School Committee - May 21st, 2025

001[Music] Red All right. Good evening. Um this is the we are starting tonight with the um calling to order the school choice open public public hearing. Um uh school choice is an annual procedure for the Milton School Committee. U Milton is currently not a school choice district. Um and assistant superintendent uh Katherryn Blake will be going over a brief overview of school choice. Um good evening everyone. So there is um just a brief presentation that I'm going to walk through um which will provide some background on the school choice program. So Mass General Law details um the terms and conditions of interd district school choice. That's the name of the program. And the Milton School Committee has a policy, policy JFBB, regarding school choice. And there is a copy of that policy um in the

002folder for tonight's meeting. The interd district school choice program allows a parent or guardian to enroll their child in a school district that is not the child's home school district. So, a a school district in a different community than the one that that family resides in. Prior to declaring themselves a school choice district with the state, the school district needs to determine how many seats are available to offer and what at what grades um they would be available. So, if you offer school choice, you do not have to offer it for all grades. um you can offer it for a select number of grades. Each year the committee um must vote on whether or not to participate in the school choice program and that vote must be submitted to the department of elementary and secondary

003education prior to June 1st, 2025. So the results of that vote, we have to report that to the state um by June 1st. If the committee were to vote to participate in school choice, a student um enrolled in Milton public schools through this program would have the right to remain in the system until graduation. So if we opened up school choice in grades seven, eight, and nine, that student would have the opportunity to stay in Milton public schools through graduation. Historically, the Milton School Committee has voted not to participate in the inter district school choice program. Great. So we are going to open it up for public comment or questions if there is any. So, we should just clarify that without a specific no vote, the system does become a school choice district. Uh, this

004vote limits and will be voting in the um school committee meeting in this session. This is just the open hearing, but the this vote limits Milton school population to those students who live in Milton. However, Milton residents may attend other school choice districts if there are spaces in those schools. This vote does not limit or impede any other agreements that exist in collective bargaining agreements. Are there any questions or comments? Any public comment? Any public comment or questions on specifically school choice? Any comments on school choice? Yes. So, we're just talking about school choice at this point. So, if anybody in the audience has any questions specifically about school choice for the public hearing. Okay. Oops. There. No hands on that. No hands on that. Okay. Great. So then um sorry. So we will close

005public comment. We'll adjourn um from the school choice hearing. So now call to order the regular Milton School Committee meeting at uh 7:10. I think we have to um take a vote to adjurnn from the hearing. Oh, doing it. Sorry. All right, we have a I'll make a motion to adjurnn from the school choice hearing. I'll second. All in favor? Opposed? Okay, it's unanimous. All right, so now we are adjourned from the school choice hearing and we are opening up the regular school committee um meeting at 7:10 on May 21st. Pledge of allegiance. Yeah. So, if we can all stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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.

006So, we are going to look at approving the May uh the agenda. I know that there were a couple of changes. So, was there there was a change in the superintendent report. You wanted to move the Yes, I would like to move the um the student representatives to the school committee to their presentation first. I know they have lots of things to um work on this evening, school work, etc. Thank you. Excellent. Not yet. When we get to the um superintendent, we'll let you know. Great. Um and then the executive session we're moving to there will not be a vote. Correct. Yes. So we um item number six on the agenda uh the contract approvals. We will not actually be approving the contracts tonight. Um we will have the executive session to go over the

007updates. So, I propose moving the executive session to the end of our agenda so that we can adjourn from executive session and not return since we're not taking our votes tonight. We'll be voting on the contracts on June 4th. Okay. So, that will be pushed pushed down. Okay. Um and then uh was there a change to policy first? It's just going to be an update. There's no first readings. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. So then we will go to um public comment. So for um public comment in accordance with the school committee policy, we welcome members of the community to share their perspective with us during public comment. We've set aside up to 15 minutes for this part of the meeting and individuals may speak for up to three minutes each. While the school

008committee 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 that the public speakers keep that in mind. And speakers should introduce themselves for the record and we will keep a threeminut timer so that you guys can hear just so that you know when the time is up. So if anybody is here for public comment, Good evening. Thank you, Chair Serio. Um, I'm Joanna McCarthy, mom to a first grade student here at Cunningham, uh, with a disability and who accesses special education services. I'm here tonight as a Milton Public School parent and as a current co-chair of Milton CPAC, which stands

009for Special Education Parent Advisory Council. I know that this committee is well aware, but for the viewing public, nearly one in three Milton public school students is a student accessing special education services through either an IEP or 504 plan. For students and families, this can feel pretty isolating as though you may be one of the only families on this journey. Nope. Nearly one in three students. That's a lot of families. CPAC are your people. come join a meeting and say hi. I want to take a quick opportunity to shout out the special educators and service provider staff in Milton public schools. They are topnotch. We families thank you for your hard work and dedication to our children each and every day. Milton CPAC is created by Massachusetts education laws. By statute, we are intended to

010be a council with a duty to advise the district on matters that pertain to the education and safety of students with disabilities in different ways as a council and as individual members. We have worked to do this with building staff and principles and with district leaders. And I'm here to ask for partnership with you, this committee, to do the very same. Tonight, I want to elevate to the school committee consistent systemic and thematic challenges we've heard and experienced as special education families. And then I want to ask you for a future time for CPAC to partner with your committee. One, to discuss these further, and two, to establish a broader framework whereby we can collaborate with your committee on matters like this in the future. So, first staffing. Like probably all MPS parents, we were

011horrified at the extensive riff reduction and force list which was proposed in advance of the recent town vote to pass the operational override. Of notable concern was the large number of special education staff on that list. We were perplexed how all current IEPs and 504s of MPS students would have been met with the absence of those personnel. Thankfully, we don't have to ask that per se few. However, at this moment, as you look at look to tighten your budget uh and keeping your eye on prudent and responsible fiscal management, rightfully so, I hope you know that this is work I wholeheartedly support. We simply caution against the non-renewal of special education staff and positions across the district as we march forward. As parents, we have been part of thoughtful school teams in discussions about service

012delivery goals, objectives, and accommodations for our children. All of which require special education staff. So to coordination, it's evident. Oh, am I done? Serious. Yeah. Okay. Uh coordination and communication. Again, topics that we'd love to address with you in the future. Um we do look forward to actively working with your committee, with superintendent, with Miss Wetmore as director of student services to resolve issues which the council has observed as themes. And we thank you for your time tonight and continuing to champion for our children. Thank you. Thanks. You're supposed to say your address. Good evening. Um Zadeie Rose Nook Road. Um, thank you all for your service on school committee and thank you for allowing a forum for citizens to speak. Um, in case people in attendance tonight don't know, Sarah Forte and I as

013Glover School site council members and as educators who both hold master's degrees in education wrote a letter to the school committee about our concerns with first grade enrollment. in March of 2025, but certainly before that, this current kindergarten class was considered to be at capacity with 16 kindergarten classrooms of between 22 and 25 students in each class. The needs-based budget included the addition of a 17th first grade teacher, but the level service budget of course does not. Um, I would like you to know that I wrote this letter along with Sarah. Um, in the spirit of collaboration, I want to thank Miss Sio, Dr. Carol and Miss Vargiz and both the acting and interim superintendents Watson and Failen last week and for Dr. Watts and Mr. Failen for meeting with us yesterday. I truly appreciate

014your time and attention. Um we're truly trying to find a solution so that our rising first grade class sizes will not exceed numbers that will result in students not learning to read, write, and compute. We expressed our concerns to Dr. Watts and Mr. Failing yesterday, but it bears repeating here. Our Milton teachers are excellent and have proven they can do more with less. However, as was stated by school committee members and both Dr. Watts and Mr. Failen, it's essential that our English class sizes start with lower numbers. With Kolycott's English numbers already at 23 and 24 students and Cunningham's English numbers at 21, I'm wondering what your plan is for those schools. Mr. Failen has assured me that one, French is here to stay. Two, classes will not be overloaded. and three classroom teachers have

015sufficient support for our first grades for our first graders. But given that we were denied our request for a 17th grade teach a 17th first grade teacher um because of the level service budget, I'm imploring you to pay close attention to this idea of a level service budget um and whether it's actually being adhered to in the coming weeks and months. Um, I was disappointed to hear that you removed first grade enrollment from your agenda tonight with over 250 signatures of concerned parents as well as a few concerned Milton High School students. I would was hoping that you would engage in a conversation um about our concerns. Instead, we're going to hear a presentation from Dr. Watts tonight who will share information that's already been decided, information that was decided without including your entire school

016committee and not within a public forum. We have we have the space to add a 17th first grade teacher. There's a classroom that will sit empty. There's a master French teacher who has been at her school for over a decade who has been displaced. I understand the desire to write past wrongs in terms of budget, but our foundational literacy and numeracy skills where we want to tighten the purse strings. So, questions I'm hoping you can answer perhaps in a future meeting. What are some possible solutions to our large first grade class sizes? Do we give English families a chance to move schools? Is 27 students in a French immersion class an acceptable number? When we as a town pride ourselves on school and program choice, how can we consider a 21 person wait list for

017French a weight list? And finally, can we revisit and revise our policies around class size to ensure that our learning environments are both productive for our students and sustainable for our teachers, especially in the foundational years of K to K to2. Thank you for your time and consideration. Good evening, Sarah Forte, 242 Thatcher. Um, I want to start off by thanking the school committee members. You guys are volunteering your time away from your families. And thank you, Dr. Watts. That was a great conversation last night, um, talking about all of the educational matters in Milton. So, I am a parent to two young children at Glover. I'm the school site council member at Glover. I'm also an experienced educator with over uh with almost 20 years of experience. I'm a candidate for national board certification

018and literacy. Um I'm certified in Orton Gillingham reading instruction. Um and I also hold four educator licenses including an administrator license. So I speak now about two issues that are seemingly separate and in the spirit of redundancy following up with Zadeie. These are deeply intertwined. The excessive classroom sizes in our French classrooms and the restriction of French access to over 20 currently enrolled children in our district. the program of which three current school committee members have been fortunate enough to have their children enrolled in. The current prospective classroom sizes within French programming have three out of five French classrooms with enrollments at 26 and 27. In the meantime, English enrollments are climbing as Zadi made aware. The district argues that there are still available spots in the French programming, but if you examine them carefully,

019you realize that those spots are available because it would cap those classrooms at 26 or more. Normalizing these excessive sizes defies even the Massachusetts state average for first grade classroom sizes, which is at 20 to 21. It also contradicts the collective bargaining agreement found on page seven in the contract that says that Milton quote shall strive to accomplish the goal of primary classes, including kindergarten, of 25 or fewer children. Adding one additional French classroom would grant access to French for all that choose. It could reduce classroom sizes in English and French nearly everywhere. and it would also keep French enrollment within the reasonable threshold at 40% of grade 1 students enrolled in French. We understand that we aren't the first parents to raise these concerns about classroom size, but that conversation on change has never

020come to fruition. And the policy of stacking these classrooms has persisted over decades because that's what we've always done because our teachers are fantastic and our tier one in our French classrooms is exemplary. Families so deeply want their child to have a bilingual experience that they will hold their nose, put their kid in a classroom with 26 kids and hope for the best. I don't know of any Milton parent that has been happy with this policy, but I do know 250 parents that would like to see change happen. So, Zadeie and I are asking for school committee to start the groundwork to re-examine the policies that have persisted in decades on what classroom sizes should look like in this district. Thank you. Thank you. online. Am I good? Um, good evening. I'm Katherine Conahan. I

021reside at 22 Frothingham Street. Uh, thank you to Dr. Watts and the committee for having me, for listening, and for your work. Um, I'm a mother of two children at Glover, one of whom is second grade French, one in two in kindergarten on the weight list for grade one French immersion at Glover. I'm also a full-time graduate level professor at a nursing school in Boston. I'm here tonight as both a mother and an educator to advocate for a discussion on class sizes in Milton, specifically the reinstatement of the second grade of the second grade 1 French immersion classroom at Glover. I urge the school committee to add this issue to a future agenda as the email signed by over 250 community members deserves formal discussion and consideration. I was disheartened to learn through an email

022that my child had been placed on the wait list due to the reduction in French immersion program to a single classroom. This change came as a surprise, especially given that there are 21 children on the weight list, which is essentially an entire class. Like many families, I supported the recent override with the understanding that it prioritized instruction. In addition, level service means preserving what we have. Glover has had two French immersion grade 1 classes since 2013. This decision not only breaks that promise to spend on instruction and keep level service, also lacks transparency and communication that Milton has publicly pledged to improve. Reinstating the second French immersion class would support the many children on the wait list, including my own, and help alleviate the very large class sizes projected for the incoming first grade, both

023at Glover and across the district. Without it, we risk class sizes rising to levels not seen in over a decade. As both research and practice show, smaller class sizes are critical to effective learning, especially in elementary years. Every child in Milton deserves access to highquality education. Restoring the second French immersion class is not just about language. It's about providing all first graders with the opportunity to learn from excellent teachers and classroom where rural learning can thrive. I respectfully request the issue of one of the largest incoming first grade classes and the reduction of the French immersion class at Glover be placed on the agenda for the next school committee meeting. Thank you. Thank you. There anyone else here for public comment? Is there anyone online? There are no hands currently online. They can hear you.

024Okay. Is anyone else in the audience here for public comment? All right. Thank you all. Um so now we will move to the superintendent report. Thank you chairman Seren. Um, congratulations to our senior class at Milton High. This is a really joyful time of year and Friday will be their last day of school. Um, we hear for those of us in the building, there have been multiple celebrations. There's a celebration going on this evening. Um, and uh, Assistant Superintendent Blake and I were treated to a group of students who came in and serenated us um, at dinner. It was really, it bought us to tears. Uh, there were a group of young women, about 25 of them. They're called Pretty Sharp, and they were magnificent. We really enjoyed them. So, um, congratulations to our seniors.

025Uh, many happy days ahead for them. We wish them success and happiness as they move on, and we look forward to their graduation on June 1st. Um, in terms of district news, um, the district has begun, um, the the process of re-establishing residency for about 1,200 um, families in grades three, six, and nine. And a big shout out to Serena Burke for the incredible work she's doing on this. It is an extensive task to do. As families know, we appreciate their patience. It may seem meticulous and challenging to get all the paperwork together, but it is a requirement that we do check this residency. So, we appreciate your cooperation. If you have any difficulty, please reach out. We understood that there's been a few challenges with um families not getting the appropriate emails. We have

026attempted to rectify that, but if you are one of those families, please let us know. Um, we just an update. Um, previous superintendent Burroughs had been updating us um, regarding the incoming kindergarten class. Um, a little smaller than we anticipated, although the number is steadily creeping up. Um, currently we have 312 students. um and already documented as providing all the necessary residency um information. Again, thank you to Serena Burke because she did all of those independently and uh we have about eight additional in the queue. So, we are guaranteed to have 320 students um probably by June and over the summer. Traditionally, historically, our data has shown we'd expect approximately 20 more. We never know. Depends on the housing market, I assume. So, that could get us close to a number of about 340. Um,

027and you may be wondering where did we start last year? I asked for that information and last year we started at 359. So, we're creeping pretty close to that number, which was also a very large class. Um, and as some of our public comment has noted, um, Superintendent Fail, uh, Superintendent Failen and myself have spent some time, um, meeting and working with families, um, from the Glover School who have questions about how um, the French immersion program choice has gone. um as there is a change in um famil family's choice of where the programs are offered and we are offering um five sections of French immersion next year. Two of them next year will be at the Kolicott school, one at Tucker, one at Glover and one at Cunningham which is a change from previous

028years. um program has traditionally um for the last 10 years fluctuated between five and six sections at different schools. Um we we can talk about this another evening too when we have a formal presentation on it. But I do want to also indicate that the district remains very committed to French. It is a really important part of our program. Uh people move here to participate And as Zena Hamada would say, um, language competency is so important to global citizenship and we know that's an important value. So French immersion is not going away for the parents who are worried about that and we are grateful for the staff who um teach in that program. Um, we have some students here today who are going to summarize the work that they have done this year. the representatives.

029So, if you'd like to come on up to the table, we'd appreciate that. People have questions. Question. Yeah. Do we have any? Yeah. Do we have any questions at first? Yeah. About anything that Regina has shared. Do we want to pause the student? Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Can we just pause for two minutes? We're just going to open up to discussion in the group and then you're going to sit down. Is that okay? Sorry about that. Yeah. So, are there questions or comments? No. So, are you going to share the enrollment data or no? Or is that kind of the update? I think it was just the number of sections. We weren't sharing. Okay. I didn't know if there was anything further than that that's going to be shared. Okay. So, I do have obviously

030some of the concerns that were raised at citizens public comment. I also share um having gone through the program with both my daughters. Um it is a very special program and I understand I really am concerned about the large class sizes. Absolutely. I think um I don't know how those teachers manage such large class sizes and provide the results that they do and as the speaker on special educations stated like all of these kind of go hand in hand and so um they are absolutely connected to each other and uh providing students the opportunity to have the supports and making those class sizes smaller wherever we can is absolutely crucial to their learning especially learning a foreign language and making sure that those students in those large class sizes are successful. Um the other thing

031too is I understand that we have a packed agenda but I did request this on the agenda for today and I am disappointed with the way it was handled and uh it you know in the past when we've put things on the agenda um and once it's confirmed that it's on the agenda we do take the time to discuss it but this one was handled slightly differently and it could have been handled differently and better. Um, and it is a little disappointing the way it was, just to be honest. Um, so I hope I hope that we can bring this up at our next meeting and give it the attention that it needs because every family that I've been on school committee for four years. This is my fourth year. And every time families make

032requests, those requests are all important. Every speaker that comes to our table is important. and I really try so hard to place myself in their shoes and to understand it from their perspective. You know, I appreciated the comments from all four speakers tonight and I do I really do value that and if I cannot understand where they're coming from and help them through it in my position as a school committee member, then I shouldn't be sitting here. So I really really commend you all for speaking up for what you believe and advocating not only for your own kids but for every other student. And so I would like to bring this up at a future meeting and discuss this further and see what we can do. Right? We really it's important for all of our

033parents, all of our students that come to our buildings. Let's figure it out. And that's all I'm asking for. Let's have that discussion. Let's learn from each other and if we end up where we are today with the five classes then that's fine but I want an opportunity to discuss it. That's all I'm asking for. Thank you. And I'd just like Yeah. Go ahead. I'd just like to say I mean I just want to acknowledge I appreciate what you just said Anna. Appreciate all the comments from the parents who have showed up. I have a second grader who's in a a 26 student French class. Yeah, it's not ideal. That's for sure. I think it's in the context of a lot of like um other tensions that we grapple with and that doesn't take away

034from the the challenge that individual students, teachers, and families feel. So to me, it's not like an eitheror thing. It's living within the limitations that we have as a district that um spends so far below the average per student 30th percentile in the state. So obviously we're going to be above average in our class size. I mean, this is a tension that we continually grapple with and, you know, especially now that we've passed the override and we will be living within the means of this budget that we have for the foreseeable future. So, yes, it it will continue to be a challenge that we have to grapple with. I too just sincerely appreciate the thoughtful sort of advocacy of these families, families on any number of issues over my years on school committee who earnestly

035come to us and you know ask for something that they're not currently receiving and you know yes I agree we're going to look at this seriously. It's you know going to be in the context of a number of things that Mr. failen is coming in to help us kind of try to get a handle on. Um, and you know, I just I just recognize the complexities of the questions that are being raised in that, you know, there isn't a simple fix to it and there's not um it's it's not as easy to add like one section into a level service budget. Um so that you know in the context of what was shared around the challenges with our special education staffing that's just one example of sort of the um implications of any single decision

036um around adding or reducing staff. Um, and I just would like for us to stop um referencing the reduction to the French program because um the district-wide French program has not been reduced um from this year to next year. And so I think it's just also important that we can stay accurate in describing um sort of what is actually happening. um a classroom has been reallocated from one school to another and that in and of itself is a serious change that needed better change management. Like that is clear. Um and people needed more sort of clarity and compassion in understanding the change and where it was coming from. Um and you know we see that and we need to um we need to address that for sure. So yes, I'm sure we'll continue to talk

037about it going forward. It will be good to have the information. And I think it's so important that we can, you know, we're so caught up in sort of our lived experience and any of us, you know, we we know what we have in front of us in terms of like what has happened in my kids school during the time that I've been here and the recent memory of the families with older kids that have been there, you know, but as we look back and recognize that the if the program has ebbed and flowed from five to six classrooms over time, you know, let's understand what's happening now in the context. Um a and so that's what I hope we can better continue to do as we have a future discussion about it. Um and

038I think that that date all that information we haven't discussed and it hasn't really been shared among the school committee members. So, it's really hard for us to like, right, you know, even hearing you guys speak and not be able to without everybody at this table having the same amount of information. I've been on a call the other day, but like really just understanding, you know, all of those complexities that we just have to deal with, right? budget, all of these things, and looking at the data, like if there has only been five classes in the past, like when did when did it go from six classes to five classes or has it gone up from five classes to six? Like, we're not looking at any of that data. Like, none of that has been

039presented. And I know I shared asked you some questions that I'm waiting on answers for. So, I think it would be really helpful. So I think you know at a future discussion like hopefully the next school committee meeting it would be helpful to have all of that information and if we land exactly where we are today then that's great but I just want to be able to give it the due diligence of having that discussion. Okay. And if I can just Yeah. And if I can just clarify so there was the request for um this to be on the agenda. We also had town meeting and we missed a meeting and so there were two presentations one which previously for people had been very timely which was a presentation from special education from about special

040education and then we have a number of votes. So this was not a matter of it not being a priority. I do think for a number of people there are questions about it. But I think in order for the conversation also to be um productive that it that the whole school committee has the opportunity to similarly ask questions if there's if there's information. Are there questions about policy? Are there questions about enrollment? so that when we come together to talk about it that we are representing everybody's questions and we're getting the data that's needed and I think it's also just you know as we move forward and do it it you know historically French immersion has been called the third rail right people it's it has been a difficult conversation for people in some in

041some ways so I think being able to talk about it and ask questions in a way that um if people just are looking for information and understanding context and understanding policy that everybody's coming in with that understanding that it's it's about information gathering. It's not anything else. So there's a lot of things I don't know about French immersion. There are a lot of things I've learned in a week about the policy. So I think if we all agree that this, you know, we putting it on the agenda and then having the opportunity for everybody to reach out and share, you know, what's the information that they're looking to have so that it is a productive conversation. And I think that that is would be a a good use of time if that's good for. So

042thank you. Is there anybody else questions comments? Yep. I appreciate your comments, Anna, and understand um where you're coming from. And um I do think that we have tried to respectfully respond to parents as they have reached out to us on this, but we have not had communication with all um school committee members. So, I understand that frustration. Um and we we will work on that. Um I think data is emerging too and that we you know um Superintendent Failen and I are committed to watching and continuing this conversation as well as looking historically and it has been um a a source of balance and tension um as we say to keep the quality of the program strong. um and um we have been pretty successful at that but it has come with challenges also.

043So um I think we continue to work and struggle on that and are committed to it. Um I think also to get to a point where I know it has come up previously like talking to uh parents with high school kids like every few years this comes up as an issue right like and um so I would like to kind of solve for that so it's no longer a concern for people like will it go away will it stay you know it's there it's something that we offer we offer the English innovation pathway and we offer French immersion and they're both equally strong and that's something where I would like to get to so that it is something that Milton's public school stands behind and we don't have to make statements like we're here to

044make sure that French isn't going away. Like that should never be a concern anymore for families. So, um I think that's what I would really like for us, you know, especially with Superintendent Failen coming in and his institutional knowledge on both both tracks. I think it would be really beneficial so that it is something that Milton Public Schools proudly stands be behind both programs and they're equally robust and equally well done. Right. and and in meeting yesterday with um Zadeie Rose and Sarah Forte, they mentioned too that the worrying concern of families about the future of the program and um you know they urged me to say that it the commitment of the district towards it and the district is absolutely committed um to having a quality French immersion program for families and I I

045I don't want people to to worry about that. Um, and I I know that Superintendent Failen feels the same way. Well, thank you. You're welcome. And um I understand you did submit some questions um this afternoon and um I actually just started to look at some of the data. So we will get you that information and I think I think it would be really helpful um even for when we talk about this to include all of the you know like the data like um Amanda mentioned you know um questions that school committee members will have. I know usually when we discuss stuff questions kind of arise on the fly but to your point if questions can be submitted to make sure does it show all of this information so that we all have a great

046understanding of it and I've said this before like my kids went through the program I don't even know if I have a strong understanding of what French immersion truly is and I think it's really important as school committee members for us to really be knowledgeable in what this program is and I I think that will really help us too to continue to ensure that all the programs that we offer at Mil Public Schools are really strong. So, and that we are committed to it. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. This one come up now. Sorry. So, students, thank you for your patience. So we have two students who will introduce themselves in a moment who have been working um with the team of students under the direction of school committee member um Bao and um today

047they're well under the advice of Dr. Connity the high school. Yes. Um so my name is Sydney Burns and I'm a senior. Um and I'm Olivia Wolson and I represent the sophomores. So, for summary today, we're just going to go through a few quick things. The summary of what we've done this year, what we want to do next year within our role, uh, and then a larger summary of student gov at the high school and our goals for student gov. So, in regards to what we did this year, it was a little bit a little bit funky just because of everything that's played out since January. Um, but we met monthly with the superintendent um, and school committee repi. uh even when Superintendent Burrows left, we were still meeting with Bao uh I believe last

048April. And so with these meetings, we discussed the calendar obviously, which was a lot earlier in the year, phones back when that was kind of a bigger issue, and we talked about surveys. And then finally, we talked about budget. So we more so talked about what the budget would look like, what the issue was because honestly as students uh and I think the wider community can say that we were just unsure initially just due to the kind of lack of transparency at the start and so we just discussed that with committee member Bao. And then in regards to next year, we uh as the school committee representatives are still obviously would like to be involved with the issue with school phones and any important issue that arises. And then we would also just support the

049new superintendent as the as school committee reps and hopefully would like to continue our monthly meetings. Um, at Student Gov, we've had a really a really exciting year and we've had a lot of opportunities to kind of like get our community involved even when things were a little insane. Um, so at the beginning of the year, we had our pep rally that we always do. That was really fun. Our big fundraising event this year was the Wizards game that we had, the basketball game. That was really that was really fun. And we we raised like $11,000 something like that. A large amount. And then as we've gone into this kind of May June um time period, we've had we have our spring fling coming up. We've had spirit weeks, award nights, and then of course

050graduation. And one thing that we're really excited about this year is that we've raised enough money for caps and gowns to be completely free. So students don't actually have to pay for that. And that's something we're we're looking to do next year as well. And even with like prom tickets, all that stuff, we're looking to see if we can do a little more fundraising and kind of alleviate costs on our students. Um, and we're also looking at with these fundraisers if there's ways like around the holidays that we can raise money, but also for like local charities and stuff and kind of make impact in the greater community. Um, so yeah, as student go, we've had a really good year and as school committee um, representatives, we're excited to do more good stuff next year.

051Okay, so that's our little spiel. End of the year rep. Okay, comments, questions. Awesome. So I you had developed the survey or you were working on the survey about this phone policy for students. Is that something you're still planning to pursue next year? For sure. It just we felt like I don't know if tonedeaf is the right word, but it was just there when it got finished it was at the same time that the override kind of hit its peak and everyone was and we were just like first of all people aren't going to respond to it because they're all upset and I just I don't it'll definitely be sent out next year. It's completely done and we're ready to send it out. It was just a matter of like timing and just kind of

052what felt acceptable in that moment. That's good to know because you know for policy subcommittee it will be probably a good conversation to have together and have student reps maybe even participating with policy somehow if it's on the table to look at that issue. So it's definitely a big priority for next year's because you know everywhere else is talking about it. So yeah. Can I ask a question about that? So the survey was it for did it just go to students or did it go to students and teachers and so it hasn't been sent out yet in it will go to students teachers and parents and you can specify like what relation you are and we were trying to get it released. Uh one way would be through the principal's like weekly blog. Uh she

053sends out like principal kahill sends out a newsletter but obviously it was she was very busy. So yeah, but yeah, we'll get we'll be able to look that's something we're actually interested in looking at, you know, students versus teachers versus parents to see kind of where those where the interests lie amongst those groups. For sure. Okay. Thanks. And can you just say for for those of us who weren't around last year, what um what what are like the big things you're looking to learn from that survey? We're interested in seeing. So everywhere else they've been doing really big crackdowns on phones. It's been a really big conversation. There's been talk of like just full removal of phones in the you like the yonder pouches. And we've recently done a thing you just put your phone

054in a pocket before you enter class, but we're trying to see do the teachers think that's effective. Do are the parents happy with this? Would they be upset if we took it all away? We just want to look at what reactions might be stuff like that. Yeah. And also from what we understood, Superintendent Burroughs was looking at like kind of a district-wide like across school ban on cell phones. So we were looking on whether we should do something feasible like that, whether it should vary by schools because obviously elementary schoolers with phones is different than high schoolers. So yeah, there's there's been talk about the what we've heard from students is that there's t the rules in the middle school are different than the ones in the high school and sometimes the transition people feel

055like a little uncomfortable with how bumpy that is. So we're looking at is it does it make sense to go districtwide even though there is obviously differences between a kindergartener and a 12th grader. So that's something we're interested in as well. Great. Is it possible for us to see a copy of the survey? I think would be Oh, we don't have it on. No, I know you don't have it on. Yeah, we can. Yes. Send it to Yeah. Again, I think the the question and the focus is a really interesting one. Again, it might be something that's forced on us with the the bills that are currently in front of the state legislature that they're probably won't come up this session, but next session. Um but yeah, I would love to to see what what

056the students, staff, uh families think and see that divide and just what I I guess my interest in looking at surveys like what different level of question we're asking around like are we asking people is it a full ban uh do they like what's the I guess spectrum that they support a full ban nothing or is it something in between like the classroom or something like that but that's great and thank you for all your work on it. Okay, thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. And now I ask uh for VU to come up. Um V V is our director of data analysis and I have to give her a shout out. She has been um my right hand in terms of understanding

057um student data and working with me as the assistant superintendent. Um and she's also available to support our principles um and our coordinators with test data. Um and she's invaluable in supporting um presentations for people when they're preparing data for you as well as other places. So, um, she's a behind thescenes gal, but I guarantee you she's always working hard and has been so helpful to me. Um and one project that she has really worked on a lot is um this is we're opening the curtain because this is so to speak um this performance matters is an add-on to our power school student information system that um she has been incredibly supportive of launching this project for us. Um we'd like to share it with you. Um we have worked with our faculty on professional

058development throughout the through line of the theme has been helping student helping our staff and teachers look at students with the data lens and they have been accessing it on this platform of performance matters all fall we've been training them um at different points and we are about to launch this for families to increase families access in a more coordinated easy manner to all their student data. Um as as it launches you will see it it's um provides information but over the years your student is in school that information will grow. So it's a great longitudinal data storage for you about your students. So, not to steal the show from V, but um if you could um lead us through performance matters. And I think it's really one of even though it's the second to

059last school committee of the year, it's really one of our bright spots and it's been one of my goal um and V's goals to accomplish this year. All right. Thank you for that great introduction. Um welld deserved too. Hello everyone. So, as Dr. Watts has mentioned, uh, we in the district have been working for a long time to build up our data capacity and, um, we're happy to be able to bring this finally to families so that they can log in and be able to see for their own child, their own children, um, all the data points that the district considers. Um, so I'm happy to share with you what we've worked on and we'll be launching this to families tomorrow. So that's really exciting and really a great way to close out a very

060um unexpected year. Okay. So what is performance matter? If you can advance the slide, Mark. Uh, next slide. So essentially it's um a data warehouse and a common assessment platform that allows us to store and access students academic and assessment data all in one centralized location and families can go into it and look at their data for their children year after year. Um and it it will follow the students. So, you know, all the MCAT scores, all those PDF or mailing reports that you get home and then you look at it and you place it somewhere and you kind of don't remember where you place it. Well, all of the overall scores are going to be stored in this system so families can really track how their students are growing and learning year-over-year. Um so

061the the platform itself will include a wide range of data both from the state level but also from the district levels. So there are there are data that we can pull straight from the power school system um grades attendance scheduling um but we can also upload other data. So things that we haven't been able to provide to families as readily available. So, dibbles, I ready, um, AP score, SAT score, access scores, all that is going to be included in this system. Um, educators, as Dr. Watts has mentioned, have been given access to this system this whole year. So they're able to go in and pull up any of these data points for all students that they have access to which um is really great because now instead of wasting time navigating different system trying to

062get different system um data point from different system it's all in one place really easy to access for teachers and we are hoping for families as well. Um and I think the the other big thing is that you know it provides a level of transparency to families um in terms of how their students are making progress on a lot of these standardized um assessment data. So in addition to you know homework assignment, quizzes, tests, grading that you are already receiving uh from the educators in the district, you're going to be able to see the standardized assessments alongside those. Um that should give you all a fuller perspective of how each and every one of of your students are doing. Okay. So next slide. Why performance matter? So, as I said, we've been working really hard

063as a district for over the past decade really to build up uh our educators capacity, our leaders capacity to um analyze, use, and make decisions based on data. You know, we're looking at both qualitative and quantitative data. It's really great to hear these students saying that they're going to be collecting survey data from their peers because that is some of the practices that we're all trying to build up. Um that you're not only looking at, you know, these numbers and test scores, but also these qualitative surveys about what student think, what teachers think, and what families think. So that's something that we're still uh developing our capacity to do on a districtwide scale. But I'm really glad that these students are already, you know, thinking and pushing forward on some of these um relevant issues

064that uh that are appearing in education today. Okay. Um so some of the things that we've done with teachers common planning time we've done data wise training for school leaders and as Dr. for watch mention this year's theme for PD is really how do we understand our students? Hold on one second. We might be off air. Can we all hear us in there? Camera's off camera. back there. The lights in the That's probably That's probably because the kids are doing whatever their audition is across the way turned their lights off and because the projector turned off and all the cameras turned off. because it's turns off. It's because are are we still meeting? I guess my question would be are we still meeting public? Yes, we're recording it and we can still but sorry. Thank

065you. Thank you. So, are we pausing? There we go. So, [Music] going, do you want to should we keep talking while Mark tries to get it back up or Yeah. Um, okay. Um, so as I was saying, we're building up a data culture in the district. Um, and this really dove tail tail with that objective. Um, the second thing is why performance matter. We really want to engage parents more deeply in their children's learning. And we think that this is an opportunity for families to uh connect and see exactly what's happening with their students and be able to engage with their teachers, their school leaders, um if they have any concerns or if they, you know, um have any other ideas about how their children might best be learning in a classroom. Um and then

066thirdly, it's been uh uh we basically have to stage it to make sure that we're building the right data infrastructure to uh be stable for the future. So last year we transitioned the whole district to powers school and that was changing our entire system away from a 20 year old system that we used previously. So it took a lot of um manpower and work behind the scene to get that up and running for everybody to train teachers to redo our all our processes and we feel like we are humming along this year and so we're able to add on this other component which is performance matter and that is um putting on the the learning lens for uh the system and really getting everybody to connect to um the data that's underlying all the learning

067processes that we have in the district. Okay. And then next slide. So performance matter portal. These are all the different things that you'll be able to see on the portal. So like I said before, some scheduling, attendance, grade, um we're going to have assessments where teachers can manually enter in the data. So a lot of our some of our assessments are not um are not necessarily online assessments. So where teachers have to grade them manually and we're able to put that into the system whereas before you know they lie in spreadsheets in teachers grade book everywhere and so this is a a great way to pull everything together and have consistency in one system. Um, like I mentioned before, MCCAST scores will be on there and additional assessments, I Ready, math, dibbles, PSAT, SAT, AP,

068that's all going to be on the system. Okay, so next slide. So this is kind of the interface of what it's going to look like. And as you can see, those are all the different tabs that I just mentioned, circle in red, and you'll be able to see that when you log in. So So next slide. Um these are some of the tools that we have developed for families. Uh there will be um a short video presentation that takes you through what it looks like. Tomorrow we're going to be sending out the login information letter for family. Um that will also include an F FAQ sheets to answer some questions that family might have. And we'll also include a glossery that our curriculum team have put together to give more context and explanation on what

069on what some of these assessments are that flee will see. And then lastly, um so these are some of the supports that we will build be building out um for families in the district. So, if families have difficulties with access and login, we're going to ask you to contact first your school main office um because they will have to set up the emails that you use with powers school to get you into performance matter. Uh next week I'll be hosting office hours at each of our school just to give any additional support to families who might want a little bit more um inperson support to log in. Um any glitches or errors on the performance matter platform, I'm going to ask people to contact me directly and I'll be working with performance matter to iron

070out those issues. And then um the meat of it all, if families, parents have questions about individual student performance, we're asking everyone to reach out first to your teachers at the school. Um and then school leaders before reaching out to um any potential curriculum directors or coordinators. So you know students learning is a really a team effort and it takes people at all level um to understand really uh what is going on with uh your child and your situation. So this is kind of the the hierarchy of help that we're proposing at family follow. Okay. And and then last slide I'm just letting everyone know again that we're going to launch this tomorrow. Um the platform will be live. We've been sharing communication with our staff and um after we send out the letter to

071the families tomorrow, it will also live in the principal's uh weekly newsletters as well as the MPS website. So it's really exciting. Like I said before, this is really a culmination of years of um just building up our data culture of speaking with families and families asking um how they can access more data on their students. And so we're really glad to be able to bring everything to fruition and you know uh offer this to family tomorrow. That's great. Thank you. Does anybody have questions, comments? Yeah, I mean I I do. I think this is great. So my first question, so if you already have P school, this is something new that you have to log into or does it automatically up? Um, so this, yeah, we we wish that it could do that, but

072it is um another portal, another like website that you do have to log into, but it uses the same email that you use to log into your P school account and it still works as an app that shows like because I get alerts on my phone when my daughter's grade gets updated. So you'll get alerts like that similarly or no? No, this doesn't have a a mobile app yet. Okay. So, you do have to go to the the website to to see all the data. Okay. But Okay. Um and then I just I do have to say I really appreciate um where um we are recognizing the need to uh partner with families. I think that's been a huge concern. I would say like since postcoid like just for families to like kind of know

073what students are doing. I think having students kids at home during COVID and families kind of helping with their learning and then once they went back to school I think more families wanted to stay engaged in that process. So I think this kind of brings all of that together. So I really appreciate the direction that this is going in and uh this level of data is is is so so important. So I appreciate that and I think this will be phenomenal. So thank you for all the work that you are doing. Um and then I just had a question though um on the um the bullet point about supporting supports educators in personalized instruction using data insights. Could you kind of explain a little bit more on that? Yeah, so like I said before when

074teachers log into the platform now they are able to see the individual student data for each of the students in the classroom. So before it was really hard um to necessarily see if you have like student in different section if you see the data broken down by this group of students or that group of student. So now on this platform teachers can go in and create smaller groups of students that they want to pull. So, you know, if there are certain students who may be um I don't know, taking a a quiz or a test on an assignment and they're are not um getting a a certain question right, then the the teacher can pull just that group of students and look at their data and and strategize ways to help just that smaller groups

075of students. and you can you know assign um different task for different groups of students to do based on the data breakdown that you see. So it's a way to help teacher kind of manage these differentiation strategies and um be able to target their learning specifically for smaller groups of students or even individual students based on that data. Great. Thank you. So teachers obviously have access to a larger group of students than you have access to your individual students. And you know, if you're a first grade parent logging in, there's not going to be a lot of information yet, but as the years go on, it's there to log on and it grows and grows and grows. Um, so remember when you can't remember what how they did in third grade on their ELA MCATs?

076Well, you can look it up when they're in ninth grade. It will be right there. it will it wouldn't just be for that current students um for some of the data that you would have to try to dig out of a filing cabinet somewhere. Um yeah, so it's a data storage piece too and and and we are just want to say out loud too, one of the most common errors that um the company reports that families the challenge they have is that um you know how we all have different emails you must use the same email you're using for P school. So, people over time change their emails. So, if you're having trouble logging on, it's very simple to do, but it's more than likely because you're using a different email. So, we've told all

077of this uh uh administrative assistants at the school, the first question is check out what email they're using online for P school. Make sure they're using the same one. Hopefully that will solve about 90% of the problems. But V is making herself available in schools on site as we launch this next week. We we're launching it tomorrow, but she'll be available for people so they have a little bit of time to uh look at that. We greatly appreciate the hands-on help for families, too. Yeah. And so does the existing P school kind of phase out? Is that what happens or do they It'll still be there. So that's you can still get that on your mobile app, you know, so you'll still get the notification. So this will have additional information and it's on one

078place. Got a couple questions. That's okay. V, it's great to meet you. I've seen your name on um NPS data things for years. So really respect the work that you do. Um just on the point of there's longitudinal data will there be historical data sort of retrospectively put into the system like my daughter is now in sixth grade will her third grade whatever results be in there. Yeah. Unfortunately we can't do that. So we just have to start. So I started putting in the data last year when we got the power school system. Um so we have data basically starting from last year and every year as we put in more data the system will keep it but we can't go back because um it just it's there's not a way to do that easily.

079And then how does seems like there's a lot of different assessments that are going to be have data in here. How does the data actually get into P school? Is it like a a feed or is it manually entered? A little bit of both. It depends. So if powers school has a partnership with a company. So for example they have a partnership with um um with i then the data from i ready will get imported in automatically every time they take the assessments. So like three times a year fall winter and spring. So after the administration it'll directly flow into the system for other assessments like dibble. um that's something that I have to pull at the district level and then upload it into the system via their tool like a mass upload of data.

080Right. I was just trying to think about the administrative burden of using it. Yeah. Um and then just I'm curious how if at all this this platform is impacting like your your or the district's broader data strategy. like does this enable you to approach the analysis that you do or um the tools that you give teachers or or school leaders? Does it allow you to do something different? Um yes, absolutely. Um it makes it more efficient. It cuts out a lot of the time that I would otherwise spend trying to uh just combine different sources of data. So right now if I go into the system and you want to know um simple question like how many um students on IEP have this level of performance on like a certain English class or a certain

081assessment like that's now much more easily um being able to pull out from the system than before where everything was manual and especially for teachers I think this is a huge win um because it's um combining all the data into columns for them that are easy to follow you know where before they would have to log into another system I ready system I mean sometime they still might have to do that to get more detailed level analysis or just um specific questions but if you're just going for an overall look at trend data at a pattern of how is my group of students doing on this particular assessment and I just want to see um high level you know green yellow red it's colorcoded in the system too then you'll be able to pull up

082that report and you'll see okay 50% of my students are in green you know 30% are still in yellow like maybe I want to dig into that 30% I want to make that into a small group and dig further into the data. That's something that teachers definitely did not have the capacity to do before. Um, and having this system really helps to pull all of that together. So definitely time efficiency and ability to um easily join different data set and look at it you know under um different demographics. So we really want to know how a certain student groups is performing on this assessment versus another group of another peer group. Then we can easily do that in a system versus doing everything manually by hand before. So it's a great tool. That's great. Mhm.

083Would would parents be able to have that levels of access as well to compare like how is my kids doing compared to the whole class compared to the whole grade compared to the whole district? Yeah. Yeah, that would be something awesome to have. Unfortunately, um I think the data that parents can see are really just their own individual students. Um and it's really the overall data. there's no graphic like I feel like that would be the next level of a data system you know um and there are many different data systems out there um but we really have to be careful about what we prioritize because not all data system would necessarily speak with student information system and one of the the major selling point of this system is that it connects directly to P

084school so all the demographic information that's already in powers school is transferred to this platform versus we would have to doing the manual load of populating all these different system without student information so that it can do the work that it does. Nathan had um mentioned IEPs. So for this if you're doing if say there are evaluations or things that are done for an IEP so some of it would be like dibbles and I ready but if there are other things are those evaluations are those able to be put into the system as well so say there's um that that's you know that's testing but like a a whisk or a wyatt or any of those that might have been done with the school psychologist or anybody or uh the speech therapist are those able

085to be in there for the parents whose students are on an IEP so you can compare you know, if they're every 3 years. Um, I think there's definitely capacity like uh capability rather to do that in the system. I think we would still have to figure out as a district like what evaluation or what assessment we want to put in there and how do we want it to go in there. So for some um teachers will will have to manually enter for others like something like a standardized assessment we can mass upload the results. So it really depends on um the type of data and what we want to go into the system as a district. Okay. I guess similarly there's you know there's a place for on the slide it talks about observational results.

086Um so similarly if there are things where again I'm like looking talking about maybe with an IEP but if there's data that they're collecting observationally that it's a place where you know if if if there's data around occurrences of things or improvement or anything of those is that a place could that what I guess the question is is that an opportunity for observational results to be put in there if there's sort of like data collection going on by the teachers And similarly how is that used for other in other like more broadly the observational results. Um so the observational result is really a tool to capture data. So as long as you are able to um assign scale to the data that you're seeing then you can put it into the system and it holds

087that for you. So you can say like you can assign different scale approaching you know exceeding meeting and then have um a rubric to go with each of those scale or those labels. Then the teacher can enter in those labels into the system and that can follow through and it really depends on I mean the system is open. We can be creative about how we want to use it. Yeah. Um but that is actually something that you know the the French program the GB+ data it is not a uh like an online standardized assessment. It's basically a one-on-one reading records with between the teacher and the student. So after the teacher does it, they would go into the system and entering a specific rating based on a rubric that they had um where they evaluated

088the student and that rating is what the family would see in the system. That's great. So could I just make the suggestion that maybe as a future look at it is like seeing if there is a way to use that as a place for those families where um who whose students are on an IEP and where there are a lot of things where it require you know where there's observational data or data being collected that maybe that that's a place where that can be informed and then similarly looking at some of those more standardized tests that they're taking that they can you know start doing it especially if they're being done every 3 so that they have that that history. It would be because I don't I think for I think that's probably a place

089where similar like you said you're going back and you're like where was that evaluation that we had done three years ago and what was the data but if they if we begin collecting it there I think that that's a great opportunity for families to have a viewpoint into their students that they might not other have otherwise have as easily so that would be great. So the only comment I would say about that that I have is um most of the data that is in there is data that's commonly administered to all students and as you know specialized in specializ special education evaluation or specialized to the student requires um additional um um signed parent consent. So given that multiple people over the years in a student's history would have access to it, we'd have to

090assure that there was security around who would have access to those reports because even um there there's as you know specific regulations about test reports who has access to them they're in a different folder they're not in a student's cumulative folder um so some classroom testing results like the GB+ or even if we do common assessments we move towards those those are very easily integrated into that I think it's um it we would have to think very carefully about the security and the regulations around special ed testing on that piece. Um, but I'm sure the we're moving in that direction because everything will be digitally stored, right? Um, and it's wonderful to be at the forefront of that. So, yeah, I don't mean to go down such a narrow path, but it just seems like

091such a great opportunity for for families. Thank you. Yeah. No, no, I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I mean there are other there's a special education platform within P school, right? P school's got it's a hub and it's got a bunch of different spokes with different performance matters is one. as um special education and other parent communication tools, other things like that that can be added on which might I think the point is right the the great thing I like about this is the what you mentioned Anna just like just the access to data that families have the insight they have with ease on an online platform without having to call ask for paperwork waiting for kind of the reports to be generated saving y'all time from you know doing manual emails or mail

092merges or things like that and just like it it just feels um really easily accessible for families. And so being able to do something like that for something like special education, again, whether that's through the power school app or something else, I'm I'm not sure. Maybe we'll we can talk about it in the special education report, but just like the platform that is used for that is is interesting. Um I just to comment on a couple things other folks said. I really like your point, Val, of like just the context of the data. I guess just to continue on that, like if you're reporting the Dibbles, when we get the Dibbles reports, right, it shows what my child's score is in these different categories. It shows where that is on kind of a range and

093what that range means. And so it just provides additional context. If I'm looking at performance matters, it's probably just going to tell me she got a 100 or whatever, you know, whatever. I can't remember what the scale is on the dibbles, but um it's probably just giving me that number, right? and not putting that number into um context. Right? So I think that's just so that's why we developed the the glossery to help families understand what the different ranges are um what the different colorings are and additional details from the test developer as well if families want more information about different components of the test. Yeah. So like you said, you know, it's going to hold the the total score for each of the component. It's it's actually a little bit more detailed than the

094dibble scores that you're receiving for your your child. Um because it's giving you all the dibble component, not just the overall component. But that that report that you're mentioning is also helpful for family to give that context, right? So you know how did my child perform as compared to the school or compared to the nation like that's also interesting important context to know um and on performance matter it's going to record all the different components of their goals. Mhm. Does it also give because I'm curious and it's something Mark you said um that kind of had me thinking like I know when we get to middle school um and parent teacher conferences there are limited slots so not everyone gets to meet with the teacher and it's kind of on a first time first come

095first- serve basis and it's always been a challenge right and I'm curious like if you have this information there can teachers go in and like comments that you kind of where their observation is like their take on students and so on and so forth to kind of help alleviate where you get 10 minutes with the teacher and you're trying to schedule different ones and you kind of prioritize areas. But is there a way to add some commentary from the teacher so that parents can kind of see you know maybe twice a year or something how their student is doing and from just a personal note from um teachers uh to families. You mean on the platform? Um I'm not sure that there's a way to do that. I think teachers are already doing that on

096the report cards. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um I guess the just the other thing that this makes me think of is obviously the access to the data is important like the thing that really matters is quality of the assessment right how good are the assessments that we are giving uh and then how are it's great parents have access I'm really excited teachers have access and all the work you've done around that because the the work around how teachers are utilizing that data to inform instruction is the biggest lever for instructional improvement we possibly can focus on. And so really glad to to see that. I assume the kind of professional development and work that's been happening this year will continue within uh future context to to support uh because I assume families will have more questions

097about this as they see access. And so we want to make sure our teachers feel supported and uh being able to answer those and uh also you know improve their instruction. I one thing you did mention was common planning time and I know that's come up in some of the site council meetings and this is a lesser question for you but just I guess my my understanding through the site council presentations is mostly the development of common planning time seems to have been kind of coming organically through school leaders right like assistant principles have come in and re uh honed the schedule which is fantastic to try and find more common planning time I guess I'd be interested in a conversation at the district level of just like what are we doing at the district

098level to support school leaders to say like this is actually the expectation for how much common planning time we want to make sure every teacher has across grades. Um because I think right now they're getting it once a week. I think you know we should be trying to figure out how we can do much more of that because that's such a you know data shown how effective that is at impro improving practice and creating opportunities for conversation around data and around student experience to improve instructional outcomes. So, um, that that's something that this makes me think of, but we'll just end on like I I saw this is a three-year project that you've been working through and like kind of very diligently kind of step by step. And so, really appreciate all your work to

099to roll this out. It's great that we are from where we were in the prior to P schoolool uh system, it's so much easier to be able to pull data, look at data, analyze things, and move more quickly. And um that's great. So, thank you. We definitely hope that we can continue building. our progress. Thank you. I just want to congratulate Eevee because it's come up so long so far in the past several years like you were to say and um I feel like this milestone of tomorrow rolling this out to families. It feels like it's sort of bringing to fruition a number of through lines of conversations over these past couple years. It's the certainly it's like the personalized learning sort of ability to support and challenge all of our students for that academic

100excellence piece most important but it is the transparency the communication family engagement the systems building that we talked about a lot last year into this year like this this yeah like you just said Mark this would be like an extremely high lever system that did not exist um and you've done so much hard work to make it possible. So, thanks so much. We'll have a link right on the main website that people can click to get their login information, too. So, we're trying to make it easy for everyone. We know it's the end of the year. Um, but it was really important that that override got passed so that we could move forward with this project, too. So, um, here we are. And it it's a wonderful way to end the year. No more feeling

101guilty about losing those pieces of paper. I have never done but I know it happens to some people. Thank you everyone. I said I appreciate you. Okay. So, we asked um Danielle Wetmore, our director of student services, who's been back there diligently. Um we appreciate all the work you you do too, Danielle. And I know that you've had an opportunity um to speak to the finance subcommittee earlier um this school year and um the invitation came to speak to the whole general community uh the whole school committee and the general community about some of the topics that you covered. I know this isn't a overall presentation about special education but some of the highlights about the drivers of um the special education budget and costs that that you incur in your department. Yeah. Thank you.

102Hi everyone. How are you? Um yes. So, I presented to the finance subcommittee before the override and they had asked that I return to speak to the larger community about um just the unpredictable unpredictive nature of special education funding and resources. So, I am going to I know you have a quite a long agenda. So, I'm going to try to keep my presentation really brief um so that you have an opportunity to ask some questions um and um just give a general overview of our special education um how we're fed federally regulated, but also just um some of our volatility in special education um and resources and use of them. So, um let's make sure. Yes. Um just want to make sure the right one. Um so um the special education falls under IDA which

103is a federal law that requires requires school districts to provide a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment for all of our students. Um providing um an equitable approach to um learning for students um an opportunity for them to grow at this at the rate that they are best possible. Um, we do have a small grant that is a portion of our funding. It's a pretty I mean Katie has probably talked about it a bunch, but it's a very small component of our funding. It's not nearly enough to cover all of the costs of special education, but it is there. Um, this past year we got about a total of about 1.35 umish million dollars. Um, and our budget is much larger than that as you all know at this point. Um

104part of that um is to fund our child find process which I'll talk a little bit about and that also takes um a bulk of our of our funding as well. Um so next slide. So IDA and childf find. So child find is a federal u mandate. It's part of IDEIDA as I mentioned that requires state and local education agencies to actively identify, locate and evaluate children from birth to age 20 at the end of their 21st year. Um so whether or not they may have disabilities um for Milton that includes um not only students attending Milton public schools but any resident of Milton. So, some of Serena's job that is tasking is that if a student goes to a private school or is homeschooled and the parent has a um concern of a suspected

105disability, our obligation is to evaluate that student for special education services in any area of suspected disability. So, um in addition to our 4,400 students, any student that um resides in the district. Additionally, a little um additional piece of that is that any student who attends a Milton private school um is also eligible for childf find services. So part of my job at the beginning of the year is to reach out to all of those schools sending letters um offering them the opportunity to have their student evaluated. Um the difference um so technically parents have the opportunity to um either have their students evaluated in the school in the district in which they reside or the district in which they um attend their private school. So um the difference in that is if a Milton

106resident is evaluated in Milton, they are offered if they're found eligible an IEP, an individualized education program. If they let's say go to um I don't know where, Zeian, that's in Westwood, right? if they go to Zavarian, they have the they can choose to go through Westwood public schools um and get evaluated through Westwood. Um if they're found eligible, they would be eligible for a service plan and not an IEP. So, a little bit difference um but that does pull um pull our resources and funding. Additionally, um, and this is, um, the unpredictable nature, the predictable nature of this is that part of our, um, idea grant funding is, um, earmarked for, um, evaluation and support of special education students for, um, those students in private school or homeschooled who live in Milton. So, we

107have, um, a share of that funding that we have to provide resources to private schools in Milton. Essentially, this year, it was around $70,000. 72 I think total. So just a little bit about that. Next slide please. Um I think I just um the other piece of that is that we um so proportionate share is what I just described. It's providing a portion of our funding, our federal funding to private schools. Um that supports students who um go to school in our district but do not live in our district. So students who live in our district and go to a private school are um entitled to um individual entitlement which means they can use the district resources um to you to um access their services on their IEP. So that pulls some of our friends

108a lot of our families opt out of that option but they are we are required by law to offer them the services and supports as gritted in their IEP. Um so that is part of our resources as well. Um, next slide please. So, in terms of the unpredictable nature of special education, um, there are predictable costs. We try to anticipate as much as possible. Katie and I meet monthly with our teams, um, to talk about students who we may see as, um, starting to need additional resources and kids that we're thinking um, may need additional supports. Additionally, we look at transportation costs and things that we can anticipate as much as possible. Um, so what I'm going to talk about is a little bit of here's what we can control and then there are unpredictabilities

109that we u can't anticipate throughout this budget process. Um the first area is um the four areas I'll talk about are registration and residency, special education evaluation. I'll go into a little bit more detail about that. Um legal and settlement agreements and then ongoing strategies to monitor student need. So, in terms of registration res residency, as part of our federal obligation, any student who moves into town, um we are required by law to obviously pick up their IEP if they're found eligible for special education services. So, that is if a student is a move in and has an out of district placement, we're required to uh fund that out of district placement because that was what the team determined as a least restrictive environment. Additionally, um for students who require intensive services within the district.

110So, if we have to hire an instructional assistant because that's um what's outlined on their IEP or if we have to um if they require a substantially separate setting. Um this year we had an uh um a move in at least one move in who required a substantially separate setting and we were full. Um we had no room in the program anymore. So, we had to subsidize some of that work while we found um a spot for him and worked collaboratively with the parents to be able to give that student the support that they need um in the environment that they are required. Um, additionally, changes in guardianship. So, um we've had students um who um require um they can't live in their home anymore, so they have to move to another town. Um and

111we're responsible for transportation. Um there's a best interest meeting that happens. we determine whether or not the student should move into Milton or out of Milton into their um into their new district and not their school of origin. Um and if that's deter however that's determined, we are on the hook for the transportation costs or any sort of funding that is required. So we don't always know when students are, you know, moving in or out as it relates to guardianship. Um and the same um for students who move into town. Um, we've had students that we've commuted this year up to um up to an over an hour away so that they could be in their school of origin. Um, that could be up to $325 a day uh for transportation costs uh for for

112for school distances that far. We work really hard with the um transportation companies to um to help support um you know putting students on a van together, but um there are mitigating factors such as students can't be on a van for more than an hour at a time. So when you're bringing a student to you know the Southshore um or the Cape uh you really can't put another student on the van because it um takes that extra time to put um the additional drop off and pickup. Okay, so next slide. Um, evaluation process. Um, so this can be really unpredictable. The trend um in special education evaluations is continuing to rise in the district. Um, right now um we part of that increase I think is the postcoid sort of worry about um how our

113students are making effective progress whether or not they do have um a dis suspected disability. Um so parents may um request or have their own independent neurosych. I know that there was a long wait list for a while. So we got an influx of independent neurosych evaluations this past fall. Um our high school um school psychologist um had 38 evaluations at one time. Um generally speaking 13 is about um high. 13 to 15 is like really the max. So when you're thinking 38, that's an additional 20 plus evals that we have to figure out how to um move somewhere else because it's impossible for one person to evaluate 38 students at a time. Um initial evaluations take about 15 to 20 hours from beginning to end. Um reevaluations are about 10 and it's depending on

114the intensity of the um the suspected disability. So if it's a specific learning disability, those are generally a little bit s shorter in terms of evaluation. If you're thinking about a social emotional and neurological disability, you're talking a much more complex comprehensive evaluation. So, um that's why the number is so broad. Um on average, psychologists in a given district um have about 70 to 80 evaluations in a year, and that's when they are only evaluating students. Um our psychologists are on on track to close to 100 um each on average. Um, I think our high school is around 120 right now, which is really high. So, in order to offset some of that, um, and some of those resources, we have to contract, um, out to agencies or we were fortunate enough to have someone

115who was interested in, um, uh, coming to us a couple times a week. So, we're able to work with her on a rate that made sense where she had guaranteed work through the end of the year because of the number of evaluations that we had. Um, our psychologists are really talented, so it's really hard to, um, have them just testing all day when we're working on building programs and systems in the district. To have that valuable resource only dedicated to testing is really hard. Um, I just want to put that plug in for them. They're excellent, as are all our related service providers, evaluators, and special educators. Everyone works super hard. Um, so I think it's important to note that. Um, additionally, um, if a parent is not, um, satisfied with the results of an

116evaluation, they can ask for an independent educational evaluation, an IE. Um, in that case, um, we generally uh are required by law to approve that um, if they're unsatisfied and we've done all the evaluations that um, cover the the request. um those can um so last year the state increased the state rate for independent evaluations. Um so this can cost anywhere um between 3,000 and $4,500 depending on how many evaluations the parents disagreed with. Um this year I think we spent over $20,000 in independent educational evaluations. Um and we can't anticipate or predict um whether or not a parent will be satisfied. We think all of our vals are wonderful. So um um okay so next slide and then the um second to last area is sort of legal involvement and settlement agreements. So anytime

117a lawyer is um represented in a meeting our it is a practice that our legal counsel also is represented in that meeting. Um so it a lot of times um a parent will come with an advocate who's also a lawyer. Um and in those cases we have to um provide our own lawyer even if that person is acting as an advocate. Um it is well within a parent's right to have an advocate. I often encourage it because I think it gives some context for the parent to it's a very very the special education is very very complex. So to have someone to help walk you through some of the processes and things like that's really helpful. On our end it's our obligation to have our own legal counsel in those situations. Um so we don't

118always anticipate that and can't always anticipate that. um if a um if there's a hearing request either by um the town of Milton or by a parent. Um obviously that is legal involved. So we don't always anticipate that a parent will file a hearing request or that we in turn feel that we're supporting students in the right way. Um so that will um have unintentional or un um anticipated costs as well. Um and then finally, we've had this year um we had two Office of Civil Rights complaints. Um and because of the significance of that federal um complaint, we um we ask our legal team to be involved and help navigate that um process as well, which is unanticipated. And then finally, I mentioned this at the beginning, um we're always monitoring our students, ensuring

119that they're getting um the best best support possible that we can offer in the district. Um that being said, we have students who have unanticipated needs come up um where they may need a more restrictive environment than originally anticipated. Because we do the budget so far out, we can only anticipate so much um in terms of student needs. So if a student um is starting to struggle and ends up hospitalized and needs more support um we are um we reconvene our team and talk about what additional supports that needs which are un unexpected costs. Um that could look like an increase in services. Um it can look like an increase in increase in instructional assistance support where we need to then onboard new staff um or training extended evaluations either in district or out of

120district um which are uh 40-day evaluations to help understand um the students needs at that given time and get recommendations from either a program in district or out of district. um out of district placements, uh day therapeutic placements, um language based placements at a district where um the student exceeds our needs. And then finally, we've had a couple of students this year who have had um additional needs um in getting to school. So, they've had a therapeutic day placement, which has turned into a residential placement. Um so, all of those can be um as anticipated as possible, but at times um given the nature of a student need, it can vary. I think that's it. questions. I have a couple. Sure. Thanks for the presentation. It's great to meet you, too. Nice to meet you.

121Um, the the the obligations to private school students who either live out of Milton but go to school here or live in Milton and go to school somewhere else. Okay. And I understood there were different financial obligations depending on the situation. Um can you describe the magnitude of that? Like is that is that something that we are um are those services we are or evaluations we're providing on a frequent basis at a high cost or is that sort of a small portion of the overall work that you all are doing? It is increasing. Um we I think in the last week had a number from a specific private school in town. Um we had three or four uh referrals for evaluation for a private school um of students who both reside in and out of

122Milton. Um it has increased over the past couple of years. Um there is new leadership at each of the at least I can speak I can't speak to um other towns private schools but in Milton um there has been a change in leadership at many of the schools in town. So my work with them I'm required by law to meet with them at least three times a year to explain the child process to explain their um portion of the funding through IDA. Um and so I think um the collaboration with them has um sort of increased their um involvement in the child fun process which is great for us to be able to identify students. Um generally speaking um the range of outcomes can vary. Um some of those students are found eligible. Um many

123are not um they don't need specially designed instruction to u make effective progress. So um they're generally found ineligible. Yeah. And is are all of those private school service or evaluations paid for through IDA funding or are we paying for it out of our own? This is that's a great question. So um I try to this is really a really confusing topic and I think um you have to find like really um minute uh litigation around this but there's proportionate share which is the um federal funding source and that is generally for students who um attend school in Milton public schools. That's a that's a federal funding. Um the local funding, which is the taxpayer dollars, is called individual entitlement and that's for students who um either go to private school in Milton or somewhere

124else but reside in Milton. They're eligible for services in the Milton public schools. So um it's a locally funded bucket. So Milton students are receiving um Milton funding students who this is just for services. Um, when it comes to child find, um, it's all Milton funded. Got it. It's okay if I ask a couple more. Just go down my list. Um, the, uh, under child fine, does this, does this also include early intervention and sort of early childhood assessments, three plus, so it's three years old plus. Um, our obligation to students who are turning three um is to re is to evaluate them. So, um our team chair and preschool director um have a relationship with our EI early intervention person um to try to figure out ahead of time how many evaluations are coming

125in um what that might look like. Um but our responsibility starts at 3 years old. So, we usually evaluate at two 2.8 eight years old um to depending on when we get the referral, but we have to um if the student is a resident of Milton, so we have to go through the residency process um to ensure that they are a resident and uh we're using our funding to support students that live here. Um once they go through the residency process, um we evaluate them and then we have to have their IEP meeting be um by the time they turn three years old. So and then just a couple of evaluation questions. Um you mentioned that there's significant number of evaluations that like the evaluation load is high. Uh what is the typical wait time

126for an evaluation for a for a family or for a student. So we're legally mandated to have um as soon as a consent form is signed and we receive it, we have 30 days 30 school days to evaluate and 45 days to have the meeting school days. Okay. um if we're outside of that, we're out of compliance. So, our teams do a really really um nice job and that's also part of the reason why we need some of the contracted services in order to meet those uh federal timelines. Makes sense. And then how often are independent how often do the IND IE how often are those contradicting district evaluations and like how many of the like when they are in com when they're finding different things do those often end up in litigation yeah mediation

127yeah um uh not typically we don't get to the point of mediation or litigation I think our teams do a really nice job of navigating the process with parents I think, you know, there's two different um so some of our parents choose and I think some of it is um or a lot of it is for um identifying diagnosis. Um so school districts can um educationally find um a disability um but we can't diagnose. So for example, if a student has dyslexia, we can identify them as having SLD with components or features of dyslexia, but we cannot diagnose a student with dyslexia. So a lot of times um parents will want that diagnosis um and so they'll um seek their own independent neurosyches. So that's different than an independent educational evaluation. We consider them alongside

128our own evaluations regardless of how they got to us. Um generally speaking there are some similarities. Um I think the recommendations can vary um and be different. So I think teams work with families as a whole team to navigate and mitigate like what makes sense for the student in the in the school setting. Does that answer your question? It does. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Can I add one point that I think was especially with the evaluations that keeping in mind that not just a school psychologist so the OTS and the speech therapists and so the service providers in the district are also the ones doing the evaluation. So if you have a heavy load of if a number of evaluations come in, those are still the people who are supposed to be

129providing the services to the students who are on an IEP. So that can definitely be where like where that conflict comes in where you would need contracted services because you can't be taking time away from students IEPs to do those. So if you have 20 speech evals and two speech therapists with a large load of students then you'd have to contract it out in order to keep the services provided and meet that 45day timeline. So that's where the I like I know the school psychologist is big but I think the other pieces I agreed and I use school psychologist because they generally evaluate every single student. Um so it gives like a a more um comprehensive number whereas a speech pathologist OT but I think the difference is is school psychologists are only evaluating for

130the most part in our speech and language pathologists our occupational therapists our PTs and our BCBAs are all servicing students all day. So to then find time in their day to spend 10 to 15 hours evaluating um that per student um while their case loads uh might be a little bit different from a testing angle, they still have a full case load of students that they see multiple times a week. So that's a really good point. Thank you. And I'm super proud of their commitment to students. And it's like such a pleasure working with all of them because they are so so committed to students and making up time and making sure services aren't missed and not sacrificing any of that for evaluation um and being really um thoughtful with families and um and student

131need. So shout out to all of them. Did you go ahead? Um just a couple thing. Uh one, how many school sites do we have as well? We have currently six. Six. Okay. About one per one per school. And then the preschool um generally our um one of our elementary school sites also takes on um preschool which can be really really challenging um because the unpredictive nature of EI and what how we're getting students. So Mhm. Yeah. six. I think we could use a few more, but yeah. I mean, one for over a thousand student school at the middle school and one for over 1,200 students school at the high school. That's really I think they recommend one per 500 students. So yeah. So we are not we're not there. We're not close. Um but

132thank you. Uh I think the additional context of just our sped rates have drastically increased kind of coming out of the pandemic around like 30% increase one of the highest rates in the state. Um the other thing folks should know we it did drop our overall percentage of uh students with disabilities dropped from SY24 to SY25 by about a percent. Um so that's interesting though again the costs continue to rise. I've been trying to think about this from like the financial lens because obviously the pressures of special education have were a significant impact on us, continue to be a significant impact on the district's ability to operate within budget within the current year and a big driver of the the override. Um I know you say again it's it is very difficult to predict. I

133think it is our job to figure out how to make it you know how to predict it as well as we possibly can. Can you provide some context around like did you see a significant change this year or do you have like do we have good data systems around collection for like number of new students that are coming into the district with an IEP because we obviously know that kids who are RS right and come from one year to the next obviously something could develop over a year um but it's probably not going to jump from like nothing to um something like substantial in terms of like an out of district placement unless something, you know, I I would say that that is has been quite a few cases this year um specific around anxiety,

134school avoidance, um challenges with students getting out of bed. Um and so that has led to um an increase in services and eventually um and at a district ex what we would call an extended evaluation to help us understand what we could do more. And that generally is after we exhaust all of our resources. Um to the point where our BCBAs are going into the home and trying to support families um with you know incentive plans or anything um but mental health I think is a challenge because it's not something you can incentivize to get a student to school. That's more of a behavior intervention. Yeah. No, it's a good good point. Um do you have a sense of like about how many new kids come into the district that require services on a on

135an annual basis? I mean, just today we had three. Um, but those services vary. They're not super intensive. I think out of district we've had two this year. I do think that many of the um findings of eligibility are internally um our initial evaluations where students are found eligible. That being said, we um I was trying to get the numbers ready for tonight and I didn't. So, I can certainly circle back to them. Um I was looking at the number of initial evaluations versus students being found eligible versus ineligible. And what we started collecting data on this year and haven't perfected it. So it's something we're working on for next year is looking at um how this how the child find process was triggered. So whether it was through an independent evaluation that automatically triggers

136our own evaluation process. So that way um we have a legal right to um use our own evaluations um to consider along time alongside any independent eval. So um an independent neurosych evaluation triggers our own child process. Um a our student support team which is our part of our MTSS that can trigger um an initial evaluation or any sort of parent concern or teacher concern can trigger child fines. So a lot that is where we're finding a lot of our eligibility and a lot of our resources being used. I think the thing I think would be helpful from our end my end at least as I see think about it is like if we have some of the sense of like what is the again these like averages of number of new students number of

137kids who like within the school year usually you know come in uh how many what's the average number of valuations and that cost over kind of time and you know what's maybe like the 75th percentile over if we look at the last six years right what what's a little bit above average for our budgeting purpose And like what are some inflection points by we know like hey we had again 30 we have 32 eval psychologist evaluations at the start of the year like that's a red flag from a budget standpoint. We need to like talk about like this is going to create a difficult trend for us for this year. What are we doing to kind of figure out how we cover that gap or again we had 10 new students move in uh to

138the district that have significant IPS. Normally we have two, right? Th those are things that are really difficult because we do the budget so far in advance, but like what are the things that we can have in place from a data perspective to be able to raise the red flag earlier to say we obviously need to provide these services, these kids deserve the services, but like how how do we do that within the financial constraints we have? And so I guess that's that's where my line of question is here. Yeah. No, no, that makes perfect sense. And I think um when I arrived here there um we had such a high turnover of teen chairs who generally collect a lot of that data on how they um you know how they received the evaluations. Our

139our related service providers have done an amazing job of tracking their own data. It's really how do you collect it and have it as a collective unit to be able to sort of aggregate it and like figure out um the questions that you're asking. Um and that system has never been in place. So we really started diving into that the start of this year. um we've had some consistency in our team chair roles overall. So it has been we've been able to sort of start piecing that piece together as well. So yes, we're in agreement um and on track to doing that for sure. I had a question. Nobody else minds. Um so a couple things. So from that standpoint of the resources, so I think if I understand it correctly, the resources are allocated

140at a school level, right? And so is is there the opportunity for like I think about maybe from more the standpoint of like instructional assistance or that sort to um to have an understanding of of of where where you know what we have for resources and staffing and then as things change because you know students either come off of an IEP or they move or they move from one school to the next. So is there the opportunity to look across the district to see what we have? Like I guess where's the where's the coordination on that point? Would that be you or is that and then so if you know that student A has had a pair professional but they don't necessarily need them anymore. They've kind of progressed from the point of needing it.

141How is that resource then reallocated or determined if we don't need that resource anymore? Like where does that discussion take place? So I um work with team chairs weekly. Um so we meet at a team share meeting and some of the work we're doing is exactly what you're saying. So we just um hasn't been made public yet, but we are working together on a um the draft um program grid so that way we're on the same page and it can be publicized. Right now it's with special ed teachers and we're working together on making sure that we're all on the same page and understanding. Um we also just um released a program referral form so that way we're um looking at our district-wide programs from a district level and not from a school-based level. Um

142and each school has equal access specifically at the elementary school of um accessing any district programs. Um along those lines, some of the additional work we're doing is around um an instructional assistant referral process, entry and exit criteria, and fade planning. So we're looking at what criteria does a student need to meet in order to reduce some of the the service delivery times. Um and then in terms of reallocation, it would just depend on where the additional needs are, if any. Um our requirement is to um student needs. So if there are instructional assistants that are no longer needed that you you wouldn't necessarily reallocate them. Um we haven't gotten to that point yet. So right but yeah so there's that's where a lot of the work is done and then I'm bringing that work

143to central office so that we can have the larger discussion on how to roll that out on the school level. I meet with the principles monthly and we have a lot of those candid discussions around um needs in their buildings and and how to allocate resources. Um the second thing is you know we've talked a lot about out of district and I think Mark I was almost looking at it through a different lens which is if we look and I want to keep in mind we're talking about kids here right so I don't want to be talking about them as agreed but if we're looking at if there are 65 I'm going to throw out a number students that are out of district do we find that there is a predom dominant profile of student

144that is out of district that maybe historically we haven't had a program or something in place that could support them. So that we're I'm not necessarily saying that you're bringing those student that you're you're changing their world, but as we're looking at it, we're like, "Wow, of the 65, 20 have dyslexia or 20 have some sort of learning disability, 20 students at 80 to $100,000 a year versus this like finding the program and staffing it." like is I I guess the question is is that is the work being done at that level so that we can begin to impact that in the coming years. Yes. Uh yes, for sure. We I that was sort of a jumping off point for me. It was looking at the profiles of students and figuring out how we can

145better align our programs to meet students needs in district. One of the amazing things about families here is that they really want their kids in the community. And so that's super cool for me to like, you know, for them to be asking how do we get my student back in? You know, they they love this, they love school, A, but you know, they really want to be, you know, have their high school experience here or their middle school experience. So being able to engage in that conversation, um we did it with a number of students this year at the high school level specifically and have had um multimonth conversations with Karen Cahill and the a district coordinator to um have students come and do practice hours, practice days to make sure that they felt that

146this was the right fit for them and they can navigate the school. Um so we are looking at profiles. I think specific learning disabilities is a really um an area where we do have quite a few students out. Um, so making sure we're aligning our very strong language based programs in and promoting them as really strong. We have great teachers in the program. Um, we're aligning the systems in the program and sort of the profile of the student. Um, I also think we've had some social emotional students out. So by building um, from the ground up our Quest and Compass programs, our social emotional programs um, to be and this is where the school psychologists and adjustment counselors come in to provide that direct support. All of those things are in play to help get

147kids um in their least restrictive environment by us being able to support them. That's great. To just go off of this, um you know, we've talked a lot about how unpredictable some of these situations are or how difficult it is to forecast. Um and so looking at patterns of the existing 65 or so students is good. not knowing if this if this sort of information is available, but if we could go if 10 years ago we knew what the next 10 years would look like, would we have made resource choices a decade ago differently than we did? It seems like we um I don't know if this is exactly right, but it seems like we sort of live in the year. Um we're very reactive and not proactive. Reactive. And I feel like I say

148that a lot. Could we like pull the last 10 years of out of district placement data? Um, and my guess is patterns would emerge. Um, that might inform what we do for the next 10 years. Uh, and I I I get it that that um special education rates have increased pretty significantly since the pandemic. So, there's there's that part that seems unique here. But I think I think a retrospective of out of district placement would be would be would probably provide some really valuable insights. Yeah. And there's um there's research out there as well. So I know that there are Milton trends, but there it's and there are nationwide trends as well that align really well with what is happening in Milton. Um and I think I I want to say 20167 prior to co

149there was a huge trend and increase in anxiety school avoidance and we're continuing to see that trend now. Um I think co exacerbated a lot of that because of um students having um to be in home and not have the pressure of going out and socializing. Um, I think there are trends in um the social pragmatic understanding abstract um abstract friendships and relationships and how to navigate those relationships especially as they get into middle and high school. Um there are um trends in executive functioning deficits and ADHD. So how do we address those? those don't always lead to out of district placements, but I think if you don't address um that need early enough um and what we look at a lot of times at the younger ages is the more does this students disability

150impact their ability to make effective progress. And what's the first thing people think of when they think of effective progress academics, right? you're not thinking about the social emotional component of things when a student's in second or third grade and they're, you know, quirky in the classroom and having, you know, all the students like them and they find them engaging. But as soon as middle school hits, that quirkiness or um uniqueness um can be perceived by other students as, you know, um not as typical as, you know, developing friendships. So, what we're working with as a team is how do we identify or have these identifiers early on? What additional screening tools can we use and things like that to be able to support student needs um earlier on when their brains are more malleable

151and they're more willing to um attend um a lunch bunch or a counseling session or something like that. Yeah, I was gonna I think that that's important because you know Mark, you were saying like the red the 38 is like a red flag from a budget perspective at the high school. I was looking at it as 38 is a red flag for me on what did we miss in middle school that then initiate that then says we need to do 38 evaluations when typically you do 10. So to your point are we looking at those screeners? Are we doing those? Are we giving those services earlier that aren't necessarily special education services per se, but addressing some of those things that then rise to the level of an evaluation at the high school that that

152then does bring in the, you know, the ad the contract costs and those sort of things. And we have a handful of students right now at the high school level who are getting rules-based reading instruction and and nth grade. that's, you know, right now you're at this point we should be teaching strategies on how to support reading um and not uh rules based reading. So something concrete that we've implemented this year um through our case screening process is students who are flagged, we're going to um I'm working with Cat D. Ro on doing additional screening tools for early dyslexia um identification at the kindergarten level. So that way we can um have interventions earlier on and be able to support students um more holistically. That's great. Earlier. So thank you. And are you noticing like

153when you do those interventions earlier on, especially some of the you were talking about students appearing more quirky and funny in elementary school, but then they get to middle school and it turns into something else. Are you noticing when you provide those supports early on that they have an easier transition to middle school? I think from in my short time here I can't definitively say that but in my experience overall yes I think when you um have interventions um earlier on around um explicit coaching in social pragmatics or explicit coaching in um you know and and we I want to passionately say that um we're all unique in our own way and we're all neurodeiverse in our own way. So, how do we not only help students um identify um you know, how to be

154students in school and how to make friends and and all of that stuff. It's really how do we all um gain acceptance of each other in in a way that u makes sense. So, it can't be like, oh, this kid's quirky. Um that's not normal in middle school. It's like how do we not only help support a student in um their growth and development, but um create acceptance around them as well. Um and that's a lot of training, professional development work um on our end to to um support at the MTSS tier one and tier 2 level that I think we are still growing in. So So you touched upon like you know um them interacting socially with other other kids in let's say middle school, right? like how does, you know, I know we've

155talked about like restorative justice and some of the work that they do. Um could you kind of explain like some of the strategies that you use specifically in middle school for like kids to fit in better in terms of um just you know kids with certain more social deficits. Yeah. Sure. Uh or um uh Yeah. So some of the it's really around explicit coaching and then helping generalize that skill. So, um, what I, um, when I'm dreaming big of future programming, it's really looking at that profile of student and having the explicit instruction be because because most of those students have high cognitive abilities and are super smart. So, um, if they're missing an academic class, um, it's not at a detriment to them because they can easily pick it back up. So using or

156using that academic support or instructional support time that generally is part of the secret service as a more social emotionally driven class where they're getting explicit instruction in social pragmatics. Um you know when you go to a grocery store and you have to wait in line like punching the person in front of you probably isn't the most expected thing to do. and having those um concrete examples of of supporting that and then teaching them how to generalize those skills around their peers in the less restrictive setting. And that's where you use the instructional assistance more proactively of having them not next to the student but um navigating those social interactions that may not be um as perfect as you'd expect them to be. And then do you do the reverse with their peers as well

157on how like how does that work so that students know you know, like, hey, that kid isn't change. It's like, you know, we're all different in our own unique ways. And how do we teach acceptance? I think that is through some of the restorative practices that we've done. Um, and I think, you know, there's, you know, I think it's what's really challenging is when a, you know, a student, uh, appears physically in a certain way. I think it's, um, harder to understand the the neurodiversity of someone who looks one way and looks another. Um, and so I think that is something that you see through like, you know, our best buddies. We have we had 54 kids um, join our uh, unified track this year. And so it's pretty amazing. Um and so we have

158acceptance here and how do we build off of that for students who um have different sets of needs and have more um of a neurodeiverse. Is that something that also is at the middle school because I know they have a track cross country program right in the fall that they do for they do unified in the Oh, in the middle school. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. They do. I would they have I think it's less formal. Um they definitely have unified um activities and I know the play at the middle school and the high school will have um opportunities for all students. So anyone else was great. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Thanks Danielle. Thank you. Thank you. I'm exhausted so I'm sure. Thank you very much. Have a good night. You too. All right. Anything else

159on the superintendent? Is that it for yours? That was it. Moving right along. All right. Those All right. For the chair's report. So, we have to um have a vote for school choice. Um one minute. I have to pull this up again. Shut everything down. Uh for the purpose of discussion, I can make a motion. Yeah. Uh I'll make a motion to motion is made that Milton not be a school choice district for the FY26 school year. Second, any discussion? We make it too crowded. We can't be a school district of choice. Yes, it's clearcut. That was my assumption as to what the history was. Yeah. [Music] All right. So, we'll have a vote. All right. All in favor? Opposed? It passes. Yep. Great. It passes. Um, sorry, let me go through. So, we passed

160um in the folder is the uh description of all of the uh school committee subcommittees and advisory committees. So, I just wanted to kind of open up any discussion around that. The goal would be to have people share their preferences with me and before the next school committee meeting and then we could we would vote on those at the June um was it June 5th June 4th at the next meeting. So, I didn't know if people had questions about them. Um, discuss it. Mark them. Do we want I don't know if this would come under the finance piece, but the discussion the other day about the the tri board for lack of a better term meeting trio um committee if we want to give an update on that in this context. Can I think of

161something? Yeah, I can do that because it was likely going to be another um townwide committee, right? Um so had a conversation with uh Nick Milano, Amy Dexter, Katie and Regina were there and Amanda um the select board chair Benzole and Warrant Committee chair um Tom uh Caldwell. And so just had a a conversation. We had not really had a conversation since the original like idea came up from the select board um about this kind of 22 what they started calling a tri board because that's something that exists in other towns um brought forth kind of the conversation we had at finance committee most of us were able to be there uh and talk about a bit um the general agreement is around like from a a construction standpoint is that kind of 222 to

162it would be something that would be established by the select board. So we don't need to establish it ourselves but it would be a committee that within its establishment would have two spots two appointments from the school committee. So then select board would vote and establish it and then we would appoint two members whichever two members. Technically we could vote non-school committee members if we wanted to. We just would have two appointments to the to the seat. Um we talked a bit about like the numbers the warrant committees bit bigger obviously than the six of us they have 15 members um generally everybody at that was in agreement 22 kind of made sense and mostly that got to like what is the purpose of this this is not a policy making entity can't be right

163that is the purpose of this group as well as the select board um and not wanting to take the place of the warrant committee as the town finance committee this can't be the town finance committee more committees established for that function. So this is a uh again meant to take the place of kind of what we lost last year uh which is like an information sharing conduit to have conversations to share information between school committee select board and improve on that process by having warrant committee attend so that they can ask questions they can participate in discussion not just attend as passive members which is what they did kind of two years ago when we had some joint finance committee meetings. So still some work around like really honing in on the purpose of this

164and making sure that is distinct from I think some of the concerns and if I remember right like you were bringing up too of just like this can't be a group that just is like deciding everything behind they have they should have no really decision-making rights. It's just a matter of like getting information out. Um it would be public meetings because it would be like likely involve kind of a um I'm sorry a quorum of like either our finance committee andor the select board's finance committee. Um so it'd be a kind of publicly posted meeting. Um we did talk about the idea that came up at town meeting around having uh other town residents a part of it. um something we talked about at ours. The feeling across that group was given that this is

165not a policymaking entity uh it's just like an information sharing entity not to have additional members at this time. U the feeling was that that could change uh but wanting to make sure that this is not something that kind of goes off off the track in terms of its its purpose and trying to make sure that is that it's clear and tight. Again, it would still be a public meeting uh and the discussion of like having public comment at actually at those meetings to get public input uh and get public questions through that. But again, not have formal um membership that really the warrant committee is is the entity for that for like public members to volunteer to be a part of the finance conversations with the town and things like that. Um so was

166some of the the discussion there and again the next step is Nick Milano is working to put together a um kind of proposal on purpose and um the establishment of this and expects that to be at select board meeting next week. Next yeah not this one the following week. Um I think is what is what the goal is and then at that point we would have that as a committee that this group would need to appoint to. Yes. Yeah. But I think the big piece too that we have been talking because I think there was conversation around whether or not we would need to vote to create a subcommittee. But since it is coming out of a select board that that yeah we'll just appoint we would just appoint people like we do for other

167committees that are held by the select board created. Yeah. Yeah. So that makes sense. I mean it sounds sort of just like additional new infrastructure to support collaboration among the boards and yes and transparency of those discussions right and I think that if that's the way it's set up then it does make sense that it's comprised of members of these existing boards and then it's just sort of I mean I think it's great for that to be created obviously because what we saw this past year was, you know, the um you wouldn't you don't it it didn't function well to allow like for we had to depend upon this past year's select board members choosing to create the joint committee by having their own version to collaborate with us. So I think it it's good

168for that to not be something dependent year to year on who happens to be on the select or the school committee or the warrant committee. Like I know Tom took a um I would say more proactive approach this year from the warrant committee side to be collaborative to you know build the relationship um from the beginning and that I think we saw benefits from that. So just having that not hinge upon like who happens to be in the seats I I feel like that really makes sense. Yeah. Be established. Yeah. And uh further discussion also came like just the idea of this tribe or the name is because of Mansfield I think is one of the towns and Hangingham I think was another one that so this is something that that exists in other towns

169and you know conversation again on still reaching out to them to figure out there's some that apparently one meets just like once a year that is not what our goal would be be to like have a monthly just so again we have kind of the ability to have the the opportunity to share information as comes up and um not depend on needing to go to public speak at another board's meeting or something like that. But again, there was concern around like this just it's it's not the warrant committee. It's not a policym entity, right? It's just about information sharing about where we're at. So just sharing information like no voting. No, there be no vote. Yeah. Okay. Good. So that can get added under the joint town school subcommittees on our list. Yes. Yeah. Tentatively.

170It's it's not created yet. Yeah. Eventually. Yeah. When it's created. Okay. All right. Any other questions or comments about committees? The only other one I had was not really I don't think a committee, but maybe just a working group around the superintendent search. Um just there's lots of work to do I assume around getting together like what is the the timeline what's the structure u doing an initial review of um resume I don't I don't know what we would like delegate to kind of a working group versus wanting to do a whole committee but just could see there being some benefit to have like a smaller group of us being able to kind of meet with uh John Failen or whoever else on the district side to help move that work forward. board and then

171come to the full committee meeting to say like hey here's a what we would propose around like our timeline and process for the superintendent search and the public engagement aspect of it and things like that. Can I ask how does that so I know when for the assistant superintendent search that went on that there were different people who were on that committee. How does it work from the standpoint of superintendent search? Is it just like the way well the way it has worked before similar to an assistant superintendent search there's a committee that is created an initial search screening committee that um for an assistant superintendent or certainly superintendent includes one or two school committee members in that initial group that also includes you know members of MEA A depending what the top like community

172members um on the superintendent search last time yeah there were up to three so there can't be more than three uh school committee members um on the search committee but there's a whole like who who sets up the search comm the school committee chair okay okay glad I asked okay um people apply Yeah. Yeah. So there right there's a process and there's a process of like we put it out to the community. People express their interest in being on the committee. You're considering a number of factors and selecting. You're looking for a range of representation across the schools levels um various expertise. you're you know um I think there's someone who's leading the search as a staff person like a member of central office who's sort of chairing the search so that you're representing the

173school committee but um yeah so and but I mean it can be doesn't have to be the way it's happened before I mean I think creating a working group would be something I hasn't happened since I was here but that's it sounds like a good idea I mean um the board's generally just fallen on the chair to kind of Well, it's been no it's been full school committee discussions like so we've sort of had those conversations here with in the case of the previous searches MASC like at the table guiding us with that um and discussions I would say like in terms of what type like what certain um criteria we were looking at right that was a big part of it like focus on mess and mess and mess like based on our guiding

174principles and so on and so forth like aligned um so that was really important I think when we created the uh job posting right um and I think when we got applications I remember I think two school committee members volunteer who weren't part of the screening committee volunteer to go through all the applications and kind of select who would be on the committee from the community yeah different people and I would say all the school committee members had roles to play at various layers of the process. So, you know, this is just the initial what we're talking about here is just the initial round sort of screening and doing first round interviews and then you know um I think I'm not aware of a standard process. I think for the assistant superintendent level positions, there's

175been a process of having um you know like one or more school committee members in a first round and then a you know a different one or more school committee members in a subsequent round um in the case of a superintendent search. So I think the expectation would be that um the there's a screening committee that identifies finalists and then the full school committee is obviously um checking references and interviewing all the finalists um and coming to a decision as a full school committee about who to appoint. So what gets to that point in the process though is what you're talking about. Um and I think how that how the community is engaged in the process, how are all the stakeholders, you know, various um bargaining units and central office leaders and school leaders important.

176I think that might be important to maybe engage the community earlier in terms of like what they're looking for. I mean just if you wanted to throw it out there to the broader community in terms of like you know certain qualifications specifically that would be helpful for from their perspective of for our schools you know so just kind of because I think when we created the initial hosting we kind of decided that if we wanted to open it up well last time we did we had community listening sessions we had I think at least two um open sessions right that we like essentially coded the responses we got in those open sessions and we had a survey to the community um that were identifying priorities and all of that data fed into the criteria that

177we sought in our posting you know so we could certainly replicate and do something different something further but that was all sort of pre-work Glen Cooer um kind of helped facilitate a lot of that last time and of course that is a that's a decision for the school committee to make is uh we have used MASC's superintendent search services um that is included in our membership as a district with MASC at no extra charge. There are obviously search firms that run like run professional superintendent searches and you know we were contacted by some of them. Um when we've had openings they cost a lot of money typically to to engage and that's not in our budget. Um, so but you know consider like I guess I think we should probably make a a decision not

178to pursue that path um either because it's in feasible or we decide MASC is um the right partner for us with the search. Um I think they also have a good strong network within Massachusetts. Um, so anyway, all those things like maybe to your point like a working group. I think that's also perhaps something we could talk about at our governance um retreat too. Okay. But um yeah, definitely will be a a relatively shortterm time commitment for whomever from the school committee joins that initial screening committee because that's like a ton of work um and a lot a lot of time like compressed into a couple of months. Um, so that would be a consideration I guess when people are thinking about what other commitments they're going to have with subcommittees. Okay. So that would

179not necessarily be one of the um discussions or votes for next week, but it would be part of the following week when we talk about a governance. So as a working group, yeah, whether we want to have a working group or again maybe it should wait and we can we want to bring in an ASC then maybe they also would have thoughts on would make sense. I was just wondering like what what's the entity essentially that helps like drive the work forward or we spending a lot of time kind of you know building it from the ground that at these meetings maybe. Um I think I mean as I recall Anna it was like we talked about it it was basically a standing topic at our school committee meetings for the period of time where

180that was on the table. Yes. And we just so but that could be that could be the case whether there's a working group off to the side reporting into the full school committee or we're just doing it at the full school committee. Either way like it will be there could be a working group. I know for instance like that just kind of follows the process steps in where it's needed and you know that one thing that was really helpful I remember was that you know the school committee members that weren't part of the initial screening committee called and checked all the references and had reports back. So it was it was good. So, I don't know if that's something like the working group wants to do like down the road, you know, however, whoever ends

181up being on whatever, that's a good way for us to be involved, you know, each member to contribute. Okay, Amanda, you said you wanted to hear from each of us um outside of the meeting about our preferences or something. you just Yeah. So, just if you So, just taking a look at the the different committees, what your preferences are. Okay. And just send me an email. And what is what is the you know there's there's a lot of groups here. Can we don't have to we don't have to get into it all here. Maybe we can note it in the document, but just both what is the expectation for contribution like number like literally like numbers of committees and whatever. Um and then some of these things obviously need you know multiple times a month

182or once a month and then some of them like security and safety advisory committee. I don't know. I don't know what that is. Say I probably met once in the last. So I'm curious like what that is. Yeah, I think maybe twice we did not meet last year. Could we add the meeting frequency into this also? Yeah, that's what I'm wondering is if we could add that in. It will help. Um Milton Access like I'm on the board for them. They meet once a month. I think Tuesdays generally at 4. last few times they moved it up it it the same time as policy so I can attend but now policy's on Monday so that's not an issue but um they basically talk about their stuff and we vote on it's not necessarily we're just

183there as part of there's a member from the select board and there's school committee and then it's just there for so we just talk about their you know financial reports and all of those kind of things update staff updates we vote on um hiring, salaries, things like that. So, are you a voting member like when you're Okay, these so these are voting members of these groups. Okay. Um security and safety, not necessarily. We just kind of, you know, sit there and like you just kind of listen to the conversation and a lot of a lot of it is confidential. So, you just can't like the you know because um uh they talk about some of the processes that they follow in case of emergency and stuff. within uh there that particular one has building leaders

184at at from each of the schools and then our rep um Chief Madden Chief King um um our facilities director will be part of that and then we'll talk about things like you know hey we have a lot of artwork on the walls it's a safety hazard like we have to remove that because uh from a fire safety standpoint so things like that so tips like that so that building leaders are aware of what they can do internally in the buildings and And they talk about more you know in case of emergency protocols that they follow. Could we at the meeting location too? What do you mean? Like if it's in person at this place or is it possibly hybrid or zoom? I think that's for this committee to determine every year. Okay. But I

185think to your point some of them like where they're not just school committee only, right? Like you know what do they typically do? So you know So you have how much time you have between commute move you can meet them at their office but it's been very hard because it's during work hours. So for me anyway um so um a lot of the members do join remotely to that one. So, um I I guess it would be a hybrid one typically what they do. Yeah. And just to say for I think typically for the school committees subcommittees that are comprised of just our membersh it's been a practice to like once the new group convenes to kind of huddle and decide as that group like what works for us work with Charlene to schedule like

186we you know central office people who need to be there but it doesn't have to stay like what it has and it can shift based on what will work for whomever is going to be on it. Now, um I think from a time commitment, you know, finance subcommittee is a lot of it's a bigger time commitment. I think policy is policy is once a month. Um but uh it's cross-osted. So if you wanted to pick certain ones that you wanted to depending on what we're talking about um you know members have attended in the past usually get additional members but um yeah so people it is always crossed. Yes. So I put that note there. I think superintendent evaluation is essentially on hiatus for this coming year. uh we're not going to be conducting a

187formal evaluation of an interim superintendent. So I don't actually think we need to form a superintendent evaluation committee this year. So it could be replaced with the superintendent sh potentially if we decide to do I mean the working group would be like a that would be like a task force that would be a short that would be kind of like doing some work over the summer into the early fall probably and then handing it off to search committee. Mhm. Um I just had put this note about um the bargaining team that um Joe Emerson did let us know we can have a third member on that team if we want to. There's pros and cons. Um of course adding a third member makes scheduling that much more challenging just for people's availability. And as Mark

188and as we've noted here, it is It is a significant time commitment and it's going to be a big commitment next year just because we're back to a three-year contract which takes many months to typically negotiate. Um so the the advantage of a third member, my understanding is that you only need a quorum. So the third member wouldn't necessarily have to be present like you could go ahead with a just two members present. Um my my hesitation with that is it then creates more work to like keep someone looped in if they missed meetings. Um and there's so much that's happening because it's for every negotiation session there's internal meeting and then the bargaining session itself. So I do kind of have a concern about setting something up where it would be built in understood

189that not everyone comes to every session. So for me making that a threeperson team would only make sense if there were three people that were like committed really wanting to be on it. Um, so and then process-wise, do we do we take for for all of these groups? Are we all voting on membership for each one of them? Is that like how or are you Amanda, do you appoint everybody? Like how how do how do how do we decide that? I think historically you've gotten the if you want to talk about leading. So the process what has worked kind of I think the past couple years at least was receiving everyone's preferences individually taking those and mapping them to like what spots are available on these various committees. You know ideally what people prefer to

190do comes close to filling the seats that we need to fill across all the committees. Um, I think the chair needs to have a conversation with individuals if there's a situation where either you have like more than three people that really want to be on a certain thing that can't have more than three. That's where I think someone obviously cannot necessarily be on it, but again with our main subcommittees, we've committed to crossosting. So hopefully like people should still be able to attend. Um, but that would be like one conversation. It's like, okay, I I need to now check in with these people and figure out, okay, which three of the four of you are actually going to be on finance. Um, the alternative would be nobody volunteers to do something and then you have

191to like get someone to step up to do it even if they didn't want to. Um, and I mean the question of what's the expectation, how many are people doing? To me, I think it really varies across no two of these are the same time commitment wise. So, they're apples and oranges. It's just about every one of us getting a portfolio that is contributing, which we've had no issue with that. I think like we've had, I would say, pretty good equity of participation. Um, and then you know it's also just um recognizing that we all have lives of full-time jobs and young kids and you [Music] know that's a reality that we want to support ourselves with our work life balance and whatnot. So some people just might not be able to do a certain

192one. Um, I think it's just balancing all that. And Amanda like to avoid to do this within open meeting law. It's just she she is the one who holds the knowledge of what each of us wants to be to to be able to do some like individual followup as needed. And that is all in preparation for the next meeting where we put on the table a draft list here where you know Selena is no longer reflected here. You're on here. It's a draft. We're looking at it and we can make tweaks in the co in the course of the meeting until we ultimately vote like we don't vote one by one each committee's membership but we vote to approve the slate of like you know next year's committees. in climate action. We'll be talking to

193Nick process for Yeah. to get find out how that getting a new appointee for that. Yeah. Any other any other questions on that? Everybody's good. All right. Um, town meeting update. So, we were all there, but um, just to go through there were back to my notes here. Um, so town meeting for town meeting the three things that happened. So, town meeting approved the FY26 budget of uh, $73 million inclusive of the override. So, even though the override passed, it still requires town meeting vote to approve the budget. So that um that passed. There were a lot of questions asked, you know, there were some questions about specific line items. We talked a bit about budget practices, things that we're looking at from a best practices standpoint and things that we're implementing in the coming

194year. I think one of the things that we talked about are are there changes maybe within, you know, sort of along that same line on the subcommittee group, are there changes that we would look at from the standpoint of governance that we could talk about at the the governance meeting? are there you you know things that people had brought up about information around the budget that um is there more information that people are looking at for the budget. So I think those are things that we need to look at moving forward as well. But obviously the big positive thing was the um 73 million was the budget approval. Um, the other thing is the town voted to authorize that 700K be placed in the town's reserve fund for the schools to access to close out

195the projected FY25 budget deficit. Um, so that um, so that was huge. And then finally, the town voted to establish a reserve fund for that that special education uh, reserve fund. So no money was allocated to it this year, but the it was established. So then you know there are rules as we talked about around that on how that money would be approved if the school voted asked for it. So it would be a vote from the select board and school committee. So but that budget was established which which is great. So, really kind of tying into what Danielle was just talking about, being able to have something in place to um for those inanticipated special education costs that happen um that then won't impact the budget moving forward. So, those are the three big

196things. I miss anything? Okay. Um the next thing is vote here. Um So, summer meeting schedule. So, we're doing the governance um meeting on the 2nd and then we need to look at having um a summer retreat where we can talk about the goals for the upcoming school year. So, if doesn't have to be now, but maybe send out if there's vacation that's planned. So, typically what like late July, early August um is when we would look at having it. So, if there are dates that don't work for people that are absolutely um out of the question, if you can just send those and then we can work on establishing that. I think it would also be after, you know, um John's here and he's meeting, you know, he's had all of his meetings and

197um and then I think um assistant superintendent Katie would be there, correct? Yeah. So, as well as summer retreat. Yeah. So, um Yes. So the big thing would just be just sending any dates if there's dates that just don't work for people so that we can begin to get that schedule. Did I miss any question about um June 18th? So I know that on our current calendar it it was noting June 18th was sort of if needed um and that otherwise June 4th would be the last school committee meeting of this year. So I suppos this is probably something to talk to John about. um his preference. I will I'm just going to this hadn't really I hadn't thought about it until right now. I'm just going to say this. Um I I would like

198for us to think about meeting on June 18th. I feel like it feels important to kind of get a little bit um June 4th just feels premature to me to like wrap up our meetings for this year when he will have just gotten here that week. I feel like we would benefit from having that one additional meeting before we'll be on the um last day of school. Um, but just to put that out there, I think we'll probably be talking about that over, but I don't know what the rest of you think about about that because we just it it's been on our calendar, but we hadn't confirmed whether we were having it or not, I agree. I think we should have that meeting just to get to know him a little bit more also,

199right? And also to have a a kickstart for a summer work and for the next school year. It's a good point. Yeah. And supposedly policy still meets on the 17th of June. We might have to be uh the 16th, but yeah. Um sorry, I can no longer do Tuesdays. Um yeah. No, I think that makes sense. So I think it would be great to like you know just wrap up any loose topics that you know especially even if it's possible to just start the discussion on some of the requests from earlier um would be helpful just kind of going into the summer. I agree. Great. Um and then finally so we have to vote on the MSBA initial compliance certification. So that there are two things required from MSBA. So there's that and then um

200we will also then have to vote the next who uh for the school committee members who are on the m the school building subcommittee um as part of that. So Katie, is there so is there anything you want to add about the this the MSBA that I would that So it's just it's required. I mean it's just one of the required pieces moving forward. So it's required that I sign it. We just need approval for uh the school committee chair to sign it and the superintendent to sign it. Um very lengthy and then um this what board signs it, right? also send it and then we just need to make sure um that we're submitting it back to MSBA by May 30th. May 30th. Yeah. So this is Yeah. But the school building committee membership

201is for separately. It's for June 30th that this is the first right. This is the first kind of deliverable for that eligibility period. Right. And it's just saying that we're following all of that. Yeah, just to re there are five things we have to do. This ICC which is 30 days. We have the SBC construction which is 60 days. That's so that those should both be pretty easy. We have the educational profile which is 90 days. We have the maintenance uh and enrollment certification. So like maintenance and um building plans and stuff from Tom McCarthy and some enrollment stuff. It's 180 days. hopefully do it much sooner and then we have the like authorization of funding which we already did and already checked that box and did that in the spring late winter town meeting.

202So the first of the five. Yes. Yes. But it'll be the second one we'll have completed. Right. Yeah. Questions about it. So we are looking for a vote to um approve Uh both Regina and I signing it. I'll make a motion to authorize that the school committee chair and the acting superintendent sign the uh ICC interim certificate of compliance, initial certificate of compliance. Second. Great. All those in favor? That is it for the chair's report. Um we will move to finance subcommittee reports. We're skipping the uh yes sorry uh finance subcommittee uh update. So gave some of it uh as related to kind of a conversation we had at finance committee around the construction of the now what we call the tri board uh which then was brought to that uh joint meeting um discussion

203of kind of again current budget forecasting uh for FY25. We remain on track of kind of where we have uh projected in terms of what the end of year financial deficit will be. still remains kind of uh assuming we receive state funding still remains with and just under that kind of $700,000 threshold that was allocated to the reserve account by town meeting. Uh so that is good news. We'll have an updated um budget assessment uh report in terms of like the projections at our next finance meeting next week. um update on the supplemental funding that continues to go through. Well, that was discussed um continues to go through the state uh house. So, the house has passed it. The senate has passed it. It was in the governor's initial budget. So, what remains for that

204is conference committee and then the governor's signature anticipate at this point that it it should go through and that that would happen in early to mid June. Uh but that continues to be something we will we will look at to make sure for some reason it doesn't fall out of conference committee. Again, we don't we don't assume that will happen. Um so those were a lot of things we discussed. Anything else to add? Uh, and then I will make some motions. Is it really all three of these? I think it is. All right. Uh, I will make a motion to approve uh vendor warrant report 43 payable on 5825 in the amount of $310,2631. uh as well as a motion to approve vendor warrant report 44 payable on 51525 in the amount of 783,48169 and

205a motion to approve vendor warrant report 45 payable on 5225 in the amount of $264,19151. Is there a second? Second. Any questions, discussion? All in favor? Other questions? Sorry. Um, just to make sure I understand how to read this warrant. Yeah, I'm looking at warrant 44. Just the the first thing at the top is 29,000 and change for sped collab is what the description is for education collect placement probably. Um what it's not clear to me like what period that expenditure is for like is that is it just like does the warrant accumulate expenses just as we receive them or is this paying for services rendered over the previous period however long that is or maybe sometimes both. So, it's just that um the warrant report is just a summary of the invoices that we

206process during a specific period of time. So, if we're continuously processing throughout the year, it should be reflective of the most recent kind of time period um that we would be processing payment for. So um for some of the tuition expenses because we process on a monthly basis it should be reflective of the previous month's expense. In some instances if we have to skip a warrant if it's a vacation week or um some other kind of like logistical reasons then it could be the warrant could be bigger. It could be reflective of a longer time period. Um, but it's typically we just try to um pay on a weekly basis and we're paying all of the invoices that have been received up until that time period. Okay, that makes sense. Some invoices might be for

207the prior week. Some invoices might be for a month, some could be for six months, etc. There's that that's varies. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. And just to remind all members, there's copies of obviously this is the summary sheet. Behind each summary sheet is a copy of every single invoice. That is something I get to look through uh every time I sign these. So if you ever have a question about any of the particular lines or just want to see an example of what a warrant looks like, that is available to any member to come take a look. Any other questions, discussion? No motion. Okay. Uh all in favor. Thank you. And if it's okay, I'll provide some context on the transportation bid. Great. So, I did um just draft a short memo that is

208in um the folder for the meeting tonight just to provide you some more information. So we are in the last year for our transportation services. So um just to be in compliance with Mass General Law and procurement, we go out to bid for our trans uh transportation services. So we've gone through that process and tonight um I have a recommendation because the transportation bid is bid on behalf of the committee. Um, and so I'm just making the recommendation tonight um for you all to um award the bid to the one vendor that um was classified as responsive and responsible. So we solicited bid responses for transportation services. The transportation services were bid in three major categories. Regular education transportation. So that's the yellow bus transportation that does all of the in town routes. In district

209special education transportation, so that is um some of the more specialized transportation that we provide. And then our outofd district special education transportation. So that would be taking our Milton students to the placements that may be um outside of Milton. Um the bid specifications and packages were sent out to 76 individuals which represented 64 potential biders. So we did try to cast a pretty wide net hoping that we would be able to um get some good competitive bid um responses back. Um 64 companies were sent the bid specs. 10 companies attended our biders meeting to find out more information. A total of eight biders submitted a bid by the required deadline. Of the eight biders, seven biders submitted bids specific to special education transportation and one submitted a bid for regular educ education transportation. So

210after we reviewed the bids and the information that was submitted to us, only one bid was classified as responsive and responsible. Um and that bid was for our regular education transportation. So that also incorporates um our yellow bus, our regular bus routes and that includes athletic transportation and some field trip um transportation. And so it is my recommendation that the committee awards the regular education transportation contract of first student. Um first student is the company that we currently utilize. Um they have they service a number of districts and communities in the Commonwealth. So um they have um you know adequate staffing, adequate fleet. they have their location in. Um, I also included the bid tabulation sheet so you can see the responses that gives information on the pricing that was submitted to us. So that

211information um is also included in the folder and I just wanted to um and looking at the budget information. So we had originally when we originally created the level service budget ear back in the fall, we had projected a certain expense um for transportation not knowing what the bits were going to come back come in at. Um, since that time and through the budget conversation, we did say because of the reduction to the level service budget that we were going to reduce one yellow bus route. Um, and so if you remember, we previously ran 11 buses. We increased that to 12 with some of the supplemental ARPA funding. And so the proposal was to cut us back to 11 which we will um depending on we're in the process of doing bus registration now. We

212do anticipate that we will continue to have a wait list. Um but with that reduction and there was an increase with the rate that was submitted to us for transportation, we still are projected to be within budget um that we had assigned in FY26 for the 11 buses. For the 11 buses. Yes. Um and so that will include a a slight increase in the offset. utilization. So, you all remember we implemented a $50 late fee for those families that register after July 1st. Um, and so we previously had used um $290,000 worth of revenue to offset the expenses. In the future, we'll be using 300,000. That's what we're projecting. So, um, just trying to make sure that as we're looking at the information that's coming in, we're also tying it back to the budget. So,

213I'm happy to answer any questions. Next step in the process, if the committee is to award the bid tonight, we will finalize the contract information and then the bid um or the contract will go into effect for the upcoming school year. When we were talking last time about this when we're looking at the difference in the buses, you had mentioned something about that maybe there were more seats. Is that the case? It's a 77 passenger bus versus versus 71. Okay. And so across a fleet of 11 buses. So it's 66. Okay. And then does this you talked about the fact that you um it was you went out to bid for the general the out of district and the in district special ed. So what happens with those other two? So those other two because

214um the bid information that we received in um there were certain qualifications that we had with insurance and just other parameters in the bid. The respondents did not meet all of those parameters. Okay. And so we will reject those bids. We're not um we're not recommending that we accept any of those bids. And then we can because special education transportation is exempt from um 30B procurement law. We can continue to what we do now is we kind of contract with individual vendors on an as needed basis. we can continue to do that and that's what we're um planning on doing in the future. Okay. I think this was a good opportunity for us though to just um in soliciting multiple bids. It is ensuring that we're um just trying to stay competitive in the market.

215um special education transportation, the cost has increased and that has been one of the budget areas that I know we've talked about a lot and many other communities are struggling with that as well. Um and so I thought, you know, when we were looking kind of at transportation services, it was just an important step in the process just to say, okay, we're we're being mindful, we're looking at this, we're trying to get the best price. So, thanks. And with the reduction and just to kind of clarify, with the reduction of that one bus, are we going to be kind of trying to figure out routes again so that we're not leaving all the students that were on that route and just kind of balancing it out. Okay. Okay. So, we should go through that process

216and there it stays pretty similar year after year, but I think that there's just there's definitely an opportunity every year to try to see if there's any efficiencies, if there's any changes that um we could potentially make even in just looking at kind of like um I know the wrership too, right? Like coming to change um some of the buses that we had because we it's a three- tiered system and it's too late to go into the into too many of the details, but um some of our buses were only potentially picking up at um middle school, high school, and then servicing one of the elementary schools instead of servicing the two elementary schools because we do three tiers. So, just looking at if there's any opportunity for us to modify routes to be able

217to capture more capacity when they're only running the two tiers. So, I think that's all that's all work that we'll have to do with the transportation company over the summer. And has there been any like data just in the past year of like kids who do sign up for the bus, do they like do they ride it to and from school 5 days a week? Like is that like, you know, just to see like even if we could give someone a spot for like two days a week? I don't know. Like just something. I know it's hard because it changes, but it's just I think the fluctuations and you see the fluctuations at every level. We definitely um have because we have specific times where we see ridership tick up so that we do have

218to say to the bus company, we need you to do bus counts because one day we may have 30 kids on the bus and the next day we have 55 kids trying to ride the bus. So just making sure that they're doing those bus counts and but it does fluctuate so widely that um but just trying to make sure that the drivers know all of the students that are riding their bus and that it's like building that relationship. Yeah. in addition to providing the transportation as part of the bid. Um what first just within Milton have we been happy with customer service logistics on time and safety and beyond beyond our district um has first student like do we do we look at first students performance on those on those factors? Was that part of

219the good analysis? So they provide um a number of different um contexts that we can reach out to just to talk um and um ask them like a number of different references so we can just talk about performance. Um, I think this year, um, there are a number of factors in Milton that make yellow bus transportation tricky from what I've seen and it varies from here to, um, other districts. I think the traffic is one of the um, issues that we run into. And then we have very short the there's a very short time period between dismissals of the schools. So when we're we have we're trying to f fill our buses to capacity, but the drivers only have 23 minutes to complete a route with 60 kids on it. So, so there's a couple

220of different things that um I think there's some pain points that I think we need to look at and address with the bus company that I've seen over the year, but um I think that we can do that collaboratively and I think first student is is one of the biggest vendors. So, they definitely have some capacity um to be able to to do some of that work with us. Um I know I've worked with some other smaller vendors and I think First Student does a pretty good job. So yeah, I think there's also and I won't um I just wanted to add this as um I think as a part of the legislature at the state level there's a small pocket of funding looking at school bus transportation um because it it's not um first

221student does have a big hold on the market um and so I'm sure that there's going to be some work done at the state level just kind of looking at that um looking at some of the transportation pricing and um kind of the bid process and and so I'm sure that there'll be more information to share in the future. But for tonight we're it's the three-year contract. So even if something like that were to come to pass that would that not affect our contract? it wouldn't affect our contract now, but I think and I I think that was just more seed money to start the conversation. So, I would imagine it would take a period of time. So, um but I think it's just good that it's something that is kind of rising to the

222level of we can't be we can't all just be complacent and saying there's only one vendor. Yeah. I just I mean 13% is crazy. I mean, one vendor is crazy. of transportation is so expensive and so hard to get folks to to bid. I know there aren't a lot of companies that just have 11 buses sitting around that are not being utilized, which is uh why uh it's hard to get bids. But even if you look at the out years, right, we're talking about 5% they're like baseline is a 5% increase like that is obviously just to flag for folks is more than the two and a half, right? Pop two and a half restriction. That is like their baseline. And then the out years, year four and five, the optional it's up to 6%.

223So, um, it is, you know, it's nice to have that consistency for long-term budget planning, and that will be helpful, but it's still frustrating that we weren't able to get stronger competition, any any competition uh, to to help drive down rates. So, it' be great if the state does something. So, we need a vote, right? Okay. So, so we are we voting to award the regular education transportation contract to first the bid. The bid. Awarding the bid. Awarding the bid. Okay. So, I'll make the motion. I move to award the bid the regular education transportation bid to first student. Second that for a three-year transportation contract for three year with the Mil Public Schools. pardoning that. Do I need to adjust that? So, we're moving to award the bid of the regul regular education transportation

224contract for three years to the for the Milton public schools. Correct. There a second. Second. Right. All in favor? Mark's giving me the eye like I said earlier. The motion language is accept the bid, but I think award the bid, accept the bid is award the bid. I think it's either. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, the motion carries. All right. Policy. Oh yes. Um so policy um is a very um concise meeting. Um we the two policies we met actually on Monday. Um, we briefly talked about the French immersion policy and we decided to um bring it back to our meeting um on June uh I think sorry um for June 16th when John is back and um bring it back to our meeting um school committee meeting then um I'm so sorry. Maybe on

225the on the 18th on the 18th. I'm so sorry. Okay. Um, so we were going to start the discussion there. I don't know. Um, what we decided to do was um look at the policy maybe as holistically and just kind of see what the other areas are looking at some of the feedback um that we've kind of received and see what other edits versus that. Initially there was just one uh language change that we were looking at but then um uh Regina mentioned some concerns around incorporating that. So just kind of having the broader discussion once um um superintendent Failen is in in the mix as well and just kind of looking at it. Um we also um you know talked about um discussing it um at governance um a little bit in terms of

226um that as well and how do we kind of um kind of um look at that you know policy and see what what kind of edits we can make and what we you know what makes sense for us in terms of policies overall. Um and then in terms of the calendar policy, uh we added some language. We are going to bring that policy to the full school committee for first reading on June 4th. Um and then that was really it. So it was just um um we had put some initial language. We're just kind of going to um have it ready for the next meeting to discuss. So it's pretty short meeting. Um and then um I think also like as we talked about, you know, once we have some of those, um conversations around

227French immersion, we can kind of incorporate that language into that French immersion policy um and kind of weigh the pros and cons of what um what the edits are. Sorry, I'm so tired. And then um I can go right into facilities if you want. Um so facilities we met on Monday as well. Um we did have um we did not have um Tom at the meeting. So we didn't really do a facilities uh consolidated facilities director update. He typically provides um kind of what's been going on like the kind of changes that they've made like you know like maintenance stuff across any all the six um school buildings. Um he was not there. Um but um what I did um have I had a member from the community who was also part of the climate

228action committee um reached out about um being involved in the HVAC update process. So just kind of you know as we talk about making um going green and just um looking at efficiencies he wanted to be involved in that conversation. So which kind of led to a discussion of you know we talked about briefly adding new members to that committee. So that committee is an advisory committee. It has members from the community. I think we currently have four members. We used to have five. Uh then school two school committee members. We have the consolidated facilities director. Regina was in the last one and we previously had superintendent on there. Um so um what our process would be to have um community members join that and that's probably something we might want to put on the

229governance um just so that we have a formal process and reaffirming members every year u to do. So we might want to talk about that at governance in terms of what the protocol is and um so um and seeing you know if people are interested in in joining and what that kind of process anyway um then we briefly talked about the outdoor learning space learning and open space improvements. Um what we decided to do with that was um kind of also wait for John uh John to come in and just kind of uh revisit that probably in September. Uh I think he will be actually at our June meeting but then revisit in September a couple years ago. Um when we started looking at short-term space across all six buildings, um what we did was

230we did a tour of all uh of our six schools um with the entire facilities committee which was great. We drove around uh from school to school and looked at all the space uh had a great field trip. That was a fun one. Um pizza lunch and the pizza lunch. Yes. Yes, I did hear that was really fun. was probably one of the highlight of you know our facilities committee going on a field trip. Um so we want to kind of do the same thing with the outdoor space as well. Look at each of the outdoor spaces and see what we can do and just kind of make it equitable across all the schools. Um that was the big thing. I know um right now some some schools have put plans forward that we've seen

231um here, but um I know Tucker is uh in the process of putting in their plan. So really just being able to make sure that everybody has, you know, um um it's it's more equitable across all the schools. So great. And then we did as as you saw at town meeting um that we did uh briefly just kind of update that um um I shared with the document that was sent that Amanda you had shared with the uh bidding uh bids that we had gotten and the bids that we decided to go uh go with for the third and fourth floor renovation of Cunningham and Collie cut. So it came under which was really nice. um came in at about 3.3 million. So below the 5.5 million that was appropriated. Um so which um next

232next meeting when Tom is back I said you know um members have an opportunity to ask any questions or concerns or whatever they have around it but just kind of keeping that process going. Um and so um yeah that's kind of where we are. So hopefully I would like to give them an update on what we decide about adding new members across our advisory committees. It's a lively group. It is. It's a very fun committee to be on. Mark and I want to lead that committee. I know everyone here. I know. All right. The last thing I didn't know if I saw the minutes in the folder. It is. Is it? Yeah. April 30th. Okay. I looked at them. I saw I looked at them, but I didn't see them in the folder. So, has

233everybody had a chance to review? Okay. So, do we have a motion to I'm going to make a motion to approve the minutes of the April 30th meeting, school committee meeting? Second. Any comments, questions? All those in favor? Okay, are approved. Um, do we review the next So, reviewing the next meeting agenda item. So um contract approvals will be at that meeting. We'll talk about the subcommittee assignments um policy for the first reading of the calendar policy. Sorry, is that you? Um sorry. And then [Music] um if we want to add on I don't know if we want to talk about call it the if we wanted to have the French immersion discussion or the um I'm just trying to determine if it's like a because there were two topics but I think that did

234come up as something of interest to talk about around French immersion. So if we have if we want to reach out and if there is like a presentation on it, if we want to have a discussion around it, if there are other things that maybe we can put that in just as that as a placeholder and then get and then depending on what information people are interested in getting, you know, like that that then that would kind of inform more the direction of the conversation. That makes sense. So I know based you know at a minimum we were talking about like talking about what is the program maybe having um come in there's a presentation around it but then if there's additional information around that that we're looking at having if we want to just

235share that and that would probably inform the agenda. Does that make sense? So like what's the scope of the presentation or what's the scope of the conversation? Yeah. No I think so. I mean do you want email you on this or I my sense would be a broad conversation on like the the program but then more specifically like a presentation on like the enrollment numbers which seem to be the point of concern from the community around like how you know what are the enrollment numbers. I think you sent us a document by being able to talk about that at the open meeting around here here was the weight list numbers, the number of enrollments, how that compares to past years, um what decisions that were made and you know why just to lay that out

236for community members helpful. Mhm. And I think also just, you know, in the past when we've moved classes from one school to another like that, you know, the the two like for instance like Kyle Cott having two this year versus one last year like what are have you noticed kind of looking at it from a data standpoint? Have you noticed change in number of students that have participated in the following year when it went from two um two classes to one, you know, and things like that just to see what the kind of like what the impacts of like the decisions that we have to make based on various restrictions. So it would be interesting to kind of understand data from that standpoint and also really understanding what it is and like you know I

237mean I know um when um Zeno was at our policy meeting she shared like a very interesting overview and I think it would be great for all of us to understand. And what I would like to see too is um as I mentioned earlier is just kind of looking at both our programs that we offer and just making them both equally robust so that um you know they're not uh and they can kind of coexist together and collaborate and learn from each other. So yeah and share best practices. And you said in the policy subcommittee that you all are working on a are you doing something with the French some sort of policy related to the program. It is the uh program assignment policy that we have and we kind of have um what we

238were originally looking at is um making a word change or um change in language to incorporate um um students that aren't enrolled in Melton public schools for kindergarten or enrolled in a private kindergarten if they can be part of the the lottery. But we figured that it would be better uh after Regina had a conversation with John that we, you know, kind of look at that a little, you know, wait on it and include him in the conversation. But then it also I think as we're having all these other discussions and concerns maybe we should look at the language overall and just kind of you know does it are there things that we need to address in that policy um that you know might have changed since it was last written right based on like

239um uh based on the concerns families have brought in like what can we tighten up what can we do better just uh just kind of revisiting that. So okay. So I would imagine this is going to be a like a longer process from the standpoint of like the initial thing is the discussion and the presentation and then I think then the policy. Mhm. And I think also like you know to kind of figure out what happens next year, right? like if we're if we're at five classes this year and if there is um in terms of enrollment the number comes up higher you know what is our ability to add an extra class next year you know need if we needed to go up to six and so on and so forth and I think

240that's where um it would be helpful to kind of have that initial discussion work it out through policy in this over the course of the next several months when we regroup in September and then go from there for the following year and just kind of be more prepared in terms of I I do think it makes sense to think of this as in just in managing expectations for ourselves but also for the community to think of it as an initial discussion that touches upon these data points that have emerged as like with urgent questions from the community um for for June 4th especially because I'm also just thinking about you know John will have been on the job for two days right that will be his first meeting as our interim superintendent. So I'd also

241just like to like I think have awareness about that. It's a good initial discussion. It's a very important topic. He also does have good historical knowledge that he can bring to the conversation as well which is really great and what we're really talking about is a lot of like larger longer term yeah decisions that will be made driving towards next year as well. So like a presentation for sure, but I I just and maybe if Zena can be involved, that would be great, but and she may or may not be available, but um I will check. But not not necessarily like a soup to nuts, French. No, absolutely not. Yeah, but like just definitely talking about Yeah. some of the things so that we can start Yeah. that you know and if there are things

242that we can address for the future let's I think like let's all get on the same page of you know all of us having a better understanding of it I think would be helpful um the only other thing I'd like to raise is a point of I don't know when we bring it up but this um would be the high school course of study graduation requirements I know when we last talked about that when Karen came conversation when I asked her like what what is the timeline in which we need to have this conversation. I think that timeline was like before the end of the we need to start that before the end of the school year. Um in order to inform any future year and so again I know timing is awkward with a

243new superintendent coming on which is flagging that as a quite an interesting release for me personally. Okay. like the new the board of ed just came down with their new guidelines around that like yesterday I think or day before. So okay. All right. All right. So then so well I was just gonna speak to the executive. Yes. Yes. I was just going to say Well, I was just going to say I think it could be valuable to have a very brief, not lengthy executive session just to get everyone up to speed. But in saying I still hope we can do that, I'm saying let's keep it very short because I know I But whenever we're ready, I I can I wrote up the motion. Yeah, the motion um is Well, do you want to Are

244we ready to do that? Yep. And um yeah, go ahead. Sure. Uh motion's made to adjourn to executive session pursuant to master law chapter 3A section 21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with ASME and MEA units B and D. if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the committee as declared by the chair and that the committee will adjourn directly from executive session and not return to open meeting. Second. All those in favor? Great. Awesome. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] rip it up. Rip it up. [Music]