001all right good evening everyone and welcome to the Milton school committee meeting of September 22nd it's great to see everyone I hope everyone's doing well first full week of school for everybody after a choppy start there um the first agenda on our agenda this evening is to approve the agenda has everyone had a chance chance to look at it do they want to make any additions subtractions changes to the agenda yes Dr Craighead um I'd like to add an update on the warrant committee meeting um from Member white Under Finance please wonderful anyone else yes Dr Carroll um just to clarify under your report when we talk about the community forums yes that includes the listening learning sessions right which were um the email that you sent me different from the community Forum yeah yeah
002so the email that you sent me and then Charlene updated me about the 21st right yes yes yes there's an update and I figured you and I could talk about yeah yeah so maybe just like Community engagement so I'm going to call them listening since listening sessions thank you all right thank you for clarifying the difference the distinction all right so um do I have a motion to approve the agenda of September 22nd agenda you can just show your hands it's fine great six zero all right we are going to start our meeting this evening with our superintendent's update hello superintendent Jets nice to see you good evening good evening everyone uh before we get started I just want to make a a quick acknowledgment but a very important acknowledgment um that of uh Miss
003Laurie Stillman uh Miss uh Stillman as many of you know have worked tirelessly on behalf of the Milton Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition along with the in partnership with the Milton public schools with a focus on social emotional and Behavioral Health uh she has been a strong supporter of the Milton Public Schools you know in my time as a principal and definitely in this past year she has uh supported the district along with the MS um the substance review prevention program uh with guest speakers parent speakers uh she served as a member as the health and wellness committee she reported supported the uh wire BS in a youth Health uh survey for middle school yrbs for High School uh the last couple of times that we've done on it um they also secured funding grant funding
004for a statistician to come out in in Duty report for us um she's developed a youth adult partnership uh and she's she's done so many wonderful things she used to work very closely with the director of PE and health for the Milton Public Schools who moved on to ovigue but more importantly she's been a friend of the Milton public schools and I just wanted to acknowledge uh the hard work the effort and and time and expertise that Laurie's still been committed to the Milton Public Schools uh via the Milton Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition so I would like to just acknowledge her and give her a round of applause for her work here thank you and I'm not sure if she's on or she's here she is she is she is and she has um two
005of her Associates um are with her this evening also and I would love to be able to um have them join us for a few moments if that's possible it will be stormy learn and Margaret carrolls in addition to Lori Stillman can we lose him I'm not sure our Milton access prison help us promote those people in our audience to be panelists just a moment ago he said yes yeah hello we're talking into the zoom here Strange World in which we now live here as attendees yeah I don't know that I don't have the power to right right is there a Milton access person still on the meeting Amy do you I just do you have the ability to promote someone no I usually do but I don't have it tonight and because normally I
006can click on the people's names um could could we ask those three attendees to maybe raise their hands maybe that will um give me the ability to do it normally I'm doing it with citizen speak and there they are um yeah that didn't help me I see them raising their hands but um oh dear I'm so sorry um I don't hmm so I usually show up as a host and I'm not um flagged as a host tonight oh dear I don't think I am by that looks like and it looks like I can make a recommendation why we try to do that if Lori Stillman stormy and Margaret if you could hold on and in the process what I could do is try to reach out to see if we could uh read someone via
007text in the meantime uh what we could do if that happens then they could join us after I present the goals and just to try to keep us on that timeline if that is okay I'm so sorry we had arranged for that so I apologize I know that Milton Access TV said they were running about three meetings simultaneously this evening so my he might have popped off to start the other meeting um and hasn't been able to come back on yet remember that yeah if if you could communicate with them through text that would be great and if Margaret stormy and Lori could hang in there for just a little bit that would be wonderful so Amy why I present uh my goals would you mind reaching out to Charlene to ask them to take
008care of that thank you very much okay I'm going to turn my camera off while you're doing that so I can call her yep thank you at this point in time what I would like to do is uh share my screen so give me one second to allow me to do that hold on one second okay it's gonna happen and if if someone could just let me uh know if you see my screen yep we see it okay so uh first and foremost I just want to uh welcome everybody to the school committee meeting um for many of you you may have heard prior at the last meeting on September 8th I was going to be presenting my goals uh before the school committee um but before I started I wanted to chat a little
009bit about uh what has been going on and where we've gone over the course of the summer um many folks know from last January to July we were working on or Cambridge education was working on a quality review for the district on July 21st Cambridge education presented the initial findings of the quality review uh to the district and that presentation was recorded and sent to All Families via email um that was not the final version it was a couple more iterations to that uh but they did give us a quick update um some highlights that uh came to light on August 3rd and 4th the school committee um members had their school committee Retreat it was attended by my myself former assistant superintendent of curriculum Personnel Karen Spalding and assistant superintendent Amy Dexter um August
01025th I had the luxury of welcoming back all of our leadership team that included curriculum coordinators department heads directors principals Vice principals and myself we were able to really look at what are those iterations of the quality review the findings and attempt to identify some themes and prioritize some Focus areas uh and I should I will be remiss if I didn't mention I know a lot of people wanted it in fairness to The Faculty staff and administration we felt as though it was important that they had this document in Yankee and to kind of review because part of it is a reflection of their performance their job their buildings and we wanted to make sure that they had it before it goes to their families um August 30th we welcome back all Milton Public School
011faculty and staff and there was a brief discussion about uh uh for focused areas for this year year on the first day of school which I'll talk about in a moment and then September 10th all Milton Public School faculty and staff uh were given a copy of the quality reviewed um and were asked to review it they will also uh given the link to share to the Strategic plan case they wanted to do some comparative comparing and contrasting or trying to make a link to something that was in the Strategic plan and then this past Monday the 20th excuse me the 20th uh we held two different forums one at seven o'clock in the morning and one at 3 45 in the afternoon they'll accommodate the two different start times for our various different schools
012so uh faculty and staff anyone that wanted to come to share their comments their feedback their inputs and ask various questions and they too brought up some different highlights so again that work would be ongoing as mentioned a couple of times in many different forums what a focus areas this year we need to get back to teaching and learning um we we're going to talk about equity which Equity is going to be woven into everything that we do um I and again every opportunity I get I want to emphasize Equity is not all about race although race is a component of equity Equity relates to many different identities opportunities gender uh special needs social economics gender language religion and so forth um we also want to focus on our social emotional learning uh not only
013for our students but for our faculty and staff as well I often say that this pandemic has impacted so many people and in fact it's impacted everyone um even if it was as simple as you weren't able to go and do the things that you would normally do like go to a bank a post office or a movie theater it definitely impacted us all in one way shape or form and then we wanted to talk about uh student and family engagement um we've been detached for quite a bit from in-person activities meetings and things like that only communication in some Fashions have been one way whether it's a Blog whether it's us speaking to you through a zoom but we want to get back to having that uh two-way uh conversation in communication with uh
014students and our faculty and staff so the first goal that I have up here and I'm sorry because part of my uh menu is blocking some of this first goal is a press is to enhance the communication between the schools and families and develop a better understanding of the district and the district's initiative um what are the things I want to do uh and we're talking to staff about this was move uh parent-teacher conferences to Virtual uh conferences this was done to accommodate the schedules in the past we had three different sessions some of those sessions start as early as 12 30. if you were a parent you would have to leave if you were working during the day you would have to leave work just to get travel to Milton public schools to go
015through about eight ten minute sessions with your teachers so we find as though this is a way that we can enhance uh parent Guardian participation um and also accommodate uh parents schedules there's one note on the in-person meetings team meetings special ed education meetings will be accommodated upon requests uh parent-teacher conferences is not the only opportunity for you to meet with uh faculty and staff um so we are definitely taking that into consideration by June 2022 MPS will enhance communication understanding of District goals and initiatives by conducting four public forums uh in person and virtual for families to discuss these topics such as teaching and learning Equity social emotional learning and I also added enrollment budget and Facilities I think that's important for anyone to watch this uh presentation it is important to stay in
016tune with those because these are conversations that have been on the radar for the last three years but really peaked this year when folks wanted to get back to school full time and so we want people to pay attention to this and I had the luxury uh a week or so ago to have a parent coffee hour that was in front of the building uh of Milton High School it was supposed to last about 45 minutes and it was a great discourse between community members and myself and it lasted about an hour and 35 minutes and it was the best conversation I've had with uh some of the families and it didn't start off um it started off a little concerning but I think people who were able to get the information that they wanted
017by June 2022 MPS will conduct two surveys that meaning me one for students and one for families to solicit their feedback on the effectiveness of our communication and initiatives throughout uh uh the this cup this upcoming Academic Year One goal is not on here that I will add to it is working with the I.T director in our communication specialist to enhance our Blackboard communication on universal email and and married out with administrators plus so a parent select a specific language at home that's the dominant language at home in the body of that text when we send that notification home it automatically translates that into the language uh of choice so I will be adding that uh to that but that is something that we definitely want to make sure in terms of enhancing the communication
018with our families oh uh oh sorry about that it's a little bit of a delay so goal number two they enhance the communication with faculty and staff to make sure all of the stakeholders are understanding the Strategic plan in the district initiatives by January uh MPS faculty and staff will collaborate to merge the findings of the district quality uh review in the district's strategic plan and development comprehensive strategy and action plan with a focus on these key initiatives and what we're going to do over the course of the next three years by June of next year I will conduct six intentional learning walks alongside principles and curriculum coordinators and directors focusing on those key areas teaching and learning Equity social emotional learning student now this does not mean that individual principal cannot add to something
019that they're working on building based or grade level based but we definitely want to calibrate and have these conversations about these four different topics and so our visits and our walkthroughs will be very intentional I want to make it clear these are not evaluations but this is for us to have that professional discourse and give some meaningful feedback to our teachers to our administrators to help uh State a course with our strategic plan initiatives by June uh we hope or in and it's going to happen sooner than that but our individual School Improvement plans and principles at least some of the principles goals will be linked to and aligned to the district strategic plan we think that that is important to keep that narrative uh the same narrative the same objective to the Forefront and
020making sure everyone understands the goals and initiatives of the district District goal um people heard us talk about this in terms of our response to the disproportional response to discipline as measured by uh the decrease in school removals in grades 6 through 12 for students who identify as black African-American special education and economically disadvantaged by January through grant funding um no MPS will recruit high-end onboard a restorative justice coach who ideally would lead some ongoing uh peer mentoring and coaching or structured professional development and quite frankly work in collaboration with our senior director of equity uh education but uh also incorporate in problem solving restorative practice in uh PBIS so I think this is a great opportunity for many of our uh uh uh teachers to get the professional development that uh they so desire
021to help them uh with this with student Behavior student concerns within their classroom by June uh 2022 Milton Public School review assess and revise where needed our disciplinary protocols and procedures to eliminate any biases I want the view and public to know our uh protocols and discipline Protocols are vetted not only shared with the school committee but with legal counsel um so that is an ongoing conversation that we would have with legal counsel with some of the recommendations or changes that we uh identified to eliminate biases and by September 2022 Milton public school will provide professional development structure and Scaffolding to support positive culture shift and consistency with some of these initiatives with sort of justice and and also implement the issues uh Implement strategies to address issues of uh inequities or looking at it
022through an equity lens District goal number two apart looking at our uh data in our uh students of color who are disproportionately referred to for special education services under the communication category hopefully by June 2023 all Pre-K and kindergarten teachers will complete eight to ten days of professional development with topics such as Universal Design udl RTI response to intervention and multi-tiered system of supports and understand the difference between academic weaknesses and academic learning styles I think that that we feel as though that that's something that's important to get out there the district will identify an early educational coach that will support the teacher implementation of these various strategies in his or her classroom uh throughout the coaching and mentoring process and and finally under this goal the district is implementing an initial evaluation implementing an
023initial evaluation team to provide equity and eligibility process across the four different schools so students will have or students and families will have a comparable experience in the other eligibility process and uh that's another thing so the student achievement goal um and I'm going to talk a little bit about a couple of things because I've already had a few emails today I believe the uh State released some MCAS information uh but in regards to student achievement and closing the proficiency Gap uh by 2024 Milton uh Public Schools will increase the number of students of color in advanced placement courses by five percent I want folks to know that we have a very robust uh advanced placement program at Milton high school but it doesn't stop when you're in Milton high school we need to make
024sure that we Shore up the foundational skills and content knowledge of students as they're matriculating through the grades from elementary to middle school and hopefully boosting their confidence so they can stretch themselves and try to participate in some of the more rigorous course flow coursework by September 2023 Milton PS will increase the number of students meeting or exceeding expectations at each grade level by three percent in ela Math and Science on the MCAS test by 2023 Milton PS will reduce the proficiency Gap in all subgroups by two percent on the ela's map in science MCAS and then by September 2023 MPS will evaluate intervention supports uh in programs to assess the effectiveness of each and then look for opportunities to implement uh new interventions or research-based inventions and programs as far as Equity concern and
025again I want to emphasize that Equity is going to be woven into a lot of the things that we do we are responsible for every student that walks through the threshold of the doors in the Milton public schools and as our job is try to make sure that they reach their full potential and hopefully expand upon that but by December 2001 I would work with the senior director of educational Equity to review her job description narrow her scope of work and assist in prioritization of her goals for the next two years I think that the senior Equity director is very capable of doing that on her own very talented very gifted very skilled and knowledgeable however I'm in terms of a partnership we all want to make sure that we're on the same page my
026excuse me sorry about that um that's the ice make in the background I apologize by February 2022 all principal uh principles of the middle uh of Milton Public Schools will engage in anti-bias training to bring awareness to Attitudes stereotypes that affect our understanding actions and decisions and unconscious manners during the recruitment process Recruitment and hiring process and then by uh 2000 June 2022 the leadership uh in special education Personnel will review uh the referral process with the intent of developing a consistent process of making uh referrals without bias particularly with students of color and those in uh in in refer to Special Ed this is also applicable to 504s as well I just want to throw that in there and then social emotional this is a a big one by June 2022 through grant funding
027and I'm very pleased to say that we already have that grand funding it was a grant that was written by uh Jenny Belleville uh High School adjustment counselor in concert with Karen Cahill but all Milton Public School faculty and staff who received training on trauma the intent is to make sure all faculty and staff understand trauma in this broad sense and in an inclusive way to recognize the effective trauma on our students our families in our school Community um and hopefully implementing the school-wide trauma sensitive approach and integrate those practices into the daily operations and then uh finally by June 2022 I will work with the scl advisory team to incorporate a measurement tool in telestock survey K-12 to measure the social emotional Behavioral Health of our students and we will use that data to
028identify uh student needs and one of the things I want to say this is something that was done six through 12 last year and then uh under the leadership of Jenny Belleville um and Karen mcdavic love of principle in in the SEL advisory team and a few of us along with evoo the data specialist met with uh representatives from intellispot to help incorporate or develop a an assessment a measurement tool for K-5 and because of our work with them uh they are partnering with us this year we hope to have that information uh to better get to get a better sense of our students social emotional health um so those are just a few goals amongst many things that we hope to accomplish and if I can stop sharing my computer screen um I'll be
029more than willing to answer uh some questions answer up Mr jet you can just call whoever oh I'm sorry yeah you have the floor I'll go by uh I see Betty White's okay all right so I I think these goals are excellent and they're very thorough um I just want to ask you a little bit about how I mean they were all very ambitious souls and given the fact that we're still dealing with covid and we're still having kids um you know get diagnosed and staff members I'm just wondering a little bit about how you factor in any disruptions that we might have in learning um with staff and students um given these very ambitious goals so that's my first question and my second question had to do with um going back to one of
030the initial goals around discipline and you talk about um School removal can you elaborate on that a little bit more because I know what that means but I don't know that if people are listening into this meeting what they what that means if you could talk a little bit more about that I think it might be helpful so first of all I appreciate your questions the first one I try to answer in sequence to say that the lofty goals and have I considered some of that some people might argue two percent or three percent is not necessarily A lofty goal um what I do um and I also think it would be higher but I am factoring with some of those but at the same time if we're not meeting it that's where the progress
031monitoring comes into place and we figure out where we are and then that's where we very transparently update the school committee update the community where we stand in what are some of the challenges preventing us from reaching those goals but I I believe that Milton public schools has a great faculty and staff along with administrators and also very supportive parents and want their students to do well so I still think that we got to aim for that and hopefully we exceed those goals as far as the school removal um for those that don't know sometimes students will referred to an administrative vice principal principle for a disciplinary action or infraction and what school removal means it could be anywhere from removal out of class removal out of the building or unfortunately sometimes it could be
032an explosionary offense um so our goal is to really uh look at restorative practices uh Vice principles and principals at the middle school and high school have already gone through uh two rounds of restorative justice training because there was one session another session it was scheduled for the first two days of school obviously we can't have our principals and vice principals on the first two days of school uh even though that would have been a nice session to have so they're going to be doing that session in November so those School removals are removal out of class removal out of the building whether it be a emergency removals uh short-term suspension long-term inspect uh suspension or explosion remember Ross Denny good evening and thank you for creating goals that reflect um some practices around writing
033smart goals and ensuring that many of your goals align with what the school committee has um developed so far I have several questions but I'm only going to ask one at a time so say too much um I think it'd be helpful for the public to know um who worked with you in crafting these goals so I I called upon the leadership team I I spoke with uh our data specialist obviously and I should say even some of those MCAS goals are very lofty I was on the phone with uh Vivo today um just because that data just came out and then you're looking at the information which parents you will be getting a letter tomorrow um that talks a little bit about that I've also spoken with some of our department heads particularly uh
034you know around curriculum I spoke with uh senior director of equity uh education so yes and I also took the feedback that I got from some of the information we got in our leadership team with not necessarily the percentage goals or things the percentages but what I can say excuse me very enthusiastically the department heads the administrators back on the 25th were committed to the goals and one of the things that I'm saying about the Strategic plan is to really narrow down the focus so we could concentrate with Fidelity on a few small things it doesn't mean forget everything else but we want to hone in on a couple of things that we could do well to make sure all of our students are being successful and then the public could hopefully stop seeing some
035net gains and see that we're building momentum and moving forward so similar to the school committee goals I would recommend that we reach out to the union because ultimately if the teachers in the classrooms who will in many cases will be changing their practice in order to make all this possible and I personally am am asking that as a school committee we reach out to a subset of the mea and I would hope you do the same just to make sure that everyone has an understanding of what your expectations are and know that you are very serious about achieving these goals um with that said it leads to my second question about change management your goals are as I mentioned they're very ambitious but in the right direction and there's some really good practices when
036you're trying to change an organization of this size that you know what are the steps that people normally prefer engaged in in order to ensure their success because in many cases people might not own your goals that need to own them beyond the leadership team that can help create them but if the district would like to seek the support or the guidance or the coaching from people who had to leave organizational change at this scale you have hundreds of employees and thousands of students it might be to our benefit to seek that advice so that was a statement less a question um in terms of the two percent how did you arrive at that number so we very good question I was looking at it and working with one of the department heads and we
037were looking at the the data from 2019 2017 uh I mean 18 2017. now the downside is we didn't have MCAS data in 2020 and then the MCAS data that we're releasing the spring it's kind of an abbreviated uh MCAS so you had for students in grades three through eight um typically they would take two sessions they took one session randomly selected some students took one session and then some students took session two and they bled them together and then the high school second time of the new generation uh MCAS uh test so I try to look at the total number of kids who were meeting or succeeding at a certain level uh expectation coupled with the fact that I know that we had 19 months of an interruption I keep reminding folks this is
038the third year that's impacted by the pen endemic and so we try to factor in looking at the numbers of students who did not make it and the same thing with closing the proficiency Gap looking at the number of students of color out of a certain percentage in in each individual school and coming up with a what I believe is a reasonable percentage increase and hopefully we could we could meet that or better yet exceed that so my only feedback was I'm sorry feedback would be that um I know the district has invested in formative assessment data so you're not going to wait you won't have that delay in terms of anticipating outcomes so I would just encourage that if we use both sets of data I think it'll increase the likelihood that we will
039know long before the MCAS data gets comes out where our students are and then my last question before you before you go to your last question that is a very important statement you made it's it's using additional assessments or measurements in addition to the MCAS in the letter going home tomorrow to families I want families to remember that even though Milton public schools at every grade level it sees the state uh achievement level it's that that MCAS uh data is one snapshot in one piece of multiple different pieces of Assessments that use to determine how successful a student is so to your point that's very important for the general public uh to pay attention to as well thank you and last but not least the curriculum adoptions in both math and social studies is the
040anticipation that the department heads those goals lie at their level and that's why it's not in your presentation no uh to be honest with you it was just like uh I think member white said it you know working with uh new superintendent induction program for those that don't know I'm potted at it uh and I meet with about 33 superintendents that did that last uh in 33 superintendents and about seven former superintendents I did that last Monday on the 13th out Marlboro but um one of the things that they try to say for the first time full-time superintendents to really now you're focus and don't do it but that is still something that's on the agenda uh remember Ross adeni in its building momentum and talking about it and it's no secret we didn't have
041a curriculum there's very little time devoted to history at the elementary level things like that Kimberly Catlin the uh the part-time um uh department head for history and things like that is already on it she's going to be coming to either the principals or the sub finance committee talking about what it is that she might need to continue to move the needle forward for an adoption of program and there was some discussion that started last year as you can see even in the equity audit there's no mention of Elementary history at all but whatsoever so we definitely have work to do that will continue and I do think uh Brian selig is probably he's still moving at a steady uh game with his review and that's that doesn't mean it's off the table but it
042will continue in their goals and I would definitely be given updates on on the progress on both of those to the school committee in the community thank you um member Carol oh so thank you yeah thank you superintendent jet um and I'm looking forward to digesting these a little bit more and I know that we have a um another conversation coming up as a school committee to continue the conversation about the school committee's goals so as you stated it will be you know and as others have said there's already great alignment between these goals that you're sharing and the ones that we had presented and so I'm looking forward to that continuing discussion to sort of further the alignment um that said I just have a specific question about uh one uh of the um
043one of the pieces that you shared about which is the restorative justice coach um so I'm wondering if you can please um I've I remember hearing in conversations around Finance um proposed ways to pay for that position so that's the first thing is if you could sort of share the thinking around how that position will be paid for um and then also along with that a little bit more about the kind of uh purpose of that position in terms of helping Milton Public Schools address and eliminate those disproportionalities especially around discipline that have been identified not only by Cambridge education but by Desi right so these are things we must address obviously um and the the concept of building that internal capacity as you were talking about for coaching um to be able to engage
044in professional development in-house so to speak and the ways that that could be both more effective and also more cost efficient on going forward well that's a lot so the first thing is how is it coming about in terms of the financial aspects and supports for it that was through a grant that was submitted through the idea by Susan muselli the director of pupil Personnel um what that was is that Sue muselli has done a great job over the course the last couple of years reducing the number of um parent professors in the needy and part of that is because we're giving the students the support in class um and may not necessarily need the one-on-one paraprofessionals so it's not a lot of new money it's taking the money that we have and maybe shifting
045it and hopefully doing more preventative work so that's that's where that uh funding is coming from his father restorative justice coach this is someone that we hope that has a a wealth of knowledge inexperience and expertise to train the trainer so to speak we know one person is not going to be able to do the all of the work him or herself we need someone who trains our faculty and staff and then continue to train other people and before long hopefully everybody is equipped with the necessary skills practices to in store problem solving skills conflict resolution things like that within the classroom so we're not running into a lot of situations to your point about what does it look like sometimes and it doesn't mean that you can't do it sometimes you you kind Contract
046Services or you get someone coming in from the outside they may give you one or two days of professional development and they leave and sometimes the focus then falls off the table having someone in-house that can monitor it walk around walk into classes be a support to teachers for your support to new teachers be a support to someone who's just having difficulty with uh classroom management this is something that could be ongoing and then that person then becomes part of our team and shares those practices on an ongoing basis over the course of the next couple of years so we think it would benefit and then by doing that we we potentially move that not potentially I'm expecting we will remove that disproportionality uh tag in terms of discipline uh referring students uh of color
047to special ed and then it also prevents us from sending students out remember even if you send a student out you're still responsible for their Educational Services and then that becomes expensive outside now if students need to go out because we can't meet Denny's within the district then so be it but most kids uh want to be in their neighborhood schools and we want them to be in the neighborhood schools that we could definitely service them here great thanks a lot for elaborating on that because I think it's important for the community to understand number one this is funding that has already been secured for this purpose this was written into the grant that was already awarded to Milton public schools and I think it's just a great demonstration as you're saying of the district's
048commitment to you know not doing things the way they've been done in the past but to really try something new and focus on this building capacity um and you know I'm I'm looking forward to seeing how this can be a lover for um addressing the changes that we need so thanks thank you thank you member Rosemary thank you superintendent Chet is this uh these goals reflect a lot of work a lot of conversations and a lot of teamwork and bringing your staff along and your leadership team along and working together with with the resources that we have in the district of um a wonderful staff um that that has a lot of work ahead um but I I'm very encouraged by these goals I feel that they really reflect the work that we have before
049us in the coming year I think there's a lot of news here in your goals that that um I I think is is great news for the district you know as as Dr Carroll talked about the the grant funding for the restorative restorative practices it brings together a lot of the other initiatives that we have been working on um and and I hopefully it will it will be the the an important new piece of of of our approach that we're using throughout the day District to address some of the disproportionalities that that we've seen and and so I'm excited about that and and um I think it's wonderful that we were able to find Grant funds to support that position to get started but also to have a training or training of trainers model to
050build our capacity is is great uh I was also very happy to hear about an early Ed coach um which I see my fellow colleague yeah I just thought that was great news because again you know this all starts with early childhood and if we don't do a good job in early childhood we're going to be um trying to catch up all the way through um and and we I think this wonderful opportunity to really be sure that our practices are ones that align well with the needs of our students so that's exciting also the the SEL screener for grades K to 12 is something that we've all seen a need for and um that we're making a commitment to that is also exciting to see and finally for me and my involvement with the
051Strategic plan um I'm just thrilled see the alignment of your work with the Strategic plan and um and I think we're we're in the process of getting all of our ships heading in the same direction which is really a goal here to to but not only have that at the school committee and Leadership level but to have the entire District all District staff engaged in in owning these goals and moving the district forward and I think that's what a strategic plan is all about and I think your goals will help us achieve those those goals so thank you thank you for those comments and invite your comments Jesse uh made me think of something and when you say doing something different than what you've always done and thinking outside the box I was challenged the
052school committee and I'm sorry for saying this but at some point in time we have very limited professional development time during the day and there's so many positive initiatives so we might have to think outside of the box that I'm not looking for an answer now but maybe we commit to one late start once a quarter for something for two hours to allow everybody to get together because if you look at the elementary there's three different start times Pierce in Milton High School pretty much aligned colleague and Cunningham online and then Tucker and Glover and so when you try to do professional development even if you wanted to do it starting at 2 30 then you're missing you know almost you know half of your population because the elementary folks are still teaching so to
053be creative like that and that might be something that the community the school committee and the powers to be to think about and I'm not asking for a lot but maybe an hour and a half or two hours once a quarter that's eight more hours of professional development where we bring people together collaborate one another and get on the same page so so that's one thing and then the second thing is uh making sure that the community understand that these needs so these are desires these are goals but they're only goals and dreams until they come to fruition and so we need the community when we are lobbying and talking about these positions what what we need to do to push the needle forward and then finally I want people to know as much as
054I'm presenting these goals this is going to be the work of our very talented and gifted teachers curriculum coordinators and directors in principles and vice principals I'm not a fool I know I sit at the helm as a superintendent but the the work is really going to be with those teachers in the trenches and so when I talk about the professional development that was one thing that I heard very loud and clear people get we lose investment or we lose that momentum when that professional development is not targeted and purposeful so we don't want the one-offs and so we need something that's going to be aligned to the goals and hopefully be consistent in people buying so those are things that I talk to the leadership team about and I may come forward with a
055uh a proposal about that but I just think that that's something and other districts do it uh two years ago I was in the school where other districts I think it was uh Needham and Natick I forget which one um as a former High School principal I used to go around as part of a what they call a Java light thing and that's what they were doing and and they get a lot of bang for their Buck uh but that's something that the community is going to have to stomach uh if that proposal comes forward so I just wanted to share that because it was a perfect opportunity um uh member white did you want to still say something because your hand is up yep I just wanted to make one comment Beverly your comment
056about the teachers need to be on board with the goals um actually the Massachusetts public teachers and Educators all have to develop goals at the beginning of the year we use this device called teachpoint and one goal has to be your personal professional goal one goal has to do with your school Improvement goal and one's goal has to do with the district-wide goal so they all are rather aligned and you have to meet with your supervisor or your principal to go over those goals so I do think in general a lot of the goals have at least for the years when I was teaching um they were all having to be very aligned in those very specific ways so I do think we still certainly can continue to work with the teachers to get get
057buy-in but I do think there's a lot of buy-in currently as it already um is is displayed so and I just don't ask every teacher but I will say every teacher's committee I have not run into one teacher who purposely did not want uh students to achieve at this level some people might need the certain skill set and support I might need that skill set and support in some areas so we could Target that professional development we could get that restorative justice coach if we could provide them the supports in this uh tools that they need then I I think that they could they could work magic and I firmly believe that because we got a very dedicated and committed staff and I don't think the the issue is whether or not they would buy
058in I think it's how do you engage the people who have to do the work in a way where they feel like they were included your leadership team I could see that there are many there's several members or leadership team that are on here that and it's a positive sign that people felt like they were included in the process and therefore they want to see how this is going to go you will not be able to go classroom by classroom but I know each school has a union rep every building has a teacher leader who people will listen to and they trust and when you have everyone all the stakeholders at the table and creating goals like these there's a higher likelihood that when there's pushback there'll be some other voice that's not yours that
059says you know we can support this work we can do this work we've all bought into it in in some way shape or form so I'm not saying that I'm recommending to you how you do it I've done this in organizations as a consultant because if people are part of the solution they're more bought in to making sure you're successful when they feel as though it's been placed upon them there's you have that chance for pushback I don't think there's anything that you said today with the exception of um the two percent that any reasonable person wouldn't buy into these are all things that are right for kids but having that extra person at that table um when I was planning professional development for districts all over the country the districts that had the Union
060at the table were more successful because they felt they were respected and they were bought into it um I don't know if there's an mea representative that sits on your leadership team that's like a liaison but I do think it's very helpful for maintaining long-term relationships that people feel included and thank you and I commend you guys for that because you guys allowed me to put a buzz on releasing this quality review until the faculty and staff have a chance to do it so that was the first step of making sure that people feel a part of that and be afforded the opportunity to give their feedback an input so um thank you for those comments and thank you guys for that support yeah thank you superintendent Chet um for your presentation for your thoughtfulness
061and the goals and for really narrowing the focus in ways that are manageable for the district and as a member white said pandemic times um I was really happy to see about the Early Childhood coach you know I think you mentioning first the engagement with the community and making that one of your top priorities really speaks the way you've unders what we've all understood about the pandemic and how much people feel it's damaged their understanding and their relationship with the district so that's a that's a hopeful movement forward I just want to remind the community that the reason that we engage in this process is because the district and the superintendent and the school committee need to set goals every year in order to measure growth for students and so what will happen from this
062moment forward is we will meet again on the 27th and another small Retreat it will be a Google meet where people could join and listen there's no opportunity for um you know public comments or anything you can just listen as the people did before for us to sort of fine tune the wording of the goals that we discussed the last time to make a final presentation which I hope would be at our October 6th meeting and also to look at the two sets of goals and see that they they align with each other in ways that are are doable for the district and particularly I would like to think a little bit more about the formative assessment piece as that's reflected in the superintendent goals as member white pointed out um we need to add
063some more warning about that in our own goals and then all of these goals will inform the evaluation process as a new superintendent new new superintendents go through yearly evaluation processes so they set goals the school committee meetings will be the evidence through presentations and and inviting guests to come there will be a formative assessment of the goals and then at the end of the year a summative assessment that will all occur at a meeting for all of you to um to witness and then to you could always send comments to us so I just want to help everyone sort of understand why these conversations happen and ultimately what they lead to but ultimately what they lead to is achievement for your child children and and and well-being for the district so I'm very excited
064to to have the opportunity to align the goals and to be to looking forward to teaching and learning um during this Academic Year so that thank you so much superintendent jet um and I know that um Charlene will send us the actual copy of them so that we'll have a hard copy um during after this this is the first time that we've seen them so this is great I know um member Rosner and that our friends our former colleague Lori Stillman and her two co-workers are have been waiting very patiently um for us to welcome them to the meeting so without further Ado and members Miriam would you take over I'd like to welcome Lori Stillman and Margaret carrolls from the Milton substance abuse Coalition that I understand rumor has it you have a new
065name which um I haven't heard about directly but just to remember Mel but but um wanted to um thank and congratulate um Lori Stillman for all that she's contributed to the town of Milton um we were at an event last night by the Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition that named yesterday Lori Stillman day which we all know oh my God we all laughed and then clapped but it was it was apt because they were just you know it was just a recognition of all that you have contributed to the town of Milton and and here at the schools uh absolutely we your presence um has been been here for many years um and a school committee you were a school committee chair for a number of years um you were on the school building committee the
066last time round so you know when we're talking about these things what we're talking about um then um you were our SEL facilitator for a number of years and helped bring along our efforts in that regard and and I hope you heard the mentions of the the SEL screener and and superintendent Jets presentation tonight and you should feel proud that that your work is still doing doing its its thing here and then of course msapc which has just been a wonderful organization to serve the town and and raise awareness of substance abuse uh disorder and and the issues that it brings uh for adults and children and bringing our community together across so many different uh specters of sectors of the community so thank you for all you've done and I I know my colleagues
067here uh will probably have some other comments to make as well just Betty so Laurie I want to thank you and your colleagues for your dedication and your devotion um over the years to the Milton public schools and to the issue of Substance Abuse Prevention and social emotional learning um you know when you think about when you started this Coalition you really moved the town from denial and from kids will be kids and well you know all kids drink it's not a big deal to really recognizing that it is a big deal and it is very concerning and it's a huge public health issue and really the addiction you know the knowledge that you gave people around how if you can keep kids from um beginning alcohol consumption at the Young ages that they often
068do you can really prevent um kids getting addicted or young adults getting addicted so I think that when I think about when you started and how how much you've moved the town along it's been really remarkable and not that we still don't have a lot of work to do you know we do but you have made such a difference in this community and I thank you from the bottom of my heart I will miss working with you but I know you'll be keeping a very watchful eye on all of us thank you thank you do you want to say something go ahead yes I I wanted to accuse member white of stealing my thunder because that's really what I wanted to say is that the the work that you've done Lori the the grants that
069you've been able to obtain um you know so the funding that's coming to this town for the various projects that you've worked on um you've really moved the needle forward in lots of ways for us both in the schools and in the community at large um I just wanted to say you're a gem you really are and you deserve a um a very long and happy retirement uh knowing that you have done your um your Mitzvah uh for for for for good you're you're you're all set um anyway thank you from the bottom of my heart um for everything that you've done um really appreciate it you know thank you everyone thank you superintendent Jet and um my dear friend Ada Rosemary and and Betty White um and Dr Craig had this that really really
070meant a lot it's you know Bittersweet to to retire um and uh you make you make my heart sing so that's great I I know you have a lot on your agenda I don't want to keep you but I do want to just say one or two things um the bad news is that stormy learn had to um had another commitment so she is not with us right now but I do want to say I'm glad that we were delayed because I got to hear superintendent Jets report and what struck me about it is that most of the things that he talked about is about primary substance use prevention social emotional learning restorative justice and addressing trauma are the basis for substance use prevention one of the number one reasons that kids use drugs and
071alcohol is to um deal with their emotions and a lot of that stems from the brain changes that happen from childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences and if you the good news about trauma is that if you intervene early and you show compassion and support to kids it actually can mitigate the harms that they have experienced in their lives so um and the reduction then is is seen in alcohol and drug use you know part of msapc's strategic plan because Centers for Disease Control now recognizes that trauma and mental health issues are sort of the underlying basis for a lot of substance use is that we put in our own strategic plan becoming a trauma-sensitive community and to focus on restorative justice in the community and to the extent that our community our schools our
072police our social services our Public Health all can be aligned in getting those goals the better results we'll all have in all of this it's not about just saying no it's about the policies and practices and the compassion that we have in our in our community so I'm really excited and to see that we're sort of all working together on the same wavelength and and that gives me a lot of great feeling um I do want to also say that I am so happy that Margaret carrolls and stormy learner will be replacing me as co-directors um I have had the pleasure of working with them for the past three years Margaret has a master's degree in family services the family um uh family studies from wheeler college and stormy has a um Masters in public
073health from Boston University their um skills really complement each other in incredible ways they're very committed they get primary prevention and um I'm just thrilled that the schools are still happy and willing to uh sort of continue this work and collaborate with with them um and finally Ada yes you are right uh that rumor is true um you know one of the biggest problems with mental health and substance use disorders is the stigma that's attached to it um there's a lot of Shame and embarrassment that people still have and the words that we use do influence how people feel about themselves words like addict like um alcoholic and even substance abuse really um puts the blame on the individual's actions rather than looking at it as an issue of people's pain and um and a
074biological process and for that reason we recognize in our Coalition that the Milton's name Milton substance use uh Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition um really did not meet our goals of compassion and reducing stigma in the community and so we have decided to rename ourselves uh the Milton Coalition with the tagline addressing substance use and promoting mental health and I'm I'm proud of this change and and leaving the Coalition in such good hands and on a positive note and I want to thank you and I don't know Margaret if you wanted to say something quickly before we we sign off I just thanks for having me and I really look forward to working with all of you and Mr Jett and Laurie's living leaving some big shoes to fill but um stormy and I have learned
075a tremendous amount and we look forward to following in her footsteps so thank you well we we look forward to um working with you and getting to know you and stormy um in different capacities in your new work so congratulations to the both of you and congratulations to you Lori on your retirement I is sitting here listening um to you thinking that um I first met you as a parent right I was a parent in the community and you were a school Committee Member and I was one of those parents emailing you all the time with questions about listening questions about that and often times when I receive emails from parents I remind myself that in those emails in those young parents there is a Lowry Stillman right there is a parent who will work
076with the district in so many wonderful ways to enrich the lives of many people so that's what I keep in mind when we receive the emails and we get reach out from parents because I know out there there's the Lori Stillman who will add so much to the community so we wish you all the best enjoy your beautiful granddaughter or if you have more than one and and all the happiness to come thank you and good luck to all of you thank you thank you I'm sorry for keeping you waiting thank you guys all right superintendent yet you just have two more quick items the first is uh the first item money I would like to make a recommendation as many of you know Dr Spalding submitted her letter of resignation on uh Friday the
07727th of August with a final date of September 10th Friday September 10th um I communicated to the public I communicated in this venue uh sent a letter to folks letting them know what the process would be uh I reached out to the Massachusetts Association of school superintendents the Massachusetts Association School committees I also uh reached out to current um superintendents to see if they knew of someone who was a recent retiree uh that would be uh considered uh taking this job um as an interim knowing it we will be advertising in December January to make sure that we cast the wide net to get the most qualified individual uh to come on in July 1st as a full-time assistant superintendent of curriculum Personnel for the public schools in doing that I was able to net
078four individuals through through those uh two organizations and then the live groups uh and after vet and some of them some of them probably would have been a good fit some of them were a little hesitant about the long-term commitment in the political climate of uh the leadership role I also thought about in-house candidates but I also know if you pulled somebody from their current role is going to leave another void and put us in a situation um after Capital consideration I reached out to those former superintendent Glenn pavlacek uh Mr pavlichek loves the Milton Public Schools still commits uh but I think he loves his wife a little bit more and he respectfully declined which I respect that and um uh and then I reached out to uh former assistant superintendent curriculum Personnel uh
079Janet Sheehan who expressed the interest in this for those that don't know Janet Chan used to be a teacher in the Milton public schools at the elementary level and along with a teacher at Randolph Public Schools she was an adjunct professor she was an assistant principal principal of the colleague caught then she was a principal down in Cohasset at an elementary school and then uh her final six years in the Milton Public Schools before retiring in 2019 she was the uh former superintendent of curriculum and Personnel for the Milton Public Schools so I would like to with your uh bring to your attention and ask for your approval uh if I could make that recommendation to have Janet sheen come on as an interim superintendent for the remainder of the year I also with the
080differential I would also tap into a couple of uh uh department heads or curriculum coordinators to also service and support although Janet Sheen has done this work uh previously we also know that she's been removed from the uh Arena this this educational arena for three years even though she was very instrumental in bringing the literacy program and working on that coming into the district so I will be calling up on uh a couple of people uh and using some of that um Staff Exchange to kind of supplement and stipend those folks to help out with some of those initiatives and what's important about this Janet Sheen has no interest as a retiree to return it to become the full-time uh assistant superintendent so what's nice about this when we advertise it um folks outside of
081the Milton Public Schools will be more willing to apply but take that risk knowing it is not a in-house candidate uh that's in that position and it doesn't mean someone in else can't apply I want to make that very clear too but I just want to put that out there so with your permission I would like to perceive uh conversations and conversation conversations with Janet Chan and then maybe uh tap into a couple of curriculum uh coordinators of department heads as a support okay so thank you thank you superintendent Jeff wow okay Janet from retirement back into this climate of of uh of um education um thank you so much for doing the research and reaching out and to reaching out to Dr palacek and um former assistant superintendent um Sheehan so I I guess
082there's a motion on the table from superintendent jet so what we do is we can make the motion have a second and then have a conversation so there's a motion on the table from superintendent jet to recommend the appointment as interim assistant superintendent for the Academic Year 2021-2022 of uh assistant former assistant superintendent Janet Chien okay so now we can proceed with um conversation Dr Craig um I am very very enthusiastic about this um for many reasons one is exactly the reason that superintendent jet ended with and I I think in some ways it's the most important reason because we want to be able to hire at the right time we don't want to do it in the middle of a school year we want to be able to get the widest possible best most
083robust pool of applicants that we can if you have an internal candidate they go running you don't get the same candidate pools so um for those reasons absolutely but Janet Sheehan served this system this District really well in her six year well even before that but certainly in her six years in this position she knows the job she knows all of the HR stuff um and with the additional supports that super superintendent jet mention around curriculum I think we're going to be in great shape I couldn't have I couldn't have come up with a better solution to where we are right now so I'm enthusiastically in favor of it thank you Dr Craighead would anyone else like to have any um comments about uh superintendent Chad's recommendation member Rosemary um I would just say a
084giant ditto to what Dr Craig had just just said I I just think um bringing Janet she and back and that she's willing to come back to help us out during this year um is wonderful she knows the district she knows the staff she knows education um she's got excellent experience for this and she'll she'll pick up quickly um uh so what what's been happening since and um thank you superintendent jet for talking her into it all right anyone else have any comments um oh I think it's great I I'm surprised um um because you know I know she um went off into retirement and I think it's wonderful I think what it will add to the district at this current time is some some support and stability for uh a superintendent's Jet and um
085Dexter um both of them being new in their roles although a very experienced Educators and professionals knew in their roles um um super assistant former superint assistant um Sheehan has that experience so she can bring that to the table and I also think in terms of the goals from the superintendent and our goal is thinking about curriculum thinking about um those things she has experience in those areas you know bringing in new new curriculum to the district working with the coordinators and I think she'll be a great Point person for this year as to be work on those goals that uh assistant that superintendent Chet um put up on put forward and also the ones that we have particularly as they pertain to the curriculum um the purchasing and looking at new curriculum and also
086some of the ones we have around on the discipline and um you know reducing some of those gaps that we see so I think this is a great recommendation so all right so the recommendation in the motion has been made and seconded so we'll have to do a roll call vote um to appoint um former assistant superintendent Janet Shannon is the interim assistant superintendent for curriculum and Human Resources I'll start with you member white yes um Dr crede yes remember Rosemary yes um Dr Carol yes and uh member Ross Denny yes and member Eberhart yes okay that's a six zero vote um superintendent yet let us know what needs to happen next you'll have discussions with her and then uh she'll come back to us with information about our start date the contract or anything
087else that we need to consider from there absolutely welcome back my final thing it wasn't on the agenda but we got a couple of emails over the last couple of days around the testing and if I could just if you could indulge me for that yes if you would that would be great because a school a Community member emailed right before or early late afternoon I had a question I I didn't even know how to answer so are you guys able to see my screen okay so so very quickly I just want to give you an update because I think what's continuously happening is things are evolving and things are changing and coming from the state and the state may meet with superintendents and share that information but may not share that information publicly uh
088with some of the challenges they face so to give you a quick heads up I wanted to give you the testing initiative timeline August 20th was the deadline for applications for the testing program we put our application in on August 23rd I received the email saying that Milton was approved for the test and stay but we had to wait until we got a CI cic Health representative who would be reaching out with us for onboarding August 31st which is the Tuesday the day before school started a representative from cic help held a virtual meeting with uh Kim Coughlin and myself and talked about the testing program cic Health informants that they will be ordering test kits and hiring a registered nurse to support the program on the night Jesse held an emergency testing meeting to
089give us an update on there and on that meeting um they talked about that they were uh overly optimistic or having some challenges securing a lot of the staff well cic was having challenges securing a lot of stuff because probably our every District in the Commonwealth probably applied for the program to some level of support September 9th Destiny and cic asked for districts if asked districts if they knew of any nurses we recommended a couple of nurses and ironically or thankfully one of the nurses we recommended um actually got hired but that nurse was not able to start until the 29th we were also informed on the 90 the binex now test kits were somewhat delayed we have since gotten those we hope that we can start our test and state program uh next week
090uh the middle of next week when we have the onboarding uh of that and we were ready to go we were just needing these items I wanted to and you can't really see this uh people asked well there was four different programs there's actually three different testing programs one was symptomatic testing one was test instead we're doing the first two we on pause I believe I said that at one of the previous School committees that cic said if we graduate and move towards pool testing we could also request for additional support and it'll provide us with a CNN but they wanted to see what the numbers were before they had it because they were spread thin throughout the Commonwealth just even with the testing State and the third one was the pool testing did the
091same thing one is just school-based followed up and the other one is a lab based follow-up so so they're the same thing so there's only three programs we did two with the possibility of doing uh pool testing later down the line now one of the biggest questions I have is can can uh students go to their primary care physician until you uh get get the test and save program up and done up and ready um we can only use the binex now test as part of the test and stay program and this is a deci website slide I just want people to know you can go to the Desi website you can see it for yourself um my next now tests are going to be available from the state to all of the school districts
092for your charge we were waiting for that we didn't factor that in our budget to buy these tests going into that so we had to wait for that and then it says we should never be some people asking we should never be uh instructed to purchase tests and it's hard for us to tell parents to go get the test because depending on where you go sometimes it could be 100 to 175 fee and I wouldn't want to tell parents that's what you do and then you come back with the um uh the bill saying what you told me to do this because under these circumstances you would have to test five days in a row that's that's that could be an inconvenience for some but I also understand it's an inconvenience for your children to
093stay home some people have done it and was able to get the uh uh and the buy next now test and and we're trying to work with families on but please give us that uh flexibility in in have some patience with us because this is new to all of us and we're we're trying to get the state to give us those answers before we say yes and have that widespread but again we hope that our our end stops on Wednesday the 29th of next week and if that's the case uh that person's already been doing some training and collaborating with uh Kim Coughlin the director of nurses for Milton Public Schools uh another thing that happened is people said well you're not being transparent about your numbers I want if you look at this and
094it's bolted I did not bold it this is Dusty's website prior to the start of the year they weren't going to collect cases then they started seeing the numbers increased so although we've had 10 uh cases in the Milton Public Schools as of last Wednesday we now have 20 and I explained that now in a second I only could report from last Monday the 13th to last Wednesday the 15th so that's why on the State website it says one one uh student one staff and six close contacts they wouldn't let me report anything prior to that so at that point in time last Wednesday at five o'clock we had 10 cases from September 1st the first day of school until uh September 15th this past week we just closed the day this past week uh
095all the way up until five o'clock we had eight students two staff that were positive and ironically right before I got on this meeting we got word we had another staff member who tested positive which will go on next week's uh reporting uh reporting and so I I just wanted uh people to see that that's a Desi website you can see it down at the bottom left me inside and then what is a close contact again it's it's someone who's been in close contact less than six feet of distance uh for 15 minutes or more while indoors and they emphasize while indoors um and that's in a 24-hour span as well but outside with mask off they're not calling it a a close contact and another thing I should go back about the test and
096say test and stay is only for school exposures School uh close contact you can't come in and say over the weekend I went away to New Hampshire someone in New Hampshire had it that's not part of the test and state it's totally different again I didn't add that slide but anyone wants to go to the Desi website you can see all of the slides that they have uh regarding um this testing program and and um the testing program in close contact so some people have asked well what can you do again these some of these slides we sent home and some of them on our website can individuals as identified as a close contact while at home I just referred to that non non-school-based close contact uh they can they return to school and participate
097in the testing uh State program the answer is no if they are you have two different options I won't go go into them in great detail but once again we'll make sure that we have the link to these slides go going home tomorrow in the blog so I ask people uh to do that and then finally the 60 for those who sought a consent form the consent form had all three testing programs the symptomatic testing State improved testing it's it's a state issue consent form so we sent it home we need the 60 if we eventually graduate to pool testing it makes no sense to do pool testing if we only have five percent or ten percent of the population should we want to have at least more than half to make it worth our
098while to do the pool testing and we could only test students whose family gives us consent so some families have said I'm I'm I'm all for the symptomatic testing them all for testing state but I do not want my child to participate in pool testing all we ask folks to do is just put that on the form unfortunately that is the form that has given us to us by a state the state it's a universal form so that's why we were asking for the 60 that was a conversation we had with the cic representative that we met with on uh August 31st so I apologize for any confusion by that this is not it is not a destiny requirement the 60 I want to make that very clear that's what we were saying that we
099needed to really make it worth our wild with 4 400 students we want at least 60 percent of the student families to give consent so we could initiate and then sign on to get that CNA to do the pool testing um so that's where we are but I just wanted to provide that clarification um uh for some of the families because I know uh some people had some concerns about that so I would stop sharing my screen and that is my final piece yes um superintendent Jet Are you able to share where we are with the numbers so far right now yeah I just did I just did we're up to 20 cases as of today oh no sorry sorry I meant um I meant the number the percentage of par of families who have
100opted into the consent sorry I don't have that right now but what I would do is make sure I report it out in the blog um unfortunately yeah yeah this wasn't them to get it so yeah sure just so people know right how close are we to that and um hopefully to motivate people to get on it if they are willing but just haven't gotten to it I will I will encourage people to at least participate in a symptomatic intestine I'll tell you why it is a different track if you get tested as part of the tests and state program and if you're negative you could remain in school as opposed to not being part of it then you have to quarantine and stay out of school and then you're missing that valuable in-person class
101time now don't get me wrong if someone has to be out for medical reasons we're definitely support you but if we can have folks in school we want students in school yeah does anyone else have any questions so thank you superintendent yet I know it's a lot of moving parts for the district and for families right and I think the goal that we stated at our first meeting of the of the academic year is that we want to stay open we want students to be in school learning we want there to be a continuous process of process of learning this year for students and the best way to do that is to have this test and stay program and the symptomatic testing I know there are lots of different feelings about pool testing but I
102know that even if 60 is the threshold that Milton said I'm pretty sure that we you could look up that most districts have a threshold percentage because they really want more parents to participate because like you said superintendent yet if you're not participating in the process and then you get exposed then you have to quarantine and you're defeating the whole purpose of having the test and stay we want your children to stay in school the only way we're allowed to do that this year is if we participate in the test and state and show that we're monitoring the spread of the virus in school right so that and you know so just you know if you have quit specific questions about pool testing whatever you could reach out to the nurses um I would encourage
103people to go to the website because those are live documents this is such a fluid situation yep I and I think some parents get frustrated if you email me on September 1st you may have gotten one thing but September 22nd things have changed on live documents on the web page thank you I and they're linked to dph linked to deci so when they make changes it's live so what I encourage people not to push out stuff but go to that page well thank you superintendent for clearing that five clarifying that for me and the community so thank you for all those updates um thank you for the goals thank you for having Lori Margaret and stormy here um thank you for the um you know the recommendation for chihan and um and we're looking forward
104to the next step for all of that so wonderful so the next um item on our agenda is citizen speak if you would like to participate in citizen speak this evening you can raise your hand and you will be promoted to speak I would remind everyone that when you participate in citizen speak please state your name and your address please limit your comments to three minutes um citizens be glass for up to 15 minutes the committee does not engage in conversation or back and forth or respond to your comments we take notes and try our best to answer them in different ways and I remind you to um address your comments to the chair and to not specifically address or call out anyone in the community so with that I welcome anyone to participate in
105citizen speak I don't know who's going to move people forward though is that you superintendent Dexter um I can right now nobody is raising their hands so I would just ask that if you're interested in speaking please raise your hand so that I can see your interests um still no one last call any would anybody like to speak at citizen speak please raise your hand um nobody seems to be interested tonight thank you superintendent Dexter um I really would like to thank the community for sending emails that have um questions that we can answer you know and specifically sometimes people um send an email I might not be able to answer I forwarded that to someone who can or I tried to address it as best that we can but it's helpful to know what
106you're thinking and what your questions are so that we can specifically address them in some way either through an email or an opportunity um to address them at a live meeting so thank you for um for participating in that way it's very helpful for us to know what you're thinking okay so we'll move on to the chairs report um so I'm going to start out with talking about the listening session so on the um on the agenda says Community Forum start as Dr Carroll pointed out before um they're we're calling them listening sessions and they're part of our goals that we're setting for ourselves that are still not approved but we're still moving ahead with the listening sessions and I know I don't know Dr Carol if you want to join me in this conversation
107um we're having our first listening sessions on the October is it the 21st straight let me just make sure I got the right I have it written here no that's the um Community Forum oh on the equity so the community forum is going to be on October 21st at 7 30 and at 6 pm okay so you will get so from um you know from the district you you will get uh communication on how to log on those will be virtual and um that form will be on the 21st I I will offer one in the morning at 7 30 and one in the evening at six pm and um the community forum is to address input and feedback on the equity audit quality review by Cambridge education which will be released to the community
108tomorrow um from the district that was the a date that we gave at the last school committee meeting so that's going to be on the 21st please be on the lookout for the links for that so you can join us at the one at that session Dr Carol I don't know if you wish to say anything about that um no I think just consider that sort of a save the date and as you were just saying more information about the format and what you can expect will be forthcoming right um and we wanted to be sure to schedule that with enough time for the community to digest the report um you know before being able to come and bring questions right um so yeah that and then we we will also be offering the listening
109the community listening learning sessions and I believe that on the notes that I have here that one will be held on the first one will be held on October 8th is that correct Dr Carol that was our that was sort of our thinking um I mean initially we had proposed um tonight tonight but you know we're still finalizing our goals and figuring out how to Pilot something new so that was the The Proposal was that um at the next school committee meeting it would be the 30 minutes preceding the meeting so 6 30 to 7 pm a separate um Zoom meeting opportunity to come for you know what we were trying out as essentially an extended citizen speak opportunity where you know I I'm conscious that it's now the past two weeks actually nobody has
110spoken during citizen speak so um I think when we were initially thinking about this goal it was to create more ample time to welcome those voices um recognizing that our the time 15 minutes in the school committee meetings is short um and in the past sometimes not everybody who's wanted to speak has been able to be heard during that 15 minute time um I the only other thing I would add is that the goal here was to just hold one um in a couple of weeks from now yeah um along with that disseminate a Google form for feedback from the community including from people who do not attend that day but would like to share their input around preferred means for you know having their voice heard by the school committee um and you know
111the idea is we will kind of as a pilot we will learn from feedback as we go and hold a few different of these kinds of opportunities uh which are not opportunities for dialogue with the school committee but rather for the school committee to listen and learn from members of our community and have that opportunity to follow up following the meeting about particular concerns so I think as you were saying Margaret just people can be on the lookout for information and superintendent Jett will follow up with you about how to make sure that this can be included um in maybe next week's blog or we'll follow up yeah and I just want to point out to people that you know all of us might not be so all the school community members might not be
112at that initial like the listening session maybe two or three of us will be there um for the first few and then we'll see as Dr Carol said from the feedback what people think of it and then how do we want to move forward do we want to have some public hearings on something do we want to have more opportunities where once we had a a forum on transportation we actually had a conversation um with us with the community about some of the issues I I just want to remind the community once again that some of the challenges about being a school Committee Member is that the only time that we actually have any decision-making power or anything that's different from anybody else in the community is when we're all together at a meeting otherwise
113we're just citizens of the town and when we and we represent our own opinions perhaps sometimes but the only time we represent the school committees when we're all together at a meeting or at a subcommittee meeting um that is an open meeting because all of our Communications are open so we're looking looking forward to the first forum and also to the listening sessions as well I do think Dr Carroll that people will once they have um the audit to look at and then also after all the MCAS information was released by Jesse I think parents might have some questions and wonderings about how we're going to use that information to inform the the upcoming Academic Year so thank you so much for all your work on this I think it's going to be a really
114successful opportunity to engage with the community um and have people feel more like they're a part of that all right so that's the um listening sessions and the community Forum update I did send to you all just a little while ago so you will not have seen it yet um the um the rewording the wording for our proposed new advisory committee we are not going to vote on this committee this evening I am going to share so I'm going to share the wording on my screen so we can look at it if you just like if I can find it here okay hold on I'll see if it works hold on um here we go all right so I want to thank member Ross Denny for sharing um some wording around this we discussed at
115our few meetings ago when we were we were um creating our advisory and subcommittee meeting uh committees for the year of forming two new committees and right now I think we've settled on just having one and what we're calling this committee is a curriculum and instruction advisory committee I am not going to read this paragraph out loud but you can read it for yourself right now and then digest this information and we will come back um we can discuss this also at The Retreat and then come back at our next school committee meeting to vote on it I do think that one of the things I'm thinking about this committee is that it's very timely in that we're going to have an interim superintendent of um curriculum and human resources and a lot of initiative
116around curriculum and also the community seems to want more information and more understanding of what we're teaching their Stu their children and how we're teaching their children and what that all means for their children I think this will be a way to sort of um bring all of that information together and then be able to share it out at a school committee meeting so I opened the um the floor to any comments I can't see you all so just start talking if you want to ask me any questions in particular about this um wording as it sits now but we certainly are open to any changes or suggestions from the committee so remember I can't see you all of you so if you have something to stay with your chance or not then that's okay
117too um I will say that there are districts there are several districts actually that have a variety of committees with either it says the teaching and learning learning advisory committee or um a curriculum advisory committee um and there's uh in Framingham they had some nice wording around how they Implement uh the the work of this committee it will have basically two or three school committee members so if you're interested in being on this committee we can discuss that at our next meeting um and I and um that's that I'm going to close my screen does anyone have any questions right now thank you member Ross standing would you like to share anything I really appreciate your work on coming up with the wording um and sharing that back with me to share with everyone tonight
118no yes I don't have any additional content and I will say that um I'd appreciate people's input it was an attempt to show that we're limiting the scope of the committee in terms of its expectations on MPS staff so as you saw there's only I think two or three people and then there's a listing of people who normally in engage in curriculum and instruction or some people call it teaching and learning that might be invited in as needed but um I'm very sensitive to the fact that our educators are very busy right they're teaching our kids they're planning for the school year and if there's anything we can do to keep this dialogue going without making an extra burden um that was one of the major objectives yeah thank you so much for um bringing
119that to our attention I think I do think this will be a very helpful tool yes Dr Carroll for helping the community understand better a little bit too about what's happening yes Dr Carol sorry yeah and I just see this as a necessary support for the ambitious goals that both the superintendent has shared with us and that we are in the process of developing as a school committee so I've said before in previous meetings about this um but I'm strongly in favor of moving forward so I'm excited to um be able to vote on this in a couple of weeks yeah so I want to thank you for your patience as we sort of work through that there were so many things happening all at once I didn't want to Short change the um a
120very important new initiative so appreciate the patience that everyone exhibited so we'll bring that to uh yes member Rosemary yes thank thank you um Beverly for your work on putting this together a couple couple of comments one is I wonder if we shouldn't make it be aligned with superintendent um jets goals and referring to it as a teaching and learning subcommittee as opposed to curriculum and instruction um and um and the other is um whether um I I saw how I don't have I see the language right now but I will look at it again but that that it's related to policy recommendations that we might make which is our role but I'm also wondering about um that you know how this might inform our um Financial recommendations as well that that this committee could
121um be help us and evaluating you know what priorities might be or or you know what kinds of choices we might need to make in in terms of making resources available for um new curriculum um I agree with you on both um the teaching and learning title something Margaret also mentioned and initially it was meant to parallel the title of the um assistant superintendent but I think teaching and learning is equally appropriate but um to your point about this might be a way to identify early on if there are resources needed I think that our our staff have been very proactive that when they need resources whether they're applying for Grants or they Advocate internally um this is a great way to bring it to the attention of people on school committee because some of
122those concerns are managed internally and managed gracefully but in some cases especially when there's a resource request it's it would be nice to know before it hits the finance committee that we know that there's a need so once that meeting the finance committee meeting starts we can speak intelligently because we know we're well informed about why that need exists right for those uh who were able to watch The Joint select board and school committee meeting um Susan bastelli was kind enough to attend and share why these resources why specific resources were being requested and it was such a help to to carry the discussion further and I liked that forum and this is the type of committee that would allow that to happen before we get to the finance and select board committee uh yes
123thank you members Marin I think that's an excellent and so um we can discuss at the um meeting or the our goals meeting to change the morning in there and then share it out there and then at our next school Community all right thank you all so much any thoughts or comments you can reach out to Beverly um or we can have a discussion next time all right so we have to vote this evening on appointing superintendent jet to the South Shore educational collaborative as our representative um this is an annual vote of the school committee to appoint either the superintendent or his designee as a board member um for the fiscal year to represent the district so as because we're part of the South Shore educational collaborative I don't know if if um that
124there was an attachment or there was information that we read about the South Shore collaborative I don't know superintendent jet or superintendent Dexter if you wanted to add anything specific about the South Shore collaborative and what the benefits that is for the district just briefly very briefly yeah very briefly uh it is very informative obviously as the interim shipment sitting on a few of the meetings last year they do provide reports that I'm required to submit to the school committee for your review um but I think in addition to the collaborative it is a professional development opportunity to see what other districts are doing how they could change the difference going through so I have I so okay great all right so the motion on the table then is to appoint superintendent jet um as
125the representative to the South Shore educational collaborative for the 2021-2022 Academic Year thank you okay all right this will be a roll call vote um member Rosemary yes um the member Beverly Ross Denny yes Dr Carroll yes Dr Craighead yes um member white yes and member of a heart yes all right another another attack another job for you superintendent job um thank you so much all right the last thing for me is the annual report did you you all received a copy from Charlene about the annual the annual report it was sort of a lengthy document describing the Academic Year if I understand and if I'm remembering correctly help me remember white the annual report goes in the warrant yes at some point or no where does the annual it's unfortunately annual report on Buck
126it's a it's a book that's although I don't know that they're going to be mailing them out like they used to I think they're going to try to make it available in another format great but all reports from all departments are in there I used to get we used to get a a hard copy of it at our home so I don't know if that'll be the case but um does anyone have any questions comments or changes that you they wanted to make to the report it basically was and it'll be available to the public anyone can um obviously be available to everyone but did anyone have any comments or thoughts or I thought it summed up the year pretty pretty well I thought it accurately reflected them the year the challenges we faced with
127kovid um the conversations with the community the hopes that we have for the future um each school has a section in it um and they talked about their individual thing there I actually had some thoughts about some of the things they were using during covert times and wondering if they were going to use them again but you can save that conversation for another day that was more my interest than something else um so if nobody has any changes to make um we do have to vote on the annual report that will go into the book so the motion on the table would be to approve the 2020-2021 annual report for distribution to the town second so the motion has been made in second and this will be a roll call vote number wait yes remember
128Rosemary yes Dr Carroll yes Dr craigett yes remember rust any yes and member eberhardt yes 6-0 okay thank you thank you all so much um for your attention and time to all these important details I'm going to pass it on to Dr Craighead Finance our favorite topic it's so is what we've all been waiting for isn't it okay um so we um usually have Finance on Tuesday afternoons um but um yesterday's meeting was postponed uh because of its I'm um being scheduled uh right on right alongside another event um so we will meet next week um remotely at 5 30 just so everybody knows this time it will be at 5 30 remotely um and we will be discussing among other things the um Capital request from facilities and Technology you'll all be thrilled as
129thrilled as I was to find out that I am going to be reappointed to the capital Improvement planning committee and so I will be having quite a number of 7 A.M meetings uh coming up so that's always something to be happy about um the next thing on the agenda is an update on uh the warrant committee meeting from Member white so take it away Betty okay so we met with the warrant committee um Monday evening Margaret Everhart and I attended with Mr Jet and with Amy Dexter and uh Mike zulis from the select board was there as well and he presented that um in a joint finance committee meeting we had agreed to um an additional two positions for the Milton Public Schools one is a 504 coordinator and one is the speech and language
130pathologist that's needed for special ed and for all the evaluations as well as the delivery of services that are ongoing in the district um that amount including benefits for the schools comes out to 89 986 dollars um two police officers were also approved as well as additional money for the library which would make them eligible for matching funds from the state um that they didn't get at last time meeting um so basically these are for half year positions and you know um the select board has not voted on them yet they're voting on Wednesday night but that should be a affirmative vote and then it'll go to town meeting for the um fall town meeting vote to approve the the work a couple of War committee meetings members excuse me had a lot of questions
131and we were probably 35 to 40 minutes of discussion with a couple members who really had a lot more questions about last year's budget and last year's positions and um you know we answered as best we could and um one of the issues that happened was we were not aware that there was going to be a warrant committee meeting Monday night um it was supposed to be this Monday night but I think I got moved up and um so uh Margaret Everhart or cherry Everhart um forwarded on to the warrant committee members um some additional information about special ed costs that was very thorough uh to the Warren committee meetings members for their for their information and that's all I have to say yeah oh um superintendent and Dexter yeah so I would just like
132to add for maybe those that um don't know the background of where this money's coming from that that was um an increase in Revenue estimate um that was the net of approximately an increase in New Growth of 225 000 to the real estate tax base net of an increase um and I believe it was the local assessment increase which made the net local Aid Revenue decrease that makes sense for so overall the the net revenue is increasing about 000 so as member white mentioned approximately 89 986 was for the two positions for the schools about 72 000 for the two positions for the police that included benefits and then about the balance of 15 430 was to the library but I thought it was important to mention where the money was coming from so this
133is an increase to the operating budget and it was six months or half of um two positions six months expense because by the time we get the people in place it'll probably be January yeah thank you um yeah and I want to thank the Warren committee for um um you know welcoming us to attend the meeting the other night um and I want to thank Susan Maselli for um compiling additional information to share with them I think it was extremely helpful um for them to receive it and they they reached back out and said thank you very much it really they had a lot of good questions about it's kind of it's such a complicated um issue and um it's I think it's important that the community understands like the why we fund those issues
134why we funded those positions or chose those positions at this moment in time and I think um you know Susan macelli's reporting was really helpful to help people understand that so really thank her for that and I think um Dr Craighead and the rest of you for attending the joint Finance subcommittee meeting so early in the morning um and for advocating for the district and supporting for those positions it's wonderful to have two new positions from the new school of money and I'm happy for the police and for the library so they'll be able to participate in the grant so it's all good news for the town um moving forward yeah just to clarify that the fifteen thousand dollars that the robbery is going to get doesn't quite get them to where they need to
135be but they believe that they can get there um uh for the grant uh money and as um member Ross Denny said much earlier in the meeting um Susan Miceli's um report at that early meeting joint finance committee subcommittees of of the select board and the school committee she was extremely helpful um she's honestly like a walking dictionary of special education and um uh could answer everything much more fully than any of us could so I really appreciate her um uh going above and beyond for that um the final thing I have in my report is the approval of the vendor warrant um so I'd like to make a motion to approve vendor War at number two um in the amount of 234 952.91 cents payable on uh September 16 20 and 21. do I
136have a second second okay um all in favor do I have to do a roll call Margaret you're supposed to okay all right uh so I'll just go across my screen um member Rosemary yes Dr Carroll yes remember white yes remember Ross Denny yes I'm uh chair Eberhard yes and I'm a yes on that too that's ends my report thank you thank you all for your hard work on finance I I think our collaboration with the select boys and um working with them is working to the advantage of the town and helping with the Warren committee it's been a great great collaboration looking forward to the budget process for this year all right School building Committee Member was married do you want to just have a quick update about the the forums that you mentioned
137to us yeah yeah thank you yeah and it is just a quick update I I forwarded on to you um the invitation just went out today to we're doing two uh neighborhood forums um we're reaching out to the neighborhoods in particular that surround the site that we've identified as a proposed site for a new school so that would include the Pine Tree Brook neighborhood the Blue Hills Parkway neighborhood and the Home Inc neighborhood and so we have reached out to contacts in in each of those neighborhoods and um to distribute the invitations and we're hoping that they will be able to come we've got them to be held on two dates so that people can hopefully select a date that will be convenient for them and it'll be an opportunity for them to learn about
138the need for a new school building to learn about what school building committee has done so far about the site that we've identified as a proposed site and to share their questions and and concerns and to really begin an ongoing conversation and and we hope to have be involved with them on an ongoing basis as as this project moves forward does anyone have any questions for member Rosen Aaron Dr kirkhead since I live in the Pine Tree Brook neighborhood when about when were the will those invitations go out or have they already gone out um they went to our contacts in each of the neighborhoods um and so that it will be they'll be be disseminating those I imagine they're working on it tonight and figuring out how to how to get them out some
139will be hand delivered some will be through email like but keep me posted if if you don't hear anything I will thanks thanks I forgot that's right that is your neighborhood over there all right all right thank you so much member Rosemary and the whole school building committee we look forward to hearing from them at our next meeting yes we'll have a longer discussion um with uh Sean O'Rourke the chair of school building committee will be coming to our October 6th um meeting and we look forward to a a good discussion um at that meeting thank you so much all right policy subcommittee anything you want to share for with us tonight sure yeah briefly um the policy subcommittee met on September 13th um we um at that meeting reviewed uh again the policy jlcd
140on immunizations and we will we decided as a subcommittee uh that we would need to revisit that policy once again um after impact bargaining with the unions has taken place and that's ongoing regarding the covid vaccine mandate um there was also the need to get more information from Caroline kinsella who needed to consult with legal on on issue regarding uh the privacy and record keeping so uh that's just to tell you uh the subcommittee will take that back up on Monday um this coming Monday the 27th at our next meeting and we will bring that forward to the school committee um when we're ready to do that or actually I apologize we we may or may not be able um to address that this coming week um because as I mentioned the timeline is still
141fluid for receiving the information back that we need from those um those other pieces I mentioned so just stay tuned and we will bring it back as soon as we're ready to have a vote as a full school committee about that we also reviewed the professional hiring policy at the last subcommittee meeting will be continue that will be uh definitely on our agenda for this coming Monday as we continue the discussion and review some proposed revisions to the professional hiring policy and so we will be bringing that um forward at a future schools committee meeting um the other items that we'll be talking about on Monday include the anti-racism resolution that the school committee passed over a year ago um informed by the masc so we'll be revisiting that we'll also be re um reviewing
142the survey policy which uh we are supposed to be um reviewing on an annual basis that will also be on Monday's agenda um and then and The Residency policy and the further discussion of exceptions exemptions Under The Residency policy um I don't think we have time to get to that this coming Monday but we haven't forgotten about it it remains kind of on our rolling agenda for pro hopefully a later meeting in October so those are a number of things that I'll be reporting back on in two weeks time thank you does anyone have any questions for Dr Carroll thank you as well Dr Carol for all your work on the policy I look forward to hearing the discussions on the resolution the hiring and the survey policy um all right the next thing on
143our agenda is facilities do we have an update from facilities anything tonight sure quick update on that too facilities advisory committee met for the first time in this school year just earlier this evening before our meeting and it was a bill Ritchie Fest and we did a lot of presentations to us about all the work that had been done this summer in the schools to modify our physical plant to accommodate our increased number of students and went went to a great degree and I can't remember if superintendent discussed this already in a meeting but there's been a lot of of modifications at both the elementary level and the Pierce Middle School level and and um and um out of the hundred and sixty thousand dollars that that we were granted by the town to do
144that we still haven't used all of that money yet so we have some left over and there are plans for the next year um to continue to make those modifications as needed and then the other item on the agenda that that we talked about and then voted upon is the first step in the approval of the capital request for our facilities and that will then move on to our finance committee next week and they'll review the same recommendations from Bill Ritchie and then we'll bring that forward to the school committee to vote on and then Elaine Dr Craig will have her her list in hand when she goes to the capital Improvement planning committee yeah members of America superintendent chat did our last meeting mention every all of the um accommodations and adjustments that we
145made to the facilities to accommodate the um the increase in numbers so yeah um they thank you for all your work on that it's a it's such an important um part of our work and the commitment of the district to maintain the facilities once they were you know rebuilt um 20 years ago um you know that was a real push from the original School building committee to not let the buildings get into disrepair and to stay on top of all of the things yes remember white so but one of the things that Bill's Richie spoke about tonight is that what he needs to be spending and what actually is getting um given to him every year there's a huge discrepancy between what we need and what we have and um one of the things he
146talked about was that all of the units that are on top of our routes that are basically our heating and cooling systems are all getting quite um they're 15 to 20 something years old and they're replacing Motors and they're replacing Parts but at some point they're going to have to be replaced and that cost is pretty significant and the other the other thing I wanted to mention is you know in terms of the schools one of the issues is that it's hard to sort of when we're in front of town meeting and we have a limited amount of time to talk to really talk about what our school crowding situation is and how the classrooms look and how the spaces look these days um and I think we talked a little bit about whether or
147not we might need to want to think about asking the principals to do some kind of a video you know maybe all of them together can make a concise to show time meeting members and town people what the schools look like what the spaces look like so that people can really visually grasp how crowded we are I really think we need to do something like that because we have such limited time at town meeting to talk about our budget much less all the other issues so I really think something like that would be very helpful remember rust any you know I I completely agree with Betty and I think having some testimonials of the students that are in those crowded spaces I did um my thumb's open house at Pierce and he's in a part
148of the library I'm not sure if it's a regular classroom but I was really surprised at how crowded the school felt just watching the parents and not every parent has the opportunity to go to open house but the building is crowded If the parents are there and it looks crowded I can't imagine when you have almost a thousand students in and out of that building one of the Warren committee members oh sorry that's okay one of the Warren community members was at the open house and joined the Warren committee because it was very important conversation and he wanted to be at the meeting but he was saying the same thing he was like in like a little hallway somewhere and I don't even know and he said there's so many people everywhere there's so many
149people through and I was saying that I love seeing my neighborhood fill up with cars again you know I haven't haven't been that feeling at the Pearson over 18 months and he was saying yeah okay but there's a lot of people here right now so Dr craigett I'm sorry um I sort of forget what I was gonna say I'm sorry something about the videos and uh oh right um well maybe I'm thinking about pre-pandemic times but isn't there a a session that's usually held before town meeting where we could do stuff or we could show a video like that or I I guess just have it available to town meeting members if it's all going to be remote that we would have it disseminated to them but um but I totally agree um uh with
150what member white is is advocating for um because I felt like in May when we were talking about the budget there just was not enough time to get to all of the reasons that we had for all of the needs that we had uh in the district and you know I I I took more than the 10 minutes and the moderator had to uh remind me that I only had 10 minutes and I was talking as fast as I could and saying as much as I could but um we really do as member white said need to get the word out but not just that member Ross Denny is is perfectly right too that we need to have it come from the people who are dealing with this every day and really showing it um
151visually so I think it's a great idea I think it's a great project for maybe like I'm thinking of like the kids that do the TV stuff and the videos at the high school I think it'd be a really great project even like a project for them to get greeted on right like yeah I love that idea and interview their fellow classmates like young kids middle kids and then put it together as um as a as a testimonial to to what the you know to the wonderful wonderful District we have but the fact that we need more space um and then what does that impact what does that look like if you're a student if you're five if you're eight if you're 15 if you're yeah I think I think it's a great idea I
152think we'll have to do some research on who we can get um maybe some kids that kind of stuff we also have um a fabulous Milton access telephone I was going to say that you didn't want to put that that does some very creative programming and and there's a lot of a lot of talent there um so I'd be happy to put a call into Shane Brandenburg and speak with him about it since I'm on their board um and see if if it's a possibility and thank you Betty for sharing that it it was wasn't an important part of discussion um and one of the other comments that that that resonated with me was um Tony chuccello who's on our committee who was the vice chair of the last school building committee who is still
153attending facilities meetings um when he heard about the the all of the modifications that we've been doing and that we're now using a stage a clever school for classes he said this is like deja vu because this is exactly where we were um 20 years ago before or the last school building project those are these are exactly the kinds of modifications that we were making and and it just got to be the point that we had to do something um so here we are again and hopefully we'll find a way forward in um in short time I can still thank you member Rosemary and the facilities advisor committee I can still hear Charlie Winchester talking to me when I would work with him on things about the buildings and everything so I keep him and
154and Mr Chicago in my on my spirit as well all right the last item on our agenda is to approve the minutes from our August 25th meeting and our September 8th meeting they were sent to us Dr Caroline um just really quickly I have two um really just minor things on page seven of the August 25th meeting um under where it says policy subcommittee report um there's just there's one typo which I think just is important because um it's referring to Desi mandates d-e-s-e um which of course is the Department of Elementary and secondary education so I just want to make sure that anybody relying on these minutes knows that that's the source of the mandates that we were discussing at that point in time um and then the second minor edit was um the
155second to last bullet under that section uh referring to reviewing the policy monthly um I I don't know if I just want to be clear on this public record um it may be that I said monthly but what we came out in in um approving that policy was that it's bi-monthly every other month uh is when the policy is going to be reviewed which means it will be reviewed next at the end of October um so those are the only two things okay thank you Dr Carol we can send those along to Maureen um and to make the um corrections I did see the deci thing actually so I'm not sure if I remember to talk to her about it but thank you but I didn't see the by the by monthly thing so thank
156you for catching that that's really important actually uh and it probably came out of a conversation because that at the same time that we had our policy the state just started to have their own mandate um and they said by October 1st or whatever it was okay anyone else with um corrections to the August 25th meeting all right so their motion on the table is to approve the minutes of our August 25th meeting with the corrections noted by Dr Carroll all right it's a roll call vote member white yes member Rosemary yes Dr Carroll yes Professor Craighead yes remember rust any yes remember Everhart yes six zero all right our minutes from September 8th 2021 which is our meeting the last time I didn't see any anyone have any thoughts or comments all right then
157the motion on the table is to prove the minutes of September 8th 2021 . okay all right this is a roll call vote remember rust any yes remember Rosemary yes Dr Carol yes Dr Cricket yes remember white yes remember Everhart yes okay 6-0 thank you all very much uh do we have any old business to attend to I don't think so our next meeting agenda items we have a pretty busy meeting on the sixth um is it the sixth or is it the eighth it's the sixth is it the wrong thing okay um so we actually have to appoint an masc designee to vote at the meeting and we have to review the resolutions I don't know what that will look like I haven't it might have sent them I don't remember they did they
158did right did they send them the resolution I think we got booklets in the mail okay I have to go downstairs I have a pile of um masc stuff we're gonna have the presentation from Toronto Rock and the um School building committee we'll talk about the goals superintendent and uh school committee goals um we were thinking um member Ross didn't I to ask the um Foundation to come briefly to talk about the Monster Dash because I believe I don't know that might not be the maybe they can come to the next one it's not the last meeting before the Monster Dash okay so maybe then we we aim for the 20th meeting before um we'll have a policy update from um Dr Carroll we'll probably have something from Finance is there anything else specific that
159I'm missing um so superintendent jet agreed to have Susan Miss Sully give an update on her plan oh yes thank you thank you just proportionality and special education referrals and discipline wonderful an update on the um the tracking system for incidents of race and um I think it was sexual harassment I forgot what um okay so do you think um superintendent jet that um um Janet Sheen will join us at the next meeting I guess it will depend on how the goes with your conversations with her yeah I would hope so okay all right that's two weeks from now I hope so okay great all right wonderful well that's that's all we have for tonight um we did get a link to adjourn to Executive session are we adjourning to Executive session we are yes
160we're joining two executive sessions right okay so I'm making a motion to uh during two weeks educator session not to return to open session um this is how do I have a second okay this is a roll call verb a member Rosemary yes Dr Carol yes Dr Cricket yes member Rossini yeah another white yes member yes thank you all so much for a very busy meeting um I hope you all have a rest a peaceful rest of your week school goes well and um we'll see you all next time thank you everyone foreign