the middle school

058is working and redesigning some of their clubs and offerings and we can do that but if we don't have kids participating it doesn't matter um you know we've had full teams of kids we couldn't field this year we couldn't feel the varsity boys soccer team that should not have happened that shouldn't have happened and it certainly isn't a finger-pointing piece it's just to say we have incredible opportunities but we've got to get the kids engaged we've got to get them involved our our students ran clubs this summer field hockey soccer football we had zero Kids come out for the football none we had no coach Hugo sat with our kids our football kids and we had zero Kids come out to any of the football clinics now a little self-deprecation I could see that if

059we didn't have a lot of Runners come out because it's 90 degrees and you may not want to run out on the heat but I had five or six kids come out for my running group every Wednesday the football team had none and they tried advertising in tons of different ways and we can feel the football team we had over 40 kids on it um so parents if you're listening your kids are going to tell you they don't want to my kids do it all the time at home you gotta make them we gotta push our kids to get engaged and involved um we have the adults willing and ready we got the opportunities um I don't want to sit here in front of this committee and say that we can't feel the team again

060I just don't want to do that so we got a lot of work to do in that space But we really need the community to partner with us and all of these different areas music Athletics and extracurriculars and then promoting we're gonna do we're doing a lot of promoting this year of our students and our staff I hope people are noticing the increased social media present presence that we have we are trying like heck to get you know we have such a great story to tell we are an incredibly strong school system small but strong and we're going to keep putting the good word out there so this goal is multi-faceted it looks at kind of multiple ends of what it means to create a system that works for all students but we're really excited

061about going deep into this work Erin did you have sorry um I did so did Coach ask the boy the the people on the team for football if why they didn't no the our team was there it was the idea the idea in the summer was working with our younger right so our high school teams um JV or varsity teams did a ton of Outreach to our younger students to try to get them engaged and build the bench um and they just didn't show up were they playing Express because I think Express had a summer league so they so the times that were offered were times that would not have been in Conflict okay you know I was just asking I was playing Devil's Advocate and saying okay well maybe they didn't because they were

062involved in this thing I understand and and I understand there are you know there's summers are tough there's all kinds of camps and parents have work schedules and you can always get your kids the things and again not a finger-pointing thing but I just say it to mention that our the like this was these were our kids out there on the fields um really trying to recruit and get their you know our younger kids to show up um so you know we will continue with that work but we definitely need that we need help from our families to get our students out of their comfort zone to engage the other District goal that we have is is and you'll see kind of a theme here it's also about cultivating right if you think about the

063first goal it's really looking at cultivating our community cultivating our students our second district Improvement goal is really about cultivating our team and by team I mean the adults that are doing the work our leadership team has a philosophy in that you can't reach the kids without reaching the adults we are a student-focused school system and have worked really hard to develop a student-first culture but you can't do that without the adults being on board and so we are looking very deeply at what are some of the best ways for us to put some additional systems and structures in place to support the adults that are that are actually doing the work alongside of us there are two pieces that are not on here and I just want to bring your attention to the the

064kind of the measurement of this goal and that'll be measured by the creation of new professional development opportunities optional professional development modules and I'll talk about that in a second a new design for our mentoring program our new Unit C evaluation system which the school committee approved and we're going to be you know measuring all of this by the implementation of those pieces and of course our feedback on our survey results which the committee gets at the end of the year we send the results to all of you so you can see The Good The Bad and and in the ugly so to speak um but there's a few other pieces I think that are important to mention our nurses are working on a new nursing staff orientation guide just for the nursing staff so

065how do we onboard and support our new nurses to the district which might sound like not kind of a heavy lift or a big deal but it but it kind of is they're a little bit out of you know fish out of water in terms of their medical professionals in an educational kind of Realm and so they're working as a team to put together a brand new orientation guide for them um we have I a for the first time a blueprint so our district strategic plan monitoring and implementation team and yesterday we brought together over 20 members for the first time that were from all of our School site councils these were parents and teachers you all know well um that were in one space together we were it was a virtual meeting it was

066the best way to get everyone together from all four buildings parents all in one kind of virtual room talking about how they work to partner with us as a system and help Implement and reach the goals in our blueprint that was tremendous we heard from elementary parents in the same breath as high school parents that said hey did you consider this we can partner with you in this way let's work together on this project we had PTO parents we had parents that are not in the PTO um that are very vocal sometimes about the work we're doing we're bringing them in we want them at the table we want them part of the work it was really pretty awesome to have them all in in one space so those two pieces are not included here

067but I think it's important to mention them because we're bringing PK 12 parents and teachers and staff together and I had to I had the honor and I will say honor of teeing off that meeting and introducing kind of the concept and what we were doing together um the other piece that I just want to highlight these optional professional development modules we started them last week Jenny remka and I did the first round so we trained it was optional we didn't have to come if you didn't want to it was for unit a staff which is our our Educators our educators of which we have 150 total we had almost 70 attend we we ran the training three times uh Jenny and I did it um twice at MES for the elementary teachers and then

068once here and we had almost 70 staff attend no stipends no they came because they were interested it was on educator evaluation in this section that I had the opportunity to do which I thought was important was to talk about learning walks and feedback because that's the part that's can be the most intense you know when your evaluators in the room and they're kind of watching your instruction and giving you feedback and I actually did the training with them that we do with the principals so they could see exactly how the principals are planning before they go into a classroom to visit what they're doing when they're in the classroom and how they execute after the classroom so there was the full cycle and they got the same training that the principals get which I

069thought was really helpful we got really good feedback and heard this week that there was an Ask uh from our unit a members to say one of the like one of the next States what are you doing next so there's interest we're looking at training on special ed ell how to work with challenging students and kind of like some behavior management work um and a few other topics that we're getting great from the teachers so we're excited about that um and see where that goes from there and the unit c evaluation we had an opportunity to train all of our unit c staff in one of the pieces of feedback we heard directly from them is how much they're looking forward to sitting down and doing this with their supervisor multiple times a year because

070if you remember that's what that system is built around now it's not a checklist at the end of the year so team cultivation I heard a lot of feedback from the committee about you know we got to work in morale we got to keep people here what are we doing to to kind of improve in those spaces um you know well I won't pretend that this is going to be a Magic Bullet it certainly is a good step I think in the right direction as we continue to work our way through that uh facilities this is our third um District Improvement goal and it's interesting if you kind of think about it we kind of have like the you know the students in the community the adults that are doing the work and here's the

071space that they're doing the work in right so it kind of makes sense if you think about it from a whole perspective this year the goal is really focused around both a long-range plan and a short-term capital outlay plan we have a project in the pipeline we will know in December if we've been excited accepted it or not but I want to be very public about saying we can't wait to find out what is going to happen with the new if there is a new project we have too much space at the end of the day and so we have some work that needs to be done this year frankly around analyzing that space seeing what our real needs are what what could be some pretty significant cost Savings in the facilities Realm while we're

072waiting to hear about a new potentially new project because as the committee knows even if we are accepted in we're five plus years out from a new building and we really can't wait to do that level of analysis so you'll see that in this in this goal we're focused on both the short term and the long range now you just said something that caught my interest not that all of your goals don't catch my interest but you said cost savings on and too much space so tell me what that looks like so we have we have buildings that are running at half capacity as far as student enrollment we're running we are running too many buildings and we just saw at the end of the day we've got whole sections of certain buildings with with

073few to know students in them or teachers with two classrooms because we have that much space so they can have two adjoining classrooms but then okay so we're so we are we are we are paying to we will be paying to heat those spaces we will be paying to have electricity running through those spaces um in a lot of room so what does it look like to figure that out and put something into you know I feel like we have to start those conversations we have to start some research on what space is available or unused or underused what would you need from us to try to look at that a little deeper well with this goal um you know and and if the goals work for the committee and they're approved can start that

074working out so at the direction of the committee I can start doing that research we can start doing that research well and that's always a conversation that comes up during budget season too which begins very soon right do you feel like it's something you need before budget season so we could look at a budget effectively or so if I if if I could wave a wand and have a timeline yeah if that's what you're kind of asking I think from a budgetary perspective you know we start the process late October early November with the cost center managers but um as the committee knows at the fir we have one meeting in December and at that meeting we forecast our budget priorities we don't usually have numbers put to them but we say oh we don't

075need a math program we're going to need this is what we're hearing from the class Center manager we need for Staffing um it would be best for us to have that analysis and information for that meeting okay because in January as you all know we are actually in the weeds of the numbers we're literally looking at pennies and dollars and if we're going to get to that level of work in January I would need we would need to have this analysis done before that which would be the December meeting is that what you're asking yes okay so by approving these goals tonight you will start a process that where this says this plan may include more immediate school facility reorganization opportunities for the district you're going to start a process looking at analyzing all the

076numbers that go along drawing the picture of what the short-term plan would be with the long-term plan of if if we do or aren't in included in the msba thing well I think this goal shows regardless of that of whether we're accepted or not we have we have to look at our space so does that make sense Tammy then we shift to our learning acceleration goal which is really and if you if you look at the the last two goals are really hand in glove uh so the learning acceleration goal is again we focus it in kind of two buckets that's the curriculum and the instruction our big Focus for this year is implementing our new math program with Integrity PK to 12. as you all know we have a new core program and to

077also select a new social studies program I just want to give a kind of a um a forecasting with social studies that what we come up with for our final product might look pretty different than what we've done in the past we've used a ton of research that has existed for Core math and literacy programs there is zero on social studies so we need to really kind of uh do that process different so I'm just kind of forecasting that now if you when we start giving updates to the committee on where we are with this if you're like oh this looks and feels a little different it it probably is because it is and it's going to look different at the end too but we are going to do our due diligence the committee is

078starting I think in two weeks to start delving into the materials and resources that we're using now um but so that's really the curriculum end of it and then as far as instruction we're remaining focused on our data Cycles we're remaining focused on strengthening our core instruction using our RTI blocks but there is a there is a very unique Focus here that I want to bring to everyone's attention if you look at the four bullets at the bottom of the slide you'll see grades six and seven you'll see students meeting some of grade level expectations those are the kids that are in that partially meeting and by the way like almost half of our kids are there our percentage of kids not meeting grade level standards is very very low very very low but you

079saw the meeting and exceeding expectation numbers tonight so you can kind of see the rest of those students are by and large right in that middle bracket which is about half so we have a ton of work to do to figure out how do we really help those students close that Gap we've done a really good job in most cases of lifting that kind of bottom um you know tier but we really need to focus on those students in that partially meeting so we're bringing a lot of attention to that the third bullet might be something that seems really kind of nuanced but I this is again like a very public conversation that we need to have um we need to do some work with our boys frankly um specifically around literacy um on average

080about 60 to 65 percent of our girls are at grade level standards or Beyond with literacy on average about 30 percent of our boys are at grade level standards with literacy on average um that is a huge uh significant gap between that are genders um so you are going to hear a lot in our school improvement work what are what we're doing to help address some of those issues we got to get books in the hands of our boys and parents I'm I'm reaching out to you again on this issue and I have two boys at home it's it's torture to take the video game thing out of the you know the controller out of the hands and put a book in and do a read you know reading a book with your kid it's

081just a lot I get it it's a lot um but when we have only a third in most grades less than a third of our boys at grade level with reading that that to me is a crisis that's a huge huge issue that needs to be addressed that's going to take all of us um to really get on board and and tackling that so we're going to hear more about that from our principals um in the next couple of weeks but we're going to keep seeing this theme come up we've got to focus in on our boys uh with literacy and then of course our students of special needs remains a focus and again you know there's good news and bad news of that story every year because when they exit they're no longer in

082that data uh and so I know Miss PG is going to keep working on that analysis and making sure we capture the same group of kids so we can play our Apples to Apples when we look at student performance in that space and then of course our student learning goal um this year is a little bit different I did and I decreased the percent that we're looking to increase our meeting and exceeding numbers by said at least five percent I'm hoping it's more but we're going to keep the target at at least five percent assuming the goals are approved and the SGP student growth percentile at at least 50 percent again as we continue to work on our rebound uh from everything we've been moving through the past couple of years but again you're seeing

083at the bottom a focus in on those four areas um grade six and seven we know we have a lot of work to do it doesn't mean grade eight we don't but we see it we see an uptick once the kids are getting into eighth grade but we need to really focus in on grades six and seven from a learning perspective and then of course the other three areas that I mentioned before that is an overview of like draft goals okay so like I said it isn't the norm that we go from closing your evaluation but to accepting your new goals but um definitely appreciate all this work and and taking into consideration everything that was um us of you with all of your Focus standards and the creation of these schools so I'm looking

084for a motion to approve Jason's 22-23 superintendent goals as presented so moved was that you did oh yeah sorry what notion made by Dan is there a second second second by Kerry any questions for Jason um or requests for applying so much with all of the conversations we've been having in so many of our meetings this is I'm excited to see where these go moving forward because they've been the themes that keep coming up and coming up excellent job by narrowing in on all that your feedback is just so important I I really like I need the committee to know how much I value that and and really you know work to make sure to capture that and just going on your path I won't say you know but going on you know how you've

085taken your goals and implemented the work and seeing the evidence come through um I don't know what we'll work on next year I know I know I'm joking but this is big because there's a lot in here yes um and and I know that you can conquer it any other comments or questions for Jason okay so all those in favor of approving the 2223 superintendent goals as presented say I any opposed any abstentions okay that's unanimous and I'll send those out to our school community and post them and the work has already started but thank you for getting it out there having to change my entire course this is great um and then just a quick update um the Blackstone Valley Excel that's the career Pathways opportunities that we have for our students and I

086just wanted to remind our community about those opportunities for high school kids and again that's the collaboration we have with the school districts in the valley where we open up our high schools to each other for our students at no cost to take courses in each other's school as after school options for for credit um I'm excited to share that we have students in computer science cyber security welding manufacturing and video production and the course that we're running this year which this semester that's had a lot of interest is Food For Thought Carol Conte's running it which is an integration of the history of food which is actually an awesome course the kids love it our own students love it and it's full so we've we've got a lot of interest and have heard from

087alumni they've actually reached out to say would there be an opportunity for us to engage I wish I had taken you know the welding course was the one that came up while I was there is there an opportunity for that so we are working I'm working with the superintendent group to find a way to open this up to our alumni who are at home and kind of finding their way in figuring out what they want to do and maybe a course in Virtual welding would or cyber security might just kind of get their toll in the water to see if it's something that they would be interested in so um for anyone that's tuning in at home parents if you have questions at high school parents if you have questions about it don't hesitate to

088reach out to our Middle School families we have more opportunities and you're probably even aware of uh so BMR is absolutely the right choice particularly not just for your academic Focus but also for your career Pathways if you're interested and any alumni that might be listening uh or or if you know of any alumni that are local and at home and aren't really quite sure what they want to do when they don't want to spend a ton of money on different classes we may have an opportunity for them to take some of these courses before they go out and enroll in a an Associates program and when are these homes after school or at night so they're um different days and times but they're usually once a week um Tuesdays Thursdays tend to be the

089nights and these Saturday sessions I think are the most exciting part frankly because uh the coordinator for this program that we got through a grant pulls all of the kids together and she does Workforce training and development with them so she actually has a Workforce training curriculum they do resume building they do job shadowing they do mock interviews this isn't just take a welding course like she pulls all of the kids from the valley together at Hopedale that's where her office is and she does all of this work with them there and again this is all Grant funded we wrote a half a million dollar Grant to do this there were four of us that did and um the kids are just loving it so it's again it's one of those things where it's almost

090hard for some kids because there's so many things they're doing so they can't necessarily get to all the Saturday sessions but we've heard just some incredible feedback on that so any parents tuning in we will be running a spring semester too so and then um thank you to add to that we opened our site we wrote a grant you might remember to pay our own students to work in our elementary schools during the school year and over the summer we couldn't fill all of the seats with our own kids so we actually opened it up to students that were interested in education and we had a couple of students from Hopedale at the complex that we paid to work with our kids this summer so we are being as creative and Innovative as possible with

091that program doesn't get a lot of attention but it's yeah a really great opportunity I wonder if there would be another way to get it out to the community okay yeah they have a they have a pretty awesome like web page so if I think of a way to get that link out to people is it something we could start having our principles include in there sure or share the link on the social media page yeah yeah or even um the enlighteners yes alumni especially yeah good thank you very much for that that's my report all right thank you so much and we'll move back to school committee items we've already finished the superintendent evaluation um bargain unit bargaining unit requests I think you have some information for us on the unit a yes uh

092so um we have two uh under unit a um as you remember we put the content lead teachers at the high school uh which also feeds into that team cultivation work um and so um that team has been selected and they're off and running they're doing great work with the leadership at the high school they are part of the leadership of the high school the middle school has team leaders who have done incredible work with Miss catila already as far as helping to kind of reset the focus here um and we were um which I was really happy to hear because it really does go into the cultivation of the teamwork the elementary teachers are very interested in having grade level team leaders and being able to have that team leader function as a representative

093of their grade level on because remember now we're all together right so there's uh you know four or five or six teachers at a particular grade level and so they're interested in having um a a very focused piece of work around the teaching and learning data being part of that school leadership team I'm eager to unpack that um I'm reading you very well and they're very eager to be part of uh and they are frankly in a lot of ways that uh the instructional leadership team in a very formalized way and so we're looking to do two things with this one we want to have an opportunity to work with our elementary teachers to create a formal teacher leadership structure for them again we think about growth retention and all those pieces that's that's you

094know definitely a part of it in the Middle School we're looking to discuss how to kind of reorganize those positions a little bit differently um and so the request tonight is for the committee to allow me to go into conversations formal conversations with the unit a team on that that would just um become a memo mou until we bargain again right correct yeah all right so looking for a motion to allow Jason to enter into conversations with Unit A about a team leader stipend um for PK to eight this is so moved thanks second okay motion Me by Tammy and second by Aaron and now questions for Jason I'm sorry could you just clarify was that a leader at every single grade level or was it one person for Kate for the elementary no so

095so what what we're looking at is having a grade level team leader so like a team leader for first grade second grade third grade one of each grade level and I think in the past it's something we've never discussed because our our grades were split you know now all these teachers are are working together in you know one section of of a building um and they're probably already doing this one is that not what our coaches are doing at the elementary level like I I think a grade level person at every grade level is excessive we have a this is just again my opinion but we have coaches that were that's we're going above and beyond what we would normally do in a very confined grade area level system and to put to pay another

096stipend I don't know what we're thinking about at what range but for each grade level to me that seems super excessive but that's just me I think it's the only the elementary buildings or the I mean this says pre-ked eight but we already have team leaders yes we want to rework you want to change the language so it's really Pre-K it's preschool the that we have nothing this would be comparable to content leads that we have at high school and team leaders so what are we missing by not having it for the for those grade levels yeah so we don't have a formal leadership teacher leadership structure but you're leaving how many how many teachers is the most at a grade level so we're talking about paying a stipend for someone to lead five teachers

097yeah and by lead there they represent so let me give you an example maybe something concrete would be more helpful um so for instance you have an instructional leadership team that meets twice right so the idea is that the formal this formalized position would include that piece of work so if you're the team leader you're at the ilt meeting and you're there with the coach and the principal and you're doing all the data work you're developing all the professional development and implementing that professional development for the staff you're doing the summer planning and programming work and if you think back to the content lead teachers for the high school um and it's hard to visualize but they're essentially that work was broken down into like curriculum instruction data if you took the curriculum piece out

098because they're not you know content focused on like literacy and math and science it's really the rest of that work that we're looking to have done and where do you think this workload compare would would fall based compared to the content leads for the high school and the team leaders so and I'm asking that for financial reason because our content lead High School teachers are paid a different stipend than our team yes they are yeah so this we're not saying we're you know we're throwing everyone the same amount and or and entering into this what is your thought on where that would fall so my senses that it's probably about two hours about two hours a month outside of per month outside of the school if I had to give a you know a number

099I would say it's probably somewhere along the lines of 20 hours of work during the year and then over the summer probably two maybe two days and what are we getting from our content and team leaders right now we have that we do that level of work plus they do the summer time but their their language was different because they also have an opportunity to be freed up during the day um so which would be you know which would be different all that needs to be bargained so I don't you know I can't say for sure what they're what they would be interested in but I can say in terms of time what do I think we would need I think we would need something like 20 hours during the school year and probably 12

100hours during the summer but that's eight nine teachers well the middle school we already have those positions so what we would look to do is just reorganize the responsibilities of those individuals those stipends are already in the contract and they already get them through a bargaining language on the on those so seven it would be grades p k so we have two one through five in Middle School which team has each team's team has uh has a team leader so that's five right now right yeah there's five right Mary yeah so that's so there's currently five and this would add seven seven more seven five five okay okay that's seven additional stipends if that's one less than if that is 600 kids if that is what would be a green one remember we haven't yet

101because no because you haven't authorized me to do that well there's obviously been conversations right I'm kind of a rule follower and I don't do those things until you tell me I can no previews available so can I ask are we looking for a motion to allow Jason to enter discussions for a potential mou that would come back to us for discussion before approved is that how that works or not we would have to approve it yeah we still have to approve it so so you we can't get any further information until you have those conversations unless we let him talk about it yeah so I'll make a motion to approve um The Unit 8 entering into discussion along the superintendent to enter into discussions with the unity so we already did that right without

102without rewinding what I said um I'll retract my the motion I made to allow Jason enter into an mou so we'll do that right no that's okay all right I guess um Tammy I'll take back my second okay no you made the motion okay sorry so we're striking the first motion we're just going to go with dance no that's lost in the conversation there for a second because no that's okay because I think it's better explained right now that we got to Full Circle to that yeah um so your motion is to allow the superintendent to enter into discussion 200 into the discussion with you today thank you in regards to the team leader stipends right and then to be brought back to the school committee for further discussion can I ask a question so

103Moshi made by Dan is there a second second okay motion made by Dan and second by Aaron and now you can ask your question could you help explain why we would need this level of a team lead in the PK and kindergarten area why do we need a leader like a teacher leader in that I'm not saying that they're insignificant because they're not by any means but I'm just trying to understand are you saying those two grades specifically yeah compared to one through five yeah just because I mean I feel like yes there's curriculum behind each of those grades but I'm trying to understand the number of students in pre-k and the number of students in kindergarten do they warrant it may not warrant one at each grade level it could be one for pkk

104right like I don't know but I would I would stand strongly in the notion that I think teacher leadership opportunities are really important and I think early literacy particularly as we think about male students right and really working with our youngest kids because that's where it starts and really working intentionally to get books in the hands of kids and I'm not saying this is exactly what they would do right but as we're thinking about where this work all starts it starts in pkk one but that being said I I also I'm not sitting here thinking that we necessarily would need a PKA person okay I don't know like I don't know what that would look like at the end of the day when you um sorry one more thing when you come back to us

105with a new proposal after speaking to Unit A would you be able to provide what our current structure looks like like how many team leads we have in each building and how many teachers are they responsible for with how many students yeah absolutely um for the motion in that hand all those in favor of approving um Jason to enter into discussion on the possibility of 15 leader stipend for PK to eight say aye aye any opposed no yes on post actually never impose no I don't think I have okay so I'm usually agreeable apparently Okay so we've motion passes we have six yeses and one no okay and the next item is a unit c kitchen staff shoe purchase yes the um the food service director is looking to um purchase Footwear for this is

106a one-time purchase she has money available because we have federally funded lunches so she would like to be able to purchase comfortable Footwear for the cafeteria workers comfortable safe Footwear I was just going to say they said safety kitchen shoes or something yeah yeah that's so cool they wear their own shoes right now yes they do their shirts are purchased as part of the uniform but their shoes are purchased individually for work well I can say having that my son work in a restaurant since last winter the shoes are pretty disgusting so and they do need the safety sole on there so um I guess I'm surprised we don't already do that but so looking for a motion to allow the um purchase of the shoes for our kitchen staff it's soft and that will

107be from funds in the cafeteria yeah they're self-sister yes they will buy their own yep I'll second that okay motion Me by Chuck and second by Dan any other questions for thank you Jason on the shoe purchase all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed any abstentions that's unanimous thank you um and then moving on we have a field trip request which [Applause] is in do you have a Christmas carol Oh I thought that was me oh field trip request is that not me on the 27th but you've been here all night well we would love to hear your field trip real quick sorry I I thought you were just here to tune in to support you for you evaluations Congratulations by the way um I really I was I was sent an

108invitation for this meeting just so you know okay are we really I can come back okay I am here to request um permission to take our eighth grade students or the 8th grade students who wish to go to Washington DC it's a trip that I understand has been a tradition for the heart and middle school students the dates we are looking at are Monday June 20 June 5th Tuesday June 6th and Wednesday June 7th so three day trip it is a jam-packed itinerary they keep those kids moving from 7 A.M till 9 30 so they can't get into any trouble they're too tired and it supports our eighth grade civics curriculum they're visiting places like the Lincoln Memorial the Vietnam memorial the Korean War veterans memorial Arlington National Cemetery the 911 Pentagon Memorial Martin Luther

109King Jr Memorial if we can't if there if availability exists we'll go to the U.S Holocaust Museum we see lots of the museum the yellow magazine special Geographic oh Smithsonian totally the wrong magazine where I wanted to go the Smithsonian Museum so things like the Museum of American History natural history I mean really and truly a jam-packed trip parents are already asking about it the students the cost per student is 625 dollars we have fundraising opportunities ready to implement we're just waiting on the official approval and I apparently jumped the gun two weeks so no you're fine and this will be coach buses yes we're going through Capital tours it is coach buses the cost is based on 40 people per bus I believe last year they sent around 40 people but I think it

110was a smaller group than usual because of the vaccination requirements for DC at the time which I believe have been lifted since so it's not a vaccine vaccination requirement as far as I know there is not I wish it's there in August and there wasn't yeah not for anything but even the masks were optional yeah so was that a School requirements it was a Washington DC tour company Museum requirement in the spring it was the the board yeah public nurse who required it because I had inquired with her about it never mind okay yeah I was I misunder I just know that last year's numbers were lower than usual in part because of vaccination and masking requirements but those are lifted this year so I'm hoping we would get more than what we had last

111year so the town's public health nurse is not it wasn't required for the band trip but it was required for DC right but what I'm saying is so last year at this time it was required for DC than when the band came to us in the spring it was not required anymore and we've never heard that it's been re-implemented no no because we did check for band um in that May or June time frame I think it was that late spring it was late spring very early summer um teacher chaperones or other parents I'm assuming we'll be going with parent chaperones I'll try to get some teacher chaperones it's a pretty big ask for teachers we've always had teachers half weeks yeah yeah I okay we they uh chaperones travel for free at a rate

112of one chaperone per 10 pink students so so okay I'm sure we'll have teachers and parents I plan on going okay um we like to hear that yeah and I think it's important for the teachers to be there um and give those 8th graders that Independence away from their parent chaperone but I'd be interested on any feedback you get from the teachers on you know being able to participate in the past it has been a teacher-based I think in the last two or three years well we didn't even go in the last year last year they went I honestly don't know what the ratio was but it was a much smaller group um it seemed that it had been harder that the parents had been um outnumbering the teachers so I personally would like to

113see that come back around and be teacher based but if you could bring some feedback on them I have feedback from one staff so I don't know that I have enough to be representative at this point but I certainly will seek some feedback from staff okay um yeah and if you know it's it's a lot it's these are long days yes it is it's time for family um and when our older kids went there were no parents and it was the teachers and they were you know there's a special bond there and it makes that trip a different experience when it's the teachers so um again I ask you for that feedback and if you know if it's a direction that we need to have another conversation just to get those teachers on board obviously

114they're paid for but you know what do we need to do to make it that kind of experience for the kids I will solicit feedback and get back to you okay as even 22 years ago when I went it was it's teachers yeah yeah yeah but I can tell you before covid with other changes in this building it had slowed down it had parents were never even allowed to go oh so with that being said because we would have let us know what we needed to do no it would have been a different experience what do you feel about subbing wait you want me sure I don't have any right now if I take teachers out of the building I have to have someone teach the ones you were left behind so you can put

115all the kids all the kids are going to come out I'm looking at seven very capable adults in the room right now you know super quick onboarding process you let me know anytime you are welcome but you're forgetting that the entire eighth grade is going on this field trip with all of their teachers so you don't need subs in the rooms with the kids gone that's the goal it is an experience to be had I I mean I've had three kids go it was very sad last year when I know it was a missed opportunity for for some kids based on that vaccine um hopefully their parents get them there and and experience it at least in some way but um this is a big field trip that kids look forward to yeah and and

116like you said it does line up with our curriculum so yeah let us know what needs to be done to get you know that higher participation number and our staff to be there for the kids um so we're looking for a motion to approve the eighth grade field trip to Washington DC June 5th through the 8th um Capital tours the returning they're returning on the East returning on the seventh seventh I thought I was trying to add that to anything [Laughter] so June 5th through June 6th at the cost of 625 dollars fundraising opportunities for everyone um and that price is based on 40 kids per bus I'm looking for a motion to me by its head and second by Tammy any other questions for Mary or comments I would say try to make the

117Holocaust Museum a point it's something I'll never forget and that was the only time I've been there I think the only reason it says if available is they they have they're one of the few places you have to get tickets in advance so if I can book with them now we ought to be able to get those tickets booked in advance so yeah this includes meals and it includes some meals some meals are not covered um but the so breakfast is covered um the two days were in DC there's a lunch and dinner covered on that that one day we're there for the full day um so money for the dinner ride home yeah it's like the ride there and the ride home that's not covered but everything else is but the kids are usually

118told to have yeah will absolutely prep them for all of that um a dinner cruise or a dinner we have Let's see we have dinner at the Pentagon City Mall on Tuesday I could see about oh we have dinner at Harriet's on Monday I don't know what that is do you know what Harriet's is I was just there I don't think I went to Harris I didn't go to Harriet I was just there too in August when were you there first week we all we all uh we had a great time yeah when was I there I think I think we were in DC at the same time no joke if you heard too neither one of you went to Harriet's I know what what to come off the itinerary literally if it's not cool

119enough for you two we can't so we do we have dinner at Harriet's whatever Harriet's is we have dinner at the Pentagon City Mall I don't see anything about a dinner cruise but we do have a ghost tour of Alexandria in there which sounds pretty cool okay so there's usually like a little semi-formal event um oh how cute yeah but I don't know if they did it last year so no well there became issues because when Justin Cameron was here he was able to convince the tort Crews that we should have a whole section or floor so there wasn't intermingling with other groups and then at some point that became harder to do and then there was more concern with mingling yeah the groups because they went away from it they didn't do the dinner

120cruise anymore Amanda went they did um they had just like a hall they had a formal sit down dinner um not going to say formal but like sundresses and you know a shirt a button-down shirt for the boys so maybe that's Harriet's I don't know we'll have to look at Harriet all right so the motion is to approve the eighth grade field trip request all those in favor say aye aye any opposed absolutely so I am getting back to you with a copy of the itinerary and um feedback from the teachers on how we can entice them to being part of this experience yes if you send me that I have I send them weekly updates on Friday I can put your info right in there okay great thank you all right and then I

121think we have another field trip request for a Christmas carol yes um but I'm sorry to crash the party thank you very excited thank you so much um one of our high school teachers is looking to take a group of students to the Christmas carol in traffic the only question I had a motion to motion to approve the second Christmas Carol okay motion made by Tammy and second by Kerry questions question was what was the cost I think the cost line was blank I'm not looking at it right now but is it free I don't see it costs oh I was gonna say right above your thumb is where it should be yeah no it looks like there's no cost I think we're using our own van is that right it says a bus for

122we're not using our 20 inches oh right right right sure oh there is okay it is 20 dollars okay twenty dollars coverage transportation and a ticket I'm gonna ask Tim how he what what special deal he got that sounds great [Applause] okay any other questions I guess I do have a question for Jill so if we have to have a special boss for a handy uh oh the van is for the wheelchair access it won't cover it okay [Music] foreign but we do have some students and they made relations sure we can't accommodate that without them okay so other students will be on the I I just what I am reading is I wanted to make sure that poor student wasn't traveling alone to the show that other people would come off the bus to

123accommodate him okay I'm Driving Miss Daisy okay and I will follow up that's awesome okay [Music] we're able to work it out to accommodate students perfect okay any other questions for the Christmas carol field trip all those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstentions and that is unanimous for December night thank you and last on our school committee items we have the masc conference the dates are November 2nd through November 5th um I did include this part in an email to you guys too but just to remind everyone this conference is available to any of us that would like to attend um you would sign up through the nasc website and make sure Stephanie knows for billing purposes um Jason is attending the whole time Wednesday um yeah Wednesday night and Friday morning

124till Friday morning last year he presented but this year no you're attending um the theme this year is promoting Equity diversity and inclusion um which is something we've had have been focusing on um a lot here um with Jason and his goals so I'm sure you'll bring back some of you sure great information but I'm sure you'll be able to share some with them too for the work you've done um so if anyone is interested again you can just let Stephanie know and sign up for that there is a deadline for it we've already missed the early the early registration um but we do have money in our budget to cover the conference for ourselves and that is the conclusion of school committee items moving on to report of the business office thank you David

125for your patience quite welcome uh you have a report in your packet this evening um speaking of goals some of my goals are to work out some of the timing related to how the report gets produced uh specifically this month we've been working with our Auditors we have Auditors in the house auditing fy21 and I have them auditing fy22 so we've got two audits going on right now and I'm working very very closely with them you have a report in front of you that was part of your pocket and on your report it was dated 10-4 and then Deirdre was in her office 10-5 and deodor has done 353 thousand dollars worth of journal entries that aren't reflected on your reports and the reason why those journal entries were done was this was your end

126of the year audited financials for your end of the year rollover that these adjustments had to be made [Applause] no the the one that Jason had gotten out to your packet we had a holiday Monday and then the packets go out the door before I can chase someone and grab them and say wait a minute I'm not done yet I believe he said did you send an email okay if that's what you printed yes yeah okay it's the email he sent with us so that kind of so um the Auditors have been in and I am working again worth two years of audits uh the first audit for the end of the year rollover transactions have been done um and what I am doing is working with staff one-on-one bringing uh for example I see

127Scott here and the work that the goals that we have with facilities and Facilities Management are budgetary with Scott as I work with Scott I tell Scott that I don't want to turn him into an accountant but we're going to work on our facilities budgets our maintenance of plants budgets the procurement of those budgets when you're dealing with Facilities Management we're also dealing with Chapter 30 B which is your procurement law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts you should have a certified School business official or facilities manager employed in your district for those purchases as well as mcpo which is Massachusetts certified public purchasing official so those are two requirements that public schools have for the position for the person in this position or the person in that position or both so Scott and I have

128been spending a lot of time working on budgets and numbers and function codes and all sorts of stuff that I can kind of move things from the office that they were in and kind of we've created file cabinets and what records should be how they should be by for school year and some things like that that work has been alongside and simultaneous with the auditor's work and a lot of the work that was done this summer was facilities related as it typically is in your public schools because you get summer time to do all of this work um so that work is done at least from the auditor's perspective and I can try to answer any questions that you might have on your report the highlights that I think are here are a few things

129that I could at least point out and bring to your attention first of all in your school committee area your function code 1110 the first line item is in deficit twenty six thousand dollars that's the very first school committee on the top that's because I asked the Auditors to also audit last year while they're here if we can get all of these audits done together we can also identify any purchasing issues that we have any procurement issues that we have if secretaries aren't processing something appropriately we can do some professional development so we ask them to come in and audit us all together give us all our Auto reports and then we can come up with an action plan to address anything within those audit reports it's a lot of work for everyone to be

130doing but it gives you a wonderful multi-year picture about where you should be going it's the same data analysis that Jason is doing so are you saying that we are 26 it's actually twenty seven thousand dollars and the negative because we're conducting two audits or they found something I am saying that of the twenty six thousand dollars that that shows in deficit twenty two thousand five hundred is a engagement with the Auditors to audit the FY 22 year along with the FY 21 year so I am doing two years in one fiscal year so we wouldn't have budgeted for that because you weren't here to ask us foreign I take that back about having money for the conference no kidding so that means you have 4 000 over the estimated 21 correct yeah okay correct

131exactly but that's the drill down that we have to do every time you run this report um once the adjustments are made the checks are cut we run the report do the analysis do the work and then send it out in the packet God bless you going down a little further down into District Information Management you've heard about the reimbursements that we'll be getting on some of the technology procurement so we're awaiting some of those reimbursements uh there some of the salary work you've had conversations here in regards to those positions and what line items are carrying salaries in this particular case the salary for the curriculum is is also in here and that had been discussed in the work was done this summer in that regard so we're carrying that as a deficit that

132is an actual expense we're going to look to cover foreign other piece in regards to salaries is we also have to encumber them and then recalculate encumbrances depending on what happens during the school year if people transfer in transfer out reach resignations in resignations out certain things have to be recalculated so again it's the timing of the work on this report and then when we reissue it but that's updated as we go it's updated as we go for the most part but you're doing you're processing warrants twice and so if you book a warrant but don't if you book a warrant and then you run the port and then cut your checks you don't disencumber the checks because you did a lot of sequence it's literally that not um technical but it's just a missing

133step sometimes if Stephanie prints the report and we haven't cut the checks yet kind of thing so it's just a check and balance no pun intended hey are we all ready to run the report and some of it's uh the fact that maybe I'm not in the office full time as well foreign areas again you see here and maintenance of Grounds Maintenance of plant you see building security this is your SRO that we have in the district now in all four schools that detail the detail that's not the details at 65 000. there's other there's other items in there school security stuff that we've had to do they installed all those cameras and everything yep we just got an update on that on the 29th oh right and I guess I'm concerned minus we did

134not budget for but we're only in October but we never we're not moving the money to sell almost 70 000 that was the hourly rate times the number remember we did the calculation we never put the money on that line because we approached it after the budget so you'll see that the but the bulk of that is because it's just encumbered it hasn't we haven't spent it yeah but what we try to do is account for all salaries and cover the salaries and cover the Heat and things like that and then we can consistently have to forecast as we go along how long do we think um that the the balancing of salaries is going to take because this report I don't I haven't obviously the last report we had it I it feels like

135without you know memorizing things obviously that we have more over um you know negative budget balance in more spots than we did on the last report so I'm in in part of the explanation that we received when we started to see the negative was that salaries were being moved but it seems like more negative is on this report than last report so my question is how long is it going to take to find the right lines where things should be evening out because on this report and there's there's five five or six lines over a hundred thousand dollars um negative I I don't feel like there were that many last reports so but but that explanation there was that we were moving salaries Etc um when does that balance out so we can start feeling

136better about these high negative numbers so I think your salary line items or me feel better our probably 90 percent there as we sit here this evening some of the movement may still need to be made to Grants from the general fund once we finish our hiring we've got a few positions open we'll be encumbering those funds as well the line items that will be in deficit based on what we know of at hand will be generated at your next meeting because again salaries are at 90 because of the work that was done this summer those transfers for the most part have been made the adjusting journal entries have been made for this report and that really leaves a 10 of salaries that may or may not be able to go to Grants if we

137can but B the deficit line items will be your deficits that we will have to present to you how are we going to handle those so those aren't ever going to change because of what we budgeted and started with that these aren't changing to me so you're not going but what they did change is what line the salaries are coming out of so this is always going to stay the same because it's what we approve the budget right after town meeting then there were corrections made of who's I'm more worried about our balance getting so the bottom line the the very end budget balance bottom line is the number that we're going to have to watch because if I'm understanding it correctly we moved what account numbers they were billed from but we didn't move

138what was budgeted correct right so that's always going to look like a negative until the end of the year when we balance out when we see management of grounds at already negative 186 965 we haven't even seen a flake of snow that's a great one yeah I start to I start to think okay it's it's hard to like how are we supposed to be judging when yeah that's the when we are in a big we are when snow removal has gone up way above our budget and there's an issue that we need to be concerned about 41 pounds what I don't want to see is at the end of the year all of a sudden we have a three hundred thousand dollars explain that okay yeah because because then we have to take that from

139teaching and learning we have to take that from somewhere else that doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy so she'll make you feel warm and fuzzy okay so 170 174 000 was moved out of that line as a prior year expense based on the audit work so again your report that you're looking at that shows that line item and deficit 180 odd thousand dollars that expense belonged to the previous year and that has been done it has been done that expense has been moved because that's where it belonged so the audit work has moved the expense to where it belongs so right now where we paid it out of this year because of rollover issues which isn't unheard of so you book all your expenses June 30th there's no one in the finance office right

140now by the way it's June 30th and you've got to roll your fiscal years what's the best way we can do that they've rolled it over and they start paying their bills and some get paid in this fiscal year because the rollover wasn't either a successful be complete what not we get in we audited because when we printed this report I said wait a minute this can't be right so let's bring in the Auditors and we go through the audit and we do our end of the year audits I'm sorry journal entries which we do every single year to account for end of the year rollover are they typically a hundred and seventy four thousand dollars a hundred of that was Paving from what I understand so when you do your big ball purchases in

141June for July if that June 30th rollover isn't done correctly and on time you'll end up doing journal entries which are very common which are done at each end of the fiscal year to book the appropriate expenses that occurred to the fiscal year which they belong which the school committee also votes on so that work was done and it typically we've already voted to move 174 thousand dollars no you haven't voted but you voted the project you voted the project so somebody just somebody needed to move the expense to the correct place it was voted and accounted for it's an account with an accounting issue because we approved that and that was paid out of law school so are you saying I'm sorry are you are you saying that because there was a gap between

142Matt leaving and Deirdre starting that rollover didn't roll over happened but what what well what here's what happened June 30th there's literally like a button you have to hit in budget sense to roll this system over and the the stuff that the school committee approved that we had summarized and sent out to our finance department to say hey we're buying these things in fiscal 22 just FYI we need to encumber the money some of that was entered but not all of it was entered and so when the so it was an accounting error some of it was encumbered right now okay right through like an open purchase order which you can do from fiscal 22 to carry it in sure so the paving's a good example that was not entered as an open purchase order

143in fiscal 22 to carry over so when Deirdre saw that it flagged um an issue to her she met with the accountants they drilled into it and said well 100 of that 174 000 was Paving oh that was fiscal 22. so let's go make the journal entry which is what you did to take it out of so it's not charged to 23 right actually it's your assistant Treasurer too so Ron your CPA Ron the assistant Treasurer and I and the Auditors you know all six of us are saying all right what happened at the end of the fiscal year where were these expenses charged where should they have been charged and what was the school committee approval process for isn't that what we usually vote on at the beginning of the year those corrections to

144things is am I that's the closeout for fiscal 20 for each fiscal year is that like when you close the books that July meeting that's the old fiscal year that we're closing the books on but that should have been in the old fiscal book it should have been charged to the old fiscal year when it rolled over it didn't roll over as an open purchase order so when we received the bill it was just charged to you know to fiscal 23. so they had to go back in and do a journal entry and move it to fiscal 22. I guess my final question is right now this line says one negative over a hundred and eighty five thousand dollars it's it's not whatever fix we're doing whatever the paperwork involves does this number change yes

145okay now as we sit here negative 163.32 cents and we have thirty thousand dollars worth of purchase orders that the facility manager has to go through verify that those purchase orders are appropriate and if they are we have to manage and oversee this department and report to the superintendent in the school committee that we've got to find ten thousand dollars by June 30th because this is a solid deficit in this line item that's not where we sit in Octo on October 13th not counting snow removal and where we potentially are over ten thousand dollars correct once this work is done so we've got the audit work done now we go do the facilities work we continue to forecast June 30th throughout the seasons particularly winter spring Etc and then we continue to update the school

146committee on June 30th forecasts the 33 000 that's encumbered on that line is that for snow or is that for something else I would have to go through I could take a quick look if you'd like it just seems to me to go on Tammy's point so we approved all these grounds and maintenance update updates and projects that happen over the summer but we're already so we over allocated funds we did it it was it was honest to God it was somebody put they checked the wrong box that's all that happened so what we did was you go back and you uncheck that box and you check the different one and you make the journal entry in it so I don't understand that I'm saying that word no no no I'm saying she's saying as

147of right now today we're sitting at negative ten thousand after that journal entry was made to fix it yes that's a different issue that's what she's negative 10 000 but with 33 000 encumbered which means it's not spent but it's predicted so that could very well be snow you need to look at the encumbrances I don't think it's 33 000 of Landscaping no you've got um you've got Fire Protection Systems you've got purchase orders that are encumbered for annual monthly kinds but that would be buildings not grounds right yes exactly exactly but you've got some Landscaping you've got some um lining of the fields there's uh some other things from that perspective but again if um I almost said Jason sorry when we go through all of the purchase orders assigned to Maintenance and Facilities

148in in grounds we've got to take a look at all of the encumbrances from now that are open to make sure that they're valid and to make sure that the line items that are presenting themselves to you if in fact they are presenting them in deficit are actual deficits that's absolutely one the work that needs to be done okay additionally on Monday Scott and I have a conference call to talk about utilities pricing and what's happening in the marketplace right now we're trying to bid out collaboratively fuel oil and also understand what we're looking at as far as the winter is concerned there are some Consultants out there that you can work with that can take a look at all of your systems and for fee come in and try to save you utility money

149I just don't know depending on what happens with utilities now how much that really can save you at this particular juncture but it also goes to the heating of the buildings that we're doing uh and things like that but I do think that the work that Scott and I are doing together is is really solid work and it really centralizes that work including the building level custodial maintenance staff as well going directly to one facilities person in the district in organizing the procurement of it a little more centralize and efficiently other areas here are your retirement benefits and things that are going to continue to fluctuate based on certain things that happen during the year such as open enrollment qualifying uh conditions of or events rather for current employees and we also have a couple

150new hires that will be hiring for open positions that will also have health insurance and other benefits associated with those hires so those are also some areas that we certainly need to focus on and we're also getting our new health insurance rates starting in January so then that those linearities will have to be forecasted throughout the year as well particularly when the rates change the other goal I have for this report is revenue I started to pull revenue from your reports I took a look at some of your Revenue line items here and I would like to update and present this report a little differently with the revenue component to it um those are some of the goals that we have in regards to the business office work but particularly around expense report revenue report

151and reporting to the school committee again just the goal is to get off of extraneous spreadsheets and get it all system generated so that we can because in all honesty if you were giving us a spreadsheet it wouldn't look like this this is real this is real time from the system so you would have been able to type ten thousand negative ten thousand you know so as hard as it is to read but I just I think it's important to Deidre to point out um everyone's eyes should be going to the bottom line with the budget balance it is not a negative number um you know the the last page of this report with your grand totals um first line is what we approved as a budget and the encumbrances are what we're what we

152are projecting our expenses for knowns you know the known expenses and then the budget balance is where it stands even with the lines that are negative so um I don't think there should be any panic in at the end of every year uh June 30th we are spending um for Paving for you know the the we're spending down this line um I so we stay within our five percent e and D I just want to say I'm not panicked I want to be able to read it so when I I often will look at when I get my package I look at last month's stuff I look at this month's stuff I try to see the comparison the comparison so when I again I'm here on the Fly I'm late all of that but when

153I see so many things that I didn't recall from last month I just want to make sure I'm comparing Apples to Apples and although one line item is off by like like I said October 13th 186 thousand we also do our budget with money spent on certain things and I know that there's always some movement among lines and that but I I do think it's important that we keep an eye on numbers because what we I mean and you know we're just using grounds as an example because that happens to be the highest negative number but our intent in our budget is not to spend seven hundred thousand dollars in grounds it's to spend that money somewhere else and if we have to make up for that later on because we're not following the ball

154then that will be a problem for all of us so that's that's my point I get that we're in good shape and I just worry when I see very high negative numbers without explanations comparatively month to month but in the same respect I'm happy to hear that explanation for that line right yeah thank you like this next we have your personal trains uh report for your information we've had three unit a hires in our district one unit c and uh two other positions that have been appointed for uh permanent and long-term result for your information and file all right thank you very much and moving on to facilities those copy dreams good evening so facilities uh industrial burner has received the pots to um pressure release valves for the boilers at the high school um

155they're just waiting to schedule somebody to come in and do the work and Craig Cassidy and our electrician has installed a remote Wireless shut off as required by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts so this will bring the high school boilers to Boiler Room of the compliance with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that's something that uh insurance inspector found when he came out and did his inspections the Fred Hutton middle school on October 5th the building was calling for Heat and the boilers failed to start up when I went and diagnosed it I found that the BFD drive that controls the circulator pumps um was malfunctioned I called Craig cassavan come in and diagnose it found that this power getting to the unit but not power getting out of the unit to tell a circulator pumps to turn

156on so as a built-in safety feature it tells the Building Maintenance the building management system not to fire the boilers we are able to override that manually so we do have heat in the building the JFK playgrounds um Jason and I discussed that it's best to move forward with our custodial staff and all of the processed wood chips and do the work ourselves so I reached out to the company to see how soon they could deliver that and he's going to have a driver shortage coming up one's got medical issues so we're looking at probably the first week in November to have those delivered and just to be clear that's money that we spent last year that was rolled over yes that was part of that just making sure that 100 and yeah we spent

157the money um so that's the AF Maloney playground the JFK playground as we all know is a much bigger issue so we're still holding off to get more detailed plans as to what steps to take unfortunately because of the slope of the Hill doesn't make it ADA Compliant so we'd have to build retaining walls to level it off and as it stands now we'd have to build a four foot retaining wall to get that playground level that's why we're trying to shrink the footprint of the playground which is much more detailed so okay we're waiting for more plans on that the Millville elementary school as you know on August 20th we had a power failure um we found that when we restored the power air handler eight which is located in the kitchen controls the

158ventilation system for the kitchen and such the Heat um it was smoking we found smoke up in the ceiling we called the fire department out they came out building inspector came out electrical inspector came out however after that we found that probably six other units are not working they will work in hand mode we do have two units that we cannot control the heat in right now and that's located in the kitchen and the cafeteria the buildings are still warm they're still getting heat circulated through them it's just not blowing out so we don't have to worry about freezing plates or anything like that we're working on getting quotes for that as we speak the playgrounds um much like JFK we're moving forward with the custodial staff I will have to look for volunteers or

159rent a mini excavator to get into the preschool playground to remove the peacefulness in there we have to go down about 12 inches to put 12 inches of the processed wood chips and relocate a section of fencing for the slide so that's a little more detail but we should get that done by this year I'm not going to add to that the on the issue with the air handlers and the Transformer unit we I did have a conversation with the Town Administrator for Millville so he knows like he's very much in the loop of what's going on with that so once we get the estimates we'll go back to a discussion with him and he did have a meeting with the board of Selectmen in Millville to make sure they were aware of the issue

160so that that had happened but I just want to be clear too about dza handlers control the auditorium the cafeteria the gymnasium and part of the office area so all classrooms still have heat like I said other than those two units every other unit has heat we can control by hand apparently it isn't building automation system in that building too that nobody knew about until this happened it was uh software that was run by dos back in 1994. and nobody knew about that system maybe preview I'm sure previous administrators knew about it custodial staff they didn't know about it it's not usable now what's that it's not usable now no even if we found that computer so that's part of the process to bring it all back up to today's standards question is anybody interested

161in buying and buy that much because that's the real question yeah I don't know just like do we can we sell that to someone yeah from the JFK is that way 12 inches of pea Stone yeah it's a lot of Peace Stone and it has to come out we can't compact it and put the new ground over it my concern would be that if the wood chips got kicked up a dug down enough underneath the slides and stuff that P Stone would come back up okay and contaminate that what I was thinking was taking it out and laying it over the access road to the fire water tower that's in the back just spread it out over that just to get rid of it so we don't have anywhere else we have to fill the

162problem is you know sometimes you have to fill things with yeah the phone would be trucking it out of there it'd be a lot of trips with our dump truck which probably isn't capable of handling that his dump truck body is rotting out pretty severely and I don't want to assume so I'll ask there is a priority on fixing the heat there is a fire building every company I got in to do an estimate I told them that we need this ASAP because you know we're a school and we have students I mean I would say before Thanksgiving yeah I hope so okay absolutely just making sure like I said there's still heat in the building yeah don't get me wrong but those big spaces can get cooler faster yeah so the auditorium is one

163of the ones that we can control by hand okay yep the gymnasium we control by hand the kitchen that'll get warm enough just from cooking in there as we all know um I guess the only one of any concern would be the cafeteria but again there's still air circulating so the hot water is still flowing through the pipes [Music] Scott and then we just have the Surplus from mes [Applause] actually we have actually required sorry but um Surplus for mes everyone had the printed copy so I'm looking for a motion to those of the Surplus items listed I'll move those those are made by Tammy is there a second second by Chuck okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed that's unanimous thank you and use the facilities we have a few right

164CME PTO Girl Scouts this good this candy the candy piece goes with the BME okay Okay so knowing we have that great calendar in place obviously these come to us because the space is available so I'm looking for a motion to improve the two use of facilities requests those for me by Dan is there a second by Aaron any questions or comments all those in favor for the facility request may I I any opposed Anonymous thank you and moving on to spoof midi forum items to share I do have I was told by the town clerk in Blackstone today um last year the Town Clerk and the town accountants set up they have a a trick-or-treat night at the Town Hall and I think I don't know Mr superintendent if they sent a flyer to

165you as well but they offered the school committee to set up a table in the town hall to give um it's um October 25th from 4 to 6 30 p.m at the Town Hall um and the first 30 minutes will be for a sensory friendly sent me family to accommodate families with sensory or other special needs so again that's October 25th what is 6 30 and this committee is also welcome to set up a table every Department of the talent sets up a table throughout the town also okay they set up spider webs and things like that so is that too early for you Dan 4pm I assume they would want us in costume yeah either way yeah something you like you have to like have you have been this to this this is the

166second one so oh okay yeah so yes I did we need details there all right details do we have to you know we decorate table and just go with candy and call it a day costumes it was pretty successful last year a lot of a lot of kids came through with their parents and and um yeah it was it was a very nice event so yeah it's it's worth it if I would say it's good PR for the school district to be there would you like to chair that Dan there's no committee to be had but if if members could we find someone willing to wear the charger oh that's not in costume put a costume on them we could actually give some kids some communities [Laughter] I did put our that flyer on um

167I took a screenshot with my cell and I posted it on our website Facebook and Twitter last night okay so I did put it I sent it out for everybody and Millville is trying to do something not like that but something different so I'm working with Jennifer Gill and someone else like recall the names down my head but to help yeah they've found a trick-or-treat in the past Trunk or Treat in the past Sarah was always our person to like get the the theme going and um I'll throw a theme together for you all right you will okay yeah see you are the chairs I'll do my best all right so if anyone's available October 25th from 4 to 6 30 I would assume you'd have to be there a little early set up please

168let Dan know but I do think we could get the charger there that's a great idea to text me if we were going to take a table during this meeting and I'll tell her yes we'll if even if I'm the only I'm sure I won't be the only one there I'm sure Kerry and Chad will be there I unfortunately worked on Tuesday nights all right we'll make arrangements for you thank you we'll Zoom you in all right any other items for committee forum before we move into executive session because it is not over until it's over um so I'm looking for a motion to move into executive session not to return into our meeting um it's almost thank you most of Me by Tammy second by Dan and we'll roll call in Aaron yes Chuck

169yes Tammy yes Aaron is yes very good okay thank you so much