001one and good hey uh welcome everyone I'd like to call to order the school committee meeting of February 15 2023 um let me just get my agenda up in front of me here here we go um so first thing on our agenda is to approve uh today's agenda are there any changes or deletions that anyone has to make okay seeing none will move ahead um next item on the agenda is superintendent's update we'll just pass it on to superintendent McKinney uh thank you first thing on the agenda is an update from the high school on their program of studies I'll turn things over to principal Cahill and her high school team that are here to present thank you Dr McKinney good evening everyone um as Dr McKinney said first item on the agenda is the
002program of studies presentation for the school year 2324 I can't believe we're talking about that um we had shared with school committee members changes the changes that we do have to the program of studies and with me this evening I have Barb Meyer director of School counseling Brian celig the math director at H Hardy I'm head of the English Department and Brian and H will go over the changes that we have for the math English and social studies Department including some editions of some new courses um we have one small change in the science department that I'm happy to speak about if there's any questions to that and answer any other questions that you have in regards to the general process of the program of study so I'd like to start with the changes in
003the courses and I'm going to ask Brian Seeley to go first with math if that's okay with everyone Brian thanks Karen uh I'm wondering if it would be helpful to share my screen with the visual or um I think maybe for the benefit of the uh committee members and the community is that working awesome okay um the only thing that may not work as ideally as I'd like is the size uh sort of of the visual so I'll maybe have to do a little bit of scrolling here as I highlight some of the specific uh areas to draw your attention to um so there are some significant proposed changes for the map program at uh Milton high school for next year and I'm going to talk about them um sort of in uh different um
004groups um I want to First draw your attention to uh proposed changes for junior year only some of which are visible to you at the moment um and I'll I'll adjust the screen as I go along um really the um opportunity for high schools across the country to offer an AP pre-calculus course for the first time in Fall of 2023 has gotten us thinking uh leading up to today's meeting um very carefully about whether it was something that would fit well into our program or not and after a lot of discussion within our department um and with the teachers at Milton high school we felt strongly that this was an opportunity that we wanted to bring to our students at MHS as soon as we could which is this coming fall um the sort of
005domino effect of um building this course into our program of studies uh is that it meant it means no longer having integrated math courses in junior year the way that we currently do and have for several years uh since before I came to work uh in the district um as you can see at least from the top of this document we have and we'll plan to continue to have integrated math 1 and integrated math 2 courses in ninth and 10th grade uh both at the honors and uh College Prep level uh there's no change as far as that is concerned but in order to um accommodate uh AP pre-calculus which we feel is a um valuable opportunity for our students not only as the the highest uh available uh most rigorous Math course available to
006Juniors but also as a possible option for seniors and I'll talk a little more about that in just a moment um and so that course is actually while new um very um similar in scope and sequence to what has been our previous most advanced junior level course called course three accelerated honors so AP pre-calculus would be replacing that we feel it's important to offer a non-ap honors level version of pre-calculus for juniors as well as uh select seniors uh as well um and that has the effect for those who are familiar with our existing program of essentially replacing our course three honors um and they're uh as a result um we also have the uh opportunity and I think uh this is a Improvement for our program for a number of reasons that I'll try
007my best to articulate clearly um by by removing course three and integrated courses in general from our program in junior year and replacing them not only with ap and honors calculus but also with algebra 2 at both the honors and College Prep level uh we are I think better positioned to meet the varying needs of our students at the end of sophomore year and build more Pathways to different sequences of courses in both Junior and Senior year as it currently stands students don't have the opportunity to take a pre-calculus or comparable course of study in senior year because whichever level of course three they enroll in as Juniors that's their sort of one shot at that content by Introducing Algebra 2 into junior year along with pre-calculus we're aiming to create more opportunities for students
008um in terms of what their options look like not just in junior year but where that then what that then prepares them for in senior year so everything that you see listed here under 11th grade and I've had to scroll down a little bit to make it a little bit more visible let me see if I change my my size a little bit does that make the graphic too small for you still to be able to see it does okay fair enough I apologize uh I'll go back to full and just you'll have to bear with me as I as I scroll uh back and forth a little bit so let me stay at the top of the document for a moment and let's talk about what the implications of this are for our highest
009achieving um most skilled students in math uh as it stands right now students are already um taking integrated math 1 and freshman year at the honors level integrated math 2 and sophomore year at the honors level and then again forgive me for being redundant but the the proposed changes here would allow students coming from at the end of 10th grade the honors level integrated math to to be um recommended for either uh AP or honors pre-calculus in 11th grade or um for students that need a little bit uh longer to um and a little bit more exposure that's a that's a pretty um you know significant jump to go from an integrated Matthew honors to an AP or honors pre-calculus we're introducing this algebra 2 honors course uh not only for students coming out of
010honors in 10th Grade but also for the strong students in college prep in 10th Grade uh students taking AP pre-calculus next year as Juniors if that proposed change is accepted uh will still as they have been go on to take a pre-pre-calculus uh at uh either BC which is the um faster paced deeper more advanced level of AP calculus or AP Calculus a b and that's why that those two courses in the same box here remain in green because there's no changes there um the pre-calculus honors um is being proposed um to operate in the same way honor statistics has this year which is in partnership with Quincy college and carry the potential opportunity for students enrolled in it to earn college credit uh upon successfully completing that course with a grade of C or
011higher um and from there you see again not much different than what we uh currently have in place uh in terms of our junior year honors uh integrated math three going on predominantly to uh calculus either at the AP or uh honors level the reason calculus honors is uh coded in yellow is because just as we're hoping to offer the opportunity for dual enrollment credit for students who successfully complete the uh honors version of pre-calculus we would like to offer the same for the students who next year successfully complete our honors calculus course with a grade of C or higher both courses along with the statistics that I referenced um a moment ago all addressed content that is considered to be college level uh all three have AP versions where students are are putting themselves
012in good position to earn college credit by performing well on the AP exam we would like to cast The Net even wider and allow opportunities for students who complete the non-ap or honors version of those two courses along with Statistics which has been in place already this year since the beginning to have opportunity to earn college credit upon completion this is maybe a good time to pause and see if you have any questions before I shift the screen down a little bit and talk about what the implications now would be for students who leave 10th grade uh coming out of our College Prep level of integrated math too and I see a couple hands raised member white want to go first sure um Brian could you just talk about what integrated math is because I
013remember back you know I'm thinking about geometry and you know years ago when we did that kind of math but what is could you just tell me what is taught in integrated math in the 9th and 10th grades yes thank you for raising that question member white um so most high schools still go by traditional um high school math coursework starting in ninth grade algebra one geometry Algebra 2 pre-calculus um we want to preserve the integrated math model for 9th and 10th grade for a few reasons that I'll talk about in just a moment but first let me explain what that actually entails so rather than to teach uh all algebra one content in one year in all geometry content in another and it usually uh for high schools that have that model tend to
014do it in the reverse of what I just described they uh well actually I shouldn't say it that way some high schools do algebra one and then geometry some start with geometry and then do algebra one but um what we do with our integrated math one and two courses is that we um basically take uh all of the geometry content in algebra one content from those traditional courses and we divvied them each up into our ninth and 10th grade integrated math one and two courses as they exist so students in both 9th and 10th grade um spend about half of their year learning algebra content and the other half of their year learning geometry content the reason that we feel that that is um the best model and one that we should preserve uh in
015in those first two years of high school um is for one there's a lot of benefit that students reap from getting exposure to varying um mathematical Concepts over course of a single year if you keep algebra one to one year students who have more difficulty in algebra spend the entire year struggling whereas this model allows students who are stronger in one of those two big areas than the other to have some success and spend more of their focus area in building up um the the areas for growth where they're not as proficient um it's also uh true that basically all of the math prior to ninth grade is integrated all of the standards starting in kindergarten up through eighth grade have this sort of Blended exposure to algebraic Concepts uh geometry concepts and statistics uh
016Concepts starting in middle school so we feel like there's a smoother transition coming from eighth to ninth grade if we preserve an integrated approach um and um I I think I've exhausted my my rationale for why we want to keep the integrated math one and two uh the the non-negotiable is that we have students at the end of sophomore year who have had um instruction on all of the material that will be covered on the 10th grade the spring uh 10th grade math MCAS and that's and we're assured of that by our current model uh Desi doesn't prescribe the way that it does in the younger grades what has to be taught at each specific grade level it just um it just uh states that the content in an algebra 1 or a geometry course
017uh will be covered on MCAS how you get there is uh up to the um local decision making and programmatic decision the reason we feel comfortable though moving away from the integrated model starting next year in junior year um is because students start to have a better sense of what their strengths are what their interests are and so it's appropriate to specialize a little bit more uh after sophomore year once MCAS is in the rear view we sort of look at our 11th and 12th grade program while still offering a lot of flexibility as as having some connection um that students who are ready to and interested in taking pre-calculus in 11th grade are being prepared to take calculus in 12th grade students who are um taking uh in this proposed changes Algebra 2 in
01811th grade are well positioned to go on and take statistics or pre-calculus in 12th grade um but I also and this is getting a little bit into the weeds the reality is that um the the sort of even blend of algebra and geometry that exists in our 9th and 10th grade integrated math courses is no longer um as viable in an integrated math three there the geometry standards have basically been exhausted by the end of sophomore year and so you're really um already kind of um not as true to the uh integrated model as uh as is the case in ninth and 10th grade so I hope member white that that my answer wasn't too long-winded I hope that I helped clarify what it even means to have an integrated math one course in ninth
019grade and integrated math 2 course in 10th Grade and I hope I've also provided some rationale for why it's not necessary to extend that moving forward into an integrated math three in 11th grade thank you you did glad to hear it thank you uh member Ross Denny good evening Brian thank you so much for taking the time to walk the school committee through graphically what you would shared with us about a month ago my question is about the dual enrollment program I'd love to hear how it's going if you've gotten any feedback from the students how the partnership is going with Quincy college and um in terms of planning for calculus are we if we already started those negotiations with that with that school thank you yeah of course thank you member Ross thank you
020for bringing that up um so regrettably we're probably still another two to three weeks from having um a more robust update for the committee about how it's going uh one of the things that we um are grateful for in this partnership with Quincy college is that they're so um accommodating of um their member uh districts in terms of uh extending the deadline by which students uh need to apply to enroll in uh earn the dual enrollment credits uh this year uh as an example students don't need to register and submit payment until March 31st so I just over the past week have visited each of our for Honor statistics classes um and now that we're in the case of seniors which is most of the students taking statistics this year um in fact with only
021one or two exceptions uh those students are well beyond the halfway point of their school year um and obviously have uh well I shouldn't say Obviously but they're both term one and term two grades have have closed and are in the rear view mirror so we felt that this was really a good time to come into those classes remind students about this opportunity share with them some specifics about what the registration process looked like but also uh give them hopefully at this point in the year one a clear idea of how realistic it is to meet the minimum grade requirement of C or higher that Quincy college requires in order for the credits to be awarded and also um and we're still a little early for this but hopefully have a better idea of what
022their post-secondary plans are than when we last visited in early December um and so my goal in making those visits was to provide them with as as much updated information as I had including some details about what registration entail but also to encourage them to consider both their their status in the class as far as grades through the first half of the year are concerned and to the extent that they have a more concrete idea of what their plans for next year are to make sure that the school or a few schools that they're considering would accept the Quincy college credits for transfer my follow-up to that is asking that they complete a Google form uh that I've I've shared but I've given a deadline of the end of this week leading into February vacation
023to get a more specific sense about where each of our students in that course are in terms of their intent whether they registered already which at this point is a small number whether they intend to register but haven't yet and whether there's any more information I can provide to help them seal the deal and whether there are um you know what specifically including cost might be a um giving them pause about moving forward so I don't have that data yet to share with the committee because it's still rolling in as we speak to your second question though um I've been um extremely satisfied and pleased with the responsiveness that we've been getting from Quincy College the support that we've been getting from Quincy College my last round of visits um was with a representative from
024the dual enrollment program at Quincy college and speak she spoke directly with our students she shared her contact information uh when we were debating back and forth whether to offer sort of a formal parent information session uh she offered to facilitate that um and maybe that's something especially if we are granted permission to expand this opportunity Beyond this one course that we will consider for uh next year so while I don't have data to share just yet in terms of how many of our uh approximately 90 honor statistics students have registered for the dual enrollment credits um I do feel very confident in saying that this is a partnership that so far has been successful uh and worth fostering and and um maybe this is yet another leap of faith that I'm asking for but
025but that we should continue to look for opportunities to expand upon thanks for the update no problem I'm about halfway through um I do have a few other additional uh as I move down proposed changes to the program um I I probably spoke a little bit already about why if you're going to offer pre-calculus in junior year you should also offer Algebra 2 there are some students for whom that's too big of a jump one and two there are some students for whom pre-calculus is not a course that makes a lot of sense for them to take in high school or ever if they're not uh ultimately planning to pursue um a a degree or a career in a STEM related field uh they would gain much more from uh taking Algebra 2 in junior
026year uh and then a statistics course whether that be AP or honors in senior year uh which is uh for the vast majority of Majors what uh the math uh requirement uh would be we also though want to try to expand our offerings and opportunities to address our most struggling Learners the reality of the situation is that we inherit students coming up from Pearson ninth grade for home um sort of one year uh or you know going through the integrated math one content um in one year while feasible and appropriate because of how it builds upon 8th grade and and other Middle School content is um very realistic we do have a very uh small but but but worthy population of student for whom um that is um a tall ask and um and then
027and I don't mean that phrase lightly where they would benefit more from spreading that content over two years instead of one to allow more opportunity for um uh revisiting of prerequisite prior grade content uh to bolster some of those skills that have come up uh from the Middle School uh lacking still and so that's what you see at the very bottom here of this document uh and they're in Orange as are the other new courses being proposed in Orange um so that we can um try to be proactive and and rather than have students um sort of Flounder in ninth grade or flounder and 10th rate and not have a sort of logical solution for them and you know try to reduce the attrition in summer school this is what we feel again only for
028a very small percentage of our students is the best way to get them closer to proficient in the content of our ninth grade course spread out over two years which then hopefully prepares them to be successful in an integrated math 2 course in junior year instead of in sophomore year the way most students experience that content which is still um not setting them back significantly and puts them in position to go on to um our applied Math course and Senior year or um yet another proposed new uh kind of package deal of courses in Junior and Senior year called college algebra spread out in a part A and in a Part B and this um the introduction of these two sort of companion courses would really only make sense if the committee approved of the
029proposal to offer dual enrollment credit for the college algebra b um this is um probably our students that are in most that would benefit most from uh dual enrollment credits through Quincy College who are most likely potentially to actually go on and attend Quincy college or another Community College and put those credits uh to direct use um and and and either fulfill their math requirement through that or at least be placed into a credit bearing um first year Math course in college um and so that uh and I didn't answer one of your questions uh member Austin and I apologize for that um yes we've had preliminary conversations with Quincy College about each of the courses that have been proposed to you uh to um Carry dual enrollment credit um we've secured um the syllabi
030of the Quincy College versions of these courses and we feel confident in each case that ours aligns um well in the same way statistics uh was approved in its alignment uh so that we wouldn't actually be needing to teach anything different than we already do in our existing courses um and uh in the case of this college algebra course that would really be um intentionally um mirrored very closely but but spread out over uh junior year um and Senior year for some of the same argument as I was making back here in the um two-year version of integrated math one so that there was plenty of opportunity for all students to um find success and and and be proficient and be be eligible uh to earn the dual enrollment credits that it carried oh boy
031all right I think that might be all for my portion of the presentation but I am I see one more hand up I don't know a member for gays if you have a question for from Brian I just have one quick question if you could just scroll to the bottom of the screen so um I just had one question just wanted a clarification so after you take math 1A um in ninth grade in math 1B and uh 10th grade um you is do you only go to Ma and when you're in math integrated math to college prep in your junior year does that cover college algebra like the content that's um taught in college algebra a um in junior year as well there is a lot of there is a fair amount of overlap there
032okay okay um so so I'm interpreting your question as could there be an arrow drawn that would go from here to here um yes the reason that it's not there well maybe the reason it's not there is because we treat integrated math 2 as non-negotiable it doesn't mean students have to do it by the end of 10th grade but if we if we jump uh if we jump from here to here now we've lost um sort of a half year worth of geometry that students are expected to um learn in high school at some point and especially if these are students that are um that do not pass the MCAS in uh the spring of their sophomore year and now we're talking about a very small number uh each year uh we would want to
033make sure that they're getting the full exposure to the content in the integrated math 2. we also want to tr I mean you know well that that's my that's my instinct in my response um but it's definitely something that we would um consider the other uh thought that occurs to me is you have mostly students coming from that course into college algebra a and so I don't know whether students who didn't take that course and came into it what type of um Dynamic that might create in terms of students preparedness okay the only reason I asked was because math integrated math too uh there is an um error to algebra b so I wasn't sure if there was you know if there would be a disconnect there like would they be at the same level
034as the kids coming in from algebra a by the end of these two courses yes before them probably not okay all right great the opportunity would still exist for students who took this course in junior year to um opt in here for those dual enrollment credits in senior Year great thank you and see one more hand up uh Dr Carol thanks I'll be quick I just want to thank you Ryan I appreciate that you're thinking outside the box and creating these new courses that you see a need for which expand opportunities for students across AP and early I'm sorry dual enrollment um as well as trying to support the students who are arriving in high school behind and give them more direct opportunities to catch up so um I I can only imagine it took
035a lot of work to rethink the sequencing and thanks for being creative thank you very much Dr Carol for those comments I want to definitely be sure to acknowledge the contributions of the members of the math department at Milton high school and their support for this plan and their open mindedness as well and again what looks like a really significant and dramatic amount of change in some cases is really more um in in the naming of the course but that's not to diminish the fact that we're we're proposing introducing some courses that don't currently exist at all and and are going to need some development in that um the fact that the the the Milton high school math department is so supportive of uh these changes and are willing to do that work in order
036to make sure we're meeting the needs of every student is a credit to them thank you so much um Ryan and when principal Cahill sent that um that page with all the colored boxes on it I was thinking boy I really want to hear what Brian Selleck has to say about this so I was really glad to hear what you had to say because it explained it um in a way that I I wasn't able to figure out on my own so it was it was uh wonderful thank you so much for walking us all through that not particularly concise but I'm glad you found it to be informative and um now I guess I'm turning it over to H all right and uh I'm gonna also I'm gonna share my screen too if I
037can do that here give me a second as you can see mine is not in color because Brian is just flashier than I am in general uh but we also don't have as many changes in English shot this year what what we have in terms of changes are all going to be at the 12th grade level as you know uh we rolled out the uh the special interest courses to replace the general English for this year and what we did was some rearranging of some things based on feedback from teachers and students in counseling uh and we added three new courses that are that are going to be offered there uh two of them are semester courses True Crime The Art of Storytelling which is going to be a more non-fiction based option for seniors
038and then exploring nature and then a third one which is going to be a full year option which is British and world literature the other thing that we did was move African-American literature which had been a semester course to a full year course and that was based on both students and the teacher saying that there was so much that they wanted to cover over that it was worth making for a full year all the other ones would be semester courses and students would pick either two of the semester ones or one of the two full year courses for uh for next year and that's the three changes that are being made in 12th grade there was one minor change if you look down at electives uh we had only a journalism one before this year
039there were a number of students who were on the school paper who were interested in expanding uh their exploration of Journalism so we wanted to do a journalism too and the before I get to the human to the humanities AP option I did want to touch base because there are some questions asked about the dual enrollment from Quincy uh it's still in the very early stages and I and I don't know what's going to happen with it but we have been talking with the Quincy College people if you look at the 11th grade course the American experience that one might qualify as a potential dual enrollment class that could be offered uh and we're actually going to be digging through the weeds to see if we can make that happen uh for next year when
040we return from the Break um so late February early March I've got a couple meetings planned uh so that is it that's in the English program that I'm sharing right there um the only other new course that is being uh offered next year is the AP African-American studies that is an interdisciplinary one it is largely in the history department but it's also in the English Department we're piloting it next year uh the the we applied to Pilot it with the College Board and they approved us it's going to be taught by a history teacher and an English teacher not both generally in the classroom at the same time but for the aspects of it that are the English literature cards it will be the English teacher doing the instruction and creating the assignments and working
041with the students and then for the history portions it'll be a history teacher that will be creating the assignments and working with the students and I'm sure that there'll be some uh combined assignments between the two teachers in there but those teachers have just started uh meeting weekly as the 234 page uh course description from the College Board just released at the beginning of this month so they're working their way through that to figure out uh what it is that we'll be doing uh with that course next year but uh that is that wraps up what I have for news so I'm happy to take any questions thank you I see member Ross Denny Hi H thank you so much for sharing this because I appreciate the options that seniors have to explore English in
042another in another way my Traditional High School just had a fourth year of English and we didn't have this many electives so I'm just glad that our students have this option and I also appreciate the fact that we applied to Pilot the African-American history course this is you know Milton is is definitely moving in the right direction I do have a question uh that was raised as I mentioned last school year about a common set of expectations or calibration and given the proliferation of courses that we have and just the expectations that students have going into college for their capacity to to write at a college level I'd love to hear your thoughts on what has been done what can be done so that there's this common set of expectations sure uh I I can
043definitely speak to that uh we're working with uh the data wise organization this year to with the main focus on the writing to try and do some of that calibration that you are talking about uh and one of the things that we're working on with them right now is a com some set of some common assessments for writing that we'd be given to students in March uh to generate some data which we could then go through and sift through that data and figure out what it is that we needed to do based on that uh so that is the main thing that we're doing right now in terms of that we're also uh looking at end of the year demonstrations of learning that are going to be consistent across all the courses in terms of
044figuring out you know what are the skills that the students are good at leaving ninth grade what are they weaker at what do we need to emphasize more going into each year so those would be the two major efforts that we're doing in that respect thank you for addressing this in such a short time I know you you're just hired this fall and you've made great progress to simple fact that datawise is is on the case and there are these efforts to look at writing across the entire grade level gives me confidence that we're moving in the right direction thank you so much for your leadership on this you're welcome thank you thank you Dr Carroll thanks I definitely agree um these new courses sound really exciting and I guess my question um I'm just
045curious about it more than anything else I less so with the math although I may have been misunderstanding the um implications of adding and sort of rearranging the core sequencing that Brian presented for these courses you're talking about including like journalism too for example each time you're adding a new elective or creating one of these new courses essentially is that just a teacher who's taking on an additional prep um because it doesn't seem like other classes are being removed right we're just adding I'm I'm in favor of it I think it's awesome and exciting I'm also a former high school English teacher so I'm kind of wondering about how that works so so we within the the journalism one was easy that's just the teacher is keep has journalism one and journalism two students in
046the classroom at the same time and it's just doing different work with them uh there was a little bit of magic that I did to open up for for more senior courses we had been offering a speech elective uh but I feel very strongly that speech should not be put off to the side as something that's extra and it needs to be emphasized much more in the regular curriculum so we're doing that uh so I I took the speech elective off the table to open up those other courses but the emphasis on speaking is is going to be just as strong if not stronger it's just not going to be only offered now to those students who take that elective it's going to definitely be covering every single Milton high school student in English classes
047all four years great thanks let's see Barbara Meyer has her hand up you're on mute Barbara sorry uh thank you I was just going to add um to H's presentation that without the typical English 4 for seniors that left the senior English teachers to teach elective classes like this so they've kind of just transitioned their planning over to their to the things they love which has been really great for the kids it's wonderful thank you very much so we've had the math in the English and the social studies if there's no questions about any of those um the final course that we'd like to propose is a new science um elective per se that the science department will work uh collaboratively with our library into more of a critical research type of based of a
048science program we started a course this year called virology um which as the feedback from students has just been amazing where they're actually doing research on diseases and viruses and presenting that back um past few years have really opened up people's minds to be thinking like that and so now um Amy Tom in conjunction with Jay Troy a librarian I'm just looking over at my computer it's science and society and basically it's a half year elective for 10th and 11th graders because we're thinking the 11th and 12th graders have all of these signed selectives but the underclassmen just to to really engage them in the science process The Selective will be the intersectionality of Science and the living experience so really not saying to the students what they have to do the research on but
049letting them find that science base that they want to do the research on and using the tools that are available to them and US empowering them to do um this type of a class where they're thinking critically developing their own abilities to think critically and problem solving collaborate so that is just an elective that we're creating also in the science department this year and again to um I think Dr Carroll to your question in regards to you know is it taking away from you know teaching and you know teaching another class at this time you know it's all based on enrollment so if students are interested we will you know look at class sizes to figure out how to make it work so again I thank everyone right now for listening to the courses that
050we'd like to propose and if there's any other questions about the program of studies um we are happy to answer them any other questions oh Dr Miranda not so much a question it's just a comment I think this presentation I've really enjoyed it and it makes me want to go back to high school and take High School all over again I can't say my high school experience was that exciting in terms of the choices of classes that I could take but I just it gives it gives me I just feel very good and very confident that definitely we're moving in the right direction just in terms of being able to challenge our students and give them choice and I think that's so important in terms of engagement right and making sure that students feel connected
051to what they're learning so thank you for this presentation I feel like I learned a lot thank you Dr Miranda yeah I have to say I feel the same way as as you Dr Miranda I mean all I can think of is wow this is just really quite quite an amazing um course offering and and you know Bravo to the high school team for for putting this together and making this available for our for our students it's just wonderful to see um if we don't have any more uh questions or comments um I'd like to make a motion to approve the 23 24 Milton high school program of studies do I hear it again a second thank you any discussion before we vote okay now we'll go to a vote uh roll call uh Dr
052Miranda yes Dr Carol yes member Vargis yes remember Russ Danny yes remember White yes and chair was marinas that's unanimous thank you so much high school team best of luck with with all of it thank you so much for supporting us we really appreciate it have a great evening me too thank you thank you so superintendent McKinney I'll pass it back to you you have some more for us yes thank you uh tonight uh we have our district updates um first as you know the Milton high school went into a lockdown today after a phone call was received by the Milton Police Department with a Potential Threat police were immediately on scene and accompanied by other area police departments Boston Quincy the State Police Department of Homeland Security canine dogs were also brought in to
053sweep the building after thoroughly investigating Milton High School the Milton police believe this was an instance of the swatting phenomenon that has been happening both locally and nationally since we had already been in discussions with the Milton police regarding what to do if this swatting were to happen in Milton we were ready to implement our emergency emergency protocol and lockdown procedures today until any threat was ruled out by the Milton police we certainly value the relationship we have with the Milton police and other local departments who are always readily available to help us in any emergency situation I'd like to extend my thanks to the Middle High School staff and students for working together to keep the building safe other updates to date we have 118 families who have completed the preschool registration form 112
054of those 118 completed by the January 26 deadline and were entered into the random electronic Lottery on January 27th for those awarded a spot preschool registration is now underway the deadlines deplete the online registration is February 22nd waitlists are being maintained for those children who are not awarded a seat in the first round of assignments in kindergarten we have 310 families who have completed the kindergarten pre-registration registration questionnaire form online registration will take place March 1st through March 15th all families who have completed the pre-registration will receive an email from our family Outreach liaison Marty O'Keefe McKenna February 28th with all the detailed steps to complete the registry registration and we're excited to welcome the class of 2036. Glover and Tucker just finished their annual read-aloud readathon combined with the two schools they read 783
055books in just two weeks we raised a ton of money to support our diverse reads book club which brings diverse authors to the schools to inspire young readers and writers also congratulations to our elementary students who completed the future problem solving qualifying bowl and are looking forward to those results and looking ahead to further upcoming events make sure you check your school's website for important events such as the Tucker Unity night on February 16th at the high school auditorium a reminder we have February break uh February 20th to the 24th there's a Milton CPAC advisory council meeting on February 28th there's also a community event on February 28th the Pierce diversity Equity inclusion committee will host a community event that's open to all parents and caregivers on February 28th at 6 30 PM into Piers
056audio Auditorium this event will offer a series of short educational and skill building workshops for parents and caregivers that will focus on promoting and supporting the academic social and emotional well-being of children and teens to the lenses of diversity equity and inclusion the workshop Workshop sessions include Dei at Pierce facilitated by Claire Callaway Jones our Dei director restorative practices by Adina Schechter our restorative and Justice coach and a hate speech lesson facilitated by a Milton public school student our next school Community is March 1st the class of 2023 will be hosting the Harlem Wizards at high school Copeland Field House on March 8th at 7 pm and coming up on March 15th the big first grade information night 6 30 in person that's tonight's updates thank you very good thank you the superintendent McKinney um
057next on our agenda is citizen speak we've set aside 15 minutes for anyone in the community who would like to share their thoughts with us we have up to three minutes per speaker and if there's anyone in our viewing audience who's on tonight who would like to speak if you could please raise your hand and we will recognize you to speak please [Music] um I think McCarthy is it yes um if Milton access could make me a co-host so I could promote or we uh recognize you can speak thank you apologies about that foreign yes hi hi thank you so much um I think I you know I know all of us as parents and all community members were really saddened um by you know what happened today in the school regardless of whether it
058was um you know a hoax or not I happen to live right um behind the high school or the high school's right behind me and I think you know the helicopters and everything else obviously it's it's unnerving for parents I'm just curious if there's going to be an effort to communicate um to the younger children not you know the middle schoolers I think with phones nowadays everyone is very much aware um of what's going on and kids talk to each other on Facebook so just wondering if there's going to be you know any sort of you know group sessions whether you know run by whomever um just to speak to our younger children and how and what the plan is and I know that this is not acute I know it's a citizen speak and
059not you know a q a but I'm just you know I'd be interested to know in future communications you know how we're planning on on speaking about this with our younger kids um and just as a parent you know with with elementary school kids you know kids talk so um just wanted to comment there as a parent very good thank you very much Colleen for your question um do we have anyone else with a hand raised not at this time okay all right um so we will move on then uh to the chairs report um and the first item under chairs report is discussion and vote on the 20 23 24 school year calendar and we've received a copy of that calendar but I'd like to refer this to um briefly if I could to
060Dr Carroll to share the outcomes of of the discussion yesterday and and if that has any um play on our approval today um so Dr Carol and I ask you to share that sure thank you um so um yes yesterday um as we had decided as a committee um about a month ago um we did have a conversation at the policy subcommittee meeting about um the calendar in regards to how we designate um specifically the holiday which is currently listed as indigenous people's day which had before 2022 been labeled as Columbus Day and you know obviously as we discussed yesterday school districts you know label that holiday those holidays differently on calendars one thing that we looked at was research about surrounding districts um in our area many of them like Milton um have indigenous
061peoples they listed uh some have Columbus Day some have both some have some other combination so we were just trying to kind of explore that topic which had really been raised um and brought to our attention by a member of the community Mr Ron chikini um he joined us by invitation yesterday as a member of the community to share his perspectives which really had raised concerns about the process through which the school committee made a decision in 2021 to switch from Columbus Day to indigenous people's day really with no discussion of that change um and so we had a really I think constructive dialogue with it was cross-posted as a full school committee meeting so thank you you to those of you who are able to join as well and we were also joined by
062Claire Galloway Jones I'm director of Dei and her perspective was very valuable as well um I really enjoyed the conversation I learned a lot I think we all engaged in some really good civil discourse with you know different perspectives perhaps um but it was positive and there are a few kind of next steps we arrived at together that I can share I think um the main thing was we came to like all of us who were present in the meeting um which I think um let's see was uh you chair Rosemary um and member Ross Denny and member of our geese and member white who are along with myself on the policy subcommittee um you know they're among those of us who were there there was unanimous acknowledgment and recognition more or less of the
063fact that our process um could needed should have been more transparent um and clearer um and we should have had the opportunity to actually discuss and consider a change like that um so I think that was an important step that we kind of had that um recognition together we also talked about some different um ways that we might go about continuing to be inclusive with our calendar and try to provide opportunities for students to learn about different cultures including as Mr chikini had raised the Italian American culture um and you know other many other cultures so member Ross Denny had reminded us that Tucker has in the past had a really great Multicultural night uh sort of Affair actually where students and families are and educators are encouraged to kind of share elements of their
064culture with the community and we all loved that idea of kind of making that a more widespread opportunity that perhaps could hopefully be available at all four of the elementary schools that was one thing that we kind of came to agreement on we also decided and committed to continuing the conversation about how we designate indigenous people's day slash Columbus Day you know on the Milton public schools calendar I think what we basically arrived at we didn't go into the meeting yesterday planning to take a vote on this topic but rather to just open up the conversation we committed to continue the conversation and to you know as we are always able to do um you know we're here to approve the calendar tonight because we understand we need to you know set the dates and
065things to allow for planning for next year um the calendar gets edited uh you know as things change in the normal course of the Year anyway so um I think we agreed that we want to continue this dialogue regarding how we discuss or name that holiday rather um in October and so a couple of ideas we have about that um Claire Galloway Jones offered to support us with planning a sort of a larger opportunity for Learning and dialogue in the community in particular to understand more kind of from a scholarly perspective including indigenous Scholars um you know that perspective was not represented in our meeting yesterday um to sort of continue learning about indigenous people's day about the history of Columbus Day and kind of the relationship between those holidays so um that is something
066that we can continue planning and sort of figuring out how to include the community in that conversation and that opportunity to learn um and then you know alongside that effort to keep that conversation going um we Mr jokini asked and you know I think we generally agreed that it's could be valuable to get community input on this as well and so that's another thing that we're going to kind of look into along with helping kind of people learn about about these holidays um and you know this is uh I think a good example of how we're all always learning and you know we're always improving um and so I I think for myself personally you know I do um agree that you know this might have been a good conversation to have like a couple
067of years ago but it's good to have it now and I'm appreciative of Mr chaquini's um you know really I think um yesterday very um thoughtful participation in the in the discussion and um I think that's a you know the way we always want to be in dialogue with our community and with each other and so I thanked all of you for participating in that and look forward to keeping the conversation going so that's just my best attempt to try and like summarize what quite honestly was a very rich um discussion and I don't know if anyone else who was there would like to add anything that you think I missed foreign I just wanted to add um Dr Carol thank you so much for uh providing that opportunity yesterday to have that dialogue I
068think it was really important for us to get input um and and look and learn actually for me personally to learn about both sides and it was very informative and um I you know I really appreciate the passion of community members um to kind of you know bring things like this to our attention because as you said we are learning and we are improving and we appreciate feedback none of us are experts we are trying to do the best and uh we want to we want to improve and we need their the communities in input to try and improve so we appreciate this and we continue to want to have open discussions with the community to make that happen because this is work that happens when we work together so thank you thank you member
069Vargas and I I share your your feelings about this I really want to thank you Dr Carol for for facilitating that conversation yesterday it was it was as they say a very rich conversation and um I appreciate um you know the direction that that we're going with this and um I think it um we agreed that um while we need to take a vote on the calendar tonight to be able to allow the school district to move forward with the planning that we make a commitment to having this continued um uh dialogue and and learning for all of us and um if it if it comes to making a decision one way or the other that that can happen um later during the year um so thank you thank you so much for doing that
070and and um you know I I was remembering back to last year when we had Dr mono abozeda who also came to the policy committee to talk about calendar issues and and that that conversation also I think it was very enriching and I think it made our calendar better and and you know I I agree as as member varghese says that we're better when we're all working together so um thank you again for that um so um if there are no further comments on that um I'd like to make a motion uh to approve the draft of the 2023-2024 school year calendar here a second please second thank you is there any further discussion hearing none we'll take a vote a member Vargis yes Dr Carol yes remember us Danny yes remember wait yes Dr
071Miranda yes and chair Rosemary yes so that is unanimous thank you can I just make sorry can I just make one comment um this wouldn't have stopped me from voting yes just now because I again I understand the need to keep moving forward but I do notice that I had previously raised the point about early dismissal um as a more positive frame instead of early release and that wasn't updated so if we could still consider updating that um that was the point that a teacher had raised to me and I agreed that that was kind of a nice idea so right we did discuss that and and um yeah I I think that would be fine if everyone else is okay with that friendly Amendment that sounds great okay um and also um we just
072need to look at revised Milton school committee calendar which um we updated um and and I believe we've been in touch with with uh you all let me just pull it up for one second we needed to revise the dates uh a little bit for some of our meetings because uh one of the previously scheduled meetings was scheduled to be on the first night of Passover um and so we we are making some small changes in the schedule and I've checked with you all um about your availability and I think we had um all six of us on one of the dates and maybe only five of us on one of the other dates I don't remember exactly how that came out but um just to be sure that the public knows um so we
073have our our meeting tonight our next meeting will be March 1st um the one after that will be March 22nd um then April 12th and April 26th um and those leading leading up to uh town meeting and of course there are other ones in May but the the ones in this period between February and um the end of April or are the ones uh concerns I appreciate everyone's flexibility in doing that being able to make those changes and um I don't know that we need to take a vote on that but um just want to be sure that the the public is aware of of or as change in schedule um let's see uh next on our agenda we have policies subcommittee report uh Dr Carol thank you so um tonight we have a first
074reading of the second batch of um sorry fiscal section D policies from masc with recommendations from Dr pavlichek Dr palacek are you able to walk the committee through the updates as you're suggesting like you did yesterday please sure um there were seven policies that we didn't get to in our first batch that we uh looked at a couple months ago and these were uh not obvious ones we had spent a little time looking at uh the first one is uh one called fiscal management goals policy d a and basically it is a uh of reworking of the old version there's one change of elimination of one bullet point in it which is redundant given uh Mass general laws so it actually uh is not a major change it's just basically a rewording so policy D.A
075I would recommend that you adopt um policy DB same thing um this is the annual budget policy uh it's been reworded there's a new section in the middle but uh very little is uh has changed in terms of the actual content I would suggest you change in the last sentence school council to School site counsel because that tends to be what that's what we call it here so um with a minor change I'd say that um dbd which is budget planning um I would recommend a sort of a combination of our existing policy in the masc version masc rewarded a good part of it but for instance our current policy has some Milton specific language in it for instance the opening few sentences uh talks about the Milton's Public School Driving uh its income primarily
076from local property taxes and various things like that which are specific to the town so although that isn't in the masc uh policy I think we should keep it they also had a couple of different bullet points in the middle and again in previous prior School committees added a couple Milton specific ones about you know affording the Apple opportunity to discuss Financial impact of new programs and develop a multi-year plan financial projections those are things that are not in the masc one they are in hours and it makes sense to keep them so um we're suggesting improve giving the budget planning one with the Milton language kept into it um the budget adoption procedures is dbg is one we don't currently have it doesn't say a lot that's new but there's no harm in adopting
077it it uh it's slightly redundant it talks a little more in depth about budget adoptions and the you know the major categories from Desi and you know the uh our ability to move things between them so um that's uh that's fine dbj um which is budget transfer Authority um is a new version of one uh of DBI which is one we have currently on budget implementation and transfer and in this case I think our current policy is more appropriate than this one is again more Milton specific more in terms of dealing with what we do so for dbj I would recommend that we in fact don't adopt the MSC one and keep our own um similarly their policy DD which is Grants proposals and special projects we have a policy already called grants or gifts
078for private sources again it's more specific more specific to Milton and again I would recommend that we keep the one we have and not replace it with the masc one and finally the purchasing one dja again it's not a policy we currently have in the book it's somewhat uh redundant to our procurement requirements policy that we adopted last time but again certainly no harm in adopting it so I would recommend adopting that so I mean that's what we're looking at for in terms of the seven remaining policies in fiscal what we can do for our next meeting is actually give you basically a a new redlined version showing uh for the ones in the uh that were combining some of our current language with some of the masc language of version that puts those together
079the ones that we're not adopting or adopting as is we don't really need that but um for those couple that are sort of amalgamations we try to put those together and more readable format um you know that sort of a track changes version so you can see what they look like thank you Dr pavlichek that sounds great so we can have that updated packet for the second reading um assuming we approve the first reading now I will I'll make a motion um and then we can open it up if anyone has questions or comments on these um so I'll make a motion to approve uh the first reading of uh with recommendations as outlined by Dr pavlichek of policy d a DB dbd dbg and d j a second actually procedurally you don't need to
080vote a first reading yeah so we don't oh okay I never remember that does anyone have any questions so the policy subcommittee uh did not bring forward dbj or DD so disregard those um it's the other ones that we have here the recommendation to either adopt as is or adopt with the recommendations that were just um summarized any questions or comments okay great so thanks again Dr pavlichek and we'll we will be able to vote on approving the second reading of the uh kind of cleaned up versions of these next time thank you to put that on the March 1st agenda then for the vote for the second meeting very good thank you Dr Carol um moving on to finance subcommittee remember wait okay so Finance met yesterday and they were uh a major discussion
081was with um Martha Sandoval who's the director of our community schools she is looking to make some changes in the way the programming for the after school program goes she currently has um in your packet you saw that she is making a proposal about vendors and she's going to bring those vendors and those classes that the vendors are running right now they're being run independently and a parent or Guardian would be paying for that separately she's going to bring that under her domain or under her umbrella and um she wants to do a pilot program for this coming year and probably the year after to see how it goes and she's um she's reporting that the cost to do that is going to be around 200 000 to 230 000 but she's able to um
082absorb most of that expense because she's got some funds available from um in from her revolving fund and so what she's proposing is a three percent increase in the tuition or fees for the um Community Schools programming for fiscal year 24. she did not have any raise uh any pro any fee uh hikes last year so this is her first one she's hoping to sort of not make the um increase in the fees you know large so that's why she's proposing a three percent now with her absorbing some of the uh majority of the cost of this new proposal and this new way of doing things um with her own um funds um you know part of this has to do with the fact that they're having you know they're having some difficulty attracting staff
083to um and they have had some openings in their um in their programming so she's hoping that this way of doing things will let her hire some of these staffs for some of the uh popular um courses that she offers and maybe give have them stay with a contract and stay within our you know our employment for a number of years uh so that's one of the reasons she's making this proposal anyone have any other comments or questions about that all right so I'm just going to go to the motion hold on one second I can um remember wait I see Dr Carroll's hand up oh Lizzy sorry I guess um since it's not a direct question about the proposal um so this may be a little bit off scope but I just wanted to
084sort of make a comment for the record and Dr McKinney since you're here to like about the after school um enrichment program which my family absolutely relies upon and absolutely loves I just wanted to sort of put up there not knowing when or how we'll come back to discuss this particular topic that I remember last year we did hear sort of feedback and confusion a little bit around the um opportunity the timing and like the process for families to be able to enroll in the program and so um can we just make an effort to maybe do a little more Outreach this spring um about making sure families know when and how you know the enrollment opens because we heard from families that were caught off guard missed the opportunity got wait listed and so
085forth um so sorry if that would off topic but just wanted to mention that on the record yeah she did report she does have a waiting list so I do know that there's more of a demand than there is availability for the program and I know I mean I you know when my son was growing up and going to Glover I relied on it as well and I know a lot of families count on it it's important so so I would like to make a motion to approve the proposed fiscal year 24 Community Schools tuition can I have a second okay so I'll do a roll call uh member of our geese yes judge Carroll yes yes okay remember Ross Denny yes Dr Miranda yes chair Rosemary yes and myself thank you um the other
086thing that we spoke about at um uh Finance yesterday was The Proposal from um a summer theater program called boxcar stage they were looking to um use um our High School auditorium for two specific summer programming this summer um one for um College age students who are interested in doing a theater production and also then another program for younger students teens to do another program um and they were they're starting this business and um they were hoping to use our facilities for free and pay for some custodial services but after some discussion and some recommendations from assistant superintendent family check we thought that it would be um fair to ask them to pay a fee for the wear and tear that happens when the facilities get used so we were proposing that they pay um
087two different tuition payments and the total would be about fifteen hundred dollars so um Dr palacek was going to go back to that um group and make that proposal to them okay and then I have two vendor warrants that I need approval on um vendor warrant number 30 dated February 9th in the amount of 213 61.56 and vendor number warrant number 31 dated 216 in the amount of five hundred and five thousand seven hundred and thirty one dollars and twelve cents can I have a second on that second thank you go to a roll call vote Dr Carroll yes remember Ross Jenny yes chair Rosemary yes Dr Miranda yes and myself yes and then the other item in finance is to um ask for emotion to allow the previously approved expenditure not to exceed eighteen
088thousand five hundred dollars that we made um for the school building committee we made this proposal around the font Bond um project and now we would we're looking to sort of um ask to have that money shifted over to use for the expenditures related to um um the study of the guile Road site so um you know I get asked um in our school building committee if we had expended any of that money already for the fontbon project and we had not so we're asking for that money for the school committee to vote for that money to be um made available um so that we could do design expenses and Engineering for the guile Road Site um does anybody have any questions about that I would just add that we did the school building committee
089did spend some money on fontbon some of that agency they did have some architectural engineering work done preliminarily not a lot but okay focused their sights more on the guile road side they'd like the ability to use the remaining the part of that major to do our technical engineering site work for Kyle Road okay so thank you for clarifying that Glenn okay so I'd like to make a motion that the school committee vote to allow up to eighteen thousand five hundred dollars to be used for the engineering and site work on the guile Road Site may I have a second okay thank you okay take a roll call vote Dutch Carroll yes chair Rosemary yes remember Ross Denny yes that's Miranda yes remember varghese yes and myself yes and that's it for finance tonight um
090the member weighed in just looking at the language of the motion and I'm just wondering if what we just approved um whether we need to have a little friendly Amendment here too because the language of this was to be used for engineering design expenses on guile Road as well as for the font Bond comment um okay um and I just want to be sure that we're covering um the expenses incurred for the font Bond project already and um and got rode with that with that motion so if that um is okay um that's fine again okay that's I'm sorry I misread it so okay that's right so should we do another vote do you think um wouldn't hurt to just do another quick okay so let me read this as written the motion is made
091to allow the previously approved expenditure of not to exceed eighteen thousand five hundred on behalf of the school building committee to be used for engineering and design expenses on guile Road as well as for the fond Bond Convent may I have a second on that second okay thank you okay another roll call vote Dr Carroll yes Jay Rosemary yes member Ross Denny yes Dr Miranda yes remember varghese yes and myself yes okay thank you for that clarification Ada thank you we all set then with Finance okay very good thank you uh let's see next on our agenda is approval of minutes uh we have two different sets of minutes to approve uh to tonight um minutes from January 23rd and minutes um from February 1st um so I'm going to just make a motion for
092them one at a time [Music] just find the there we go make a motion to approve the minutes of the January 23rd 2023 school committee meeting in the second please second thank you to uh roll call vote Dr Carroll yes member varghese yes remember us Danny yes remember White yes Dr Miranda yes and Jerry is married yes and then I may also make a motion to approve the minutes of February 1st 2023 school committee meeting I have a second please second thank you the roll call vote Dr Carroll yes remember varghese yes you were us Danny yes remember White yes Dr Miranda yes jerus Moon yes very good thank you all um so and next on our agenda is next meeting agenda items and I think we um we just talked about that we're going
093to have a second reading of uh the policies the finance fiscal policies that we just discussed um and I believe we're also having um a presentation by um uh director of Consolidated facilities um Bill Richie at our um [Music] special education uh presentation at that meeting okay is that right okay is there anything else that um needs to go on that agenda that you'll know of okay um very good so uh now I'd like to make a motion to um adjourn to Executive session uh to conduct a strategy session for negotiations collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel not to return to open session I have a second please second thank you do roll call vote Dr Carroll yes remember varghese yes remember us Denny yes and the white yes Dr Miranda yes
094and share Rosemary and yes very good so we will log off and and get on to our other link for executive session very good thank you everyone good night bye foreign