001good evening and welcome to the April 27 2023 regular session of the Milford school committee meeting this meeting is being broadcast by Milford TV and copies can be obtained at the request of this board or through central office hello everybody good to see everybody our first agenda item tonight is our student representative update these chances hi thank you um so first of all um I'll start with a few events coming up so there's the junior prom being held this Saturday um and on top of that we also have all of the AP tests starting in the next few weeks uh so the prom is a nice little distraction from that little fun before that all um in other news the student advisory Council met on Monday so um this is a group of high school
002students who meet with the principals probably every other month every few months to discuss uh student issues student matters so in previous meetings we've discussed student mental health and trying to have a better access to support within our school um but in this meeting our discussions were more about making um the school more clean more comfortable um because you know our learning environment is very important it's important to have pride in our learning spaces make us want to be there make us want to go to school and learn so um one component of that is just um just a matter of cleanliness within our school so I I don't know if you guys have walked around the school but you there are various stains all around the ceilings and the walls like brown waterstones that
003aren't very aren't very pleasing to look at there's um I know down by that hallway there's like a hole in the ceiling that sometimes trash gets thrown up there so it's just um the students were discussing just ways that we can tackle that and another Focus was on the bathrooms um because there are issues with students loitering in the bathrooms um between classes issues of people vaping and the bathrooms and just overall cleanliness as well as some like broken broken stall locks within the and some sink and soap dispensers that don't work which students kind of just know to avoid which ones just because they've been out of order for so long um and so we were kind of hoping to bring up more discussions on how to uh make our school more cleanly nicer
004place to be another topic of discussion were uh the ideas of um Pathways in our course advisory um and so we discussed a lot about finding ways to update it so students knew so students are more aware of everything that's offered everything that's on the table um especially for upcoming or for eighth graders that are coming into High School one of the changes that we discussed was trying to um help these 8th graders map out their entire four years of high school go into high school and map out their classes with a goal in mind sort of an end goal in mind and so this could include Pathways such as a biomeda biomedical pathway where you're taking a certain pltw class every single year with kind of an end goal in mind um and there
005was a lot of positive feedback on this idea all the students um were very interested in this just because um a lot of us were upperclassmen and we found in recent years that we've been exposed to we've heard about classes that kind of we regret not taking that we just didn't know about um there's some really cool offerings in our school and they're really good programs that go all through the four years of high school that um just haven't been very well advertised um so we just think that planning it out with the four years in mind rather than picking year by year and just kind of losing out on opportunities because of this is just something that we want to discuss a little bit more and work towards um segwaying a little bit so
006this is actually this is my last meeting here um as a student representative um I don't know it's been three years or something yeah and so I just wanted to reflect on my time here briefly um so I guess when I first started um as a student rep I was just really interested in the idea of being on live TV and although I enjoy talking about upcoming events like prom and other exciting news um I think what's made the difference for me was like the issues that I brought up um brought to the table and seeing some of the things that I've presented get addressed and um I think that was something that was really positive for me it made me feel like my voice was heard and made me feel like I could make
007positive change and this is actually something I wrote about in one of my um supplemental essays for college about how this experience has helped me grow and learn to be an advocate and that's something that I want to continue doing down the line as I graduate and I think just being able to being exposed to all of you guys and being able to listen to the way that you guys can speak with such confidence with such ease and then learning some of the administrative lingo and other I don't know other things that most students don't know about that runs kind of behind the scenes in a school um I think that this has been a super valuable experience and I hope that you guys can see the value of having student representative to this committee
008um and how that can help certain students grow as uh advocators and change makers so thank you for having me here and teaching me so much questions first go ahead um going back to the start of your update thank you for sharing the information about the building not great to hear it do you guys have a method that's been communicated to you with students to report this kind of stuff to staff so that I can get addressed um so I don't there's not a formal method that I have heard of aside from this word of mouth but that was actually one of the topics we discussed in the student advisory um Council was maybe having sort of an anonymous recording system specifically for bathrooms like um so this could relate to just like if things
009have kind of gone gotten run down in bathrooms or if we've we're in the bathroom while other students are vaping or trashing it and just basically reporting it so that Administration can come to the area and just do it do with their shoes absolutely I think excellent any other questions go ahead so similar to what Matt was asked about what you were speaking about the really idea as students the person knows is I bet your guidance counselors would love to hear about this right because as they're trying to help you plan out your course so do you feel like a student said is feedback you're able to give the guidance counselors or even thinking of maybe the associate principal to help you with that because I think that's a really great idea and you know
010we love to hear about it and I know we do have administrators present here but I think the actual staff in the high school should hear about that because of that that is really good idea um I do think so after um we went on the learning Excursion to San Diego that was one of our takeaways from that trip and so this has been the topic of various discussions so both in the student advisory um it was one of the bigger focuses of the school Improvement Council as well um so there are people who are aware of this and we're just trying to bring this discussion out more um and I I guess I would just like to see more members of like the student body um hearing about this and just getting on board
011okay yeah again thank you for all the information tonight I think my takeaway is the fact that you as a student even as an outgoing student are taking Pride into the future of this building right you know we know this building's old but you in your your the other your other students and your friends are looking at this building and how to improve it and how to make it better and how to keep it clean so you're not just walking away from the problems you want to report problems and you want things fixed so I think that's that just shows from the leadership side of why you were here why you're chosen to be here so again I commend you on that I think um you know that role and if you can kind of
012foster the younger classmates on how to take pride in their building you know and we want to be able to support that so I think that looking ahead and showing us on this committee what the issues are and how and again as Matt said how to report them and we'll come up with a method there I think again just takes a lot of Pride into this this facility itself so so thank you um the other aspect is obviously that this is your last meeting unfortunately and but we know that you're on to great things so I'm going to open up to the board for just quick comments go ahead Michael uh Haley thank you for coming to our board being part of the board I remember talking to Laura when she first um started floating
013the idea and we were reading through the state statute and how it works and going back and forth and to me it was important that this position is an actual board member because the state statute actually says that you are actually a non-voting member of the board um so please make sure you put on your resume by the way so you're an actual School treaty members um but the feedback you provide you know we are the the custodians of the budget as as we've told you so it's important to me that we've got feedback from students thank you for starting this and uh thank you for um uh mentoring the new students coming in somebody else you gotta go last okay I'm going to ignore Megan for a second so if other board members have
014uh anything they'd like to say Haley please no I'll just um thank you Haley for your years here now at this point you've you've provided a lot of feedback and insight and um very candidly and openly and I think we've all you know benefited from it so thank you Robin yeah so thank you for being part of the board I've only known you as capacity for a year but I remember when you were in seventh grade um you've actually like awesome so much like I remember the first time I studied in a meeting thinking saying that he was doing like Middle School track it was really quiet so um no and you're just very talented in so many ways and your music too when you see me play before um you know you're going to
015do great things and this is just one small piece of what you're doing so thank you thank you Brendan yeah I've known you for like 10 minutes but you're you're incredibly impressive um stay involved um I hope if you stay in Milford you run for school committee and actually get elected because you you will um or wherever you wind up stay involved you know that's the big key so congratulations best of luck it seems like we're absolutely gonna miss you thank you my side congratulations best of luck you know you've set this bar very high as our first representative but I know that the the two others are going have learned from you and we expect them to uh be able to just follow in your footsteps so maybe I can speak now at your
016first meeting you came to us with the results of a student survey which we were just so impressed that you're you know the first time you walked in and sat at this table you came prepared and so I thought it would only be appropriate that in honor of your last meeting that we share some survey results with you so I surveyed the committee and administration today and nearly all respondents described you as articulate Poise and intelligence seventy percent of the responses characterize you as confident and thoughtful one respondent noted you are also well dressed while we have a very small doctor can sigley by the way well we have a very small population I am certain that these results are statistically significant from your first meeting you've consistently shown up prepared and been engaged through
017many hours of agenda items I appreciate how seriously you've taken this commitment to this role and really value the perspective and thoughtfulness that you've brought at every opportunity you've done your homework and we really value that and you've really worked to provide a comprehensive voice from the MHS student body which has been so important and with missing before you arrived I'd appreciate that you shared what you learned from this experience and I am certain that everyone's had the honor of sitting here with you has learned from you and so thank you for bringing that to us I am also certain that these accomplishments are just the beginning for you and so I can't wait to see what's up for you at Duke and Beyond and can't wait to be invited there for a visit so
018we can see you in action so thank you for being here it's been amazing thank you thank you thank you very much thank you best wishes All Right Moving On to approval of minutes we have one set of minutes and those are the minutes for the regular session held on April 6 2023 um any discussion there so looking for a motion for accept minutes from April 6 2023. motion by Megan by Michael all in favor all right and that is moving on to announcements correspondence distributions don't we have an exact minutes to prove it um I apologize if I missed it no um yeah sorry my they were in the back but no okay I only read the cover sheet my apologies so let me get down to that I missed that so these are
019these would be approval but not for release yeah it's my apologies and that was on what page it was in the I'm on page 10 10. okay but I think I'm in the middle of that oh no that's just out of page yes page 10. how come mine is different my opponent okay um can you grab me that date Camp April yeah oh it's the same or April 6th it's just the executive session apologies all right so um so approval for minutes for the April 6 Executive session um from 2023 so any discussion there um it's a motion for improved from John seconded by Megan all in favor as you notice thank you all right and then moving on again sorry to announcements correspondence and distributions uh committee members Matt uh yeah so I wanted
020to give a quick announcement about um School meals for next year I know we've had a couple discussions with the last couple of meetings about how we as a town may be able to ensure breakfast and lunch for students um last night the house voted as a complete body to pass their budget which did include funding for not just School meals for next year but permanently and I think this is a massive step in the right direction because we all know that the governor has also stated that she's going to be supporting something like that in the supplemental budget so that's two of the three already in previous years we only had one at this point so um it kind of boxed in the Senate to either fall in line or look like the bad
021guys which is a good thing and things also shifted federally in terms of the cep program that I've shared with you guys I spoke with Carla Tuttle probably about a week ago and the federal data has shifted so it's because the threshold has gone down which has pushed us further into the program and it's given us more money federally and from the state so I do know that as of right now Food Services I'm moving forward with the application for the cep program which again just to remind everybody would remove any need for any family to fill out paperwork to qualify for free reduced lunch so that piece as long as we go through this program would go away and that program would carry along and it does seem like um all but a formality
022of this will stay in fact I don't anticipate a seven to bring that back up again as an agenda item but um if governmental things happen and we'll have to discuss that in the fall but I think we're in good shape of this one I think no any of you I just wanted to say briefly I had the opportunity on April 13th to attend the school day games and it was a bit warm but other than that it was a really great day and for anyone who's not familiar with it um students from all the elementary schools including shining star and Stacy students with disabilities are partnered with buddies without disabilities and play collaboratively in a unified fashion a variety of games with students from the high school women without disabilities actually being the ones
023to run the games and so it was really great lots of smiles lots of drinking water too it was one of those like 85 days we had but it was a really nice time and you know Jen Walsh and everybody else involved and really wonderful things and they do it every year and I just wanted to mention that thank you Robin appreciate that anything else which does remind me the best buddies pageant is tomorrow night at Milford High School I believe it's five o'clock start uh it might be six okay six o'clock start great thank you appreciate it I am good for today all right excellent all right very good moving on to invitations invitation speech all right thank you please come up yeah so I guess yeah quickly uh Milford school committee welcomes community
024members to speak at this portion of our meeting speakers are allowed five minutes to present to this board committee members will listen but not respond to the direct questions but can suggest a topic to be added to the Future meetings all right thank you um Mike's got it perfect do I have to introduce myself Ernie please if you could that'd be great my name is Darcy um my sons Goes to School in Milford so thank you um it's nice to see everybody's faces this time around being here so we currently have a culture that's hell-bent on influing influencing our children through woke ideologies and curriculums over teaching the truth my son is in sixth grade and the fact that on his first day of health class I had to learn that he had to fill
025out a survey with a question on it asking what his pronouns are is absolutely unnecessary and my son will not partake in any of the silly indoctrination and neither should anyone else this question if being asked should not be a mandatory question in the schools on any forms if you are going to have a question like this on a survey for the students leave it optional it should not be forced on them to choose an answer schools across the country want to start pushing all this information on children as young as kindergarten so that these kids are being conditioned as the years go on and they just go on with life thinking this is all normal when it's not normal this is not normal at all I want my son being taught backs not personal
026beliefs why does everyone have to cater to this it is absurd we live literally have adults husbands and wives that are married and have kids that feel the need to have pronouns and introduce themselves in school as such and in emails and meetings this way why speaking with our children about pronouns or that you believe there are multiple genders in schools Insanity having to sit through a gender identity movie in school is another sign of conditioning and maybe getting them to a point to start thinking about this hmm I wonder what it's like to be a boy or a girl a cat a fairy or a potato maybe I should try to identify as these it is an attention grabber right now identifying as something else is a trend kids always fall for Trends they
027should not be subject to this in class I guarantee that most parents have no idea what is being talked about and shown in class on this and I'm sure if they knew this you would have a lot more pushback on it this is too much and wrong information for young children there are other things they should be focusing on rather than getting confused by their identity at such a young age the force of this topic is out of control there is now an obsessive need to and push for validation which shows you are not secure in who you are I deeply sympathize with the young children out there that are confused I really do because something more is clearly going on and we should maybe be asking ourselves what is bringing these kids to really
028think such things about themselves we shouldn't have to add on names because someone decided they wanted to be something they weren't born to be pushing this on innocent young children is confusing live your life and be happy with who you are and stop trying so hard to look for validation acceptance of ourselves should not be contingent on the on other people agreeing with how you feel tolerance goes both ways respect people with beliefs that do not align with yours children are already inclusive tolerant and accepting by Nature until they are given reason not to be there is no need to push any ideology down their throats to teach them how to be so gender ideology is also a trojan horse to pedophilia there is no pride in sexualizing and indoctrinating children I would like to
029make one thing very clear I don't have any hate or anything for Trans or gay people I simply hate the control culture behind it it is really quite simple be with who you want dress how you want do what you want but don't ever demand to change anyone else's language because of their choices no one ever cared about this until it was being shoved in everyone's faces especially our children don't ask yourself how we got here if you contribute to an ideology that is lacking of any morals and is obsessed with labels I want you to really think about this children under the age of 18 are not even allowed to make major decisions yet they cannot purchase alcohol a firearm they cannot go on a field trip or get a tattoo or piercing without
030consent they cannot drive until 16. they aren't even allowed in a rated R movie if they are under 17 without a parent accompanying them but we live in a society where we are now allowing children children to choose their own gender and identity what makes you think that indoctrinating and confusing these young children is a good idea why would any parent even let a young child think that they are something different than what they were born as I considered myself a tomboy growing up never did I ever think hmm maybe I should try being a boy because I like doing boy things and dressing tomboyish never did my parents push that I should maybe explore my gender or sexuality little boys sometimes like to play with their sisters Barbies or dolls so does that make
031them a girl trapped in a boy's body or gay no it does not let kids be kids kids go through phases our brains are not fully developed until we are in our mid to late 20s yet again we are leaving such decisions to children to be making and adults are just going along with this they are not capable of making lifelong decisions at one time this used to be common knowledge all children should know they can do anything regardless of their race religion or gender and to respect others I want to close with these questions for you to think about what do you think this is doing to our next Generation has anyone thought about the consequences of allowing children to be doing these things where does this all end thank you Chris if I
032can just say something and it's not responding to this uh specifically but I I thank you for coming up here and and presenting your thoughts and ideas and what I would encourage you and anybody else with with an agenda to present your ideas is to reach out to us individually we're elected officials here to represent you and we if you call us or email us directly we can engage in some conversation and here this is not the form for that it's not a gender item we're not it's not a gender item it's prohibited by the open meeting law so we can't engage with you right now but I welcome you to reach out to me or anybody else here and and not just you everybody who comes here with these ideas because it's not as
033effective well it's it has some effect but there can be a different effect if you reach out individually to us because we are here as elected officials okay thank you John for that advice yeah appreciate it thank you all right moving on from invitation to speak together you show you okay yeah I can reach out to the schools a few times mm-hmm moving on from invitation speak to uh the vote on the last day of school for 2022 2023. so Dr Mcintyre sure um basically this is just a change in the days of the last day of school due to snow days and I believe and correct me on this it's the 21st is now the last day of school is that accurate yes okay that's what I had too so we'd be voting on
034the 21st being the last day of school and the reason we have the Juneteenth holiday on Monday we've had two snow days it shifts to Wednesday of that week which is the 21st yes which is a Wednesday sorry right yeah okay yeah correct so Wednesday yeah so the last day of school would be June 21st is that a half a day Kevin it is a half day excellent so looking for a motion to accept for the last day of school being June 21st 2023 motion by Michael second by Matt all in favor unanimous and I'll send that out just for the families tomorrow all right and hopefully we have no other weather and the end of the school year yeah and I'm going to knock on wood on that one all right yeah really um
035moving on next agenda item is the for FY 2024 the annual uh by County collaborative uh board of directors appointment of our superintendent so um looking for a motion to appoint Dr Kevin McIntyre to the Bi-County collaborative on their board of directors motion by Brendan second by Megan all in favor and that is unanimous and for Brendan our new member this is a this is an annual appointment it's a something I've been involved in for the last seven years there we go thank you Kevin excellent all right moving on to uh subcommittee assignments I left everybody's subcommittee the new subcommittee assignments on everybody's desk um but I will go through them and I kind of uh I broke it up a little bit this year um kind of into two categories uh one being our
036kind of our normal school committee uh business type of subcommittees and uh a separate item or a separate row of of subcommittees that are from the Union contract so um policy subcommittee will consist of Robin Brendan and myself budget will consist of John Megan and Matt long-range planning will consist of John Matt and myself marketing and communication will be Michael and Brendan and the Milford TV board representative will be Michael and then per our Union contract the health and safety Megan will continue on that from the sick Bank Robin if you continue on that climate culture and morale again Robin love you continue on that and then the I.T and Technology both Matt and Mike will continue on that one any questions or concerns from from the board on that does not require a vote
037and if there is any type of issues please reach out to me yes um no matter what sick Bank does Robin so when there is a staff member who is eligible and wants to be able to tap into the sick bank to get these approved because they otherwise wouldn't be able to be paid the committee comes together which has a school committee representative and then other individuals within the district including Union representation who come together and talk about whether or not but is it is it a bank of sick days from the community each each teacher puts one sick day into the bank each year that's okay would it be a conflict I think it would depend if it was a person who I had a personal relationship with I would recuse myself um but
038my opinion it's just opinion it would be no it's not that's true because I've considered it because I you know in past roles good all right good moving on from subcommittee assignments uh to a discussion on the director of facilities and maintenance position we don't need to vote you don't need to vote okay it does say vote but it's uh it's an assignment all right perfect yep perfect um no problem uh moving on director of facilities and maintenance position update um and the interview committee discussions sure do you want me to walk you through yes please you open up for discussion so um that we've posted the position for the director of facilities it's going to close on May 1st we plan to do the pre-screening on May 2nd we've received somewhere in I think
039about 25 applications so far give or take which is good news I'm sorry how many about 25 okay thereabouts um I just didn't hear at all I'm sorry yeah no that's okay that's okay the um interview dates we're targeting right now is May 8th and 9th and the potential interview team Kathy are you back on the 8th and 9th all right so I'm going to leave you off the list um is well this is what I'd like to propose is Dr consigli two school committee members two billing administrators one representative from the custodians group uh the Milford Fire Chief for a designee are representatives from Parks and or high the highway department uh two parents or community members and again if the committee feels that they want to add somebody or you know adjust this
040a little bit I plan on reaching out starting tomorrow to kind of pull the committee together with the goal being sending two to four finalists to me basically ideally three um but you know two to four works I always worry if we have two if one drops out then you really only have one candidate um so if at this point and we'd have predetermined questions in the process we generally generally follow and then I'll open up for discussion and any questions I just have one question um with the job posting what did the salary range also get posted with it okay do you know the answer then it was commensurate with experience yeah okay I was just curious because like 25 seems like a pretty good number so I was wondering if that was in
041light of the salary range or if it didn't exist and I wonder if that would actually exclude some people if they did not feel like it was as chair and vice chair I met with Kathy and excuse me Kevin and there's a lot of thoughts that go with this but it's commensurate with the experience because you might have somebody that's relatively new to the field and can grow into the job and you know that wouldn't warrant as much as someone comes in with a 20-year experience thinking sure hit more off the bat and obviously Kathy's taking over a lot of responsibilities and could bring somebody up into you know somebody newer so that's the discussion I remember Chris correct yep um if I come with a question on the makeup of the committee and this
042is maybe an awkward question coming from me serving as school committee of the Building Commissioner but I don't know if it was intended that I might be one of the two school committee members but given that you know the fire chief somebody from Parks and Highway parents and committee members if I wasn't to build information I would think you'd want the Building Commissioner sitting in on that interview at building commission so I'll take your thunder no I was gonna suggest I'm sorry no I understood it puts you in an awkward position yeah it's not that it's an ask it's yeah I mean no I think that makes perfect sense yes it's okay it makes sense I mean I don't you know I don't know what Parks Highway would be a town official that is more
043relevant or yeah and I think that it's reasonable to put the building commission on obviously John serves two roles being on this committee but also you know the the day job at Building Commissioner and just his knowledge um the knowledge from The Building Commissioner side and how it would tie into this facilities director I think would be beneficial and that would still keep us below the level of Quorum too which is good correct yes in this in this position is um and maybe that was some you know reason for your your your proposal but this position as facilities works on a regular basis with the both the fire chief and the building correct so um and the highway department so if you're a solicit in town advice it makes it makes sense to include that
044position I don't mean me individually I just happen to be there right now you you had me at the recommendation I don't sell it anymore you know me I know I know you have any thoughts yes please are you gonna do like an A B format I think we're going to just do maybe one group this time you might yeah I'll I'll consider it though I'll look at it no it's a good it's a good question Megan thank you Kevin who will the position so I think we're going to keep it the way it was previously where it would be the assistant superintendent for business internal resources so I might have misheard you before I believe you said you had interview days where that where Kathy's not around that I didn't hear you correctly you
045did okay I I anticipate her and I interviewing the finals sorry so you're saying the pre-round are you comfortable with that I am comfortable with that okay and we've talked about that too okay when we're bringing folks through we'll have a meet with like principals and myself and got it that's what we've done with principals and central office folks in the past okay and Kathy would be a big part of that okay I just wanted to clarify thanks thank you Megan for bringing that up um any other questions yeah I guess also are we looking for as far as reaching out to the you know parents or community members is that just uh how will we I would put that again okay in that email and we're posted on social media as well yeah so
046that email can go out to our to the parents in school we'll look in community member-wise is there any other we probably put it on our Facebook page put it on Twitter um and probably talk to some groups that distribute stuff for us Jen okay Michael you have a suggestion no there's a question um I'm not against this but why would we have two two community members like I understand like administrators they work with Community this position almost never works the community just just out of curiosity we get a lot of community feedback um around facilities I think we saw we saw some of that earlier today yeah thank you did you say you know I don't have a teacher on here I can add a teacher well I just feel as though they have
047such a buy-in with this position we're getting to two committees I think in which we can do very easily yeah um we'll be looking to do this in person also yes okay yes yes um you know what we have done to accommodate folks if they're out of the area or applying from out of the area initially we do we do accommodate for Zoom right okay or Google meet so we've done just traditionally but we expect people to be in person for the most okay uh those interviews on the eighth and 9th are looking like after probably like probably like five to eightish yeah okay yeah depending on you know the numbers five and highness something like that all right yeah understanding committee oh go ahead sorry Kevin kind of curious so look at we feel
048like that's sufficient time I appreciate that we have a fair amount of applicants um it just feels like that's you know what we've done in the past is if we don't get a good applicant pool we'll spend the date or we'll open it a second for a second okay fine but I think we've got a you know I think a reasonable applicant pool right now okay indeed indeed yes yes yeah yeah we've got some great applique yeah volume doesn't necessarily mean quality so I just wanted to make sure we felt yeah and if we don't have the quality when we do the pre-screen we will go back out too and we can do that at any point apprehensive so I didn't necessarily want to rush it if we didn't feel like we the pool yeah
049was there so yeah so if the pool isn't there then we'd repost I'd agree I don't really want to rush this one at all it's a pretty critical position and um something I didn't mention earlier mentioned or emphasized earlier is this position also works very closely with that Highway there's a lot of contacts were out there now and it's you know this needs to be it seems to be a thanks thanks for participating thanks for having me so I don't know if you want to identify two school committee members who are able tonight what I'll help them do just they can reach out to uh via email to me and CC Dr Mcintyre or vice versa just so we we know and I agreement yeah exactly everybody um especially yeah go back look at your
050schedules figure out if you'll be able to make those dates and uh yeah let us know over the next couple days would be great I'm good perfect good all right any any other questions right moving on so next agenda item is uh to discuss uh legal counsel representation I'm going to turn this right over to Michael yeah for his take on us um so being on the board now for three point two years um and especially you know through covid and then for this year um when I've run my last business I had you know three uh lawyers one from you know employment one for riparian rights you know what that is and then one for general liability um and so in here I've noticed uh we all call Jerry and um I called Jerry
051a lot and he always reminds me he's happy to talk to us but then he reminds me I'm I'm your labor counsel and then over the time we've talked to you know Town Council and that's been hit or miss over the past four four years um and then it just dawned onto me Jerry's gonna he's trying to retire um like Kevin said he'll probably retire after long after us but it just seemed to make sense that we we have some gaps here and here and there and looking into other school districts you usually have a firm um that represents and learned that there's a special education yeah we have a group uh Murphy who to me Hessian lahain I think I'm saying that right I might have changed one of the consonants um who who
052does basically special education student discipline um and they'll take some cases that maybe are a little more complex or educationally focused that are like um like would fall into the labor category um they'll do like you know anything around like some free speech stuff we've done too if there's been a challenge um in my tenure here um so they cover some some of those areas that aren't covered by either the Town Council because it's very Specialized or the labor Council yeah so my thought was um just to start a discussion it seems like maybe it's this firm uh maybe it's another firm it seems like we need somebody to represent the you know the the school committee in the school district who specializes in Chapter 70 and special ed and you know the broad area
053and so I just wanted to throw out there um again um you know obviously we want to let Jerry retire at some point uh but they're just seeing some gaps I just wanted to get a discussion going and saying hey did you do anything we want to look start looking for a firm and again it was the one that we would retain um at the school Community level I think anybody have questions towards Michael on this subject man it's awesome wow please go ahead I have some thoughts if nobody else does I'm not so yes Jerry's Jerry's definitely a labor counseling he's also filled double duty as Town Council um we've had aside from Jerry over the last six years give or take we've had two other individuals serving as Town Council um but what
054my question is what's our objective and what are we getting if we're looking for a firm you know we have an ongoing situation right now that's in executive session that you know we might benefit from hiring a specialty attorney for but if we're going to hire a firm do we you know what are we looking for because we don't know what the next problem is we know what this problem is and so if we hire some of that we might deem you know we need a firm that has an expert employment attorney what's the next one and does this firm have that so I kind of want to qualify what we're looking for and then come you know I don't know I don't know how this works on the procurement end with if it's like
055accounting where you don't need to go out to bid I mean this is such so specialized what are we getting so um you know I'm willing to definitely wanted to talk more but I'm not sure what where I don't think we've Quantified what we're looking for yet but if we want to evolve that by all means yeah usually when you have multiple lawyers involved there's usually one lawyer who's the general counsel who helps coordinate all the Outreach of the specialized right and so if you bring a firm in you might have your the one lawyer who's your one person you go to and then if there's a specialized question they will help coordinate that that that um legal counsel and if it's in-house creatives not they'll go find something for you and it's usually you
056know like if you have questions on policies you know stuff like that you know we have a lot of general questions here and like I said we we individually call Jerry we ask Jerry in in in in this room we have Town Council who's doing a bazillion other things in the town and just like if I want to call a lawyer to ask a question about schools I don't know who to call except for Jerry and so I think that's that's the Gap that I'm trying to fill is you know who is our who is our lawyer that represents the school district that we could ask a lot of questions on and they'll help us go find the answers I think right now the answer is we have a Town Council that if he can't
057if he doesn't have the time or doesn't have the area of expertise he can he can direct us I mean I've I work in I've worked in other towns that don't have in-house Town Council so they they Outsource it and what I find there is sometimes when they're attorneys in-house attorneys don't really have the area of expertise they're not really redirecting outside whether you're going to go pay somebody else they're going to give you an answer even if it's not their expertise so I want a lot more detail on what we're I mean I guess first we want to Define what we're looking for a little bit more specifically and I don't consider anything but I just want to know what the response response expectations are and on top of that we can't have when
058you have outside counsel we have in-house counsel any any of us in this room can call Jerry O'Brien and ask them a question but once we call an outside firm you know the meter starts ticking it whatever hourly rate they are and we need a policy or understanding of who can call I mean I don't I don't think all seven of us can just call it the ticket ticket is going to be running when we might be I'll ask him the same question getting the same answer but we'll build seven times for it so just same thing with Jerry I'm sure he built us what we call it no he doesn't no he's going to manual rate so and that being said if I could jump in John just to kind of further we have
059rules of engagement when we um engage with our we have we have a lead attorney for Murphy hasi to me and lahain which I think a lot of you guys have met Felicia um but there's also been a couple times where there's been a specialized situation that they bring a different attorney on um you know maybe we're on Title IX is one example um and you know principal central office special education who generally deal with um The Firm have very specific Rules of Engagement about how they kind of address it because we don't want yeah yeah exactly I think I definitely supported Michael I think where you started was really relevant to me like at some point you know Mr Moody will decide he does really actually want to retire and he's been helping us
060for so long I think it would be prudent of us to start to think about when that time comes sort of what direction are we going to head even if it's just labor Council kind of you know when would be you know the next right individual so I think starting the conversation and you know talking to him and aligning timing probably makes a lot of sense just so we're ahead of it yeah and I you know I don't think Jerry has a timeline in mind but certainly you know we don't know how long this process would take on our side too you know in in this board you know every year at this time has definitely had some bit of turnover so you know certainly we've got you know it's in the best interest for
061this board currently and in the future board so you know I appreciate Mike bringing this to our attention I think you know there's it's just scratching the services more work to do it does it require you know some type of exploratory committee subcommittee to to kind of hone in on the process and talk um outside you know to to be productive so you know certainly we can we can explore those options you can tell me Mike what your thoughts were on that angle and you know you kind of are taking the lead on this so I will I will follow your lead yeah just from my experience I you usually just interview a couple firms and then figure out you know um who you like and whatnot if we have something routine it might just
062be talking to that firm and saying hey really feel the need again I'm looking for consistency you know somebody that is just that that that legal counselor who brings like Jerry that consistency throughout um you know forward I don't know I would say maybe a few of us just reach out to a couple of firms or work with Kevin on who we have um and expanding that well if I can clarify like two different areas to make the point Jerry's Jerry's not here forever although he might be but we we're looking for talking about replacing Jerry or we looking to supplement you know our labor Council and town council's role with with that I would say something that you know obviously Jerry had a ton of information so having somebody come in before retires to
063start to absorb what he's been doing um I think makes you know smart I don't think there's a rush but I think like Mike said we should start to think about it and explore um I think having a legal firm who represents our board in town makes a lot of sense you know obviously the Town Council represents the town um and they're they're going to be great for you know Municipal stuff but still you know chapter 70s special ed all that stuff super complicated but the only thing I disagree with there is Council represents the town and not Town versus school we we are within the town there's a lot of things that happen within the school umbrella that the Town Council deals with directly not the labor Council um not the least of which
064you know arose a few weeks ago I don't want to talk about it it's not on the agenda but there's a lot of things that Town Council deals with directly so um we can certainly proceed but I think we need to have you know very meaningful discussion about it you know let's let's drive deeper if we want to do a subcommittee or assign two members or three members to to explore what we want to accomplish and and how that's best done I'm all in favor yeah okay yeah I mean I know certainly both you know Jerry's always been the easiest guy to get in touch with in more conveniently but I have certainly of reached out to Brian Moore more more frequently now too and you know just because again he is Our Town Council
065and he is also has been available which is good but again so it's nice to have that resource you know that we know will answer the phone but again I understand where you're coming from myself yeah I think we can continue on this the exploratory side of things and and you know see where where the springs is okay come up with a direction or um what do you want to bring it back to another I guess you want to bring it would your suggestion be to bring it back with some more information do you feel like we should start the exploratory no I mean aspects and I don't mind talking to Jerry and and Brian as well and talk to Kevin and just kind of you know we might find out that you know the
066current comments house was like hey I got it I got it no problem okay um I know our last Town Council was it was a little bit hard to get in touch you know so um not our last one all right second to last second and not out there to last yeah so yeah I'm fine I have no problem keeping this as an open discussion you know we can throw it on the agenda at any times you know possibly uh you know obviously Jerry isn't put in yeah so I mean I think a favor of authorizing Michael and any two others or or just Michael to you know do some research and bring it back to us I mean it's his role anyways but to to come to the consensus that we're yeah excellent that
067sounds good so it sounds like you there you go that if you want if you're looking to build a team um of two others feel free to uh you know if anybody would like to work with Michael on this feel free to reach out to him um consider it and then Michael just let me know who the two are or just CC on any emails and we'll go from there sounds good perfect great moving on then from from our for our report from our superintendent of schools all right great so I have three uh gend items this evening um the first one is the superintendent goals update and I don't want to go into a detailed review of the goals documents and supporting documentation I provided but I did want to highlight some areas both
068for the committee and the viewers at home and the first thing I want to do is um just review some of the top accomplishments for the 22-23 school year because I think we've we've actually accomplished a great deal and this is this is by no means an exhaustive list but I think it it talks about some of the things I think both the committee and the district have have accomplished the first is the implementation and roll out of the illustrative math curriculum and grades K through five next is the development of the 23 24 budget which includes resources to support a growing and shifting student population and again that's pending an affirmative town meeting vote which is coming up um successful completion of contract negotiations with the Milford Teachers Association and that contract was ratified
069today so that's good news um successful completion of initial contract negotiations with the Milford behavioral assistance and I think we're waiting for the ratification of that initial contract we've offered a comprehensive training in professional development program for our Educators across the district we've done preparation for the installation and construction of six modular classrooms at Brookside Elementary School which will be installed during the summer of 2023 also the preparation for the installation and replacement of the turf field and track at Milford High School as well as lights for the softball field during the summer of 2023 so the other thing I'll be sharing with are families is the fact that a lot of those areas are going to be off limits for most of the summer so then I'm just going to just just really highlight
070quickly each of the a couple just one or two things from the goals if that works Chris true enough yeah so goal one is the textbook adoption which I mentioned earlier um which which at the across elementary schools which is a daunting task and I want to commend Kerry Taylor Craig and sigley our building administrators at our elementary schools our instructional coaches and our curriculum team leaders and teachers so they're incredible and ongoing work implementing the new illustrative math program there's been significant planning professional development and ongoing support that will not conclude with the close of the 2020 to 2023 school year in terms of goal two the second goal is to improve daily attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism across the district and you've met our attendance supervisors um we and this was a learning
071year for us this is the first time we've had attendance supervisors but we engaged in several iterations of how to best use the time of our attendance supervisors and how to best connect them to our schools we started a monthly attendance team that included representatives from each K-12 School our two attended supervisors and myself we left shining star off because preschool attendance is not compulsory after three meetings we kind of changed the structure and had the attendance supervisors meet with a designated administrator at each School each month and identify students at the school was concerned with and the attendance supervisors could provide additional interventions and supports too and we have found that throughout the year that when the attendance supervisors work with a student and a family the attendance often improves Dale and Victor who
072are attendance supervisors are working tirelessly with our students and families to improve attendance my concern which is shared by them and our building base administrative teams is that coming off the pandemic we have so many students struggling with attendance we're talking about engaging more on some systemic activities next year and I wanted to share a document that Victor and Dell developed they've done a lot of Outreach with other districts who've had more established attendance programs and supervisors and they're they're starting to share this with families and we're going to use it more broadly next year the document's also been translated into Spanish and Portuguese as well and it's and I put I put kind of a pile of documents on your on your table but it's this document right here and I'm not going to
073go over it at all but I think it's worth taking taking a look at I think it's very well done and I think they've kind of accessed resources across the state to kind of pull this together and it's just a lot of good information about just the importance of attendance how it impacts grades um you know post-secondary success um General Health there's there's a lot of just just clear benefits to attendance um so so goal three is to improve the diversity of the Milford Public School staff through improvements to our practices for recruiting selecting inducting and retaining staff and I'm going to share two documents with you the first one is the change in diverse Educators in the last seven years and we increased our diversity our educator diversity by 283.4 percent during this time
074period which is great but we still have a great deal of work to do in this area additionally and I think this is important to note because it's not necessarily always captured in um you know with the kind of the race question is we have more than 120 staff who are multilingual across the district and we're going to continue our efforts and Outreach in both these areas to continue to diversify the teaching staff and to continue to hire multilingual educators thus the second piece um of data I want to share with you is the next page which says MPS retention data compared to the state and these are just Educators who will have teaching licenses so this is Teachers counselors psychologists so anybody who fall into like that Desi teacher license kind of category and
075for that you know the good news is our attention of teachers is consistently higher than the state but both our data and the state retention data is declining for reasons we've discussed here previously there's a lot of kind of Trends happening both nationally and internationally and kind of coming out of the pandemic that are that are impacting the data but we've been consistently above the state which is which is actually fantastic um I'm hopeful that this trend will change and we'll start to see both the Milford retention data increase and the um the state retention data it will increase and we'll see more Student Center in college interested in entering the teacher Workforce and that's one of you know our biggest kind of systemic concerns is we have just a declining number of undergraduates and
076graduate students in colleges and University teacher education programs and it's down about 25 over the last seven or eight years which is concerned goal four is is a is complete a review of facilities across the Milford schools which will include focused work with the Milford school committee facility subcommittee um either in either resubmit a statement of interest to the Massachusetts school billing Authority or move forward with the next step of the process unfortunately we're resubmitting this year and oversee the installation of the Brookside Elementary School Edition here we've made significant progress as we are moving forward with as I stated earlier the modular classroom project at Brookside this summer the turf field and lighting project at Milford High School our Capital plan has been approved and supported by the finance committee and we submitted the
077statement of interest in April for to the msba for the Milford High School complex project I'm hopeful um that because we move forward in the project last year we might take it maybe the next step this year it's also possible that as construction costs continue to escalate I think msba is funding fewer projects each year so it'll be interesting to see kind of where we stand clearly they're interested in what we're proposing it'll be interesting if we our needs compared to other proposals across the state are either one of the higher needs or we don't necessarily make the cod we're going to find that out um where we will need to do more work in the remainder of this year and next year is to develop a new facilities plan and contingency plan if we
078are not funded by the MSB in a timely fashion I look forward to I think we're calling it the long range planning committee working with that group to move this work ahead and create a more comprehensive plan for the next five to seven years in terms of focus indicators for standard 1e data informed decision making if you look at the document there are numerous examples across the District of how we're using data to inform budget requests instruction and programming I think this has become part of the culture of the Milford Public Schools I think we use data I think all the time and pretty effectively and I think you can see examples from I I think pre-k through 12 in there and across departments standard 2B is implements a cohesive approach to hiring induction development
079and career growth that promotes high quality and effective practice again we're aggressively engaged in hiring fairs and promotions supporting our new Educators through a well-developed mentoring and induction program and engage in trainings that support hiring diverse candidates that our administrators have jumped into we are very focused on creating and this is the important part this year we're really focused on efficiency because I think if we don't move fast particularly with teachers I think the facilities director process is a little different but with with teachers where we're seeing we're just competing with districts for fewer and fewer candidates and that's that's something that I think is going to become more pervasive in the coming years um for communication I want to highlight the quarterly publication I think it was at uh Chris's request and it's been
080very well received of the Milford Public School news and I think Nancy and her team have done a very nice job and we've got great um contributions from folks across the district and finally for professional culture and continuous learning I think this is a real strength in the district and I asked Craig actually to pull together a document which I shared with you and when I'd be able to access all of it but I shared a lot of the sub Pages too is um we have professional learning programs and activities happening across the district in all levels that I think is almost unmatched across the state um it's you know new program for new teachers technology training social emotional learning the work of our instructional coaches special education El and our staff serves on boards
081and committees within the district and across the state and we regularly have folks who are you know chairing pretty major initiatives that are that go beyond the borders of the of the Milford Public Schools so that's the update on the goal is I'm happy to take any questions uh real quick one on the overall total Educators what's that number at compared to University about 20 something like that for the people who are in the Educators in the district yeah I think after this hiring yeah yeah it'll be 500. all right what's our total employees is it about full-time employee apply to use yeah yeah yeah thank you any questions Megan not necessarily a question more comments Kevin so I love the uh sort of um examples of where the attendance officers are really having an
082impact so appreciate that being pulled together it's helpful to kind of see that in action I think it was also shared that they plan to create a video with Mr folster like I think that's a fantastic idea right so super proactive I do think that the data piece is going to be critical there in supporting those over the long term so I would really encourage them to figure out how we're going to be able to have that metric available so we can look about progress I mean I think eventually it'll be reflected on our accountability scorecard but in the short term just really understanding where we're seeing that impact I think will be really important so just more reinforcing that and I know it's in the works but just yeah 100 we really want like
083a year of data before we can really start looking at it and actually you really want a few years of data before it really you know has has an impact or makes a difference but you know our friend principal outlin at the high school has put together a couple things I'll probably share as part of this at the end of the end of the year too that's great and the systems I would assume support Us in terms of being able to extract this or we will yes this is the yeah so we have data systems that we can very easily pull attend this data in and you can pull it from points in time okay it's it's relatively it's reasonable to work with great okay and the other thing I just want to maybe reiterate
084which I'm sure is also on your list is in regards to standard one around instructional leadership the data informed decision making talks specifically about linking School Improvement plans with District goals and I just feel like now's the time of year that those are being created and so just to reiterate that we would expect to see that linkage when they come back to us I think it's we continue to improve upon that yeah and I think like you said I think that's been a process that's actually been improving your year over year excellent are we are we envisioning more in terms of implementation of portrait Federal graduate as well as part of that I'm hopeful of that I'm hopeful that I think this has been a nice return to normal year in a lot of ways
085um and I think I think we're gonna it's something that I think is on the mind of the principals and the directors and I think they're like as they're developing plans or programs or projects they're trying to you know keep those connections alive great thanks thanks uh the track includes me the track and the turf is being raid done yes I just that just came as a little bit of a surprise to me is there specific reasoning behind it just the age yeah it's it's right it's actually beyond the age you typically um would replace it but it's been it's been kept in such good condition that we've been able to go a few I think was it like three years beyond what we typically go or is it four years uh just under three
086years just under three years beyond what what the expected life was and pretty much when school closes till I think the fall Sports start to kick off as the goal as long as everything goes according to the plan it won't affect graduation but I think on the 22nd everything kind of kicks into you know high gear and we've already done some site work even for the modular classrooms at this point yeah and just from a process standpoint what we did is um from our Capital plan we went to town meeting back in the fall when we requested specific funds to use for the that specific project and was uh approved unanimously or overwhelmingly I should say so so it was kind of part of the the underlying process where we supported it here we bring
087it to the town and then the town gets to decide whether or not we can we can go forward with that project it is going forward yes I think this would be worthwhile to share with the with the student body okay impacts whole town whole town yes yeah whole town great thank you for that get that out there and just add a bright spot to that when we do that we're actually going to add lights at the softball field it's okay just a highlight was it was it pun intended me no any other questions I really regard to the goals side of it okay all right so for the um K2 class size and Staffing I I just give you a copy of the document I shared with you earlier this week um last night
088um as you know the finance committee supported our proposal for an additional kindergarten teacher if it's needed based on enrollment um and this data kind of drives drives some of the point in the need for that and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have we'll give everybody a moment to to look over the data if they have any questions feel free to and just to clarify that the top is is current is based on current enrollment as of today of the current K and one classes which are moved to one and two and based on the K projected data that we currently have of three times Kevin can you refresh my memory were we adding a k-teacher prior to last night's ask at all or is my class sizes just divided by the
08910 and the eight there class class sizes are basically divided by the 10 and read there thanks and it's always a little bit in flux because I think these were taken from different points in time to so they're always moving targets and is this so this enrollment's through March 31st the kindergarten history is through March 31st the projected grade sizes was I think April 1st for one and two and March 31st for K and the kindergarten history is based on March 31st and so we Chris is your thought maybe monthly we would continue to get updates on that enrollment number at some point you have to make a decision in terms of you'd want to have the individual in place if we're going to make that move so yes yeah we did that was sorry
090no that's yeah you missed Tuesday so um yeah that was that particular you know where is that go no-go number in a sense for enrollment and where is the um that that's that date in the process right because obviously I wouldn't want to be two weeks before school um yeah you want me to cover that one yeah yeah I think when we start to get into the mid 360s around 365 or if we're heading in that direction that's when we're going to start to you know look to post the position okay I have principal Vicki Houston looking at two different layouts one with um ten kindergartens one with 11 kindergartens and she's going to be planning for you know both contingencies okay historically Kevin we would not typically see people that enroll not come to
091school as kindergarteners the numbers tend to go up we do lose people but it tends to be like the net average gain is between 60 and 120 and I think the average of that is about 80 which makes sense is the number in the middle absolutely 16 120. got it okay that's helpful yeah the good news is we do have that flexibility if we get like a big fall surge we'll be able to let you know out of the classroom any other questions on the K2 enrollment numbers All Right Moving On all right so school safety review and this is Timely um what I'd like to do is two things uh first I want to just share a broad overview of systems resources and programs that we have in place and and I do want
092to emphasize that I can't share everything that we do and I can't share specific plans in a lot of cases because we don't publicize that um but I'll try to answer any questions you have with as much specificity as I can and second I'd like to speak just to the events that Stacy on Wednesday and just give you just an overview and be able to answer questions too all right so on the first one and I'll stop at the end of the first one and then go to the second one if that makes sense that'd be great all right perfect all right so for the overall District we have two School resources on site in the district at all times the Milford Police Special Operations team is always in proximity to our schools and will
093provide excellent response times if any issue arises and we've seen two very recent examples of that one has been the issue with Stacy and two was the swatting issue with the high school we had we had immediate response actually I'd say a third we had an alarm go off in the auditorium at the high school we had a very quick response time there so the response time is is immediate and very effective um each building in the district has controlled entry we have security cameras and other technology measures in place at each of our schools schools regularly practice safety drills throughout the year including bus evacuations now we had a lockdown drill planned for Stacy next week we're probably going to shift that to the fall we work collaboratively with both the Milford Police and
094Fire Department to plan for all types of emergency situations I'm regularly in contact with our fire chief our Deputy fire chief our chief of police and our deputies there on a variety of issues that come up Milford Police use our schools during the summer and vacations for training exercises um all schools have protocols in place for visitors and clear guidelines for visits whether it's parents Guardians contractors or you know any other folks that would visit the school for any reason we support flexible responses with safety at the core instead of one plan that is published publicly and accessible to anyone I think back in the old days you'd have hey this is our this is our evacuation plan if this happens and we really we really have like an a b and a c and
095sometimes we have to go to D if you know a b and c aren't available um we also work very closely with the District Attorney's office on a number of safety programs as well as with our SEL team our counselors and our psychologists who are critical you know whenever we have you know an incident in the district whether it's you know a death of a Community member something like that happened at Stacy with the um the issue that we had on on Wednesday or you know any major issue we have we have counselors available to go and they're a critical part of the response so I'll open that up for questions on that piece if you're good yes certainly of course questions on the safety aspect yeah I have more of a comment I mean
096we need when you you know realize this is a public meeting you say you can't share your safety player calls I get it they should appreciate it in a public meeting but if if us is really aren't a part of your safety profiles I and that can't be shared with us I strongly disagree I'd like advice on Council but I think maybe it's appropriate for an executive session but if we're not aware of the safety protocols and in the Thousand employees that we mentioned 15 or five minutes ago are I have a lot of trouble accepting that but I think it's one of the cases I just want to share some things publicly John publicly I guess yeah I'm happy to share with any Committee Member that wants to sit down with me or if
097we want to do a you know small groups or anything like that it's just not a strong message that the school committee's not aware of the safety protocols yeah I think noted and it's yeah you know certainly something was see if we can take it up an executive session or individually but yeah or individually yeah you know and whether or not that uh Warren's just having a um you know another subcommittee that that you know a group of three that is part of that process so they're just aware so we just have a group there so Michael um who's the director of Safety and Security so we don't have an official director of Safety and Security it's basically me okay yeah I'm just reading through the policy I was curious yeah I think at one
098point there was a district security safety yeah and it was before my time when they moved away from that position so I can't tell you the history of that yeah any other go ahead I have a few questions so Thanksgiving I uh certainly when I brought up this an agenda item could have never envisioned what this week would entail so you know timely certainly um could you speak a little bit to staff training and sort of kind of how often that's happening and yeah that's happening on a yearly basis um it's and I'm happy to share some of the examples and you know from you know whether it's a Tim Kieran PowerPoint presentation or what we've done in some of our K2 schools but it's okay it's happening on on a regular basis and I
099would say you know you don't think of like fire drills as safety drills but they really are because it's just good practice of how to quickly get out of the building because generally the the roots are the quickest way out of the building for for students and staff um you know there's there's bus evacuation drills there's um you know lockdown or shelter and place drills um and then there's just some training we do with staff about you know different contingencies that potentially come up and we we have our um you know sometimes our resource officers sometimes other members of either the fire or police will come in or emergency medical will come in to provide some training for our staff and are we consistently doing post-mortems after events like yesterday yeah so this morning we
100had a meeting at Stacy Middle School with police fire and our building Administration staff and kind of kind of went through the whole process and where we thought things went well where we you know some areas where we might want to look into um you know you know talking about some things and that would be in conjunction with the existing plan to the extent we'd like to change XYZ because we realized correct okay and I think each year we kind of look we um you know we touch base with both police and fire and you know say they do you know based on you know best practices are there any changes we want to see made got it we wouldn't say that they're necessarily approving our plans they're developed in collaboration with them is that
101right I'd say developed in collaboration okay and I think they need to be because um we all need to be on the same page got it okay that's helpful yeah we're definitely going to take it offline just to understand more but I appreciate you bringing that update thanks Rob just thinking about risk in general do we have the capacity in-house to be doing just preventative work so um thinking about just trying to prevent you know what obviously things happen but trying to prevent like what happened at Stacy and I'm just wondering what type of capacity we have in-house and just hearing I guess I never really thought about the fact that we don't have a director of Safety and Security so hearing that and just do we have like safety committees at the schools where
102we're able to do this work and screen for different types of threats that might be present yeah every school has a crisis team and you know they're kind of they're kind of the core safety team as well um and I think you know what our what a real I think strength advantage or benefit is is we have tremendous relationships with students the community parents and a lot of times like so many things are prevented because of those relationships that we have and you know information that we receive through a variety of channels that again I'm not going to speak about in detail publicly but I think a lot of things do get not necessarily like always critical incidents but a lot of incidents do get stopped before they start because we just get information or
103we're able to gather information ahead of time try to print are there any safety drills like around Athletics or any other after school programs like so you mentioned like a fire drill is like a pretty typical in-school drill but is there something for coaches athletes after school that you do on a regular basis you know what I'm not sure the answer to that question so I don't want to answer it but I'll I'll find out and get back to you I'm pretty sure that we do have plans for athletics and for music I couldn't say like you know for just a you know smaller club we necessarily have anything for sure but but that's something I can follow up with yeah yeah and I guess like the the second question is that like an appropriate
104thing given more recent changes and events happening outside of school hours but on school property so again I'm sure it's the same answer but yeah yeah in regard to what you said like as an athlete and we've never done any sort of drill or I don't think even had a conversation regarding like that sort of safety or what we would do in that situation it's never it's never come up okay that's worthwhile yeah I appreciate their feedback because I mean because you think about even just something as simple as like a thunderstorm everyone has to you know leave the stadium for example and like seek shelter but like there's obviously other events that can happen and can that be something that be as part of a training for the for a future hopefully no future
105events but if there are yeah and then for large Gatherings we do have plans in place sure like you know if we have you know event at the high school the high school musical in the auditorium those kinds of things sure Michael um well go ahead School Safety Council who's that so that's basically a crisis team at a school it's generally your um so I'm reading through the policy sounds like we're not following this policy at all I actually concerns me a little bit um I think I'm agreeing with John I think we need a deeper dive in this you know it says in here that the superintendent will provide us an annual report and goals met and stuff like this and there'll be some audits done make sure that we're completing compliance and um
106I'm sure we're doing a lot of it but it doesn't seem like there's a reading this policy it tells us that there should be some kind of program at the administration level peering into the whole school make sure everything's check marked and done so um yeah I think we should look into getting deeper rather than what policy is that Mike it's um file EBC Echo bravo charlie I don't understand these at all um yeah thank you Haley did you have a question um there was there was just a I have a comment um some it's it's more General but I think that it's it's worthwhile to share that over over the years um the protocols um the safety protocols especially regarding lockdowns in shelter and places have changed a lot um so I think that
107like for me personally as a student the way that I've been taught um and like conditioned to go through a lockdown and other sorts of protocols it's very different from what I do now you know back in elementary school and middle school like the protocols have changed a lot and I think that um I mean I think they've changed for the better but it's worthwhile to note that like there are a lot of students who are still kind of conditioned with some old ways so it might be worthwhile to um just be more conscientious of that and try to really like get get these new protocols into students Minds for them um and we we tell those before shelter in place versus lockdown I guess there's like three to five reasons why we shelter in
108place you know when we had the shelter in place a few weeks ago um there was some concern when I heard it I was like when I think shelter in place I think it's like in danger and it talks to my wife she's like oh no no that was all the time what are you talking about she's like oh yeah if they need clear the hallways they just say shelter in place and so I I think um have the same language but that's alarming to the community shelter in place to me denotes you're in danger um and I understand Sheltering places lockdown are you know 2 different protocols but children place is kind of scary I definitely recommend us coming up with a different name so it's a little bit friendlier so it's not alarming
109for the community because when I heard that my mind went right into the sheltered Place turtles in the Marine Corps I was like okay this is not good but again my wife was like nah it's fine um so just some thoughts there um add another comment regarding um the words we use um so I think I I'm not totally sure on this but I think that there's been sort of a move away from using the term lockdown just because if there's a threat we don't want the immediate responsive students to necessarily be like we have to stay within our class we have to stay in our building depending on the situation I think it's evolved over time to be a little bit more like thinking on your feet and assessing the situation and perhaps and
110and going after that but um that goes to two where we don't want just one plan we really want like if if there's a true situation where students are in danger we want them to get away from the danger yeah so maybe just reassessing the words we use to describe those as always we appreciate the student view Vietnam from from my side you know obviously you know yesterday's situation uh was very very unfortunate very you know in um emotionally charged from from many levels you know what's the staff did an outstanding job you know at the end of the day all students were home obviously some came home late just because of the bus situation that because of the area had to be locked down I think one of the the I guess you could
111say the word complaints from amongst communities obviously we're on social media age where social media reported far before we even had the ability to to um know all the information and get that information out so you know the staff is trained to take care of our kids first and and we and we entrust that staff every day to do that very job so to have them or want them to break away from that role just so we could get that information I think is a little bit premature or or just not understanding from the community so that's why just making the statement that you know again at the end of the day all the students made it home because the staff did their job and yes it took an hour for that same staff to
112come to an understanding of what was going on and get that message out so you know is there a way to get it out sooner I don't know right and I think maybe that is a takeaway but again I feel like again the staff did what they were supposed to do first and that was making sure that our students our own kids that we haven't you know some of us have in this room that are at that school so yeah and that's always um and if you want me to transition to the Stacy event I can do that it seems like a difference sorry yeah um yeah you know and I said this yesterday um I think in some of my written Communications out to the community um but I think yesterday was a great
113example of police fire Emergency Management and school Personnel working together collaboratively dealing with an issue that it for for a little while was very uncertain and you know I think to Chris's Point um you know everybody you know made it home safely um you know we had to we had to hold and I'll go through the timeline too but we had to hold the students because we you know for a while we weren't sure what they were exposed to and we wanted to make sure that medical personnel had an opportunity to assess students because we didn't want to put a student on a bus or have them walk home and have a reaction to something that we weren't necessarily certain certain with so let me walk through the timeline um and then I can open
114it up for questions or comments um and I've got some times for some things I've got approximate times for other things um it it basically happened around a two hour window a little over a two hour window from start to finish um at 1 35 students started going to the nurse's office complaining of coughing burning sensation sore throat eye irritation um the principal associate principal and school resource officer started to see the students coming down to the nurse's office they investigated a couple of our staff members unfortunately were exposed to the pepper spray which we weren't sure what it was at that particular time the mace pepper spray um the resource officer indicated to principal Lopez at 145 to pull the fire alarm to bring resources to the school at that point principal Lopez called
115me she was unfortunately exposed to the pepper spray the mace so she called me at 145. while this was happening students were evacuated to the playground at Memorial Elementary School I arrived on site at approximately 1 50. by that point all students were accounted for teachers took attendance um in the they were they were moved to the playground area of Memorial Elementary School we didn't want to bring them in a building because at that point we weren't certain what the issue was um and we began separating any students that were having um they were exhibiting any any symptoms or issues three students that were initially unaccounted for were dismissed and they were able to check that and verify that next too um two two variable um two variables that we were dealing with was one
116was you know for a period of about an hour 50 50 minutes to about an hour and 10 minutes the substance was unknown and the second variable we had to deal with was we were right around dismissal time and you know that's that's that's challenging if you've been if you've done pickup at Stacey or Memorial Elementary School on a good day it's very challenging because it's a very congested area um when students were waiting to be dismissed in the in the playground area uh medical medical and health professionals were assessing students who were exposed to the mace pepper spray um or indicated that they thought they might be exposed to the mace staff were broadly assessing whether or not students needed to be seen mental health professionals and our teachers were identifying students who may
117need additional support for a variety of reasons and the administrative team was coordinating changes to this missile process working with police to support the investigation of what actually happened which was which was wrapped up very quickly and we had the device on site that was used pretty quick you know I think within within like an hour hour and 10 minutes and supporting fire and medical personnel by answering questions or supporting with student or family communication Hazmat received the aerosol device used by the student they were able to test it and confirmed it was uh I think mace is the company and it was Peppers pepper spray is what it was referred to initially 11 individuals 10 students and one staff member went to the hospital for precaution and evaluation later that evening two additional students
118went to the emergency room just to be evaluated um and again we needed to shift dismissals so we could assess students before releasing them I conferred with the police she I'm sorry the fire chief who you know who recommended that we you know we couldn't let anybody go for the reasons I just stated and so we basically said hey we're going to do the elementary runs and the buses are going to come back after they finish with the elementary students at this point parents were starting to arrive and you know and again and it's about 3 30 to 3 48 in that time period 350. um we're connecting parents to students and we basically set them into lines of sixth seventh and eighth grade again they were in their last period classes and and so
119it took a little time sometimes to identify a student we um then released Walkers and when the buses were arrived students were dismiss the buses at about 3 48 PM um which is a little I'd say wences missile Stacy Craig of 217. yeah so so it's an hour and a half after they typically you know are dismissed um Hazmat cleared the building um we had our custodians the during the evening um do um a more aggressive cleaning a more enhanced cleaning of the um the area which is the mezzanine area of the library you know Craig Rachel Driscoll and I were in the office kind of debriefing a little bit and figuring out next steps and um this morning we had additional counseling resources in place to support any students requiring it and we had
120a debrief with Milford Fire Milford Police and our building base Administration any questions or comments you go to that timeline I did yes so um Kevin can you can you send us something you know put in that timeline kind of in writing but often the second column saying what Communications were yeah I can do that I don't have that right here with me right now yeah um but you know for the purpose of analyzing benefits because some of the complaints that I had you know I'm sure we all had some in fears if not complaints you know that their kids got home they were home for 10 minutes off the bus before they even were made aware of this and I'm not saying that's accurate but that's that's their perception so if you can interject
121sort of or enter yeah I can I can take this yep right yeah what word did you use Megan overlay I don't know yeah it's close that's better than mine but yeah just put in you know what the communications were and you know in detail like what you said or whoever sent it if it wasn't even who was an administer you know administrator no I can definitely you can get a better perception on that and you know because I think that I don't I think the whole Community appreciates the response from everybody in the district everybody in the town the Fire Fire Chief and this whole private police and their whole department and including this you know State responders that you know Fire Chiefs call them yep um so it was it was very very
122quickly responded to and effectively I think everybody appreciates that and then there's just communication aspect if you can just sort of you know get the full explaining of what was communicated and when just so we can build on it if there ever is another situation yep I can definitely do that yes going along with what John's saying I think just hearing all of the steps that took place not just yesterday but today too getting the counselors in place much was done for this unexpected situation and I think a lot of good work and really great collaboration throughout the town going along with what John said though if I could just actually ask to push it a little bit further and so knowing the communication so I think it's important to know when things were sent
123but also by whom and what modality because I know one of the questions was like when emails were going out was there any delay things like that so I do think for just sake of transparency it would be helpful for us to be able to say we sent out this communication at this time we realized we didn't receive it until this time but um I know that just from what I've heard when I've seen there's some questions about that so knowing like what Communications were from central office as opposed to Stacey directly what mode of communication was it talking points or email and and just like generally by whom not necessarily a person but again Central officer Stacy officials yep you could definitely do that um so one thing I I wanted to clarify about
124the timeline so um I had heard from from my sister at the middle school that a shelter in place was called right before um the fire alarm was cooled were you aware of that I'm not sure that that happened or that was true that's something I would have to check okay because I guess that was that was something that was a little alarming to me just because there's a bit of a conflict there you know if students are told to shelter in a place like to to not go out into the hallway and then they're told to evacuate so that was just something yeah my understanding is once they determine there was an issue they'd they'd evacuated the building yeah just a comment uh thank you um I mean that was incredibly difficult to deal
125with um I don't know if everyone in the room is aware at the same time there was a suspected gas leak at the youth center fire chief was painfully aware yeah um so like the resources were stretching extremely thin so thank you all you know like that was professionalism at its best um and that's you know a credit to you your team everyone uh the students included I know it's never perfect but thank you any other questions or comments on the school safety side or the events of uh from Stacy yesterday so fans just close with one thing again and I can't thank folks enough but I want to say like Milford Fire Milford Police the emergency responders the state responders our staff was incredible and one of the things that I think um folks
126that you know unfortunately I deal with this stuff on a semi-regular basis and a lot of folks don't because like we might have one issue at one school one year an issue in another school another year but the staff were incredibly calm and reassuring to the students and I think that's you know I don't want to overlook that because I think these situations are very stressful for adults too and I think folks did an incredible job and I think you know we have some people that respond to things on a somewhat regular basis like our police our fire and some of our administrators but our our teachers our nurses our behavioral assistants our teaching assistants our counselors all the just an exceptional job and and I think the working together was the most important thing
127like we just have a great working relationship which isn't always the case in some communities there's some communities where you know the the fire chief walks in and the superintendent turns their head the other way you know so I think there's real value in the positive relationships we have with you know our our fire department our Police Department because we're we're one team and we we operate that way and I think it's very apparent we operate that way and you know there's different Lanes we have to walk in and and there's things that you know I have to do versus the police chief versus the fire chief but um the collaboration and the coordination I think is exceptional and it leads to you know generally very good outcomes when we have these types of situations
128and I don't want to overlook that so thank you moving on our report of the from the assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and assessment Dr zigley thank you um a couple weeks ago myself uh Cara Lopez principal at Stacy and Alyssa Holland were invited on behalf of mciaa to be a part of this convening and I'd like to read to you a little bit about the convening so um what it's about is Partners from Across the Nation are working together to bring key constituents for a meeting in June to reimagine and take steps towards a future for of Equitable learner-centered School Quality Systems when our systems are Equitable and student-centered they ensure each learner is supported in discovering and using their assets to build the desired future our current assessment and accountability systems while well-meaning
129have failed to deliver this support in fact they're among the most cited barriers for learning communities working to Center each learner the Trailblazers Summit will bring together learner-centered voices from Across the Nation to build and build New Vision for assessing School quality one that honors the unique context of each Learning Community while also ensuring the quality of every learner's experience this Vision informed by practicing insights from Trail Blazers in the field will lead to a set of co-created recommendations to our nation's leader setting the course for the future of assessment and accountability so I think to be invited to be a part of that is exciting and I think it builds upon what we've been saying over the last couple meetings with our our work with mcia that we are getting nationally recognized for the
130work that we're doing so um I'm looking for the support of the community to be a part of this it will it's totally funded by mcia and we're gonna go and present and explain what we're doing over here questions or comments just a comment after you know I think Haley was sharing a few of the ideas that have come up and majority of those I think were identified or discussed Craig when we did the nglc you know learning walks and so I think the importance of collaboration just it screams out to me so I would absolutely be in support of additional work to do that other questions comments All right so looking for a motion to approve the out-of-state travel for the three individuals the three individuals uh dated uh June 6 through June 8th
1312023. so motion by Megan second by Robin all in favor that is your name is thank you great thank you all right moving on next agenda item report from our assistant superintendent for business and Human Resources this Ferry I think to Mr chair I have for the committee's approval this evening seven warrants in the amount of one million thirty thousand nine hundred sixty one dollars and ten cents motion to approve the warrant function by run second by Brendan all in favor um under the FY 23 budget update I wanted to um just let the school committee know that at one of our previous meetings we talked about the high school roof and the warranties of all our other roofing systems and so I did reach out I have secured all of the warranty dates for
132all of our roots um however if in fact we wanted to do a renewal on the high school roof which expires September of 2023. um they had been waiting um for a reach out from Rob to do a um or the previous director facilities to do a moisture accumulation test so they will not renew a warranty or roof without it so the order has been released uh it is in the amount of Thirteen Thousand Seven fifty so I have executed that contract so that we could get that done to view our options for the um High School roof the next roof comes offline which believe it or not is Woodland and that comes offline in December of 2024. the memorial roof comes offline August of 2025 and the Brookside roof November of 2027. and Stacy
133I cannot find so that one I'm having a little bit of a difficult time it's obviously not with tremco so um we've got some time other than Woodland will be the following fiscal year uh it also came to my attention that the memorial elevator has been down for over um a month and a half and um they did reach out we have a quote to repair that elevator as Lisa is desperate for her students they should be out I believe I released that purchase order on April 18th and they will be coming out to fix the elevator in the amount of about six thousand dollars um so those are the big um facility issues that we've had without the director so I'm trying to put together some information so that when the new person comes
134on board they'll have you know the blocking steps to move forward I did give the committee and uh budget update for FY 23 as well we do have some areas of concern one being Transportation but we have been fortunate that we've had a lot of maternities and teachers who have left mid-year so we do have a bulk of that under our instruction line to offset the deficit uh we had one teacher that just comes to mind that at the state Stacy School took a full year leave and her salary was over a hundred thousand dollars so it's not um difficult to accumulate a four hundred thousand dollar um Surplus in our instruction line with the salaries that we have for teachers so that I believe I'm you know I'm feeling confident that that we will
135make our fiscal year um in total and not have a deficit issue the FY 24 budget update would be that we are scheduled on our next agenda to do the budget hearing for our fy24 budget which has to um be announced so many days before the town meeting so we will be doing the new figure that was approved at fincon last night formally on May 11th uh the committee has a list of the latest appointments from our previous meeting we do have an out-of-state travel request from gen noijanian who the travel will be funded strictly by a grant so she is asking for the school committees um approval to travel on October 17th through October 20th and she has detailed very um with much information for your review Robin go ahead I have a question
136about that so in her letter she says cost to the district but that is just through the grant it's not anything that okay correct it's really approving her time away so um yeah looking then for a motion and a vote for to approve the out-of-state travel request motion by Megan second by John all in favor that is unanimous so Kathy you're very efficient with your so I'm just going to revert that does anybody have any questions on the FY 23 go ahead yeah sure um well it's good to hear that it's going to balance um more than likely being able to shift money but what's the reasoning behind Transportation Athletics and even school security why are those so far offline Transportation I still think there's a learning curve for the new Transportation director rooting is
137very difficult and when you have it's not the same rooting as the yellow buses so you really need to build a capacity to understand your special ed non-local in local groups okay so I feel as though whether we get a mentor or something to help the new directed to understand ways that kind of combine rooting and I am putting together with Jim I want to do a transportation bid so we don't have to by law special ed transplantation is exempt it's one of the exemptions but I think we if we know all the trips that we have May and June for the following school year we should go out and do each one in and go out to bid with all our local vendors and whoever is bidding the lowest should really be getting the
138route is that number rentals like the whole package of bringing more people in to cover these we we do have a plan to bring buses additional buses online and that is an offset in our 2024 budget um but get as the deficit started to grow it was too fast for us to try to mitigate by buying additional vans unfortunately what about school security what's that about schools security was the addition of um staff at Stacy mid-year we added some additional Hall monitors so we do have to make that deficit up but um that was approved thanks please go ahead so Kathy can you go back to uh the rules but specifically the high school I mean we sat here a year ago and we we had uh what's it called we had them in here
139they gave us gave us a report of history and how their what their action plan is when there is an incident but we haven't really gained any traction in the past 12 months right no and I didn't I was unaware that that had not been addressed um so hopefully we'll have all our information in time and they'll be able to book the moisture testing yeah I felt like we were at the 11th Hour a year ago I think and here we are a year forward and we're we're past the 11th hour so as soon as I hear I'll give the committee an update because we'll have renewal options but as of right now I don't have a date if anybody out there listening this is about extending the warranty on a a 20-year warranty was
140it on the high school it was a 20-year warranty and so I think we'd love to have something around five to seven years quickly surpasses the cost of the warranty I think this roof is what 215 000 square feet that's correct that's a lot of rocks and oh and Kevin I was supposed to say how did you know to that that number because I've been through digging through the SOI for the last three months so you know 13 000 for the moisture um 309 000 square feet in the building when we're tracking that amount of square footage we just got to get it done 600 windows five acres all right hurry up I'm into it I know all the valves that are leaking at Woodland you're awake at the gym floor issue so yeah it's
141you know by me kind of handling all this when the new person comes in it's just information for them you know here's where I've experienced some issues you should be facilities director no just one more economy and I know the Woodland Playground is in poor shape so I've got to figure out how we can get that equipment fixed because yeah you know it's it's not good um oh um I'm a little bit baffled at how an elevator is down for a month and a half yeah I had no idea I assume you're looking into how this communication worked out I mean this obviously was not just a one person who didn't do something about a situation well there was tickets reports I don't know how an elevator is down there when I reached out to
142the vendor part of the issue was that there was 12 months of invoices not processed so they really didn't want to work with us until they got those invoices processed you know we've been with them for so long you know I just said look at I promised payment in within a couple weeks you know please come out so I you know I hope it's soon and those are invoices you never saw no to be clear for anybody watching that's I'll be done now that's fine any other questions on uh FY 23 budget can you just search on the Athletics Kevin Athletics Peta has um well first of all if I remember correctly when I looked let me just refresh there's a lot encumbered there so it may not be a full deficit that so a
143lot of that might drop down the other key pieces and I did not look I wanted to but between athletic revolving which is still having receipts come in with tickets okay I think it's just a balance of Shifting some of those expenses to the appropriate line I just have not done that yet thanks no problem but I won't ship the expenses if at the end of the year we can aggregate account for them more than ten thousand dollars any other questions that's why three budget question oh go ahead Robin so I'm just thinking back to what we said about the transportation services and I absolutely recognize and understand that coming into a new role mentoring might be necessary I'm wondering though if just moving ahead because we could have a new Transportation director in a
144few years right just having a way that we're not going to have a major learning curve each time we have a new person in that role especially just looking at how big that number is um I don't know it's just something to maybe just think about again proactively what type of onboarding would we put in place and I would say it's probably a little more complicated than Kathy's presenting because I think there's there's other factors in terms of like needs of the students on particular routes and you know where folks are going so I think there's there's it's very complicated as part of the issue yeah does it anything we can do preventatively to not have that number again I think one more thought on that aspect because I do know that the director of
145transportation is also director of community use is this also potentially a situation where he's trying to gather all of these pieces at once and should there be a discussion at some point or whether or not those two be split is transportation getting so complicated and so complex it's something that we've we've brought up is a is a concept previously so yeah I think it's something we could look at maybe for some history I think I think it it needs a a real close look on whether these roles should be separated in individual roles because it worked well for a lot of years and I think the challenges in each each row have grown drastically in the past few years at least in this community with Transportation so I I think it should it should be
146a discussion soon and I would like to grow everybody knows my speech on this but I would like to grow more in-house rooting sure with our own buses because it really it's much more cost effective oh it's so cost of effective yeah well actually I mean there's a the Federal grant 400 million dollar Federal grant for electric buses right now Richard just got 20 of them yeah are we applying for that all right well here's the sorry yeah I did some homework on that I'm sure there's yeah there's always something right so right now one yellow bus to replace is in dollars forward with the grant one bus to replace in the future 380 000 and those batteries degrade fairly fairly quickly stations you know there's a lot there's a lot of infrastructure that needs
147to happen to support a lot of infrastructure I think that's something we're going to definitely look at in the future like because we're starting to see the cost of electric vehicles like cars they're coming down and I think you're going to see that in buses and you know you're starting to see more trucks and SUVs yeah I mean for two but yeah I think it's early to jump into that because I think it's great initially I mean cold affects battery life there's there's a ton of things but certainly it's free money yeah it is free money and it's something we've explored and looked at because there's been a couple of them over the last couple of years because even if like you don't like the electric once those do go you can go back to
148the gas and you just got a free bus for the X amount of years I think those Grant funds will be available uh for the next four years so it's definitely something to explore and especially if you go with maybe a two-roll decision that someone could really concentrate on that that might be the best way to and we do have a new battery plant in town so maybe they'll donate some new batteries not not the experimental the the beta version not the alpha Focus back in sorry for a second it's all right yeah all right um so anything more on FY well we had fy23 budget we're good FY 24 again yeah so I just want to publicly to thank uh the finance subcommittee Mike Nicholson and his team um there was just some back
149really just some back and forth email wise for some questions um so kind of a little bit of an unprecedented uh year this year where we didn't have to have multiple meetings with them so um just appreciate their vetting of of it um they gave the um a highly recommended budget there um to the full fincom full fincom had voted unbeknownst to me um to accept that budget so actually yeah Wednesday nights or yeah they're all blending Wednesday night's meeting was just to approve the uh the kindergarten ad so again so again thank you to the finance committee for their support and our budget this coming for the next upcoming year of course if I can I just get back on that because I've sat on this committee for a long time with multiple uh
150education subcommittees from fincon and Mike Nicholson and the others on there uh like they know marvel and I forget somebody I know there's three or four but um I don't want to leave anybody else they've been engaged since day one about budget discussion they came here on Saturday morning first the second setting depends on when new year was whatever it was January 7th or nine and they've been engaged the entire process which is which is very much appreciated and um I can't think of enough of doing that because that hasn't always been the case historically and it's they very much appreciate I'm sure everyone here does but I just wanted to call it out because they have put in a ton of time into into our discussions and and digesting them thank you moving on
151to then to the acceptance of gifts so we have a few gifts and some very generous gifts tonight so I want to give them their time um the first um the donor is the mass cultural Council program uh there was written by uh Stephen e Matthews and the purpose of this gift is for the third graders at the zoo in the amount of twenty three hundred dollars I'm going to read it through them all then we'll vote uh package uh the next donor uh was for a school store and this is a gift in kind it's the amount of 100 in apparel for the math Excel for a math acceleration prize uh the next gif uh the donor was hini in small and gifting kind uh this is the this is a set of air
152pods and the value of a hundred dollars for the math accelerate for a math acceleration price uh the next donor was Chris Shabbat and this is 75 dollars worth of gift cards again for the math accelerate for a math acceleration prize next donor was Caitlin small uh for a hundred dollars in gift cards for again the math acceleration price uh next one is David and Janice uh kowal um and the name of the GIF is family and Community Network gift um in the amount of twenty dollars and this will be for programs events and play groups yeah and our last one uh even tokis and this is for the family and Community Network on the amount of fifteen dollars for programs events and play groups so we thank all these donors tonight we really appreciate
153their generosity and I will look for a motion to accept these gifts motion by Michael second bye Robin is unanimous you can just make a comment if I'm not mistaken a few of those are teachers that are contributing to like they're they're teaching over vacation and they're making now donations so that they can provide their students gifts I just don't want that to go unnoticed because that's just really remarkable to me so I just want to thank them thank you for those additional words we appreciate that all set from your Corners all right which is very good foreign next agenda item is our subcommittee updates anything from the subcommittee world go ahead Ron uh policy subcommittee meetings and we had a nice presentation from Lisa Kincaid we heard about bringing in a policy around having
154therapy dogs in the school so we're going to continue making some revisions to the proposed policy for that and then we'll bring it forward to the committee for our first read and then we've continued to review policies around fiscal management I guess if you will uh great thank you very much appreciate that any others health and safety Matt Chris and now I'm sort of reflecting on all of our discussions thinking about the safety piece and I feel like it tends to be more um specific issues so it might be interesting to kind of broaden that discussion Kevin as that group meets I do think that some of the um issues or challenges they raised have been lagging a little bit but I think it's probably primarily a Personnel issue um so I expect that those
155will kind of get cleaned up in the near future um okay any other subcommittee updates all right future agenda items the side of the room [Laughter] so hey John I don't know if it'd be more appropriate at the cell Community level or at the full committee level but um I know we I know the subcommittee explore the fundraising policy or or lack of one a year or so ago and there's been enough events that have come up and enough issues brought to my attention that I'd like to revisit that okay and I'll let you decide whether it's full committee or if the subcommittee I'd recommend policy John only because there was a lot of discussion around that and I'd recommend probably Kevin Lee can being kind of the same participants um in in light of
156some recent events John just to kind of attack it from that angle first yeah definitely no I think that's a good that's a good recommendation yeah and obviously yeah there was a little bit of a shake up off change up on policy subcommittee so if um yeah absolutely on that let me know I don't know if Jen Parson would be willing to come back I was just going to ask for a future agenda item Chris probably not the next meeting but maybe the next one just an update on our plan for the roof in terms of where we sit and just to make sure that where we feel really ahead of that um thanks for bringing that up down Michael um was the budget it looks like Community use revolving accounts getting pretty low and
157half the revenue as usual so I think it'd be nice to hear from Jim see how it's going what's going on in the next meeting or two okay got that and if I can just be clear I don't have any real timeline on you know asking for this policy or if you're just oh sorry to keep it on your radar also light on the timeline I know we have some bigger ones coming up let's revisit that transportation roles means whether or not that that message needs to be split at some point maybe over this summer would be a good idea okay anything else all that appreciate that all right so that moves us on to adjournment and then we will actually be adjourning to Executive session next so at this time we'll be ending the
158Open session of our meeting to enter executive session where we will discuss a non-union contract review and also consider and discuss allegations possibly resulting in the disciplinary action against a School employee we will not be returning to open session and this does require a roll call vote we'll start over with Matt yes Michael Yes John yes Megan yes Robin yes yes and I am also a yes so thank you and good night