001[Music] Good evening everyone. Like to call to order the Milton School Committee meeting of September 3rd, 2025. If we can all stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] >> So the first item is to approve the agenda for September 3rd. Um the one item that we need to take off um that will go on our next agenda is for the facilities advisory committee report. Um that meeting hasn't happened. So we'll um have that on the meeting for the for September 17th. If anybody else has any other changes approval >> we I I don't do we have any vendor warrants? >> I do do not
002believe. I didn't sign it today and I think we've approved everything. So, it's >> okay. Is that on there? Yeah. So, take that off as well. >> Great. All right. Next up is public comment. So, in accordance with school committee policy, we welcome members of the community to share their perspective with us during public comment. We have set aside up to 15 minutes for this part of the meeting and individuals may speak, excuse me, for up to three minutes each. While the school committee does not respond directly to public comment, there may be opportunities for members to address issues that are raised over the course of the meeting when relevant topics are on our agenda. We strive to engage in respectful discourse during our meetings and ask of the public comment. Speakers keep that in
003mind. Speakers should introduce themselves for the record. I think we have one person coming. You're welcome to come up. Do you want Yeah. >> Thank you so much. >> You're welcome. Hi folks, my name is Nick Hearn. I live in 49th Century Lane in Milton. Um have two daughters who are proud members of the schools and uh thought I'd come tonight just to share a few thoughts. Um share essentially an email that I had shared with all of you. Uh but just share it publicly as well because I know I've spoken with a number of parents with similar concerns. Uh so without any further ado, my name is Nicker Hearn. Want to reach out on behalf of my two students uh daughters Elizabeth and Madison Hearn. Uh, Elizabeth is grade 10 Milton High. Uh, Madison
004is grade 8 Pierce. My wife Sarah and I a longtime residents of Milton. Uh, 17 years living in the town. I also grew up and I'm a proud graduate of the Milton public schools. Uh, I'm a proud supporter of Prop 2 and a half override since doing flyer drops with my parents in the 80s and uh, leading right up to my advocacy for this last override here. My parents are both former lifelong public educators and my mother serves as a teacher at Milton High School for over 20 years. my father in the Boston public schools for almost 40 years as a school administrator and teacher. For my wife and I, we have approximately 50 years combined teaching experience in public education, both of us as teachers and me specifically as a school principal uh for
005the last 15 years. I am also a town meeting member representing precinct 6 and again a proud supporter of the $9.5 million Prop 2 and a half override. I mentioned our background only that my wife and I have a deep understanding of school budgets and specifically have followed along with the planning of the Milton school budget, the importance of the override and certainly the challenges that leaders face with increasing costs these days. That said, it's important for me to voice my concern for the 116 students who do not have transportation, including my two daughters, and the lack of support we see received trying to navigate this problem so far. The simple reality is due to our jobs in public education, my wife and I are both out during school hours and are incapable of driving
006my kids to school. We live on Centry Lane behind Kolcott uh but have had transportation to Middle and High School for the last four years. When I wrote this uh the school was set to start the next day and I kept hoping that somehow some part of Milton Public Schools transportation plan would change. Uh unfortunately to no avail. As it stands right now, we are left to call together a plan to try and get our kids to and from school safely each day, relying on the kindness of neighbors, friends, and hopefully some good luck as my wife tries to book it out of her school every afternoon, beat Milton traffic, and race to pick up my eighth grade daughter. Here's where it's up to you, our school committee, to try and fix this. I understand
007the cost of adding additional buses, specifically $180,000, minus user fees, and that initially at least one more bus was part of the discussion in the $9.5 million override for the budget, but was later dropped. Again, you have the power to fix this. I am surprised, however, uh that uh in the most recent passing of the override that transportation wasn't immediately a priority for all of our students. I could go on about missed opportunities that should have been explored knowing that 116 kids would not receive transportation. But at this juncture, it seems a little bit like a moot point. Things such as exploring additional stops or bus routes from the MBTA. Uh additional crossing guards at busy intersections that my youngest daughter would have to cross while walking over two plus miles to and from school.
008And greater opportunities for students uh who do not receive busing to stay at the school in the afternoon while parents rush to pick them up are just a few of the solutions that I could offered, but there are more that I could certainly come up with if you're interested. What was done, however, was a budget was set along with priorities for spending in the district. And what was left was the safe transportation of 116 kids to and from school each day. I brag about the Milton public schools every chance I get. But I have shared the reality of not having transportation with friends and neighbors in the town and in neighboring towns. They are shocked by the short-sightedness and how we've planned for such a simple part of the school day as a safe coming
009and going of kids. I'm asking you in your role of school committee to immediately prioritize the busing of these 116 students to and from school and make it a budget priority moving forward in future years. As well as a vocal advocate for the Milton public schools and one who has supported the schools for years, I hope to see you advocate for the parents and families who work in jobs like mine and in general uh who do not have flexibility of working from home or adjusting our hours uh to drop off or pick up our kids. At the very least, uh, we are going to, if we're not going to receive transportation right now, $635 is with the school department. And I said in Jess slightly, but I hopefully not, uh, that we have no word
010on where that is. I understand it's being held right now as, I guess, a retainer, but if we're not going to receive transportation, I guess I would use it for Uber going forward. Um, that's where I stand. I I want to thank you very much for your time, all of your time as well. But I truly hope going forward I will tell you I've spoken with a number of parents in my community who do not have busing and I will just tell you all that it is something that has to be a top priority going forward. So thank you all for your time today. Very much appreciate it. >> Thank you. [Music] >> Do you see any good question? >> No hands. If there is anyone online who wanted to make a public comment, if
011you could raise your hand. Okay, we'll move on. The next item is the superintendent report. >> Uh thank you uh very much uh Chia Serio. Uh this week uh we are looking at the opening of school last um Wednesday and Thursday for students and more importantly the last two days. We're very excited about the academic opening of school. At the last school committee meeting we talked a lot about the operation side, our new enrollment numbers, our transportation weight list that was just referred to by uh one of our community members, uh community schools, etc. Uh today we look forward to uh Ka Kosen uh working with us uh to describe what we're doing about teaching and learning. So I'll I'll let that start in a few minutes. Um some of the just the quick updates
012for folks to know. Uh all of our school open houses are already on the calendar. September 4 is Pierce Middle School. September 9 is the Cunningham. The 11th is Milton High School. Tucker is on the 16th. Kyle Cart is on the 18th of September. And the Glover is on the 25th. So we hope all families can get out to those schools for their their open house. Also from the business side of things, we have two meetings coming up this week related to our town work on the budget. Uh one is the first meeting of the budget coordination committee which is on Friday, September 5th. And also on Friday the 5th, I'll be meeting with Ed Goggart uh of the capital strategic solutions. That's the group that is working with town hall in Nick Milano and
013the school department related to budget efficiencies and effectiveness. Um so we'll be looking forward to reporting out from both of those groups as well. Um other than that, we're very excited to have all of our students back and our staff back. uh very much enjoy the environment of having school start before Labor Day so our students uh can get used to their teachers know how to get around the building and let that anxiety go down a little bit have a 4-day weekend and then hit the ground running on Tuesday. I think it goes a long way in uh making a smooth transition no matter what grade your child is in. So uh glad to be in school, glad the kids are in the buildings and excited for the school year. All right. The um next
014item is the teaching and learning focus for 202526. The presentation. >> Sure. So, I'm very uh happy to introduce Kaosa, the part-time interimm assistant superintendent at teaching and learning. Uh Kalera is here with us three days a week and certainly works more than three days worth of work uh on her Mondays and Fridays off. Um we're very very um happy to talk a lot about um the work of teaching and learning and I think that it's important for families to know that uh Kyler is interm uh but we'll talk about our goals and our meeting that we had in this room with the leadership team. Uh because there is an interimm team in charge of the schools this year does not mean that learning uh has stopped or has paused. uh you only do third
015grade once, you only do eighth grade once, you only do senior year once, and we need to make this a very, very uh effective and supportive and engaging school year for all students. So, I want to make sure we say out loud to our families that that will happen this year. We've already hit the ground running with our budget and conversations and our operation work over the summer. Uh but right behind that has been the teaching and learning part of our work. We've already met with our leadership team. We've already set our goals for the year and we already have systems put in place to talk about teaching and learning uh with every uh curriculum leadership person and principal in the district on a regular basis to ensure that we're getting in classrooms looking at
016what's going on in our buildings talking about rigor and talking about all the good things that we want to do for our schools for every single child. um instrumental in that work that we had done in August and have already made steps towards progress this year has been KA's uh the facilitation of the work that we're doing with our staff. Uh the work that Ker and I are taking on is truly facilitating and setting big picture goals, but the 30 29 30 31 professionals that work in the Milton public schools and have worked in the Milton public schools are driving the work. So, we're really thankful to partner with them. Uh, they've been doing amazing work already this year. And so, Kyle's going to share what that looks like. So, you as a school committee
017and the families at home can get a look at what it's going to look like for the teaching and learning side of our work in the school department. So, welcome Kyler and thank you. >> Thank you. Very excited to be here. Um so we'll start off um if you don't mind going to the next slide to talk about the superintendent's goals which I do believe the school committee has looked at before and we kind of started here um as a district in terms of teaching and learning and it's been uh such a pleasure to start to get to know the instructional instructional leaders here in Milton public schools who are so dedicated and knowledgeable and have such deep expertise. So it's it's exciting exciting work. So um just reviewing the superintendent's goals, we have the
018focus on the classroom and whenever we look at goals, we have to have a question that helps to guide our thinking. And so focusing on the classroom, how do we ensure that our students are engaged in rigorous learning with high expectations and high support? So that's a guiding question for us. Culture and climate. The question we need to ask ourselves is how can we continue to create and maintain a culture of high expectations and support of students and staff in order to serve the goal of higher outcomes for students. Bottom left you see budget stewardship. What is the question we need to ask ourselves? How can the district continue to support the goal of focusing on the classroom with the current budget? And then we want to look at all of those goals through the
019lens of DEIB. How do we stay vil v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v vigilant, excuse me, to the work of ensuring that all students are set up for success with sharp focus on students from marginalized groups who may not be achieving. So we started here as an instructional leadership group um to think about how do we attend to these goals um that are not new and really reflecting on all of the good work that uh we already do in the district. Next slide. So the full leadership team as John mentioned met on August 19th and uh we met to determine how
020we would put these goals into action and the target for that work is that it's interconnected and promotes high student achievement. Um as that kind of uh image that you probably seen many times everyone in the boat rowing in the same direction. um that's something that we want to do in practice and really think about how can we intercon interconnect all the work that we do in order to really have an impact. So we started with a highle data review. We looked at MCCAST scores, we looked at dibbles and I ready scores and um the whole group looked at data individually and did some reflection and we had some questions. What does our student achievement data tell us and from that data what priority should we focus on? The next thing we did as a
021group, and I'll explain more about each of these things in a minute, is turn those priorities that we surface into look fors. And I'll explain what that is in a minute, but how do those priorities show up in what happens in our classrooms, offices, and other students spaces? And then we thought about, okay, if we, you know, we have these priorities that the data is telling us we need to think about, and we have look fors, which I'll explain what that means in a minute. How do we take that even further and think about our professional goals and making goals that I'm calling plug-andplay? Basically, they're pre-written and they already kind of align with the look fors. How can we help educators focus on look fors via professional goals? So, that's those are that's kind
022of the high level thinking that we did. And you can go to the next slide. Thank you. So here we are in this very room um doing this work together and as you can see in the picture on the top everyone is kind of thinking about um the the goals together and in the bottom picture you can see a bunch of sticky notes and after some time of individual reflection and looking at the different data sources we asked each other what are the priorities and again to John's point this is really the the work of the team John and I are facilitating but the thinking and uh is already there. So the sticky notes on the bottom represent all of the different priorities that this entire team thought we should be thinking about in relation
023to the data. And then what John and I did is kind of take all of the sticky notes that aligned um because there was a lot of overlap and we came up uh the group came up with the priorities that we wanted to focus on. So next slide please. This is just a graphic kind of thinking about if we have the data coming at the top of the cone and kind of running itself through the cone. We are we do the data analysis. We identify priorities. We define the look fors and then we implement goals and what are uh what will happen is we will have improved student outcomes based on that uh trajectory. Next slide. All righty. So here are the priorities that the instructional leadership team came up with um that we are
024going to be focusing on this year. First, provide all students with robust and intentional tier one instruction. Two, increase the use of data to inform instruction. Increase rigor through high expectations and high supports in the classroom. Four, take strategic action steps to ensure underperforming students achieve at grade level. And then finally, continue to cultivate classroom and school climate and culture to lower absenteeism. I should note that your faculty and staff across Milton public schools are already doing terrific work and what we are talking about and how we are positioning this is elevating what we're already doing. Um, and so this is already on the minds of our educators uh across the district. We're really just trying to focus in on on these aspects uh together this year. Next slide, please. So what is a look
025for tied to our priority? So if our priority example is increase the use of data to inform instruction, a classroom look for means that if anybody walks into the classroom, they're going to see a teacher move, evidence of something. You're going to recognize it. And so the classroom look for would be evidence of real time instructional adjustments based on student responses. So a student response is data. And so a teacher in real time sees what's happening with student responses, understands that that's usable data, and it makes a shift. So an example, a teacher uses an online polling tool for a brief digital quiz. As soon as the results are in, the teacher pro projects them and leads a class discussion about the most common mistakes or assigns a follow-up activity based on the data. So
026this is just a slide to kind of help all of us understand what are we talking about when we talk about a priority going to a look for um and what is it really actually look like in a classroom. So this is just one example um of a look for. Next slide. So our next steps um we've been talking about this as a district. We did that on uh the first day of all of our uh educators in the district. Uh we we kind of warmed the plate on this and the next steps will be to review all parts of this plan districtwide on our next our inservice day next week and the full leadership is creating look fors to be shared with all faculty. So all of our faculty will understand that these are
027the things we're going to be looking for um that everyone will be looking for when we're in classrooms that are tied toward those priorities. Then the full leadership is also building smarty professional goals and this that's a hyperlink if anyone's interested. Um Desi provides some um background on how to create smarty goals for the evaluation process that educators may use to reinforce look force and then the full leadership will support educators in any professional development needs related to this work. So I'm hoping what you see here is a through line that starts with really looking at data, data informed work, then developing priorities, then developing how do we make this happen in the classroom? How do we look for it in the classroom? Then how do we take it one step further? If we're already
028doing this, if we're already thinking about this and this is happening in our classrooms, how do we double down on it through our professional goals and really think about making an impact in a variety of ways? So hopefully you're seeing the through line there and we're excited to take on this work. Um the instructional leadership team across the district um is really united and and thinking through how to do this in a way that helps all educators move the needle for every single student. So um that is the overall update for teaching and learning in this moment. >> So Ka, thank you. I I want to reiterate a few things that I think are really important. Normally when you start a school year, you see big picture goals and you don't see them connect from
029the superintendent's goals to the principal in the building to the teacher in the classroom and the student. And we're trying to throw show you to Kyle's point that through line. And to me, it's it's it's like when you build a building and the elevator is the first thing built and that's the shaft that goes up and down. The superintendent's goals and the district goals. The principles and the leadership team have to buy into what those are and then actually operationalize those for what it looks like in their building and what it looks like in the classroom. And then those classroom teachers need to be uh on the same page of what they're doing and how it relates to those goals and what we are all hoping to see in classrooms connected directly to the classroom
030in their educational goals. So that was just one example of trying to show that this is going to be happening immediately. This isn't something we're going to talk about for a semester or a month or three months. We are going to be in classrooms next week. We're working with our educators at our first early release day on September 10th. Uh and then we'll have our one-on-one meetings with them from an evaluator standpoint to an educator standpoint to talk about how they want to work in this direction. And we're not asking them to do anything different than they are. Staff are already working hard on tier one instruction. They're already using data to inform their instruction. they're already looking at ways to, you know, create strategies that impact our marginalized students that need extra support who
031aren't achieving. So, we're just asking them to focus on that. We're all going to do it together. We want to, you know, be visible in schools so we can validate their work, ensure that they feel supported in the work, and then learn what's going on so we can actually support the work moving forward. So, we want to take the classroom um and the focus on the classroom and make it the central work that we do this year related to teaching and learning. So um we we welcome any questions and any thoughts about this process that we can uh continue this dialogue. >> Um I can go first. You just stare at each other too. Um this is great. Thank you for this. Um and it's great to see this as you said, Superintendent Failen come
032together, you know, week one. That's >> great to get started on that foot. I have a couple of questions. One about the priorities on slide six. >> Y >> um I'm just curious if you could say a few more sentences about where these particular priorities came from. I assume they were identified because there's some gap between where we are now and where we want to be. But just if you could just contextualize that a little bit. Um, and then on the look fors, um, I I don't know this example is helpful and I don't know where else what other look fors might look like. It sounds like that that's part of the next work. >> I I would really encourage the district to think about look fors not only in instructional moves but in student
033experience with content. So like for example in this um where the teacher uses the online polling tool for a brief digital quiz. >> I would also want to look for >> is that quiz standards aligned? Is it testing at a level of rigor that we feel good about what whatever the right thing is. >> Sure. >> Um so let me back up for you. So looking at the priorities, so um using the data that um each uh of our leaders had, they thought through what is what is it telling us? And generally speaking, um all of the data is is online um and available for public. Um it's MCCAST data, it's um I Ready, it's Dibbles, and it's telling us about our generally our math and our reading a achievement. And what you would see
034generally over the last 5 years is a is a pretty kind of flat line. Um and so that was kind of the first thing that folks started to think about. They also looked at a presentation that was given um I think in 24 on the MCCAST data um and some kind of highlights around that that helped us understand that some subgroups were not performing and that's something we need to think about. Um and just the idea of using data was something that you know the the leadership team was saying we need to do more of this. Um and so that became a priority based on just looking at the data alone. Um and in terms of our the um priority number four take strategic action steps to ensure underperforming students achieve at grade level. That's
035something that the leadership team really thought about. You know we really need to think about what are those action steps. We're trying to do things every day, but how can we work smarter, not harder, and how can we really be active in in our classrooms to help underperforming students? So, that's something that the team really wants to think about and provide teachers with some more a kind of broader menu of action steps for that. Um, provide all students with robust and intentional tier one instruction. that really speaks to the students who on our assessments are are showing lower performance and trying to make sure that all students have the robust instruction in the classroom setting. Um, and so they all came from the data pieces that told us a story and where where the team
036saw overlap, you know, multiple team members said, I think we need to focus on tier one. That's how it became a priority because it was, you know, multiple folks were seeing the same thing and that's how we identified it. Does that answer your question? >> Yep. Can you define tier one? Tier one is basically when you're thinking about the different levels of instruction for students. Tier one is a baseline that all students should have a robust instruction. Tier two and tier three uh depends on the child's needs and they may be taken out of the class for additional instruction, but tier one is for all students. >> And and we what we saw in the data was that they the growth overall needs to to move forward. And so we we pride ourselves in taking
037a lot of time to make sure that our underserved students are getting what they need and taking action steps for that. But we're also saying out loud that everybody needs that kind of intentionality. We we need to see growth for all of our students. So the first three priorities are every single student needs a robust classroombased tier one instruction experience. Everybody does. And everybody needs to use data to help inform those teaching moves and what's happening in the building. And we should be expecting rigor uh for every single child in the district. We we want to see everybody move from this bucket up higher to up higher no matter what bucket they're starting in. So and then but when we do that for all students, it's our obligation to also make sure that we're you
038know equally if not extending ourselves to first of all who's not achieving. So this isn't in an order of most important to least important. And it was really important for the leadership team. They were thinking should we represent these priorities in a circular manner because they felt that they were all number ones. There was really no number five. We just had to list them by using numbers. Uh so they really wanted to talk about what all students need to to have growth happen at every level of the district, but also target uh where students aren't learning and take action steps in that area. And it really felt like the the leadership team wanted to be more uh proactive in in taking action steps versus discussing. They really wanted to get in classrooms and talk about
039teaching and learning. And u so we're excited that they have that good energy and we're just facilitating what they saw in the data. And I think one of the pictures you saw was the 85 yellow stickies that were all over the wall. >> Those were the discussion points that were brought these five uh priorities to light. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Um, quick question. I think I appreciate the presentation. Love the focus on tier one instruction. I agree wholeheartedly with Nathan in terms of obviously the focus is not just on teacher moves but also the quality of the curriculum uh and the rigor of the task that kids are being asked to master, right? Learning is based upon the task. Um, I think a question I have on the look fors is like who are
040the people doing the looking and how often are they able to look? because I think that's that's the thing that when we've had you know school leaders in here I've tried to consistently try and figure out like how many people are they um you know observing like how many not just from an evaluation standpoint obviously that is important to give teachers feedback like once a year through that model but also just from a non-evaluative just developmental standpoint of getting into classrooms seeing their practice giving them feedback coming back seeing how they implemented that feedback etc etc and doing that repeatedly I know you've talked a lot about getting in the classroom. But can you give us a sense of like do we have a goal of how often we're trying to get into every teacher's
041classroom and observe? >> So we will Kyler and I already have booked with every school. Uh we'll be in schools between once and twice a week. >> So there'll be one or two days dedicated where we will be in schools walking with principles uh getting into classrooms talking about teaching and learning. And from an evaluation standpoint that's my observation of that principle. So I'm modeling that observation evaluation process by using that moment to evaluate their discussion about what they're seeing in the classroom and we're having a dialogue about what's happening in the classroom that we think is great. That's best practice. We ask good questions. So we're talking about it uh in observing classroom and going back and debriefing after. So that will happen every week in a different school if not in two schools
042per week. Um there will be times where uh in our meetings that we have with our secondary leadership teams uh principles and coordinators and our elementary principles and coordinators meetings which we will have every other week where we'll start to talk about the themes and what we're seeing in those classrooms and talk about whether that justifies any PD that we might want to have for staff or anything that we want to talk about to enhance that process. So in terms of the activity we'll be in Kyler and I will be in schools every week. uh we'll be walking with principles. We'll be inviting unit B members. If we want to see something through the lens of uh special education, we'll ask Daniel Wetmore to come with us to be an observer. If we want to
043look at something that's literacy based in third grade, we'll ask Kat Ro to come with us. If we have a math thing that we want to see and pay attention to and prioritize for that uh learning walk, we'll ask Brian Selling to come and do that work with us. So, we always have that contentbased view, the building based view, and the district-wide view as we start to walk the buildings. This is not going to be as sophisticated as the learning walk process that I think we all know about in our in our graduate work of having teams and doing it in a formal way. That takes a little time to set the protocols for that, set the teams up. And we just didn't want to take the time to set it up and not have
044it get off the ground until January, February. >> We wanted to just get in the classrooms and do a modified version of that. So, we will be in classrooms weekly. We'll be having those discussions weekly and they'll be followed up in different curriculum meetings that we'll have every other week with all the leaders in the district. >> I mean, I think that's great and I love the the focus again of from even the network office modeling that behavior. I guess a followup question is just from the like school lens. Is there some general kind of goal or direction that y'all are providing to principles or assist principles or unit B, you know, director um folks who in terms of how often they are going in and and looking at again kind of on average each
045teacher like I guess if I'm a teacher in the district, how often can I expect to get observed, get feedback, have that kind of debrief and then throughout the course of the year beyond just my kind of formal evaluation? So the formal evaluation process will be uh a robust observation process. You have to go in x amount of times before you do the formative in June I mean in January and then several more times before the June uh summit of meeting. So there's a good five or so observations that you'll have just through that lens. >> Uh how many of the individual classrooms we get to and principles get to as part of the learning walk will be you know will be random in nature or targeted in nature depending on what we're looking for.
046Um, what I really hope is that we utilize and leverage the evaluation system as a way to make sure that we're all staying accountable to each other of getting into classrooms and prioritizing that conversation about teaching and learning. So, I can't give you a number. I can only say that we're prioritizing our work of being visible and present in classrooms, working with teachers, talking to them about what works and observing and giving good feedback on a regular basis. >> Yeah, I I hear that. I think I guess my just final point on that is I I think having some type of goal of you know five times a year I think for a very veteran experienced high performing teacher like that's probably good and like you know really want to pull them out and have
047people observe them uh that are other teachers things like that but for new teachers right like do we have trying to establish that I don't think we have that I don't think we've had that you know before you but just trying to figure out like you know what is our goal what is the direction to our school-based administrators from y'all's kind of level to say, "Hey, we we need y'all in the classroom. The work is happening in classrooms. We should be trying to visit classrooms, you know, x number of times." Setting some type of goal. I I generally think it's helpful to then hold yourself accountable to say like, "Oo, I actually only gotten four classrooms. I only saw four teachers this week versus like, hey, we want to see, I don't know, throw out
048a rand 15, whatever the number is." I think is just helpful because I completely agree with your point of getting in the classroom seeing what is happening in the classroom is the only way to know what is happening with learning until you get the data dump and then you don't have the context of the data dump unless you've been in the classrooms to see like oh yeah saw they were struggling with that skill. >> I I think that for our building principles they'll be doing their walkthroughs just as they always have done of getting into rooms in a less formal way seeing what's going on in class walking through being visible. We we haven't decided on the number yet and our our worry is that uh we have reduced three unit B positions this year.
049So when we're looking at the evaluation chart of how many folks uh each administrator will have to evaluate, it's going to be somewhere in the 20s. >> Yeah. So seeing every seeing every non tenured teacher which is a teacher in year one two or three and prioritizing getting into those rooms especially September through November >> um will be the priority and then getting into our our um tenure teachers classes throughout the year. If you calculate 20 people that I'm responsible for by >> five visits, >> five or six visits a a teacher, that's they're in the classrooms a lot. >> And then they're following up with one-on- ones after those meetings and they're talking about teaching and learning. Um, so we we uh we don't have an exact number if that's what you're asking for,
050but we feel like the process we're trying to leverage something that they're supposed to be doing anyways as the way to get them in the room and have those hard discussions. that's already in place and that should be done with fidelity and um and quality uh each time they visit. >> Appreciate it. Thank you. >> I I appreciate the questions that have been asked so far. I'd also just like to voice my appreciation for the goals that you've set. Um, I think I'm thankful for the clarity and concision of the presentation of the goals. Um, while it's all complex work that will be taking place this year, I think it's helpful to be so um, clear and focused from this very beginning point. Um, and I don't recall having this level of clarity this early
051in the year. Um, and it's helpful, of course, for the conversation we will go on to have about the school committee goals. I really appreciate the inclusion of the DEIB focus. um you've used the word accountability and I think we've had that discussion and I I really like to see threaded throughout this expectation that we will be moving the needle >> through these goals look fors and the processes that you're setting up with um with the leadership team. So I'm just feeling thankful and you know hopeful um for what will come from this and I really also want to affirm reaffirm the appreciation for your modeling the leadership from where you sit and show you know uh putting yourself out there in the buildings and sort of reinforcing this culture. Um I I think it's
052necessary and um you're doing it with this focus and clarity but um through that sort of stance of support and looking for things that um ways that people may need more support which they can then access. So, um I my only question is I don't think for now so much as you know when we look at our goals talk that through. I know we're still sort of formulating what the cadence will be of um conversations we have as the year unfolds. I'm sort of interested um to imagine like how we as a school committee will be able to stay a breast of the progress that you're seeing through this work. Um and you know I'm I'm just imagining different ways that could look and one thing that I'm I found myself wondering during the presentation
053involves the collaboration between curriculum directors and school leaders. um we as a school committee have really often that work has appeared siloed to us. I that doesn't mean it has been siloed but in terms of how it has been shared with us it has not really been I don't think as integrated as what you're describing >> um in the initial sort of setup of the year. So, I'm just kind of I'm just wondering about that and not for right now, but maybe as we proceed to set, you know, um whatever the discussions are going to be happening quarterly or whatever it might be where we're receiving updates. I'm realizing how interesting that might be to have to for us to be able to learn um from those leaders like when we have those opportunities in
054a kind of synthesized way um because their work clearly is so synthesized. And I just appreciate um I appreciate all this cuz the shorter more focused the presentation like the um that can make it look easier said than done, you know, but I think it makes it's actually harder to get to that point. So I really >> thank you for all the work you've done over these weeks. Um and both of you having just gotten here and really hit the ground running. I think that's what this shows me. So appreciate it. >> Thank you. We're really um thankful for the energy that the the full leadership team brought to the meeting that we showed you in pictures um already where we all decided what was exactly going to be presented in every school in the
055first day by the principles and how that was supported by the curriculum leadership, how that will roll over into next Wednesday's early release day and how will that will roll over into everybody's first meeting with their evaluators. So, uh, the work of, um, really creating teams with our principles in our leadership, uh, curriculum leadership is really, really important. Uh, I think Ka got off to a great start in building trust on our retreat day. Um and so keeping everybody on the same page through systematic meetings and those meetings will have goals and those meetings will have report outs and we'll be asking good questions and you know several artifacts that we could bring would be the agendas for those how you know we're meeting every month. It's every other week essentially um and making sure
056that we're keeping that bigger group on the same page because they're the ones who have been doing the good work. They're the ones who just want a little bit of facilitation and support and they'll be continuing to do the good work. So, this is their district. This is their work. These are their priorities. Uh they are really good. I want to make sure the community knows that your curriculum leadership folks in your principles are very high functioning, highquality professional educators who have great ideas, who are really ready to be actively taking part in this work with kids and teachers. And um so we're we're we're we're facilitating that. we have a this is a really nice job for us, right? Because we get to facilitate everything that they need support with and how they want
057to direct it. So, uh it's it's you you will I hope to be able to share with you, Lizzie, as well some way of capturing that good energy and how that's been brought forward to every month of the school year this year. >> Thank you. >> This is awesome. Uh I a lot of you shared um similar um comments so I won't get into it too much but I really appreciate looking at the data finding out you know because we've looked at data presentations. This is my fourth year looking at data presentations and I really appreciate that you've kind of identified what needs to change and listed those and now you're have a plan to get there and that's what I'm looking for and I'm psyched that you're hitting the ground running. Um this is
058incredible and thank you for making it so easy for us to understand. You know, it's very simplified. It's that these are the steps and this is how we're going to get there and you're going to share progress with us, you know, every so often. And I'm excited and I'm so excited that the the the larger team at MPS is excited about this and they're collaborative with this process and you could just see it and I'm really thrilled about this year. So, thank you. Great work both of you and your team. >> Good, good, good. And just to kind of follow up on that, um I will say it's these aren't new things. These are things that have been happening in this district. We're really just digging in digging in on things that they identified as
059priorities. So that's the really good news is that a lot of this great work has already been happening. We're really just digging in now. >> So >> it was the last I was um one of the things that I really appreciate and and John you've noted this and and Carla you saying that as well is I think it's this um sense of um going to probably make up word but proceduralize or or or give some structure and some consistency to um what's being done, how it's being looked at. I think it, you know, for anybody in any role that you're in, having a clear um understanding of what the expectations are is really important and I think it makes your job difficult if you think you're doing the right thing but you're you you know
060you might be doing something different here than someplace else. So I think this idea of consistency providing a framework or providing um sort of those look fors those giving giving people a framework that you're working within you know within this um within that framework I think is probably really helpful and allows them to sort of focus then on doing the work not figuring things out right you get to just move forward and do what you love to do and do what you know how to do. So I really really appreciate that. I and I I think the other thing is um and you've noted this before, but I think this idea of rigor for everyone. So regardless of um if you're getting a modified curriculum, if you're in an AP class, whatever it is, the
061goal is for every student to meet their potential, right? And so we really want to push that. And so I love that idea that it's it's not just one area of focus just about AP or just about something. It's that recognizing that we want everyone to move to that as you said like move to that next um level. And I I think that that's great and using that idea of data that data doesn't have to be dibbles. It can be a pop quiz. It can be a hands up, did you get it? It can be like that idea of being able to then take that information and say, "Oh, in that moment, I think I need to tweak this or I need to change that." So, I think that that's great for for everyone. So,
062thank you for the work and I I I echo that. I appreciate a simple presentation that's that's um that we all can >> in in the last group we didn't thank I think well enough is the teachers right so the teachers are doing this stuff so we want to focus on >> those practices with them share those model them >> um and teachers might say when we give these uh model um goals I'm already doing something like that here's my goal and that's okay >> we're just we're just trying to provide a model example and if folks are already doing this work and they're targeting uh tier one instruction or they're targeting uh the underperforming students in their class and they already have a goal written for that that they have been focusing on with
063maybe a grade three team or the three math teachers in seventh grade, then keep doing it. You know, we're here to support that work. That's that's we expect people to have >> the work already moving and have goals that work uh for them in the group that they're working with and the students they're working with. So these are just guides again to facilitate and move the work for the staff and and the students and also talk about children, talk about learning and talk about not only good engaging experiences, but having students come home happy, tired with homework and a little hungry. >> Uh that's what every parent wants, right? >> And um and then they get up and they wake up and they're ready to go and we're all still half asleep, but they're ready
064to get up and go to school the next day. That's what we want for every family. >> That's right. Um, so that that's the simple way to put it. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> All right. The next is the um review of the proposal for the high school trip to France and Switzerland. This is not a vote. We're just reviewing >> correct proposal. So, this um field trip uh request is a first read, just a way for you all to see that this is coming down as a trip that uh potentially will be in place for the spring of 26. The sponsor of the trip also said that there may be uh her that she may want to do this in the spring of 27. And the reason why I say
065that is that um not that I want to change practices but if we think about this read of a trip where uh obviously the the objectives are there uh to uh bring out world language curriculum to real life. Uh this trip would take um students to several different countries uh over uh in Europe uh Paris uh in Switzerland. It's open to all students in any world language program. Um the the safety of the students uh will be approximately 10 to1 in a ratio. The proposed budget is the worry of mine is $4,500 to $5,000 per student. And the reason why I brought up the the year uh it's really helpful for our families if we can let them know a year in advance if their child would like to go on a trip like this.
066So, I'd like to create a cycle where we're giving these trips um in a first read to the school committee and to families in in a year prior to and in that way that people can think about if they want to go and talk to their children about it. And then they have a year to take part in any fundraising activities the school might do. uh raise some money in their own, get that part-time job over that summer in order to help support that number so we can have more uh families take part and have access maybe go up a little higher if people have more time. So, uh Claire Younger is a teacher here at the high school. She's open to doing this in spring of 26 or spring of 27. Uh she took
067that feedback very well and thought about it and said that's a lot of money. So um this trip if it goes in April of next year or April of 27 would be during April break. Depending on flights it might cost us one day of school either prior or after. And um the event that she has already run in previous years was done in a way that had uh very good structure, very good support, very good safety and the kids were engaged and enjoyed themselves. So again this is something that we're putting forward. It has the support of Zena Hamada, who's a director of world languages, and Karen Cahill, uh, the high school principal. And if they want to run it this year, we'll have them bring back, uh, this proposal for a vote at another
068time in the fall. >> One question I'm wondering based on what makes a lot of sense that you were saying about planning ahead, do Do we know or this just something I'd be curious to know like when do students find out if they um have a spot on the trip? >> Do you know what I mean? Because it's talking about a waiting list. So just wondering how far ahead is the process to sort of apply, sign up or what have you and find out if you have that opportunity or you're on the wait list. So one of the reasons why I'm in favor of making it a year before is so everybody can know that information with a lot ahead of time. So I think when the organizers of these trips have to discuss weight
069list of who gets to attend, >> it's based on the ratio of adults that they can recruit and attend the trip. >> So they can ensure that they have that ratio uh of one chaperon per 10 students. Uh, normally I don't think that we've really ever seen a weight list. Uh, at least in my experience in Milton a long time ago and in my previous district, but um I think people would need to know very soon if they wanted to do an April >> right >> trip. >> So I'll be meeting with Claire in in um uh Zena Hamada and and Karen to find out if they want to invest in this year. And if they do, I'm going to probably turn this back to you in our October meeting for a vote so we
070can notify those students as soon as possible. Okay, good point. >> And she did have a plan of introducing this to the school committee in May and June, but we had a busy May and June and she didn't put it on the agenda because she felt like it wasn't appropriate at the time. >> Sure, >> go ahead. >> Um, just a couple qu the do we have to reapprove in because I think we've approved some field trips before, right? Once they're approved, once are they approved or do we have to reapprove them every I just don't know policy wise what they do >> I'm not sure what the policy is but my practice has always been to bring every trip >> um >> every out of state every country trip every year back to >>
071anything in state you don't have to bring >> um and you know I have some ideas about a cycle for that that may not need to be approved >> but but we'll I'll try to introduce that if it if it's the right time to do so. Yeah, I was thinking just to your point of like planning for this and any other trips, right? Like the eighth grade DC trip or I feel like there's been other international trips that like they I think the middle school French goes up to Quebec. Yeah. Um so anyway, like just >> some type of general like overview. Hey, here are all the different trips that we do at different age groups and the kids who are eligible because your kids may or may not be. um >> just as like
072a one pager for families to to your point to like send that out at the end of the year, beginning of the year, whatever it might be. Um so families kind of know >> online. >> So that's the kind of cycle that I'm actually talking about, Mark, that that way when you walk into the middle school, you'll know that there'll be potentially a trip if you're in the French immersion program. I believe Zena is planning a trip for our Spanish and Latin students this year. If we have traditional trips, we should just create that menu and anchor it in one big boat and annualize it so people know the drill and the school committee can do it. And then when I get into sixth grade and I look at my 6 through 12 trajectory, wow,
073I can do that in 8th grade, I can go to DC and wow, I have a trip that I can take advantage of any of the four years that I'm at the high school either going to Europe or going >> and and I just think it makes it easier for families to plan and and actually get excited about some of the programming that's offered. So, I'll work with the high school and middle school principal to see if we can get that up and running. Yeah, >> be great. >> I'm just looking at our policy that was included in the folder and it it does seem open to interpretation whether the trip needs to be approved once to be replicated or needs to be approved annually for the same trip. So, I mean, definitely appreciate being
074able to hear the information, but that doesn't necessarily seem clear to answer your question, Mark. >> You mentioned the the cost of the trip. How does that work for families? Is it like is there any sort of financial assistance? like how does that for >> I think that the financial assistance is limited quite frankly which is always a concern of mine. Yeah. >> Uh I think that the the the chaperones in the sponsors of the trip like to try to provide some fundraisers for students to collectively get together and raise money together. >> Uh sometimes the groups that run the trips give scholarships. So if we're using EF uh which is one of the major ones in the country that's based in Boston, they might say for every 20 students we'll give one scholarship or
075two half scholarships. So there's opportunities for that. But my main worry about this uh and has always been for trips is the access and the money, >> right? >> And folks being able to afford it. Um so that that's why I like to give time and space in order for families to prepare if they can they can do so. I think the other thing too is um passports. I mean not nec you it's sort of a last minute decision making sure that students have the passport. You know I think there are things that logistically that >> you don't necessarily think about and then if if the time gets closer and then you've got to get because oftentimes they'll say before you apply you have to have a passport like we have to know that you
076have a passport. So if that's >> part of the decision factor then you need to back it up even further, >> right? But yeah, that the cost is definitely and maybe having a longer lead time there is more opportunity for fundraising or whatever to bring the cost down for for kids. >> Is it similar to like um I think for the DC trip like PTO helps like has fundraisers and you can sp you can parents can donate or sponsor or like things like that. I think they do that for the DC trip because they try to get every single to go in and and this is just a really a choice program at the high school. >> Um and and I think Bill has done a nice job of trying to get every single eighth
077grader to go. Mhm. >> And I have to say that um when I was here part-time in May, uh Bill prided himself on going to the DC trip because he had three or four students that had traditionally not been able to access trips in some of our subsearate programs that went and he wanted to be personally with them to make sure that they had a good time and they were well taken care of. And so that >> that really was significant uh outreach for him to be able to do that. So that's what the eighth grade trip I think does. But I think these high school trips are a little different. >> Okay. Any other questions or comments? No. Great. All right. We are on the chair's report. So, if I could just switch the
078order only because I think that's okay. The discussion will take a little bit more um time than the review of the school committee, subcommittees, and advisory committee. So in the folder was our updated list of um those who are on the subcommittees and advisory committees. Um the newest one is the um Milton budget coordination committee. To date there has not been any um application for that from a citizen standpoint. So, I reached out to Lynn today and she confirmed that the one position that we do need to we can't vote on it today, but we did get an application for the climate action planning committee representative. Um, that's in the folder. Um, we have gotten one. So, we just received that today. So, if you want to review that, if people had questions around the
079applicant, we can do that now. I think it's just a good opportunity to address it. Go ahead, Mark. The only thing that seemed different this time versus last time is like last time I I do feel like we got resumes where like it said a bit more people's background and this person provided some of that to you know much lesser extent kind of within two sentences but um >> and it's the only application so maybe it doesn't matter but it just it did feel like last time we had a little bit more information on like qualifications and what kind of this person's professional expertise was would contribute to this group. Um, so that's the only thing I wanted to flag, but I did see where it said, you know, a resume is optional within the
080application. So, >> yeah, I think that's feedback I would provide on the application. Yeah, >> I think I >> I don't um just not familiar with the individual. There's I I have no information to base my own like support of that individual to represent the school committee, right? based on filling out the application, you know, in good faith. I I think I just I will just say I'm feeling uh I just don't know like how how I would be able to honestly vote on that. Um, but that's not feedback on the applicant so much as the process, >> right? >> Well, I guess my question is I assume the applicant isn't >> applying for the school committee rep, right? Yes. on the town website. >> I think to your point, Mark, you know, I recall
081previously there was not just further context and information about the individual's um qualifications, but also their desire to specifically represent the school committee. Yeah. >> On that committee and that an interest in >> um that angle. So yeah, I'm not quite sure. Um I think I I genuinely appreciate anybody who volunteers to serve on any committee in our town. I mean obviously we are all volunteers and we know that that's nothing to be taken for granted but um it does seem very minimal. There is no substantial information other than a couple of professional qualifications shared which don't directly pertain to climate change. >> So that just raises that question for me. I don't know what's possible as far as >> if there's any way to seek further information. If Amanda there's any way you could
082check with Sure. um Alex who chairs the committee just to confirm whether he I don't know >> and I'm not trying to make it diff make anything difficult but I also just hesitate to set a precedent for myself where I'm voting to approve someone representing with no information about um the qualifications or or like um in sort of interests of this person in the work >> uh to know how they would then in turn represent the school committee in that work, >> right? >> Yeah. I very much agree. I think if there's a possibility of getting going back to the candidate to ask them to provide a letter of interest, you know, one page, I think that's now that you say that, I think we did receive that from >> and resume as well. Again,
083I'm not I'm really not this. I'm not sharing a criticism of um this individual. >> Yes. It's because they have they have just filled out the minimal information that's asked. So, >> I would be interested in maybe giving feedback to um the town about perhaps making that resume not optional. >> I don't know. >> Yeah. >> One question I had is and and I it's not clear on the form. So it says community advocacy select board. Does that mean the select bo? What is the board or person next to it? Because I would have thought that it would say school committee from the standpoint of a representative. Do you see? So at the top where they or does that mean that this board reports up? I just hadn't seen this form before. So it it
084Yeah, I assume it's because yeah, the board reports to the select board. >> Okay. >> They manage the process. Um only the reason I ask is is it clear that you are representing the school committee by filling this out? Do you know? >> Well, school a school committee rep. I mean that's that leads to a question of perhaps yeah perhaps this individual was applying to be a select board rep appoint appointee and they maybe they appointed other people. I'm not sure. And >> right >> like maybe nobody applied specifically to be the school committee's representative. >> Okay. >> Um >> which would explain why there hasn't. I can so I can reach out in um to both to see about getting more information and then also just some clarity around that piece of it. Um
085I can reach out to Nick on that and then Alex on the other piece and see if there's the ability to reach back out to get more information. So I know last year we had several applicants and this year there's only one. What is that proc like? How is that? Do we put it out to get do we need to have a minimum of a certain amount of applicants? Like how does that work? Or do we have to appoint someone from the school committee if like what is that pro I guess >> we we could appoint somebody from the school committee. Um >> I think we determined that's that's something I don't think we've talked about actually within this round is a fair point, but I was yeah two years ago. I don't think we
086did last year. >> Yeah, two years ago. Yeah. >> Kept her on. Um she agreed to stay. >> Um I don't assume I don't think we have anywhere within our policies that I've seen or within this that says like you need a certain number of applicants. So I assume we could appoint the one applicant >> or we could not and then it is left unfilled. I don't I think to the point maybe of reaching out to Alex like how much do they need just extra people to do the work at this point? um you know um are we really hindering them by this or you know if we leave the seat unfilled right now because we want to drum up some more interest um >> is that okay >> or >> yeah really just I'm
087wondering does he have any more information about this indiv individual based on this individual has attended the presentation attended a meeting. >> Um, >> yeah, it looks like they just attended a select board meeting that Alex presented at. >> Well, and then says attended a climate action planning committee meeting. >> Oh, yeah. You're right. You're right. >> So, you're right. >> Yeah. So, maybe Alex would remember. reach out to Alex >> and see what >> what else we can get. >> We when we reviewed multiple applications that was when the committee was first formed >> in 2023. So I guess it's not surprising that um there may have been more interest in the beginning just because it was new and people maybe had more >> um >> interest that way. But um you know I
088think yeah would be great to have >> more um but then again if we just can learn more about this person to be reassured that they >> um would be a helpful >> addition to the committee then I'd be happy to support that. You know >> I can do my best Erin Bradley um impression and say if you're out there in TV land please apply for these committees. We have lots of openings. The school committee, we have two, so please apply. >> All right. Anything else on that? So, I will follow up with Alex as well as Nick on that. >> Amanda, if you could mention just looking at the form itself. >> Yeah. >> Um, I just looked at the this this individual applied back in July, so I pulled up the new form
089and it doesn't have the budget coordinating committee as an option for volunteering, >> right? um which could be could make it >> right >> challenging to to know how to apply >> right >> yeah I don't know what the I don't know what the solicitation you know how they they reached out to people or how it was promoted about these two positions I know that you know sometimes they'll have something in >> the Milton times but for the the budget piece I'm not sure how that how else it was communicated and to your point how you would apply if it's not on this form. So, I'll ask >> that might be some timing because I think they didn't approve officially the budget coordination committee until after maybe maybe a little bit after this. So, that
090might just be like a timing issue. >> It's worth double checking that it's on there now. >> The form that's currently on the town of Milton website does not have it. >> Oh, the one Oh, yeah. >> Okay. >> That will make it hard to get applications. Okay, I'll do that. All right. Um, the next thing we're going to talk about was is the um discussion uh review of the Milton I sorry discussion of the 2526 school committee goals. Um so we had we want to bring those up. So, we had a discussion at our um planner retreat on August 6th and we there were we kind of went through and edited the document. I just went through and cleaned up the document that we had done to kind of take out the the things
091that we crossed out. But I did think maybe we could start here for a second. So, as we're looking through it, um we've done draft work around it. we've had discussions around it, but I thought it might be helpful just to kind of take a step back for a moment. Um, because as we're looking at them and and sort of as John was talking about that, you know, sort of that elevator shaft, this idea of making sure that our our goals as a school committee are aligned with the superintendent's goals. So, I didn't go into depth, but really just took into account and just um shared the um four areas. that was focused on the classroom, culture and climate, budget stewardship and DEIB and then secondarily just went through the MASC site and just to
092revisit the school committee areas of responsibility. So this is not to say that we need to have something around each one obviously that would be really cumbersome but recognizing the areas you know kind of in that that stay in our lane idea but sort of like if we're focusing on certain areas um these are the areas of responsibility for the school committee. and policy, finance, staffing, collective bargaining, PD, school councils, advocacy, curriculum, governance, and communication. So, I know some of those we had incorporated previously. Um, but as we're looking through and going through the draft of the goals that we've done to date, it might be helpful just to have those um as a reference point. But more but I think equally as important if not more so would be the superintendent's goals to see
093how our goals align in supporting the superintendent's goals. Um so the next page is the draft of the goals that we came up with on the 6th and then we can just go forward and you can just look at this on your screen and then the next page is just I just captured just go to the next page Mark. Um the next page is the discussion points from the meeting. So, these were things that people had brought up, ideas around maybe more um sort of more detailed elements within the goal. If it's um information that we're looking for, what that goal might look like, one thing that we might consider as we're doing doing this is um almost having a parking lot or something that that captures some of these areas. So if there is
094information around data or if there are things that are deeper within a goal that we want to capture that then might inform a topic on the calendar later. I think it's just a good place to capture that. So um so essentially page two and three are the outcome of our last discussion if we want to go back there. So it might be a good place to just start here. We moved away from sort of the categories and just really focused on the specific goals and then decided at the last point that if we wanted to somehow bucket them, we could. But that we'd lead with what we'd lead with the goals first and then revisit that. So I don't know if it would make sense to walk through them individually. Some of them I think
095are there are similar themes. Um and maybe even you know if we want to have even in front of us keeping in front of us the the superintendent's goals is is sort of a a placeholder to compare them or to to align them. That might be helpful. Um, >> big picture, I appreciate the concept of the parking lot. >> I think I'd like to encourage us to, especially with the superintendent's goals side by side, like I think we need to narrow these down. >> Correct. >> I would agree. Um, and that doesn't mean we would be eliminating the the issue, the topic necessarily, but >> it's the focus. >> Maybe it's not a goal to be achieved so much as work to do along the way, you know. >> Bless you. >> Yeah. And we
096don't even necessarily have to I think the idea around the parking lot was not necessarily to talk about it today, but I think it's a great place to capture things that people might find important or want to learn more about, especially as we sort of look at building up the calendar if there were things, you know, we were talking about the, you know, the data if there are areas around that that might be a good place to capture it. But, but going up that next level, what's the goal that then would inform the need for the data, right? So, so I agree with starting with the with the goals and just >> should we start by bucketing in into the four categories that John had come up with like with >> academic rigor and >>
097budget and div and all of those. >> Yeah. Mark, I'm just >> the the contracts piece. it is an important budget stewardship is obviously key to that but I don't want to >> pigeon hole it there because it's >> I think it actually touches all of the goals honestly um if we're doing that right so >> do we want to walk >> I know we're just doing this for discussion but >> I think that's almost like its own goal and it's extremely concrete because that is just something we will be doing >> yeah right Um, >> and I think it also goes within our responsibilities. So there will be some that don't necessarily strictly >> fall within that. Um, I would think that yeah, recruitment and retention of staff would be one that could go
098under the DEIB bucket because I think that's the frame in which John has talked about it and they're kind of focused with that department. >> Yeah. And I do think the one that um I mean we've talked a lot about communication >> that um keeping that it doesn't necessarily align with those but >> it align I mean it actually it aligns with each of them right communicating around those but having a a goal around communication the one we we kept it on here just um because we I know that we're going to have more of a conversation around it is around the we just kept the conduct hiring a new superintendent knowing that we're going to have further discussions and hope that our next school committee meeting. >> I think if we that under the
099other mark evaluate the activities being taken that would be other and I think either that under the culture and climate. >> Yeah. Uh, so please disregard this if it's not helpful to the conversation. But the the buckets, what we're currently using as like category headings, those are goals unto themselves that the superintendent has set. >> Correct. >> Our main job, I believe, is to make sure that our goals in this context are to make sure that our goals are aligned with the superintendent's goals. >> We have different roles and responsibilities. So our goals I don't will not be the same exact goals by definition. I think >> so I I I worry a little bit about like boxing ourselves into these as categories because they're not categories. They're actual goals that the superintendent has set.
100>> Um I think I would want to make sure that none of the goals we're setting contradict any of these four goals. I would want to make sure that each of the goals we're setting either directly support one of these goals or more or fulfill a function of our like role as a school committee. Um. >> Mhm. >> Right. >> But >> right there's alignment but not >> Yeah. I I think we want to use the superintendent's goals as a lens, >> right, >> to check our goals, >> but not necessarily as the organizing framework for our goals. I think um so for example >> I don't know if that makes sense but >> yeah but I mean like so for example would you say you know support academic excellence and student achievement you know
101if that would like for just using that as an or what >> maybe one of our goals is um I don't again the verb we've discussed like the importance of identifying the right verb for the goal To me, one of the school committee's goals is to [Music] um provide support and accountability for the superintendent in working towards the goals that have been that the superintendent has set. That can be a goal of the school committee perhaps, you know, slash maybe there are some that we do share the budget stewardship. Clearly, >> there's a superintendent role to that goal. There's a school committee role to that goal. So, that would be one that we I think we probably need our own version of that goal. Um, but and I'm not I'm just kind of putting this
102out there as a >> um I'm just thinking out loud because this is our opportunity to to do that in this discussion meeting setting. Um, I guess I just don't want to end up with four headings that are the same >> with like several goals under each which are actually >> right >> our own. I don't know. I'll stop. >> Well, I mean, this was just to kind of bucket it in to make sure that we're what are we're coming with is aligned with what John has in mind, but I think we can kind of simplify some of these. I think we're getting into the nitty-gritty of like the ELA curriculum was a big part of our >> budget discussion last spring. So, I think that's something that we want to see through happen and
103see progress on it and updates and so on and so forth. That's getting kind of nitty-gritty. But I don't know maybe if there's a way to just summarize this into kind of you know bigger topics where all of these are areas that obviously even in our presentation today we saw like >> you know um the first and second bullet point kind of addressed. So I feel like we're we're there. we just need to maybe simplify the language on some of this and simplify this >> and they don't necessarily need to be under any bucket but that we could have like five main goals that we have. Yes. >> Right. >> Uh also worth noting and John I don't know if you have anything to add here but these goals that we took from the presentation
104today are were exclusively designed to be teaching and learning goals. um which is the work of the district but that was the context through which those goals were presented to us and I think our work um extends beyond just that >> um so that you know they're they're imperfect as an organizing structure >> but they're but I think that they're John's I think they're the I don't think they're necessarily just about teaching and learning. I think those are the if I'm correct like the four goals like if you're looking at the budget stewardship or the DEIB it it informs a lot of things but I think this presentation was around teaching and learning but I think you could take those same goals and have a presentation on something else and still have those goals align.
105Am I correct or incorrect? >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, culture and climate, all of it leads towards, you know, the the the the everything leads to the classroom, right? Is that all roads that lead to Milton that used to be the t-shirt on Dchester? um all of it leads towards the classroom and but there are pieces of this that I think that the for a process point putting all the the goals or all the statements that you have in different buckets to Anna's point now can get you to say all right so what are the salient points of all those things that are underneath >> focusing the classroom and come up with a school committee level goal >> that supports the language that you're using in each one of those individual goals >> and then
106then that would be the one or two goals that the school committee has that's going to uh direct support have expectations or accountability for focusing on the classroom and that can be anything from um you know the ones that you have up there evaluate the activities or uh the district presented to achievement gaps you can ask us to report out on that >> through our work in the classroom you know or our work on one of our priorities so >> I I think that once you get these into buckets the next role the next task could be to just synthesize however many bullets are underneath those into goals that you feel strongly about that will represent your overarching view and expectation for the superintendent and for the district, >> right? >> Um related to those
107things and then there's just stuff you have to do. You have to do the collective bargaining. >> It is your responsibility to uh have a budget that is um uh fulfilled in and have a fiscal year that's balanced. Uh but again those all come under stewardship. So just reshaping the language in a way that's school committee based at the top of the the elevator is this you you're setting the tone. I'm fulfilling my obligations at my level and we're having that work go down to principles and >> curriculum leadership and then into the classroom. And that that's that's hopefully how this can be one line of expectation being followed through from school committee to superintendent to building to classroom to student. >> John one like the the idea of a goal advance the selection and
108implementation of an improved K5 ELA curriculum like that. I'm sitting here and I'm I agree with you, Anna. Like that was a priority. We worked on that. We were able to get the funds to support that. Um I don't I I don't actually know if or I kind of am questioning whether advancing the selection and implementation like that actually isn't our job. Um, I I think that would be like a presentation that you would just kind of >> give us an update on, but I think we have to kind of simplify those four four bullet points into just >> something for us where all of those fit, but not into as much detail. But I feel like >> these areas like the first two were covered tonight, you know, and then vision of a graduate
109that could be a presentation that comes up with part of the MHS site council presentation or something, you know, or maybe site counselors like if those are the questions that we have. I think the presentations that we see are kind of based on that. I mean, that's how I kind of see that these are areas that we're interested in learning more, but not necessarily our goal. Our goal is like larger. It kind of encompasses a lot of different things. I don't know. That's how I see it. >> Yeah. >> Sorry. What if we expanded the first bullet to be not just regular reviews of relevant student data but and key initiatives I don't >> or something to that effect >> that we could identify for ourselves what those might be for this year. One of
110them might be the progress toward the the liter the new literacy curriculum. Um maybe even the vision of a graduate is one of those type like aligning to the um state requirements on competency determination like if we just expanded it is that kind of what you're talking about Anna like broadening the goal to just be able to like include things that aren't named in the goal per se. I get it. I guess my question would be why wouldn't we name it in the goal like these are goals just for this year and so it's it is what we are looking to so if like if the ELA curric we obviously are not selecting we're not reviewing the ELA curriculum we're not sitting down with teachers around the implementation of the ELA curriculum right that is
111not our job just as it's not our job to you know every step of the budget process review like that is John and Katie they do a great job and we like review that we have opportunities where we dipstick and look into it and provide feedback and questions. I think that same thing in my mind is true for curriculum selection. I think at the very top we even say like curriculum is a part of our responsibilities, right? Selecting like ultimately voting to approve curriculum. So, so to me, if we're saying one of the things we really we want to hear from John on this year is that ELA curriculum and like how is that going in terms of the selection then like to make sure that is a focus of him in my mind it
112then makes it very clear by putting that within our goals. Our broad goal is student learning, right? Students uh the focus on the classroom kind of alignment, focus on instruction and within that context, it's you know what whatever instructional initiatives we kind of want to hear about to learn about uh as a a committee and and see that those are are pushed through the district. That's at least how I was thinking about it. I think my question with that if if so if you're saying like sort of include those specifics within the goal. I think um one of my questions would be sort of if we're talking about like things that we're learning along the way. So for example, if we're looking at data and Carla talking about things sort of remaining flat, right? That's
113that's new. And so um if the goal is for example support the enhancement of effective instructional practices by implementing regular reviews of student data and something else >> then that I think it allows you to um support the different initiatives that they're taking that are being taken and we're learning about them but we're not being so specific. I just I I almost fear being limiting. It's almost like we in some cases and and maybe this isn't appropriate to say. I think in some cases we there's things we don't know what we don't know. And I feel like a new eye on data or a new eye looking at things um allows us to be flexible. But we all recognize that goal of having, you know, um, where, you know, the goal of having rigorous academics,
114really focusing on the outcomes of students, that sort of thing. So, I just don't know if getting really granular within our goals is almost almost more limiting. >> Does that make sense? >> Um, this conversation is starting to feel like an abstraction to me a little bit. Um, so in the presentation earlier tonight, Carla listed out five priorities that we all said we liked a lot, >> right? Their goals and then their priorities. And >> to me it feels sufficient to say that like on on on a purely academic side we want to regularly evaluate progress towards those priorities, >> right? >> Period. >> Like that to me is just to make just to put like a specific recommendation on the table like that to me is sufficient. um if we want to throw in
115the ELA curriculum into there because we've sort of identified it. I'm I'm comfortable with that. >> But I mean, I think what you're saying is great and it's pretty broad, too. So, these are all things that we've discussed over the last year, I would say, like the LA curriculum. But if there were other things John and Carla want to bring up that are tied to those and would help us better understand those, you know, that were kind of checking in and seeing progress in those areas that are directly tied to teaching and learning and academic rigor and closing the achievement gap and all of those things. I mean, I think we should like, you know, those are recommendations we look forward to, but we don't want to limit and just say these are the only
116areas we're going to focus on. >> No, but it's just saying I to me, >> right? So, it could be anything. Yeah. >> Yeah. Annual goals are just like at the end of the year, >> if we if we did these, let's say we end up with five goals, we achieved those five goals, okay, school committee, we met our goals for the year, but that I don't Yeah, I agree with you. It's not to the exclusion of anything else, >> right? Right. Right. >> Totally. >> Yeah. So these are just things that we know of to your point and then if there are other things that would be helpful to us, we would love to learn more. >> Yeah. I just I think it to me would be helpful for us to be on the
117same page of like other than if we just want to have a broad statement of like hey we we want to support the learning of kids, right? We want to have good schools. We want to operate have a strong operations for the district and be a good school committee board. Like those are very high level broad goals that like probably we can all agree with. I don't know how that really drives our work on a kind of from an agenda setting standpoint from a like informing John of like these are the type of presentations that they're going to want based upon that. That's just so broad that I worry it's not actually helpful. And so I think, you know, you can have kind of a a broader category at the top, but naming a couple
118things that like we're actually wanting to get done this year. Uh whether that's, you know, I, you know, negotiations is one of the things we're going to have to get like that's a really easy one to then say, okay, at the end of the year, did we do that? The LA curriculum, great. Like was that advanced this year? Like that's an easy one that we can kind of measure, see like, hey, did we do a good job of kind of moving this along? And I think that just puts us at least on the same page as a committee and then also makes us kind of our position pretty clear for the work of the chair and the vice chair and the superintendent as they kind of work to construct a a year-long course of study
119essentially for us to like get that information that ensures we kind of help meet these goals. I I I just worry about being too broad, >> but could we almost have like the parking lot page where we have all the areas that as we >> discuss them whether it's at our governance meetings like hey I think a presentation on this would be really helpful based on what could that be where like the meat of it goes so it doesn't disappear so that we the you know the right >> six of us know like okay we're all aligned we want to know more about these things but that can be more general I don't know just trying to >> yeah that's that's what I was thinking when I was saying like taking those ideas because I
120think there is some of that that as you develop the calendar like we have that parking lot and then when we meet with John and we're looking at the long-term calendar for the year that those those come in those come into play. So, are there certain things um like that like the ELA curriculum that I think that that's there's the opportunity for that? That's where you get into the the meat of it. >> Um uh just to clar I previously was not saying like that sentence in purple that Lizzie wrote up the top. I was not saying that that should be our only goal. >> Yeah. >> Oh. >> Um yeah. >> So, okay. Sorry. I felt like the response was like I said that and it was like well what about all these other
121things. I I agree. I just I was trying to find a way to summarize. >> There's a number of things that we have listed here that are focused on monitoring academic progress, >> right? >> And I was just trying to find a way to to summarize that without having a goal be bloated with a whole bunch of um additional topics. I do think I would be a very happy school committee member if we had this something like that one in purple. Um having a balanced budget >> and producing an FY27 budget that that makes sense like we have down here. Contract negotiations. >> Like those three I think are are a great starting point. Um, and maybe we agree we want a couple others, but >> um, >> and it's not to the exclusion of
122anything else, but >> uh, those three specific goals I feel like cover our most important court work. >> John, sorry. >> No, I I I I think you're all heading in the right direction of just kind of synthesize. So, starting with culture and climate or budget stewardship first because those might be the easier ones. something like the school committee supports the budget stewardship of the Milton Publiclix through schools through uh the management of the depart school department and operating a balanced budget for the current year and partnering with school boards. So, so that's that's one big picture goal, right? That's the the budget stewardship that takes the that's basically mel you know synthesizing those two statements in a active goal like language >> and something similar for culture and climate would be you know the
123school committee will support the culture and climate of the M public schools through its work with the superintendent in communicating with the community and engaging the community you know so there's the second big picture one and I do think that the focus on the classroom is more complicated than that and I I do agree that there I need to be a couple of sub bullets underneath Nathan's kind of big picture. Uh support the enhancement of effectual structural practices by implementing regular reviews of programs, assessment, student data >> that are uh andor initiatives that are being taken on by the district this school year as exampled by early literacy. you know, the high school um uh determination, you know, just list a couple of them, but that doesn't mean that we're not going to bring other
124things to your attention. I think those the focus areas for that year, right? >> And that way you're you know that so the focus in the classroom might have a couple of sub bullets to to clarify the expectation and to ensure that they're brought to you at this table uh in order to be reviewed, assessed, and >> and discussed. >> Uh but I I think that that the other two can be more more of the way that we just described, >> right? and and I and I we I don't want to leave our equity work out of this, but you know, our work is to try to embed that into everything that we do and not >> always have it as a separate, you know, body of work that happens externally to the the community
125of learners and and staff that we have. So >> uh I think a general statement out on equity uh being embedded into the areas of all areas of our work with staff and students and community etc. >> Uh some sort of an aspirational goal around that being embedded into our work. >> I think it's important to have an equity goal in the school committee go school go school go school go school go school go schools as I think it's important to have it in my goals. >> I like that. And and if this was happening, and I say this with a little bit of humor, but when you put goals forward, then you then have to say how you completed those goals. So the school committee, like a superintendent or like a principal, has to
126provide artifacts or >> demonstrate how that goal has been met. So those will be met by your requesting >> a presentation on the early literacy and marking that as an artifact to what how you represented that we met that goal. >> So at the end of the year you can >> you know evaluate your own work by saying we had two we had two presentations on the literacy timeline and the work and the in the the development and the choice of our literacy model moving forward. So when you assess yourself, you can actually fill in what what happened during the year uh to demonstrate that you actually made progress towards that goal >> or you know and that's incumbent on me to put those things forward. But >> right >> your overarching responsibility is to
127make sure that I'm meeting that that obligation to you. Is this document live for viewers at home to be able to see? >> Uh, it's we're projecting it. No, the I'm not screen sharing currently actually. >> Oh, okay. I thought you were >> It just might be helpful for the public to be able to see the work that's being done. Well, >> yep. [Music] Amanda, are you hoping we can like vote on these at our next meeting? >> Um, just one of the maybe the next one of the following depending on how far along we get. I feel like if I'm not sure I mean if we think we feel can get to draft language tonight. Um, >> sorry. I I mean I >> um I don't know. It would be nice to be able
128to >> Yeah. >> get these done so it's not >> uh October >> goals. Y >> I would agree. So, do we want to um specifically look if we're looking at that first goal, for example, regularly evaluate progress towards the FY26 goal, do we want to put in the examples? Now, >> should we do FY26 teaching and learning goals since that was because that particular one has to do with the classroom and then comes and priorities. Yep. and um and then we can put the examples in. And I think the goal at the end of the day for us is the same which is to increase academic rigor and close you know with the supports that students need and then obviously closing the achievement gap. I think that's kind of the end goal for us.
129Yeah, I mean to me under that the I'd love to see a specific like statement around you know as I think John said something around like the monitoring of the district's progress on the implementation of a new ELA curriculum. >> Um just again because I think that provides clarity and provides um you know >> ease of kind of evaluation at the end to say like did we do that or not. I also I I the one I think is a larger conversation that I I put on there and would love for us to focus on, but I think it I don't know where everybody else is at is just the MHS kind of course of study graduation requirements. I think that is both within the context of the um competency determination although the competency determination
130is such a short timeline we have to have that established before the end of the calendar year uh voted on by the school committee. So like that's not going to be a robust process. Um so I think it's even beyond that. We're going to have to put something in place that just meets the qualifications that the state is putting out for the competency determination. But then I I just think that is a huge opportunity for us to look at our high school course of study more holistically around you know what are our graduation requirements? Currently they're not aligned to mass core. Why is that not true? you know, there are huge budgetary implications for that of of requiring more foreign language courses. Uh the whole idea of more financial literacy course work within high school
131or other things like I I don't know the last time that was significantly looked at in the district. Maybe it was pretty recent. Um but I do think that would be um in my mind that'd be something that would excite me. Uh I I do think I'll has hedge all that to say like it really doesn't make sense probably for us to do unless there is a feels like there's capacity and energy on the superintendent side and like the district level staff side. Um so I'd be interested in hearing John's thoughts, but then also I do think that also ties into our piece around the superintendent because I I think that is that is more than going to be a kind of one-year process. uh you know it's going to take a lot of time
132to kind of delve into that and choose and then you got to figure out the implementation timeline which will be obviously over several years as >> so uh we will have a presentation on the competency um work at the high school and that proposal has already been drafted by the high school uh principal Karen Cahill we reviewed a copy of that today uh the mass core conversation about uh being in alignment with that we we do have alignment with that and we have some documentation to demonstrate that conversation as well. And just generally speaking about the program of studies I think is is definitely connected to that conversation. Um so you know the program of studies is on the calendar for I think January February of every year. uh talking about what would like to
133be seen in that and but I I do believe that there's some tasks that we need to complete to your point uh Mark have them in front of everybody have that process have that discussion where it connects with the bigger picture of program of studies and what that means for certain types of courses I know that the high school team has some ideas that they'd like to put on the table as well so we will be planning to be in front of you with Karen Cahill and her team around the compet compet competency determination um uh the uh language around some new courses aligning with the DESIE expectation for um language um and a couple of other pieces. So, uh that work will be in front of you this this fall. Okay. um maybe not
134as comprehensively from a program of studies point of view as you might uh be thinking and have been talking about prior to my arrival but we can certainly continue that conversation and and start with the things that we have to get done and then be begin to build a process of how we want to coordinate that through the program of studies but I think we do have a couple of things to share that may inform that that bigger discussion and it's work we have to get done anyway so we will be with you in the fall on Yeah, I appreciate that. And if we already meet mask or take that back, apologies. I didn't think we did, but um excited to hear more about that. I guess the the program of study presentation, at least
135for my experience, the last two years has just been here's what it is, vote for. like there there's no process for like feedback or conversation on like from a higher level what do we want our high schoolers being able to do as they leave right and what is the research out there on like how we best set them up for success after they leave us and um I don't think we've had I I don't feel like we've had that convers I don't feel like the course of study has really been the place to do it at least again the last two years in which it's And maybe that's been different historically or in other districts and so there can be kind of a more robust conversation, but it has felt to me at least more
136just like this is one of the things we sign off on every year and kind of move forward and not really evaluate. I I can have that conversation with the high school principal. I I want to uh and Kyler and I do this every day. We want to be very clear on what we can do in one year >> and what we want to establish as things that we can get done in a way that we complete it with uh integrity and and completion. And there might be some tasks that we need to initiate and start and hand off >> uh or just set the foundation for. >> Um and that that's that's usually going to be and we had this conversation with one of our curriculum folks today >> just a curriculum review cycle
137for all of our curriculum. We talk about scope and sequence and the the integrity of the content is it connected to the standards. We we had I didn't comment on when both of you brought it up earlier, but that's a bigger picture conversation that we need to have in front of the community and whether or not that's something that we can take on in this year as it is a multi-year process. >> Uh we don't want to be >> the fourth administrative team that provides them a communic you know a cycle of work to do and then leaves them >> for have someone else come in for that cycle of work. So, we're trying to establish what we think are one and twoyear things that we can influence and and really do with integrity >>
138and then leave some of that to whoever comes in next. because this this team has felt the um the disappointment of being brought up and brought down and brought up and brought down over the last five years. And I think that you're seeing that tiredness >> reflected in maybe a program of studies that may just have been >> not examined in a way that you wanted to in the past to be very blind. Do you know what I mean? >> Uh and I think that that's >> that's where we are. That's why we started off by saying that to every parent, we're focusing on teaching and learning because third grade is really important and we want to make sure that we address that right off the bat because those kids only get third grade once.
139These bigger picture things are are as well as important. The courses, the program of studies at the high school is a really big deal. Mhm. >> It shapes everything that we're working backwards towards, right, from middle school up to. >> So, I understand the importance, but we're we're trying to shape these things from a time perspective and a completion perspective and not wanting to disappoint uh folks by leaving anything undone. >> No, and I really appreciate that perspective because I think that's I'm glad that we're prioritizing that like what can we get done in the next year or two? I think that's so important. I think just in terms of just setting expectations for us as well as you know just all these goals that you have set you know and and working towards that
140because I think all of it is tied to that and I and I I could be wrong but I I know with like program of studies I know there's like budget limitations on things too that impact what is offered because I know there are a lot of great ideas but then we're always asked to pair that back because of our budget limitations. So, um, I want to be mindful of that, too. So, I I I'm just, you know, I'm just grateful that both of you hit the ground running in terms of what can we do get done in the shortest amount of time possible and make the most impact. And I appreciate that very much [Music] the uh the program of studies because it's an annual discussion. I will speak to the principal about how
141how can we actually enhance that dialogue instead of just having it be a >> sign off. >> That might be a good start, Mark, in order to provide some sort of a process >> of discussing and and you know highlighting andor uh what's important and why and let me look into that kind of uh strategy and process for that annual. it it happens every year and if we want to do it a little differently in order to get some of those questions discussed in the public and in front of the community about what's important um I hear you loud and clear let me explore that a little bit that's a January February thing >> so do we want to for the first one um to Nathan's point if we want to nail this down do
142we want to be specific about the the bullet initiatives that we want to include under the evaluate in the teacher teaching and learning goal. It seems like the literacy curriculum is the, you know, if if the conversation we just had about courses of study and high school sort of compos competency determination is come plays out as as we just described. Seems like the literacy curriculum is is the outstanding one. And I'm wondering, this whole conversation is making me wonder, John and Carlo, where literacy curriculum implementation fits into your priorities. >> Um, then we don't we don't have to have that discussion tonight, but um if it if it if it if it has a place in your five or six priorities there, um I I'm just wondering how that >> Yeah. So, we had a
143meeting with Captain Ro today. we plan on bringing her in the second meeting in October to provide you with an update from the presentation that she had in the spring so she can give you uh the context of how this came about, where she is right now with her team uh and where she plans on going between now and June. We're planning on bringing her back in February of this year to the school committee to identify um the product that or the the uh curriculum that they're going to choose in the process by which they they're creating a rubric right now and how they're going to measure that and then how they're going to put that in place for summer PD in implementation in um September. So we already have that all scoped out. She
144will be here in uh the second meeting in October and the second meeting in February. That's great. >> And then that was a direct result mark of your email asking and so that's exactly what we'll deliver. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. >> Similarly with the compet uh the competency determination that we'll do the exact same thing for that as well. [Music] Is there anything else we want to add to that? So Nathan added including advising on selection of new K to 5 ELA curriculum and competency determination. Maybe not advising monitoring the selection of the new I'm getting the verbs again but >> right >> and monitoring >> supporting monitoring one of the supporting selection Okay. So, can I just delete these then? >> Yep. This thing is like one just feels a little wordy right
145Maybe it's through partnership with town. Well, but these are not the same. So, >> I think we just need to se I I agree with like we're not managing a balanced budget for this year through partnership, >> right? Okay. Do >> furthers maybe just further discard. What if we just a thought if we um land on the three or the bucket areas and then pull together a couple of people to >> word smith them >> over the next couple days before the and then share them prior to the next meeting and then we can have a review and vote. Does that make sense? and then if there's feedback on them you can just send it individually but we can work on it that way so that um I think that might get us to a
146better place but if we all agree that right now that these are the areas in which we want to focus >> so the budget stewardship >> um we have um DEIB we have the re the contract negotiation So, teaching and learning, budget, um, DEI and contract negotiations. Is there anything that we're missing? Did I'm just going to throw out last year we had one around communication. Do we want to do anything? That would be the only other >> I would like I mean I personally am in favor of having a goal that names communication um for the school committee. I think >> we've made a lot of progress as a district in improving communication. There are a number of concrete things that we are now doing that we were not doing. There's still additional things
147we can do, the district can do. We've been hearing so around transportation and so forth, but I think there are yet and still more things the school committee can be doing. >> And we've stayed very busy on um like urgent things that we've had to address over these past couple of years. We we there we haven't really been able to kind of think more proactively strategically about community engagement as a school committee. Again, we've done good things and we have work to do. So I understand like if this maybe that is um I know in the past we've had like forums and things and for to communicate with the community and something that we haven't quite landed on is like is there like is it on the school committee page? Is it part of the
148uh superintendent updates? Like you know like where do we share information? And I think that's kind of where we've >> not been able to >> exactly, >> you know, kind of refine what works or what makes most sense or are we just adding more to, >> you know, um, >> we've tried a lot of things and we haven't landed on like a >> Yeah, >> I I just keeping in the theme of being consistent with the four goals like we're trying to do. Uh, I think it would be something to the effect of embedding the goal and just saying to support the the district's culture and climate, >> the school committee will >> uh continue to be proactive in their communication and engagement, you know, and just use the line, you know, just explicitly just
149embedding, you know, combining the the cate because what you're doing when you want to communicate better is to engage the community, inform the community, be transparent as effectively as you can. And so that that fits under culture and climate. So you can just combine that sentence and now you have you have your you're kind of all set. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> All right. >> That's good. Okay. So if we're good with those, >> we'll figure out >> I can reach out figure out who wants to help finesse the wording on them. We'll have them in the folder. people can share feedback individually >> to you >> to me and then we will have them at the next school committee for a vote. >> Great. >> Sounds good. >> Perfect. >> Excellent. >> Thank you.
150>> You're welcome. >> Thank you very much. >> Good to see everybody. >> Next, now we're on the finance subcommittee report. Mark, >> uh yes, finance subcommittee report. So, we had another meeting this morning. Um, shout out to Katie. Um, once again, kind of a great, um, meeting. She provided us presentation on, um, the transportation, financial aspects of the transportation, kind of, uh, feedback we've been getting from the community, some of the challenges, shared that presentation with y'all. >> For the community at large, a um, that meeting is recorded, as are all our finance subcommittee meetings. That's been sent to MATV. I'm sure they'll post it at some point in the next you today, tomorrow, next couple days. So, appreciate them. Uh John, I think you are continuing also like posting, we talked about posting
151those things on the website under the kind of the budget stuff um as resources for the community. So, that will also be there in addition to the MA the link will be there in addition to the MATV YouTube page. Um again generally uh kind of high level things around that are just the the ongoing financial challenge of related to the cost of those uh buses that were not uh able to be included uh despite the school committee's request to the select board uh originally not included in the override budget and so therefore going from 12 buses to 11 buses um some initial conversations on some of the things that was actually brought up and public comment uh around MBTA partnership um um you know other ways in which uh outside of school financial resources which
152are as we know kind of limited and tight uh and unable to kind of accommodate additional buses in the current fiscal year. What are the things else we can do? I know John mentioned Katie's looking at a grant for um bicycle racks, things like that to kind of uh encourage more ridership. uh potentially that helps actually some families uh choose that and maybe open seats up on the bus. We'll those things will have to be seen. Um and then had some initial conversations on you know would be the financial impact to next year as we talk both about the budget and also talk about the feebased structure of um of the the fees that are collected for transportation. I guess just a high note is, you know, we've gotten some feedback around we collect fees.
153Why don't we just collect more fees? The fees cover 22% the cost of kind of all of our transportation in order to fully have them cover, you know, it' be going up from $325, I think they are now, to thousands of dollars uh per family, per not family, per writer. Um so the the cost is is would be really really high. um and um probably insurmountable. So anyways, began having those conversations. Um look forward to any feedback folks have additional questions they have and I'm sure it's something we will we'll continue to be talking about. Um, another thing that came up in the finance committee, just uh the budget coordination committee, um, I believe that's what its official name is, is meeting, uh, on Friday for the first time, 8 a.m. So, uh, Nathan and
154I will be at that as the elected representatives from the school committee. Again, to the public, there's still a kind of public seat on that. If you have interest, I don't know how to apply actually right now as Nathan flagged. Uh, we don't quite know. So, um, >> reach out to Nick. I mean, you could email Nick, >> email Nick Milano directly and tell them you you want to be on there. Um, uh, John and Katie will also be at that meeting as again select board reps, one member of the planning board. Um, and so we'll kind of kick off that that process and certainly share back with y'all what what comes out of that. Uh, I'll remind everybody that that is a nonvoting entity. It has no actual approval power or authority in any
155way. It's just a a mech formal mechanism for us to make sure we're having those regular conversations with the select board with the warrant committee uh who are represented um and uh ensure that that is you know going smoother than it did kind of at the start of last year. So excited about that. Um I believe those are the primary updates but anything else Amanda Nathan that I missed? >> I I just wanted to speak to the um uh Mr. Hearn's concerns uh and he has stayed with us here for the meeting. So I just want to address uh that we we are exploring crossing guards to ensure we we're doing some of the soft things or the smaller things that might add up to some support. >> We will review attendance on every bus
156to see if the absentee rate would allow us to add a couple more people off the wait list. >> We are reviewing whether or not we can open the pierce up a little earlier for those folks who may need to drop off earlier because they're on the wait list in order to get to work on time. I mean, we can staff that with somebody that can receive the children of weightless families. We are looking into um uh working with the police around are there any spots for crossing guards that aren't now in place because those students didn't walk before and now we might have some different corners to cover. We are doing small things like reviewing our bike racks and trying to encourage kids to bike. Um, and as Nick, as Mark pointed out, really
157taking a look at the next year budget process to find out what it will look like, what needs to be put in place for bus services. And if you watch the tape of this morning's meeting, a very very concrete conversation about uh increasing fees or uh increase in increasing ridership and what's our goal for how many riders that we want to support? Do we want to set a goal for ridership? Are we going to be a 100% district? Are we going to try to be a 95% district? What is it cost-effective if we go to 100%? Are we going to have empty buses? So, the real dialogue about what that looks like for FY27 will be a richer conversation. That does not help the two of her girls get to school on time tomorrow, right?
158But we are looking at it from a bigger bigger picture perspective and also trying to see if there's some small base hits this year that we can try to implement that may take some folks off the wait list or at least make that commute easier for families who can drop off a little earlier at the middle school because you can actually do that at the high school without any they already do that. So we are looking at it from a a right now perspective and also a longer perspective. And I don't want to have I want to make sure that you feel like your words were heard and that we are exploring some of those things actively. >> I'll just say I think the world of what you all do. I mention my role as
159an educator because I think the world administration here again the challenges that not just your own role but 114 other children face getting to school every day. They are significant. So, thank you and thank you all for your work on that. >> And thank you for talking tonight. >> Thank you for coming. >> Um, school building committee report. >> School building committee has not met uh since our last meeting. Our next meeting is on the 15th. However, we have, as we talked about at the last meeting, um a warrant article um that's come out of the school building committee um voted unanimously to support and put that over to um the select board for inclusion on the fall town meeting warrant. Um Sean uh and I attended a warrant committee meeting. It was last week,
160last Monday. Um I was there mostly as just moral support. Sean did all the heavy lifting uh per usual uh presented that warrant article to the warrant committee. Uh they voted on it actually that night uh and voted to support um or recommend its passage to town meeting uh which is great news. So that is is moving through. It's on our agenda tonight to vote um not on the warrant article itself but in support or not I guess of the of that warrant article by school building committee. That's typically been something that has been asked of the school committee related to any school building committee articles by town meeting is kind of what is the school committee stance on this article? Do we support it or not? And so in that vein, just wanted to
161um put on the agenda for us to discuss uh hopefully vote on um to provide that clarity for town meeting and the upcoming fall town meeting. Um, the warrant article language was forwarded to everybody. I believe also the copy of the presentation Sean made to the warrant committee was included in this week's uh materials that has some information on um typical things he has shared around enrollments um things like that. Uh and the the big piece is the timeline, right? Which really just walked through the warrant committee as to why the request for uh additional time within the reverter clause, right? The the warn article is designed to extend the reverter clause from five years to um add an additional five years, move to 10 years. Um and that's just because of the the time
162crunch that we are seeing with the the delay caused by us moving with MSBA. you know, kind of Sean's best case guesses by pulling timelines from other towns kind of take us right to that fiveyear mark with very little wiggle room. And so instead of waiting um couple years until that's a problem, the idea is, you know, looking at it now um for any votes and saying, "Okay, let's give the committee a little bit more time to uh make sure that we're not kind of running up against this hard hard deadline, but still include keeping the reverter clause in case the town decides not to move forward with the school project at some point." question. >> So, the Robert clause would extend it till when? What would be the >> It would be five more
163years. Um >> 2028. >> That's a great question. I'm pretty sure it started uh it was when the land swap pass >> 2020. Okay. So, middle of 20. >> Yeah. So, I think it's 2023 is when that So, >> so it ends in 2028. So, then it's five more years after that. >> Yes. It'll be 2033. And Mark, given that the warrant committee voted to approve voted in favor of this article and the language in the document, we can expect most likely that this to say recommended that the town vote yes. >> Yes, >> they're in favor whatever the language is. >> I think um Jay would clarify that they did not vote to approve it. They vote yeah they recommended they voted to recommend passage, right? Or whatever. They're going to recommend that town
164meeting >> vote to approve it. >> Yes. Okay. >> Yeah. >> If there are no questions, um I can move forward with making the motion. We can second and then there's still time for discussion if anybody has it. But I'll make a motion to support the school building committee's warrant article um submission to the 2025 fall town meeting that seeks to extend the land swap revert clause by an additional five years. >> Second. >> Great. Any discussion? Did you mention there the langu is that was that in the email? Because I think you only I mean at least the one from the 25th is only the uh PowerPoint the present the PDF. >> I think the uh the SBC fall 2025 reverter >> in the >> Oh, in in the agenda >> in the folder
165in the school committee folder. I'm sorry. I No, that's okay. >> Sent it out previously when the school committee first passed it. >> That's like this one. >> Yeah. It's that one. Uh, no, it's not. It's that one. >> Oh, perfect. >> Yeah. So, the the language in this warrant article is extensive. It is the same language as the 2023 >> um May town meeting um language. It's just the exact same thing. The only thing that has changed is that date. >> Yeah. It's in section two on page three. So it's June 30, 2033. >> The top of Yeah, top of page three. >> Okay, perfect. >> So that is the only part that is um changed is really just that date 2033. >> Any other discussion questions? Okay. Uh, all in favor. >> Excellent.
166>> That is it for the school building committee. >> Thank you. Um, approval of the minutes. So, there were two sets of minutes in the folder. One is for the June 16th meeting and the second was for the August 20th meeting. Everybody's read the moment of motion. I'll make a motion for both of them. Motion is moved to approve the Milton School Committee meeting minutes dated June 16th, 2025 and August 20th, 2025. >> Second, >> discussion. All in favor? All right. And then the last thing that we have tonight is next meeting agenda items. So I have two. One is we would have the facilities meeting facilities and policy >> and policy. Okay. Facilities. >> And then we are also um working to get um a representative from MASC to come and speak about the
167questions around extending the superintendent's contract for year two. is then I know we have to reaffirm the members from facilities. So I think maybe at our meeting we can ask the member I'll put it on the agenda to ask members if they want to continue and then we can bring back on Wednesday and vote on it or like >> okay is that >> so vote for me >> just just for process. >> Okay >> then we'll have the other potentially these other committees back on our agenda. >> Yeah. School building will have met finances meeting and then the >> No, I meant the subcommittee advisory committees. Sorry. >> The climate and the >> Oh, yeah. >> Oh, the votes for the >> budget, right? Yeah. >> Oh, the community member. >> Correct. Yeah. Sorry. >>
168Okay. >> Yeah. And then the budget coordination committee report. I don't know if that it's technically a separate committee. I don't know if it should go under finance or just right after it, but >> Okay. Do that. >> Anything else? >> Well, we're going to vote on >> and we're going to vote on the um Yes, we are. uh vote on the goals. >> And John, you're not here next. You're not here the 17th, correct? >> I am. Um I will be at my daughter Olivia's wedding. >> Oh, congratulations. >> Be out of town. >> That's great. >> All right. Anything else? >> If not, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll make a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All in favor? Thanks. Thanks everyone. Thank you. [Music]