001All right. Uh, thank you for, uh, being patient. I know we're a little late tonight. Uh, we just ended executive session. We are back to open session. Today is Thursday, February 26th. Uh, this is a meeting of the Milford School Committee. We start with invitation to speak, which we do not have anyone here for. We're moving on to announcements, correspondence, and distributions. Anybody have anything for that? I have a quick update about an MCIA survey. Um, at the beginning of next week, we'll be reaching out to families to inform them about our annual student survey administration of the Massachusetts Consortium of Innovative Education Assessment, which is MCIA. The student provides us with perspective on teachers and learning and leadership, school culture, resources, academic learning, and community and well-being. We're excited to receive the student feedback
002and use this information to continue to drive improvement across our district. Um, families have an option to opt their student out of the survey if they do not want their child participating. This year, we're also going to be asking families to engage in a family version of the survey to ensure that we don't just have the student perspective and the teacher perspective, but also the families perspective on these same um different areas of focus. Um and we're looking forward to um having an analysis um of the survey in the spring so that we can start to think about a deep having a deeper understanding of the various perspectives of Milford public schools. >> Excellent. >> Any other announcements, please? >> Yeah. Um I'd like to announce that um Mr. Peter Bush has resigned his position
003um as athletic director in Mel public schools to take on a role of um wellness director in another community. Um I'd like to thank uh Mr. Bush for uh all the contributions that he's made along the way. He was appointed the position in 2014. Uh since that time, he's supervised an athletics program that has had many notable accomplishments uh on the field, court, track, and pool while also excelling in the classroom and community. Um under his leadership, uh Milford Public Schools has been celebrated for sportsmanship leadership in efforts to build a strong united athletics program inclusive of all student athletes. Uh, a particular note, um, under his leadership, Milford student athletes and coaches have 39 league titles across all the, uh, sports, 12 state championships, multiple state finalists, uh, final four teams, multiple state and
004New England individual champions in finalists, um, nine league or state coach of the year awards, uh, in multiple honorable mentions and then also um numerous division one, division 2, and division 3 college athletic commitments. Um so we've certainly seen our athletic program grow to new heights uh under Peter's leadership. So um definitely appreciative of all that Peter's brought to Mil Public Schools and we wish him a lot of luck uh in his next endeavor. Um I'm also pleased to announce that um as of Monday uh this coming Monday we are appointing uh Mr. Steven Devito in the role of interim athletic director. Um he currently serves Mr. Devito currently serves as the dean of students at Milit High School. It's a role that he's filled for the past five years um in taking the role
005of the interim AD. Uh he will continue in a reduced role of the dean of students. Um some of the responsibilities that he has will as dean will shift over to some other building administrators uh and other staff members. But previous to his role uh in the current position, he was the coordinator for the alternative program uh for the high school for several years uh and was also a high school teacher for approximately 5 years. Um in athletics, uh Mr. Devidito served has served as the head coach of the girls softball team since 2014. Um he will also be resigning his position as um softball coach and we will hire an interim softball coach uh just for the the season. Anyways, um of note of for Mr. Devito is he he won the state his
006team won the state championship in 2017 uh and also won a state championship as a legion baseball coach in 2014. He's been recognized as the state softball coach of the year uh in 2017 as well. Uh so we're very excited um that it's going to hopefully be an easy transition for our kids and for our coaches with um Mr. Devito who's very familiar around here. um grew up in Milford. Uh the plan is to post for the permanent position of athletic director later in the spring. Um and I think we're poised to um have a good spring uh athletic season under Mr. Dvito's leadership. So um that's the news in the athletic front right now. Oh, I guess we do have a couple other news. We have um we have a wrestling team that's still
007competing >> uh through the states and then we also have a a girls basketball team that won their first playoff game last night and has a playoff game tomorrow night in Norwood. So, looking forward to that, too. >> Excellent. >> Um I think the only thing I'll add obviously is a a big thanks to the highway department and facilities team. Yes, >> and janitors for dealing with that mess earlier this week that we all got to deal with and they did a good job getting a lot of snow moved around. So, big thanks to those guys. >> All right, so we can go on to not quite general chairperson update. I don't have anything for that. Um, and then the MSBA project. Um, can you just say a a couple comments on the meeting you
008had yesterday, I believe? >> Yeah. So we um we started the the visioning uh process with HMFH. Um, we have an education consultant who's leading us through that and they facilit we we put together a team of um I guess we'll call them experts 12 experts from our Milford High School which um there's some district folks like Carrie and I are in there um Josh is in there but then there's also teachers um and the purpose of that group is to think think about what we want in a new high school. Think about um the vision. Think about how we want education to look. Um and think about how the design of the new high school or renovation of the high school will um allow for that to happen. Um we also have aside from
009that group of 12 we have an additional 28 um teachers, parents, students who are also going to serve in that committee um to also provide feedback. Um the feedback that we're going to get is going to be uh the foundational work for the ed plan that principal ought and I have to write um in short order really. Um but that that's why this work is important. We have I I don't remember like five more meetings I think um between all day meetings and uh three-hour sessions. Uh then we're also going to uh visit three schools uh that were recently built. Um and then finally we're going to shadow some students at Milford High School so that we can understand what the current experience is for high school students. Um and so with all of that,
010it's going to help us uh create this vision for the new Milford High School. So it's exciting work. I'm glad that that we had so many parents and staff members that expressed interest in contributing to that work. There will be many opportunities along the way from starting from now but um beyond this group there'll be many opportunities for students, parents and and um staff members to provide uh feedback to our design team uh so that we can make sure that everybody gets their say and their input on what they would like to see in the in the new school. So looking forward to that. >> Excellent. Thank you. Any questions on that? >> Just a moment. Are the schools you're visiting comprehensive high schools? >> Uh, >> some of them are um mainly they were
011chosen because they're new builds, but um but I know that for sure for certain >> uh Adelboroough High School's on the list and uh so hopefully people get to see that. >> Cool. Thanks. >> All right. Thank you. That brings us to the report of the superintendent of schools. >> Keep going. >> Okay. Um, so in your agenda, um, and I sent this to you earlier, uh, I I've attached, um, just a review of of the goals, um, where we are so far. So, if you recall, there was four goals that that I had presented earlier in the year. Um, for goal one, develop and implement a s uh, systematic leadership structures to foster a cohesive, unified, and effective administrative team. uh some of the actions that we've uh taken so far. Um we have
012a a team meeting structure at our our leadership level at our high level leadership level. Um where we have a rolling agenda uh that's um we we are able to identify what our goals are for each meeting. Um, and then the purpose of of each of the different items throughout the meeting, it keeps our meetings moving fast. Um, and keeps them streamlined and make sure that we're on target. Um, we have outcomes for all and and also um we revisit where we've been so that um we're always keeping we're always making sure that we're uh moving the ship forward, I guess. Uh we've also established an operations cabinet. Um it's been it's been very helpful especially like over the last couple days with with snowstorms and everything to have everybody on the same page. Uh
013it's something that we haven't had before where we're meeting regularly with uh all the folks in the operations team. Uh so we meet monthly on that. Um we have a similar structure with our rolling agendas and outcomes and um and just getting to know everyone and and what each part of the operation is uh to run this district. Um we've also established a teaching and learning cabinet. Uh we met today actually. Um Carrie facilitates those meetings. uh and we bring together our district folks to talk through curriculum instruction assessment. Um we've been focusing mainly on literacy this year. Uh it's our priority. So with that group, we try to create um we try to make sure that everybody understands where we're trying to go as a district with literacy. Uh in our next at the
014next meeting, we're going to look at our I Ready data and and see if what adjustments we're going to need to make. Um I've already shared I think I shared with you all uh or at least Yeah, I did. I shared with you um our our um comprehensive organizational chart. Um, I do have I do have one that has job descriptions on it and it's it's finalized. I'm just rere I'm just reading through it again to make sure that um it says everything that I want to say. They're quick, they're one sheeter. Um, that tells the function of the job. Um, the next thing that I'm working on is the job the job the organizational chart the way that we want to see it. Um so you have you I'm going to share with you
015the current one but then we're also working on the one that um we also shared at uh our budget meeting. Um I do have I have established bi-weekly onetoone meetings with each school principal. Um the purpose of those meetings is for the the principles to share with me what they're working on um what they want to highlight and then what they're struggling with. So those have been very productive. Um the one thing that I want to say about those meetings is that I envision those meetings for opportunities to do more uh structured uh learning walks with principles. I just we haven't got there yet. Um, I'm hopeful that that towards the spring we will be able to get there, but um just trying to um get our feet underneath us and and establish a working
016relationship. Um it's been challenging to get into classrooms and do those learning walks. So, that's something that I really want to focus on in the spring. I'm hopeful that I can get there. I don't know that I'm going to get there the with the frequency that I want to get there. Um but it's not inconceivable for trying to to at least get in two or three with uh each principal um through the spring. So that's my that's going to be my goal for moving forward with that. Um for the second goal, develop and execute a comprehensive entry plan to assess district strengths, challenges, and stakeholder priorities. Uh this is something that I've had to do through the Nissa program with um Becky, my mentor. Um I've had many interviews um with stakeholders and I've had
017many focus groups with different stakeholders including you know families, community members, community leaders, some students, staff members, uh community partners. Um same with with onetoone interviews in in some cases uh family interviews. So, um, that's been really, um, informative. I I really enjoy listening to what other folks are saying, what they're for to to hear perspectives of what's going well in our district and where we where people would like to see us head um, uh, inspirational, I guess, is the best way to put that. So, um, that's been great. Um again in development learning walks I I really got to I have to get into classrooms much more I it's just been challenging. Um, I have held some office hours, but I'd like to try to figure out a way to um have unstructured office
018hours um where where people are going to feel free to come and talk. And I don't know I don't know how to do that um because I also don't want to go to a place and and not have anybody show up. Um, so I got to try to think of a way to to invite people in where they're not going to they're they're going to actually take me up on the invite. Um, towards the end of like I either a month from now or six weeks from now, I'm going to report some of these findings to all of you. Um, and then after that, we'll I'm going to create a a plan uh based on those findings. Uh goal three was identify and foster optimal learning and working environments to enable students and staff to
019achieve their highest potential. I have been committed to working with the building committee. Um I I'm attending all the meetings as they are but then also this uh the visioning process and working on the behind the scenes with um the design team and our OPM Um, I'm supporting Carol uh and Carrie, I guess, as um we roll out our our literacy initiatives. Um, I think the best support that I can offer um Carol is to stay out of her way, but uh I'm not going to claim to be an expert on early literacy the way that Carol is. Uh, I think that saying that um I do mean that is like just stay out of her way and let her do her thing, but I also want to make sure that she feels supported in
020in what she's doing and feels like she has um Carrie and I uh to pick her up when uh things don't go the way that she wants. So, um, I regularly check in with Carrie, um, and I I try to stay out of out of Carol's way and work through Carrie on that. Um, I think one way that I've done, number three, which is to develop and implement comprehensive staff wellness and professional growth programs, is working with my um, K2 task force on behavior and safety. Um I'm going to continue to work with them on that. Uh and then I also working with labor management um trying to understand some of the things that are are challenging in our district. Um and then finally trying to foster collaborative partnerships with families and community organizations to
021support student success. uh just before this meeting as an example um when and I met with all the heads of of the PTO's uh and also the principles to understand what what they're trying to accomplish this year uh but then also try to figure out how we can support each other um as one large organization. Uh so we have another meeting coming up in in March to talk through what that might look like as one PTO organization for our district. Um so they were kind of excited about that. Um one thing that they felt was you know it's the same kind it's the same folks going from one building to the next to the next and it um it feels fragmented where it shouldn't really feel fragmented. we should all be working together. So, um
022they're excited to work together on on something like this. So, that's good. Um one thing is MCIA, for example, will help us uh develop a sense of what the school climate and culture is across the buildings. Um certainly the focus groups that we're doing um are helping that um climate and culture um all those are all things that we're doing to figure out um how our buildings are um culture- wise. Um one thing I also want to keep continue to explore is to figure out different ways for student voice uh and engagement in the decision-m process. Um I'm that's one thing that I'm excited for for the visioning process is we've already identified uh 8 to 10 I can't remember what what the number is but somewhere 8 to 10 students that are going to
023be involved in that. So just listening uh intently to each of those kids on um what it is that they want in a high school experience and maybe what they're missing right now in their high school experience. So we don't have to wait whatever it is four, five, six years when the new building's built. Maybe we can put some things in place that's that seem to be missing um now. So that's one thing I'm looking forward to. Uh and then finally, goal four, lead successful negotiation and contract management for critical district operations. Um, and really what I'm finding is I'm I'm more supporting the work of when um, especially when it came to like identifying the OPM firms and um, when she put together the bid process of the of transportation services. Um, those are
024two things that we already have done. Um, I know that it was a lot of work for for when to put those things together. Um, I think she did a great job and I think that um, we're happy with the four OPMS and we're also happy with um, what we have right now with transportation services. Um, we have been working with the teachers association uh, to do contract negotiations there. Um and then one thing that's coming out shortly is the custodial services procurement um as that that contract's wrapping up. So um all the the contracts and and competitive procurement processes that it's all new to me. Um I'm not I'm not sure how many W has done in her her time. might have been new for her, too. But, uh, I think that, um, I
025think that they all went smoothly and I think that, um, we follow the law, which >> Yeah, hopefully. I think we do. >> We do. >> We used our attorneys when we needed to. >> We always, >> but we we've I guess when I look back at all the things that we've done so far, we've been very busy. Um, but I haven't felt overwhelmed. So, um, I think that's a that's a good thing. Um, the pace has been okay. I think that, um, the I think that at some point hopefully the pace slows down a little bit, but I it remains to be seen. I think that um some of these some of the things that are necessary things to uh do like the OPMS and the um other contracts and those sorts of things,
026those are the things that that I'm finding anyways gets in the way of me being in classrooms, but they're also necessary things that that we just have to do operationwise. Um, so that's I I need to figure out the balance there and how to how to be an instructional leader. If that's something I want from my principles and my assistant principles, how can I be the instructional leader that I want them to be? Um, knowing that we have all these other things that we have to take care of, right? So, I'll open it up for questions, comments, anything anybody has. >> Just a quick one. So, thanks Craig. I think there's so much going on. Obviously, you're involved in so much, but from my perspective, it's not only like what you're doing, but how you're
027doing it. And so, even just using labor and management as one example, I feel like those meetings have become very productive and like a two-way sharing of information, which historically they had not. So, I just want to say in addition to the volume of what you're taking on, I think it's also the way you're going about it that really matters. So, I just wanted to give you kudos for that. Um, and then maybe just a positive plug for all of this will also require evidence supporting it. And so as you're starting to build that, um, appreciate all the work that will go into that. So, thank you. >> And I love the picture that you kicked it off with. That was great. >> It's the only thing I could get to open on my tablet
028to is just the picture. So, it's great. >> It's all you needed. >> Yeah. Just quickly, thank you very much for presenting tonight. You know, give it's giving a a picture of everything that you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis, which I know is is pretty extensive. um just just you know the educational stuff we all know with five schools is daunting then when you start adding on this new school building and that committee um the project that's going on that were that they're kicking off down at uh Stacy Middle School with the HVAC. So those those are some of the things that that I see from outside of the normal kind of realm of what you would expect the superintendent to be doing. So that in itself is a pretty busy thing. Also, you
029know, like you said, the labor and management. Yeah, certainly it is it's collaborative, you know, we're I think in the past sitting on that committee, there was a little bit of divide, you know, and so we're seeing a more collaborative and and free flowing of information back and forth. And I think that the superintendent and and his staff are reacting to what the teachers are are looking for to make their environment their their school environment more comfortable. So yeah, so again, thank you very much. keep uh keep up the good work >> and we will keep pressing you too. >> Yeah, it seems like you're being pulled in so many different directions, but you're doing a great job of of managing it. You're saying you're not overwhelmed. That's impressive. >> It's a very holistic approach.
030You're looking at it from top to top to bottom. Meeting the principles, you're meeting with, you know, the uh contractors when it comes to uh uniforms and everything like that. Like that's that's that's great because the details matter and in this season, those those really do matter a lot. So, thank you for all that. >> Thank you. >> Just to echo everyone's saying, appreciate the update and um appreciate all that you're doing. >> Thank you. >> All right, we'll give you a break now. >> Thanks. You can go. We'll move on to the report of the interim assistant and superintendent for teaching and learning. >> All right, so I have two updates tonight for you. One is I will update us all on our K5 literacy um implementation. Um and the reason I'm providing this
031update this week um is because prior to the February school vacation week, Brookside Memorial and Woodland engaged in their mid-year learning walks with TNTP, who's our consultant for expeditary learning implementation, which is through our Prism Grant. Um so they were on site for one day at each of our buildings um in partnership with our building leaders um and Carol Severki as our curriculum supervisor of literacy. They visited 28 classrooms across the three buildings um where they were able to see some really great growth in our implementation that I really want to highlight for you um because I think it's a huge testament to the amount of work that our teachers are putting into the classrooms. So, in 86% of the classrooms that they walked into, students were engaged in the work of the lesson from
032the start of the learning walk to the end of the learning walk. Um, sometimes they walk in, you know, the first 15 minutes of the block. Sometimes they walk in in the middle, sometimes they walk in in the end. Um, sometimes, especially in an elementary, not all, we'll see like a a spillover um of the content before. And so, 86% is actually a really high percentage point. Um, we're hoping to get to 90% by the end of the school year. Um in 86% of those class the classrooms we also saw students spending the majority of the lesson listening to reading writing or speaking about highquality texts. Um the goal that we set at the end of the year was 80%. So we've already um outpaced that um learning walk core action which is huge um
033for the middle of the school year and year one of implementation. In 57% of the classrooms, the lessons integrated grade level reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language standards that really support our students to have deep understanding of the text and the topics. And so this is um something that we need to be working on. And so it's not we we know that our kids are spending the majority of time now in grade level texts and we really want to start focusing on how we're integrating um that to support the deep understanding of the texts. Um, in terms of winter I Ready data, we're basically seeing the same data that we saw last year. And so you've heard me talk about the implementation dip. And so our numbers are steady. 40% of our students this year
034are on grade level um in literacy across all the five different domains. Last year we saw 39%. So a 1% increase um which I would say is it's not significant to even say that there's a huge increase, but um steady there. you know, there's still 60% of our students that are one grade level or below, which um means we need to continue to work. Um and I think it is why we have a literacy priority of all students reading and writing at grade level. And when they're not in place, there's when they're not, there's a plan in place to get them there. Craig talked a little bit earlier about we actually spent today um time as a teaching and learning cabinet unpacking what was working, what wasn't working in our implementation and how all the
035district leaders around the table can really hold a part of this literacy priority um in their day-to-day work with teachers and with staff and with different building administrators. And so we have some steps we're going to take together to to shift that um and hopefully we will see um some increases in this learning walk data when they come back in the spring. Any questions on the K5 literacy update? >> I just have one answer. Could you just speak to the HQIM? So that percent is so high. I'm assuming the curriculum comes with the I'm just trying to like link the materials that come with the curriculum and how do you think about that in terms of like wouldn't we expect it to be high because the does that make sense? >> Yes. Okay. I think
036we would ex we would expect every single student to be engaging with expedential learning when we walk into knowledge classrooms. >> However, we know >> that content >> sh like it shifts to the 60 minutes on paper might not actually be 60 minutes. So there's always going to be this give and take. I don't think we're going to ever see 100% of the time we walk in 100% of the lesson is on expedentiary learning unless you're walking into like the middle of that 60 minutes. Um that's just the nature of elementary schools. Um when we talk about students spending the majority of the lessoning listen to listening to reading, writing, and speaking about texts. Um, in the beginning of a lesson, a lot of times you'll unpack a learning target or you unpack an idea
037that you're about to read about that would not be considered reading, writing, listening, or speaking about >> counting into that overall percentage. >> Correct. Correct. So, that's where you're going to you're never going to see 100% of these metrics. Okay. Um, when we start talking about the 57% where students are >> engaging in deep understanding of the text, that's really getting into like the questions that are being asked by the teacher or what exactly they're being asked to do with the text. Um, are they unpacking this one vocabulary word that has to do with the text or that's not really important for them. And so that's the piece that now we're really thinking about like the art of teaching literacy and what does that look like for teachers and that's the the third piece that
038we need to really focus on now. >> Awesome. Are the instructional coaches a piece of that? >> They are um >> I believe they engage in the learning walks um as well and each building has their own kind of like data set that then they identify action steps at each building to kind of take. these numbers are um across all 28 classrooms where we kind of stay at >> just seems like a train of trainer opportunity almost if they're able to participate in a couple things. >> I also know that there are learning walks happening on a monthly basis between building administration um and the curriculum supervisor of literacy. um these numbers are really coming from TNTP, which is nice because it's giving us an outside perspective, unbiased perspective, um of what's happening in our
039classrooms um because they don't necessarily know the story of the classroom or the story of the teacher. And so they're really giving us >> um clean data versus >> data that might be influenced by personal opinion. >> That's great. And they'll do one more this year. Great. Thanks a lot, >> Carrie. You talked about the 40% on grade level. Is that an average from from K to five? Is or does it vary? Are we seeing variations in in the different grade levels? >> I did not pull this data off the top of my head by grade level. I pulled K5 data. So K5 students, if we put them all in one big bucket, 40% of K5 students are >> on grade level according to I Ready in the winter. >> And last year 39% were
040in >> Yeah. the winter >> if you had to and this would be I guess in a sense a complete guess. Do you do we see a better progression as they get older or do you feel like that 40% holds from grade level to grade level? Because there's obviously a big a big difference in in the learning environment of a kindergartenner versus a fifth grade. We're at different schools just trying guessing. >> Yeah. I guess in the future if we could get that and >> there may not be anything to that. I guess maybe just from a standpoint of are we seeing a difference in the lower grades and it drops off in the upper grades or vice versa, right? >> Yeah. I don't know off the top of my head. I will tell you
041that in our teaching and learning cabinet um this afternoon in April which is when we'll meet next we are going to do like a dive of like comparison of school to school, grade level to grade level dem like um subgroup >> data. Um so that is the plan to really dive deep into that um work there and then >> going back that 40% is is kind of a predictable number if I recall based on the fact that new curriculum we see the dip kind of and then and then we then it increases and much like what we saw with the math side. So we're kind of that 40% if I recall right is the is that dip. >> Yeah. I mean we're not see if we look if we're looking holistically we're seeing actually an
042increase of 1% compared to last year. So we're not seeing a dip now in reading because you have two strands, right? Like so you are are developing phonics and decoding and then you're developing comprehension in literature and vocabulary. Expedentiary learning is really only focusing on the comprehension and the vocabulary. We're at this point in time we have materials in the hands of teachers for phonics, but we really haven't like doubled down on our implementation of the phonics. When we say 40%, it's taking both strands of the rope and saying overall they're at 40%. So we also need to do a deep dive in the different domains to see if we're seeing a dip or a growth in kind of vocabulary and comprehension because that we could tie into the expedentiary learning explicitly. >> Okay, great.
043>> Yeah, quick questions. Thank you for the updates. You may not have this answer now, but I just would be curious if you have it in the future. We always talk about it. you know, attendance equals, you know, better performance in schools. Do you have a correlation with these numbers this time? I think at some point you could put that together. That'd be awesome. And the second part, do you track how support at home is correlated to these numbers? If you can even track that kind of stat, >> I don't know how we would track that because I don't know what quantifiable data we could get, >> right? Um, I mean, we know, not Milford specific, but we know the more words and vocabulary and language that students are exposed to early on in development,
044they're coming to kindergarten more literate, right? Um, and so we're we could we could point to that, but it's really hard to quantify um what support at home would even mean and look like. Um there's also a big difference in we're testing the students in English, >> right? >> They might be proficient in their home language. And we know at our elementary levels that >> more than 50% of our students first language is not English at home, right? >> And so that is potentially playing a piece in here, which is why we really need to be pulling this apart um by demographics and different subgroups. >> Appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> M has one more question. Y >> is there a GI for re for literacy like just is there like an equivalent program?
045I don't know. >> I don't know of one. I I think if there was one Carol would love to have it because she's very jealous of like the penguin walking around. >> Um she tried to get off the ground running um >> the pigeon from Don't Let the Pigeon Ride the Bus, but it just doesn't have the same take as >> Okay, thanks. Thanks, Matt. >> Pigeons aren't as good as penguins. We know that. That's just how it is. >> All right. Thank you for that. >> I think just wants to dress up as >> No, I'm good. >> It would have to be small, whatever it is. >> I have one more update for you, which is an out ofstate field trip request. Um, this is coming from Memorial Elementary School from grade 1
046um students. They're looking for your approval to go to Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence. Um they're looking at June 11th as their date. Um because it's out of state, it does need your vote for approval. Um and just a little bit of background here. Um the reason they're going to Roger Williams Zoo as opposed to Southwick Zoo is because they go to Southwick Zoo in kindergarten and they don't want to go to the same zoo in first grade. And in addition, the um Roger Williams Park Zoo focuses on the structural adaptations to help animals survive in their habitat hat. They have a program there um that our kids will engage with um and it's part of the grade one curriculum. So that's the why out of state travel for this field trip request. >>
047Any questions on the travel? >> Make a motion to approve the out of state travel. >> Motion by Megan, second by Yes. Second. >> Chris. All in favor? >> Unanimous. Thank you for that. All right, we can go on to the report of the school business administrator. >> Thank you. Um, so I would like to uh walk you through the budget report of uh this year. Um, the bottom line is 2.5 million uh which is a little higher than the same time last year. Um, however, I want to um just talk about some accounts that I'm I'm watching and monitoring. Um first of all um if you go to other school services uh transportation um even with the offset it's still um going in deficit uh and we still have um several kids in evaluation
048several kids in referral so depending on where they accept it um the transportation cost can vary um so I'm watching that um and the Well, the um tuition, if you look at the tuition and the offset, um I don't believe we're going to use up all the uh tuition um fund. So maybe it it'll be offset from the tuition leftover. Um and the athletics uh account, the balance is now $11,000. Um I also I because we just processed the the spring coaches statements and I don't believe we have entered it in payroll. So if we added that that's going to be another accounts going to be going to red. Um in the next budget meeting I will um update on that too and also um move to um operations and maintenance um the heating of
049the building. Last year we u spent 375,000 for the whole year and um I encumbered a little more than that but by February we're we already spend 90,000 more than than February last year. So I'll have to I I I was um I I decided to like increase incumbrance by 90,000. So that puts that um heating up the building account further in the deficit. Um utilities um we spent 772,000 in electricity last year and um basically I'm encumbering the same amount. I don't know that's my anticipation right now. But um that so those accounts um combined and with a little bit balance in the maintenance of buildings um make the total balance of operation maintenance only $3,000 left. Um so but last year we overspend this account by 176,000 and with the leftover money like
050on not spending money from in introduction money uh instruction money. >> Um so we'll see how that goes but overall the the bottom line is healthy for now. Um so just keep monitoring. Um I I won't stop spending until April. So by April I should have better idea. >> Questions? >> Question. When obviously you know every year we go through balance transfers so to offset those >> particular lines that that go into a deficit. >> Looking um so the the substitutes long-term versus substitute short-term. Obviously, the substitute shortterm has a a significant balance. Is that something that did that change up from the past? Like why why we have such a bigger balance there >> being that we're more than halfway through the the year? >> If you look at the budget, we actually only
051budgeted in in one line. We combined long-term and >> Oh, you did. >> short-term as in one pocket. >> But I'm seeing two >> Yes. two lines, but we only have 633,000 for both. >> Yeah. Some of the budget zero. Sorry. Right. >> Okay. >> So, that's why >> because some Well, it depending on >> why pull from that if we budget at zero, why pull from that? Why have transactions come out of that budget line? >> We track differently. Even we we budget. It's hard to budget how many positions will be filled by long-term subs. how many are short-term sub, day-to-day subs. >> Uh we budgeted in the same place, but we track them differently. Okay. So it's easier for us to manage. >> Gotcha. >> And track and define solutions to reduce the
052cost. >> And then the other one just out of curiosity. Um so yeah, general supplies obviously we had a you know a a significant budget amount there. there's still some there's still like you know um there's still some some money there. Do you feel like something like that and then we've gone in the past we've gone right down to down to zero just based on again supplies and what we're going to need throughout the rest of the year or is that going to be something we'll probably tap into to move funds around? >> Um we'll see. So by April I would have better idea from the principles. I would talk to every principles and see what they estimate. >> Okay. >> In the budget uh balance. >> All right. >> As long as that last
053number is you're saying is healthy, I believe it. That's the >> So all right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? No. Thanks. >> Okay. And personnel update. We hired the um spring coaches and um some turnovers in supporting staff and um I know Chris has a question about the um credit recovery program. >> Yeah, credit recovery camp. Uh Dr. Carrie, prior to the meeting, she gave me the the feedback on that. So, okay, >> if anybody else has any questions, >> go see Carrie. >> All right. >> But yeah, so I appreciate the the feedback. I I had reached out just out of curiosity what it was. Uh Carrie and I connected and I have a very good understanding of what the credit recovery camp was. >> Great. >> All right. Thank you.
054>> Let's move on to the consent agenda. Does anybody have anything to pull out for this? I see not. Okay. So, we'll have um four items in the consent agenda tonight. It will include the following. the approval of 14 warrants in the amount of 1,258,4791. The approval of minutes from the February 5th, 2026 meeting, professional development in the amount of $5,44810. And then one grant in the amount of $111,000. Approve uh looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion by Megan, second by Derek. >> All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. Subcommittee updates, I believe. Yeah, facilities met. I know we actually had a kickoff yesterday, too. So, facilities, a lot of a lot of the the same. Uh um you know, just some just kind of discussing general facilities projects, which really weren't
055a lot. You know, it's it's more Carlos chasing heating problems out and around uh the five schools. Um you know, we're always keeping an eye on the roof. I think we we unders kudos to Carlos that created a um a leak catching system that goes to gutters and goes into buckets. So certainly will reduce the amount of of buckets needed in around. So uh so again his creativity uh is shown from that standpoint and to uh because we know based on the fact of how much it snowed and the age of this roof and the fact that the new school is in the works that this roof's going to leak. So, I appreciate what Carlos's creativity in that department. Uh, we've also just talked about school assessments, right, and looking at our other schools and
056and utilizing our current budget to look at our other schools and do the same type of assessment that we had at Stacy Middle School so that way we can be proactive on our on our budgeting. Um, and then yeah, yesterday we did the kickoff really. So, we have James Reefy from um Next Level. He's all he's the same OPM we're using for the high school project. Uh we picked James or the administration picked James to be the OPM for Stacy HVAC upgrades. So not a lot to report right now other than the fact that we're just getting things going and uh he understands our target goals and what needs to be accomplished. So uh that might be something that we might want to put on our agenda as maybe a monthly update. not necessarily every
057>> every meeting, but uh just so the committee understands where we are in the uh the process and um and what the timelines are. So, >> thank you. Any other groups meeting in the last couple weeks? >> All right. Go to future agenda items. So, I'll um just let you know what I have on the list currently and then we can add anything else. We have obviously what Chris just mentioned. We'll do some sort of monthly update on the Stacy project considering that's going to be a larger and longer term um project. I do owe the committee the evaluation tool for the superintendent so we can all review it and uh accept that together. So, that's something that I will work on given the midyear goals update we just received. And then I also have
058on here to schedule I would recommend two budget meetings in the near future um to give us a couple swings at going through the list of initiatives after we've had the ch the uh the time to review what we've already discussed. So um I'll ask Craig and and Melissa to reach out with some options for us to uh start tackling this. I assume the group will want to do that individually on a Wednesday or something and not just tack on before this meeting in smaller chunks. That sound appropriate either way. >> I'm good with that. Get more flexibility in some of the others. >> Yeah. How long? >> Um I would say two two hours is probably a good >> a good chunk to go with. Um >> All right. >> We're going to try
059to take some shots at that and see how far we get. Is there anything else that anyone wants to add to the list? >> Uh, yes. Ebike policy. >> Ebike policy. >> Hard to believe that spring will be coming, but yeah, I think that's again just something let's get ahead of it as far as uh with the springtime coming, we saw a little bit of issues in and around town with ebikes. So, just and I know that Craig had brought it up uh to try to get a little bit of uh some thoughts. So, um let's figure out if we do if we needed a policy and what that policy would be. So, >> is that something that you want to pass with policy policy or just want to have a full discussion on it?
060>> I worry that the policy committee has a lot going on. So, if we can fit it into our schedule, >> sure, >> great. If not, I'll have to defer to policy and you guys are going to have to come up with at least maybe some groundwork, but um >> Fair. >> Yeah. >> But it might be as just as easy as having uh Chief Tino in or even with Chief Tino working with uh Superintendent Conigley and uh go from there. >> Sure. So, and what you know, and what do the principles want? You know, overall, I'm just looking at it from a safety standpoint. >> Got it. >> All right, >> Matt. I don't have an additional item, but it's just a a timing consideration. Uh, given we're in the midst of teacher negotiations
061that have a lot of components. I didn't even know if we'd want to move out approval of next year's school calendar pending some resolution on some of the context that we're talking about. I just wanted to suggest that. I don't need an answer. I just wanted to offer it. Yeah, the just real quick, the only issue is we have to I think what one thing that we should do is just um finalize the start date because we have to put that on just different um registration packets and such. >> Totally fair. >> Just wanted to offer it because it's a lot of things. >> That's going to be I believe on next meeting. I think there was supposed to be this meeting. So, we'll talk about it next meeting. Sounds like we'll just come up
062with a tentative start as part of that and we can always change it after. Right. >> All right. Uh just note that down. All right. Anything else? I see not. So that will get us to adjournment tonight and we can end with a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Motion by Chris, second by Brendan. All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you very much and good night.