Concord School Board Monthly Meeting 5--2-22

001uh future good evening thank you all for coming uh we should have had more chairs if we didn't know we had this many people here tonight that's great uh i'm calling to order the may school board meeting the monthly school board meeting of the um of the concord school district and uh let's start off ms cannon can you call the roll please for attendance certainly mr richards here mr cotton here ms hastings here mr parker miss walsh here mr weinberg ms west here and i am here we definitely have a quorum okay thank you very much uh before we move on to approval of the agenda i just had two things that i wanted to to say on behalf of the board this past week mr harvey l smith jr passed away mr smith was

002hired by the concord school district in 1972 to become a reading and an sat prep teacher at concord high school in addition to teaching harvey coached the chs boys tennis team from 1973 to 2004 during which he compiled a 30-year record of 527 wins and 30 losses for his teams his team won 14 state championships he was awarded new hampshire coach of the year 16 times and in 1988 he was awarded the national coach of the year honor we will miss mr smith and we appreciate very much um all that he's given to the concord school district and our thoughts are with his family so i just wanted to say that on behalf of the board i have one other item i'd like to read on behalf of the board this is a letter that'll

003go out but since so many of you are here i thought i would read it this evening this is to our administrators we understand that the march ford vote on the slate of administrator contracts may have left some of you feeling unsupported and we want to take this opportunity to let you know in no uncertain terms that we do and will continue to support you as you are aware the last few years have brought many changes to the concord school district leadership as we navigate these changes we sometimes find ourselves with questions concerns or disagreements regarding decisions that need to be made we believe that our differing thoughts opinions and experiences make this board strong we are continuously asking questions thinking and rethinking studying requesting input from stakeholders to strengthen our public education system in

004concord it is to be expected that from time to time there will be bumps in the road and the march board meeting just will expose one such bump please be assured that you will have the board's full support as you finish the remainder of this year and as we move into the next school year if you have any questions or concerns don't hesitate to ask any single one of us thank you so that being said i'll move on to the remainder of the meeting um approval of the agenda does anyone have any uh changes additions to the agenda mr weinberg i would like to add a section for updates for the anti-racism advisory course uh certainly would you like that is the before or after nine it can be after that's okay all right so

0059.5 will be an update on that thank you very much [Music] um any others all right let's vote on adding that to the agenda uh mr weinberg would you like to make that a motion yeah i'll make a motion to add an update for the anti-racism advisory committee to 9.5 on the agenda okay and i will second that um motion is there any discussion [Music] all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed any abstentions that's added to the agenda thank you very much next item will be the consent agenda this agenda includes the board work session this of march 16th the special board meeting of march 30th the regular monthly meeting of april on which took place on april 4th the capitol facilities committee meeting on april 6th the finance committee meeting

006on april 11th the instructional committee on april 13th and the city and community relations committee meeting on april 18th before we move on this i have one amendment one change to make in those minutes in the finance committee minutes it says that uh i actually made the motion to adjourn i am not on the finance committee and i was sitting out there at that particular time so i believe that correctly below the motion correctly belongs to uh mr cotton who made the motion to his adjourned so if uh there are no objections i'd like to make that change uh are there any other corrections or changes to be made to the minutes yes page 26 oh no i had one but of course can i find it right now no it was referencing a board

007me uh committee meeting that um [Music] you know that jonathan weinberg was absent from but then made a motion at so i'm not sure i will look for that but i just want to put that out there for now and i will find it okay um we will prove in that case i would make a motion to provisionally accept the consent agenda pending uh that particular correction um second seconded by ms walsh is there any further discussion [Music] that's okay that's something we can make a pretty quick change to in that case um uh is i guess do we have a motion to accept the consent agenda i'll make a motion to concept the questions sorry i was just confused no that's okay in that case then um without any further discussion all those in

008favor um of the motion please signify by saying aye aye any opposed any abstentions all right the consent agenda is approved um at this point superintendent i believe we want to recognize our distinguished educators yes we do this is a special evening as you all know and um we have a a great audience with us tonight to recognize some outstanding educators and this this uh we'll begin with uh our principals who will introduce and uh share a little bit of their uh thoughts regarding uh those distinguished educators so i'm to start with um the elementary schools first if if that's okay and if katie scapardi from millbrook would join us that would be great [Music] this year we would like to nominate heather hunt for her outstanding service and commitment to students family and staff

009during one of the most difficult times in educational history heather has worked as a special educator in concord for over a decade and has always had a solid reputation as a colleague and professional however these past two years she has truly risen above and beyond to meet the needs of a very at risk population as well as to encourage and reassure over a dozen support staff on her team beginning in the spring of 2020 with the move to remote learning and carrying all the way through this school year heather has risen to the challenge of finding a way to make learning meaningful despite the obstacles we have faced heather volunteered to work through the summer program even while balancing the needs of her family at home so that her students would be able to maintain

010connection and consistency after the sudden school closure throughout the summer heather created programming and delivered custom materials to the doorstep of each of her students then as we transitioned back to school heather agreed to take on a new caseload of students within with intensive needs due to the need to follow code covid protocols heather's team became a pod with a very tight-knit group of staff and students in this role she became a team leader collaborator coach mentor parent liaison and crisis manager she single-handedly coordinated the schedules for her students and their support staff as well as collaborated with district specialists private providers and teachers in order to create student-specific programming for each student on her caseload [Music] even when she and her family were dealing with covid themselves she continued to be a supportive and

011guiding force for her team she became the reassuring presence for everyone connected to her pod and because of it her students continue to make progress even in the face of uncertainty one example of heather going above and beyond during these two years of uncertainty was organizing a holiday caravan to the home of each student in her pod staff deliver gifts treats and sang carols to families every day in her pot is an adventure and she works to keep staff morale high through consistent communication support problem solving endless supplies of chocolate and even an occasional dance party when her team was asked for any contributions to this nomination the response was overwhelming here are a few things her colleagues have to say heather is one of those teachers that makes a tough job look easy heather

012always approach situations and lessons with calmness kindness patience and enthusiasm she is encouraging thoughtful an amazing listener and problem solver she always has a strategy or idea to try but she is also willing to listen to other suggestions heather always has a positive attitude is quick to lend a helping hand and offer advice it is a great feeling when your leader makes the environment a fun place to be heather is supporting kind hard-working friendly and thoughtful she is the person by your side in good times and hard times she knows how to support you to give you the confidence in doing your job she is always looking for ways to build stronger and positive relationships with the families of our students i think what makes heather special is that she never looks for applause or

013credit she just does her job with grace benevolence hard work and thoughtfulness putting others first every day we enthusiastically recommend heather for this recognition [Music] so if we could um ask sue losey to come up principal at broken ground [Music] real world problem broken ground has 63 full-time staff plus seven part-time staff but only one teacher who dreams about math instruction at night plus regularly updates math fact fluency graphs for students and teachers plus plans interventions and enrichment math activities for all grades plus models lessons in classes plus facilitates meaningful collaborative dialogues about math instruction with teachers plus never stops thinking about ways to reach the diversity of learners at broken ground school equals who broken ground students staff and parents without much contemplation or any calculation are quick to respond mrs sarah oliveira going

014back to march of 2020 sarah a long-time third grade teacher at broken ground was suggested for this honor but then coveted 19 hit and put these awards on hold fast forward two years and it's my honor to introduce sarah this year as our distinguished educator she currently holds the position of math coach in our school sarah is an amazing and creative educator who inspires her students to do their best each and every day for several years she collaborated with a grade 3 colleague in a departmental structure to allow her more time and flexibility in teaching math to third grade students this time allowed sarah the opportunity to further hone her math instructional approach using data and providing differentiated instruction sarah's approach to instruction is to engage students curiosity by setting purpose for learning and using

015math in their lives for example as students in her class were learning about area and perimeter as well as practicing their problem solving skills she gave them the task of designing a school garden and then presenting the plans to the school principal me which would include not only dimensions of the proposed garden but also a list of necessary supplies and a budget these students were focused thoughtful and extremely passionate about wanting that garden as they shared their mathematical details as the class moved to learning more about fractions she gave them the challenge of following recipes for class snacks as well as for making slime using their knowledge of equivalent fractions in her math coaching role this year sarah has continued to model her enthusiasm for math instruction as well as to suggest ways to create

016engaging and effective lessons for all as a staff member sarah is soft-spoken but a reflective leader who has been an outstanding mentor for our new teachers her colleagues value her opinions and are in awe of her skills and dedication to every student she currently serves in the broken ground leadership team and has been a valued member of the math coaching team that began this fall in addition she was an active member of the pace committees when authentic assessments which targeted key competencies were developed piloted and implemented across the district her contributions on these projects have been outstanding and have proved to be innovative opportunities that have developed effectiveness for teachers sarah also makes positive relationships with parents and guardians to strengthen the homeschool connection this fall she set up tables in the hallways and was

017available to meet with all parents during open house and parent-teacher conferences her goal was to share individual student data for the entire school with the families about students math fact fluency and to offer practical suggestions and ideas for home support sarah is warm caring compassionate and establishing positive relationships with families even during remote teaching last year sarah made it a point to offer online and in-person ways to meet with parents and guardians finally sarah has gone above and beyond in her teaching every year she's volunteered to offer after-school math tutoring for students and supported students extracurricular activities broken ground school and the concord school district have indeed been blessed by the many contributions the passionate teaching and leadership provided by sarah oliveira and we're proud to recognize her as our distinguished educator [Music] uh this

018evening unfortunately our distinguished educator from viva meadow school was not able to be with us actually he's out coaching tennis this evening so i'm going to ask the principal michelle vance to come up because she does have some words about another educator in her building that uh will uh soon be uh receiving i believe a lot of kudos so i'm gonna pass it over to you michelle thank you [Music] thank you for letting us uh next month recognize kevin parsons rpe teacher at beaver meadow school as our distinguished educator for this year but in my hand i have a little snippet of another educator at beaver medical school who has been nominated for teacher of the year for 2023 and i'm only reading a little piece of it to highlight just some of the wonderful

019amazing things and why this educator has been nominated for teacher of the year for 2023. dr barbara o'brien lean is a master teacher who is being nominated for the 2023 teacher of the year for her passion her commitment and her courage as a school we recognize that our students needs in a certain cohort required us to think outside of the box to support their social emotional and academic growth the cohort's needs were immense and required collaboration between special education and second grade level competencies barbara and colleague volunteered to take on the challenges of creating a personalized learning environment for some of our most marginalized students barbara optimizes the idea of the least restricted environment all of the students who have individual education plans are serviced in her classroom all of the time this is a

020rare model that requires uncommon expertise and its proliferation will change the face of special education as we currently know it her academic acumen boasted by her evidence-based practice is reflected in her wealth curated social emotional space that affords our students an optimal learning environment her classroom climate and excuse me her classroom climate and culture that she has created is inspiring i've used the word magical many times when i got in there she has humanized her classroom and has given her students the freedom to find themselves she must be able to share what she has done with her class with other educators we can all learn from her devotion her dedication her courage and her passion this is one of the reasons why we have proudly at beaver medical school nominated dr brian lane for the

0212023 teacher of the year thank you for letting me share just so you know that award or that nomination is part of a statewide teacher of the year program that the new hampshire department of ed runs every every year so there will be a process uh it's it's a long process with a lot of interviews and presentations so uh you'll i'm sure you'll hear more about it but michelle wanted to share that with you tonight um next we have anthony blinn a principal is his anthony did not make it yet he didn't okay laura beth is going to present the award for abbott downing [Music] i have the honor this evening to introduce you to patricia morrell better known as pat who has been a speech and language pathologist in the concord school district for

022almost 36 years she is regarded as a leader not only by her speech and language colleagues but also by the teams of educators she has worked with she is knowledgeable of best practices in speech and language and uses this knowledge to guide teams in creating appropriate interventions and plans for students pat has been a part of various teams in the district most recently she has been a member of the ads universal team pat has also been a member of our child study teams and special education management teams her knowledge has supported students who require tier two interventions pat will often welcome a student to a group if there is a need for intervention or offer to complete a screener to help guide teachers instruction pat is a true team player pat has also facilitated various

023strands for her colleagues her passion for speech and language is shown in everything that she does she is the go-to person for questions related to special education paperwork medicaid and speech and language assessments if you need information from pat she either remembers it or can pull it from a file in her office immediately she has been able to create lasting trusting relationships with families pat never hesitates to go above and beyond to support families in implementing speech and language strategies at home she provides lessons activities and language to to support families of students who require therapy services she is a constant for some of our families having had current parents as students seeing the parents success and now their children's success is a testament to pat's skills as a speech and language pathologist recently during

024our earth day at abbott downing school a former student who now works for the new hampshire department of environmental services [Music] worked with ads kids to teach migration pat took time to find a note and set of pictures she saved for over 20 years to bring out and show to the ads graduate pat is a strong academic leader she has been a mentor to me and so many of her colleagues she is involved in the lives of students and makes lasting connections with students families and staff she has a wealth of knowledge and experience and shares this with others to best support our students pat morrell is truly a distinguished educator [Music] she's gonna stop [Music] and our fifth principal uh chris gallo this year is to bring the distinguished educator award from christa mcauliffe

025[Music] how are you [Music] hi amelia come on over [Music] so thank you to christine's entire family for coming including mom and thank you to all of the kindergarten and former students who showed up to support this holiday sage back there is a big sign thank you yeah yeah miss holidays right intelligent diligent compassionate altruistic courageous and sincere these attributes only begin to describe christa mcauliffe's amazing distinguished educator christine holliday rowe and her commitment to the success of our school and community our school community and culture christine's day at cms begins well before 7 a.m with making copies setting up her classroom and checking in with colleagues she is meticulously planned eagerly awaiting the arrival of her students her plans don't simply include a schedule of the day's lessons she creates a map of each

026week's events and activities including all students goals and lessons as well as their specific services and interventions support staff look forward to working in christine's room because all materials are prepped and her plans are easy to decipher at a glance and provide essential information about students objectives it is truly a magical experience to observe christine in her classroom she beautifully balances play-based programming with effective instruction she provides a brief whole class mini lesson to introduce the day's math or literacy topic and students are then introduced to all available choices including follow-up activities and play centers her kindergarten students place their whiteboard magnet on one of several choices to indicate where they will be focusing their time and throughout this instructional block christine rotates all students through small group work with her to teach and re-teach

027concepts at the appropriate skill level for each group she collects data on each student's successes and uses this information to follow up with them again later that day and to plan future instruction christine is a model for effective data-driven instruction on a daily basis additionally her students learn in a fun way with opportunities for self-expression and creative play a wife and a mom of two small children christine is a very busy person yet she finds the time to support everyone around her including students staff and families when the pandemic hit us in march 2020 christine had just given birth to her son who can be seen running around but she made time to check in frequently with her substitute teacher and all the students in her class when the following school year started our district

028began in a remote learning model for six weeks that did not stop christine from interacting with her new students and families in person she held reading times and activities at the local park during after school hours so that everyone could connect and form a classroom community [Music] christine knows her families well and develops strong relationships with them every day she provides opportunities for students to take pictures of their work and their creations and send them to their families what a wonderful gift for a parent to have to view to have a view into their young child school day christine is also known for dropping off belongings at students houses if they've forgotten an essential item and she's cognizant of families who need assistance dropping off food supplies and gift cards to families who need a

029boost of support and love christine's colleagues describe her as creative fun collaborative and selfless she checks in with all teachers who interact with her students throughout the school day ensuring that they understand her students needs and goals she also enjoys supporting her colleagues whenever she can christine stops at the store to surprise another teacher with materials they've been searching for she finds and gives books to colleagues who need copies and she shares her lesson plans and creative projects so that other students can benefit from her work and i personally look forward to our conversations when she has a few moments to pop in and share a funny story with me [Music] parents and students love christine and were excited to offer their thoughts about their kindergarten teacher students in her class shared with me why

030they adore her she sets up field trips [Music] when we pass a level in zurin or alexia we get to go into the prize box she makes really good rules that one came from alice i think yeah it was i love her name and her hair we get snacks before lunch she gives us cookies sometimes she's nice fun and crazy and she's the greatest teacher in the world she helps me to read and learn my numbers she gives us surprises and new centers she's so kind to me and the rest of my class you're doing good [Music] parents also shared some thoughts one mom shared that her son had been very nervous about starting kindergarten then one day he needs to stay home sick from school this upset him very much and he cried because

031he loved school and miss holiday so he dictated the entire day's schedule to his mom listing off 22 steps that he would need to do at home his mom was incredibly appreciative of the structure and rhythm of the day that has greatly benefited him and a nervous mom of a kindergartner at the start of the year who has medical behavioral and developmental concerns met with christine at kindergarten information night and then she felt immediately at ease and after only a few weeks her son shared that he loved going to school kristen christine brings fun into the classroom from strapping on her roller skates for a school spirit day which you've done more than once to teaching children about growing seeds using paper towels plastic baggies and a window outside of school she's also so kind

032to her current and past students and engages them in friendly conversation to let them know how happy she is to see them this is the job that christine has worked toward her whole life she has always wanted to be a kindergarten teacher and she's living that dream through insurmountable personal challenges christine continues to come to work every day with a bright smile and a positive attitude she gives her students every bit of her heart and soul she is the most amazing person i have ever had the pleasure to work with and i continue to learn life lessons from her every day christa mcauliffe school is immensely proud of our distinguished educator christine holladayra thank you [Music] so um next uh in going to our middle school our principal paulette fitzgerald [Music] that's a tough act

033to follow [Music] okay when we were thinking about who to nominate from runlitz we were thinking about the art and science of teaching and that the science part is all about the book learning the pedagogy the classroom management understanding curriculum lesson design it's all really important and essential to becoming a good and eventually excellent teacher then there's the art side the art of teaching that to me is what makes a good teacher a great teacher the art of teaching encompasses the skills that are hard to quantify the ability to develop good relationships with students and colleagues a growth mindset always looking to improve leadership skills challenging yourself going outside of your comfort zone kindness vulnerability so the two nominees from rungwood middle school are both examples of educators who are skilled at both the art

034and the science of teaching they both care deeply about students learning families colleagues they have both pushed themselves to do better improve step up and make a difference so we'll start with carolyn o'connor [Music] yes we have two [Music] carolyn this nominee from redlit middle school is a mother of three who has strong ties to our city and i got some of this information from her husband who is also at the middle school so i'm hoping it's accurate um she has strong ties to her city carolyn graduated from concord high school class of 98. she then went on to earn a bachelor's degree in english from the university of new hampshire she then went to st michaels and in 2004 earned her teaching in special education certification how do you do so far all right

035carolyn's first teaching job was in hillsborough new hampshire and evidently i think the pullback to concord was strong and she started working as a special education teacher at beaver meadow in 2006 then in 2012 she made the great decision to join run lit currently carolyn is a special education teacher at rms she teaches reading to students who are struggling to read she's teaching lessons each day to students who probably would prefer to avoid the subject they don't want to be in a classroom where they are confronted with their disability or do they here are some things about carolyn that are important to know and the qualities and characteristics that make her worthy of this award her colleagues and her students say carolyn is an unrelenting advocate for all students she will do anything to help

036them succeed she has deep knowledge in regard to teaching reading and helping struggling learners she finds deep satisfaction in watching those that struggle develop the skills to be independent readers she forms great connections with her students reluctant readers are actually excited to go and work with carolyn which is a testament to the relationships she builds and her teaching ability carolyn inspires students and makes them believe they can succeed hard to do with middle schoolers she creates an environment where it is safe to be vulnerable and take risks she finds creative ways to remove barriers to learning for her students she has incredible scheduling and planning skills that came from brendan carolyn is a consummate professional and continually dedicated to new learning and the development of her skills and knowledge carolyn embodies the norms of collaboration

037helping teams she's on to become highly functioning carolyn was a member of our initial leadership team in 2019 2020 and became a member of the current building leadership team this past year it is on these teams that carolyn has broadened the scope of her influence to include not just students but colleagues it is in this setting that carolyn has begun to really support her colleagues in their understanding of student behavior accessible learning for all students competency-based teaching learning and assessment she is a behind-the-scenes kind of influencer always sharing a strategy or an i wonder with the team she was always willing to step up and put together a slide deck that the leadership team can use with their teams or a lesson that may be used school-wide for an advisory lesson complete with middle school

038emojis that will grab their attention carolyn's quiet steady perseverance to do what is right for all kids along with her gentle presence make her a key member of the rms faculty [Music] i don't know if i should say this but i will and finally her husband brendan told me that she loves her dogs phoenix and joey coffee her children and sometimes him and he's pretty sure that's the correct order and on a serious note thank you carolyn for all you do for the students and staff so and melissa hutkins [Music] i also got a little help from your husband too melissa hawkins mother of three twin daughters and the son melissa originally came from springfield mass and she attended and graduated from unh in 2003 with a master's degree in secondary education and she started

039her teaching career at rumblet in 2003. melissa has taught 7th and 8th grade language arts she's been a member of the language arts committee student council advisor and a member of the pace team currently she teaches language arts to seventh graders at rms seventh graders this means that she attempts to teach reading and writing skills to students with a wide range of abilities in each class this is no easy task imagine teaching a class that includes students on a 10th grade reading level and students on a fourth grade reading level melissa gets to know each student individually and has the ability to personalize their learning in a warm welcoming safe environment here are some things about melissa that are important to know and the qualities and characteristics that make her worthy of this award her

040colleagues and her students say melissa is always willing to meet any student where they are academically or behaviorally and support them with a calm consistent and welcoming demeanor she never hesitates when extra support is needed for students or when a student's needs change and they end up in her classroom [Music] melissa is the quote calm within the middle school storm end quote and she models this each and every day she's always organized and prepared she's always able to adapt and is flexible when it comes to meeting the needs of her students students feel heard and understood when they have melissa for a teacher melissa has been called the cluster mom and supports her cluster colleagues in any manner necessary colleagues feel they could call melissa anytime and she would come and help no questions asked

041melissa has become a leader both on her cluster and on the seventh grade team she she too is a consummate professional and committed to her own learning and supporting colleagues with theirs melissa is very simply kind she doesn't engage in drama or gossip she is kind melissa is the quiet one who takes everything in and thinks things through thoroughly so when she speaks we know we should listen her words are wise thoughtful and insightful melissa seems to prefer being behind the scenes working never in the limelight so this past year she has stepped out of her comfort zone and joined our building leadership team in this capacity melissa has become a true change agent she has helped develop our building vision and the path to get to that ideal state she possesses the kind of

042leadership and professionalism inside the classroom in the hallways in each meeting she attends that helps make render middle school a better place thank you melissa for all you do for the students and staff [Music] and to finish with our high school students michael rieden our principal [Music] we actually have um don't panic five [Music] uh recipients but uh two of them were nominated last year so we wanted to include them tonight and the first is judy batchelder hey [Music] it is with great oh i should also say that tim herbert oversees the math department wrote judy's letter it is with great pleasure that i advocate that judy batchelor be considered for the distinguished educator award judy has taught math at concord high school for 25 years she prides herself on being able to reach students

043at all levels of performance she has taught advanced placement calculus for 10 years she has taken a rigorous course of study and has transformed it into a meaningful experience for students for example she engages them in learning by drawing connections between the curriculum and the students lived experience all while maintaining the high academic level of advanced placement classes judy is committed to the philosophy that all students can learn she has worked as an interventionist as a flex teacher and assisted in competency recovery which speaks to her ability to connect with students who are struggling often these students arrive to mrs batchelder not believing in themselves or in their ability to learn math judy's approach of meeting students at their performance level and celebrating their growth has been essential to the students success over the past

044year the challenges of remote and hybrid learning were felt by all teachers judy shined with her ability to adapt to the situation especially as an early adapter i'll probably adapt it a bit too an early adopter of new technology to enrich the educational experience for both in-person and online students she continues to embrace the role of a lifelong learner judy has served in leadership positions during pivotal during pivotal transitions when concord high school began the transition to college-based learning judy was a curriculum facil facilitator for the math department she was instrumental in the early stages of curriculum mapping identifying a scope and sequence for courses [Music] and developing competencies for each course in addition she has worked on collaborative teams to align curriculum and continues the department's work toward a holistic commc based system she

045has been active at both the school and district level to vertically align the math curriculum with sending schools since then judy has taken on the role of building representative for the cea judy has been an instrumental team player in developing and implementing plans to maintain the safety of teachers and staff during the pandemic in closing judy has been a committed educator to the concord high school community for over 25 years she has made a profound difference in the lives of so many graduates and current students is because of a special gift to reach all students and help them develop a passion for math that i recommend judy bachelder be considered for the distinguished educator award [Music] christian woody [Music] we're just going to continue going through the math department this was also written by tim

046it is with great pleasure that i recommend kirsten woody for the distinguished educator award christian has been employed at concord high school for the past five years where she has taught a broad scope of math courses kirsten prides herself on being able to reach every student and instilling a belief that they can be successful in math kirsten kersten has taught exp math classes over the past two years the purpose of this class is to support students who are struggling with algebra one curriculum she currently co-teaches a class with a special educator and has experienced much success the key to which is her approach kirsten meets students at their level of understanding rather than pushing through the curriculum she takes the time to guide her students through essential concepts and tracks their growth kirsten also works

047with students in advanced math classes she currently teaches pre-calculus 2 in advanced geometry she has sought out professional development to implement research-based instructional practices and has transformed a traditional approach to complex math concepts into meaningful experience breaking down essential concepts and teaching them in multiple ways for students the instructional approach has led to great success success despite the challenging curriculum students are achieving at a high level throughout kirsten's classes kirsten has really shined as an educator to underpin during the pandemic she worked tirelessly to engage the students in learning was understanding of their social and emotional needs and built supports into the classroom experience she has structured the class with an opening activity to evaluate uh how students were emotionally that day and to establish a sense of belonging within the class community the established

048time for social emotional well-being has directly contributed to improved student attendance voice and academic outcomes kirsten works hard to provide our students with choice to have a say in in the instructional approaches that work for them it shouldn't take me over five minutes to turn [Music] from a pretty calculus 2 course to the advanced thank you christian of course to the advanced geometry uh kirsten teaches the major concepts while using an individualized approach to ensure all students experience growth and success in math she is by any measure a distinguished educator congratulations [Music] i think we've got uh some of my colleagues to present with her [Music] thanks mike [Music] tommy back there i don't want to trouble you [Music] so everybody my name is steve rothenberg i'm the principal of the crtc and we're here

049tonight to honor tom mongavin it's great pride that we recognize crtc's graphic design and creative media teacher tom mongavin as one of the 2021 congress school district distinguished educators tom took over the program after a student-led mid-year search in 2009 in the winter in addition to cic crgc tom is also a professional graphic designer running his own business for 25 years as well as a college adjunct professor he's also presently pursuing his doctorate in the time at crtc tom has built an incredible program that is wide and deep in terms of serving students to prepare them both college and career in may 2020 i received an unsolicited note from zach stith a 2008 complete of the graphic design program he was attending the university of the arts at the university of pennsylvania and he said

050i know how much you love to brag about the crtc for good reason that's so true so i just wanted to share something i'm realizing now looking back at the past few years i certainly love my university university of pennsylvania by the way i have no regrets choosing it however i still believe tom mcgovern's graphics class provided me with more skills and more valuable critiques than art school has at this point you should be immensely proud of the crtc uh though i can only really speak about the graphics program everybody puts me in line although we've not done a large scale formal alumni surveys zach's method message is one we regularly hear from students who have completed tom's class tom fully embraces the crc focus of college readiness and career readiness tom's classes which are

051built on students learning through authentic industry projects that push them out of their comfort zone to expand their design and technical skills as an example tom's level 2 class has been the sort of design firm for many actual clients including the new hampshire department of transportation where students design where students designs become actual posters and logos used statewide students also earn adobe adobe certificates adobe associate certificates which are recognized worldwide tom continues to build strong ties to industry and post secondary he has an active advisory program that works to provide students a number of internships and job shadows addition students in his class earn 12 college credits during their tenure production skills are valid using the program's commercial grade t-shirt digital t-shirt making and embroidery machines students seeing their designs in actual settings add to

052the importance that quality of design really matters the cornerstones of tom's class is the very elaborate peer critique process every student participates in on a regular basis the culture in tom's class is to push students to expand their ability to be technically critical of their own as well as the work of their peers students who once were threatened by critical feedback now see as a matter of normal healthy business this process enhances tom's growth mindset focused classroom to mirror and he focuses the classroom to mirror industry the deep connection to growth extends into the covert window and i just want we wrote this in 2021 this is a great story tom was relentless to keep in touch with all of his students he stuck to a creed that to be sure every student was accounted

053for anne marie de pasquale ell social worker at concord high wrote of tom in may 2020 you've done a great job of connecting with your most vulnerable students the ell students that are in your program talk about how you have gone above and beyond to help them case in point pascal he's working on getting his portfolio ready to send to colleges did not have the proper materials you spent countless hours helping him use what he had to submit to colleges another student regis is completely overwhelmed by having to stay home and work independently you have taken the time to reach him in ways that no other teacher has to keep him motivated cover is an extreme example but this is what tom has been doing for all crt students of all abilities tom has opened

054his door to so many to so many to help with design needs across the entire district he rarely say no to any project finally tom is a beloved colleague his humor and sarcasm specifically about me i'm sorry but specifically his son smiley ribbing is legendary a group of crc teachers eat lunch in his room every day and the banter that takes place is always memorable on a wider level tom is also a legend in new hampshire for years he ran the annual new hampshire drum festival which is followed and attended by thousands of people statewide he's also written books about his interviews with international heavy metal music stars tom's interests in our making a living in a creative field is a model for his students they appreciate the energy and authenticity he provides that he

055brings to the classroom both as a teacher and as a person for this and much more we honor tom as a 2021 distinguished educator [Music] hi everybody like to welcome kristin houghton up kristen hoden has been a valued member of the english department at chs since september of 2007. kristen came to concord high school from the publishing world looking for a career transition that would use her love of reading and writing to inspire students instead of using her passions to edit textbooks for large educational publication companies she would have to choose an alternative path towards certification and what is particularly noteworthy is she was hired days like two before she stepped into the classroom as a teacher for the first time at concord high school she had applied earlier in the spring but given her

056lack of certification it was not until we had a last minute position become available that we called her back in august and asked if she was still interested in teaching english at chs her transition to the world of education was immediately natural she worked tirelessly on lesson planning curriculum development and becoming a part of the greater school community and in short order kristen has become a favorite teacher and colleague at chs what distinguishes kristen from her peers is not only her natural talent in the classroom with her students but her commitment to the entire school community kristin has taught almost every course in the english department her affinity for all things dickens and austin is contagious when she is teaching british literature and she quickly becomes the student favorite for all english 9 students due

057to her warm demeanor and her enthusiasm for the challenging transition to high school she makes every awkward moment for a 9th grader feel natural and accepted easing a very difficult transition most recently kristen has been our sole teacher for advanced placement literature providing some of our most talented readers and writers with a year-long course analyzing some of the most difficult literature drama and poetry that is experienced at the secondary level and yet kristin creates an environment that is rigorous but not stressful so many of our ap students report feeling stressed and overwhelmed by an ap course what distinguishing distinguishes kristen from her colleagues is her ability to challenge students without creating a stressful or overwhelming environment kristen has also been known to leave short ap quizzes handouts and poems on the deaths of former former

058english teachers turned administrators like myself and challenging us to engage and connect with our talented students fortunately she goes easy on us when we turn in our work and we aren't able to identify anaphora or light oats within the passage it's important to share that in addition some of our most challenging students also report mrs houghton has helped them write essays present speeches and create short films sometimes for the first time finding it difficult to engage with prior teachers she makes all students feel accomplished and productive just last week when observing her classroom four students sitting in the front of her career communications class were able to share that it was the first time they had completed an annotated bibliography even though they had been assigned this task in other english classes students feel they

059can do it all with mrs houghton's teaching and supportant the pride coming from these students was palpable kristin is now serving as our english reading and ell department curriculum facilitator the job of a curriculum facilitator is diverse and unique kristin not only works with teachers to purchase materials develop curriculum and oversee student placement courses she also serves as a mentor and advisor to all of the teachers she works with her approach as a teacher leader makes her the natural go-to for all teachers when problems both professional and personal arise due to her open-minded non-judgmental listening style she embraces her role to guide and support never leading with a heavy hand she makes the work of the teachers lighter due to her ability to facilitate and communicate needs to administrators kristen's commitment to the greater concord

060high school community also sets her apart from her colleagues kristen has been a member of or led numerous clubs and committees through the years always putting her students and colleagues needs in front of her own for the benefit of the community she is a part of most recently she is advising our crimson care closet a food toiletry and clothing closet for students she chaperones field trips and dances she dresses in ridiculous costumes to play in student volleyball tournaments and she does just as much for her colleagues she has been an active leader in our staff social committee organizing holiday gatherings and retirement celebrations to ensure staff camaraderie and positive morale she even dressed in a lovely yellow sundress kissed a live pig in front of the entire chs student body in the gym during a

061pep rally for a student fundraiser the concord high school community is a better friendlier and stronger place because we have kristin houghton teaching and leading congratulations to kristen houghton for being a 2022 distinguished educator so [Music] hello this is sarah hans what is one definition of the word expectation is a belief that someone will or should achieve something what is one example of that word in a sentence students had high expectations for their future who is someone that exemplifies this in their day-to-day work sarah hans whether it's expectations of her students expectations of her colleagues or expectations of leadership sarah holds us all to a standard to be better than we may think we can be sarah has achieved success as a special teacher in the prep program at concord high school and more recently

062is the job developer internship coordinator and i think it goes on and on for the special education department for the years prior to the school year sarah's focus was to support our special ed teachers in developing resources activities and lessons largely focused on transition this focus on transition begins when our students arrive from the middle school sarah recognizes how quickly time passes from being a freshman in high school to walking across the stage towards adulthood she understands the importance of a strengths-based approach and encouraging students to become their best advocates additionally sarah has provided our special ed teachers with support and guidance in doing the same sarah has made great connections with community members state agencies and professional learning communities to build positive working relationships which have provided students with internships and employment these opportunities

063have given our students purpose and the ability to make the connections between school and their success in the future sarah works with our support staff who assist students at the various work sites and provides guidance for any concerns that may arise sarah also sets up visits to various colleges and businesses which have given students insight into post-high school possibilities for school year 2021 2022 sarah took on a challenge to create curriculum and a structure to prepare students for their transitions to adulthood after a difficult two years of being educated during a pandemic sarah took this on with limited planning and resources she had a vision and worked diligently with her team to make it happen sarah put together a proposal for direct instruction in topics such as work safety disability awareness mental health needs career

064exploration transportation money management internships and fitness she provided an outline of a structure for how the lessons would be taught and what the expectations for staff and students would be sarah and her team achieved more than was thought possible given the many obstacles that we have faced they were successful in planning lessons that were relevant and necessary for students goals towards their future they were able to assist students in person-centered planning they scheduled many community-based events and activities relevant to student interests students were taught how to work as a team to accomplish goals and they were connected to commute new community agencies that will be their supports post-concord high school sarah had a team to assist in this accomplishment but she has been an integral in laying the groundwork when sarah provided a summary of

065her work this year the very next page included what she thinks should be in place for next year what will we need for resources and what our support staff should be once again sarah is thinking ahead with what is in the best interest of the students and the staff to ensure success these expectations that sarah has for everyone hold us all accountable and guide us to be a true exemplar of what iep transition services should be we are proud of the work that has been accomplished thus far and are excited for what's ahead i need to tell you this but word has gotten around i was walking through commons a today and just jordan said the press was there to see me and i thought okay so i walked in a little nervous and there

066were two students from the journalism class and they wanted to know more about this transition to adulthood program and our plant sales and popcorn sales so i told them all about it and they were really excited to learn more so it is with great honor and respect that we nominate sarah hans for the 2022 distinguished educator award thank you sarah for all that you give to the students of the concord school district well i'm i'm a little awestruck right now um first i'd just like to thank all the distinguished educators tonight for celebrating your accomplishments with us we very much appreciate it congratulations but mostly thank you thank you for all that you've done and you continue to do for our students it makes a huge difference we see it every day um and i

067just appreciate the fact that you came here tonight is there anything else superintendent uh not with this part of the program well i think that we would let before we let these folks leave and celebrate with their families if we would so i think i'll call for oh yeah sorry go right ahead since barb's not here i'll do the anecdote okay um when i was in ap calc with miss batchelder and had both of my thumbs broken uh she was kind enough to fill out the test for me well i was like orally saying it so that was i think one example of how exceptional uh miss patch elder and this entire slate of teachers are going above and beyond to make sure students can succeed thank you mr weinberg that's uh and i'm sure

068you know that's just absolutely exemplary i know quite a few of these folks and they're really pretty amazing um any other board members would like to say anything [Music] congratulations congratulations and thank you so much we appreciate it and we're in a recess for five minutes thank you very much soccer broke it up yeah that's what i figured okay i'm sorry oh yeah anyways i'm sorry okay all the questions oh um so jonathan has questions all right call us back into order um we are now at item number five superintendent you're not gonna catch me listen i'm not even gonna look at you i'm gonna go straight to finn and ask mr brown if he would be uh so kind as to give us the report from the uh to high school all right well

069tough act to follow every time good evening everyone this past month was pretty busy at chs we had the um the gap german exchange students there from vegberg germany and they gave us presentations on culture german culture all month and they taught us about their life their language their food everything and not only that but a lot of people made a lot of lifelong friendships and it was a really important really powerful experience and then they left before vacation but we'll be traveling to their school this summer and uh this week and next week there's going to be ap exams for students who choose to take them and there's going to be some final assessments for a lot of classes before we wrap up the year and we're also making some pro me and janine

070and i are making some progress on the tree project we've begun some fundraising and uh by reaching out to a lot of leaders and organizations in the community and there's some people who are interested so we're making progress on that news from today yeah very good congratulations nice job thank you mr brown is there anything else appreciate your your updates and uh it sounds like your exchange program um was really exciting and i was yeah i look forward to hearing more about it from the summer very good so now superintendent i will go to your research once again if people want to donate and support the tree um project how can they do that then um we send out flyers to a lot of people and all that but i guess they could they could

071get in contact with us if or if they weren't one of those people but yeah we yeah awesome and how could people access that fund if they don't know if they haven't seen these sheets for example uh so on the website perhaps could we add it to the the board um or not the district web page yeah that's something perfect so we could find out awesome very good thank you mr weinberg superintendent if you can coordinate that with our technical folks i just was writing that down but you know the other point is this was totally student-led this they did this on their own uh they went out and sought some grant money uh the charitable foundation was the group that gave them 500 those are for trees to be planted at the high school

072so um kudos to our students you know they always take action and um uh like i just found out today that they had received that grant so congratulations great job and uh beautify our high school grounds so it's nice my my presentation is pretty short as you know we're just back from our week's vacation and everyone was anxious and excited to be back just a couple of things i think tonight was absolutely the epitome of what um teacher appreciation educator appreciation week is all about i mean you you saw some phenomenal teachers here tonight and there are others throughout the district that that really epitomize what professionalism and good teaching and the care and concern that our teachers have for our students and uh again i think tonight was a just a classic example of

073it tomorrow i have an opportunity we will have a guest visitor to our schools tomorrow i will be escorting our commissioner of education frank edelbalut to visit um he's actually going to visit millbrook at school and he will be meeting with the teachers he has a flower to hand off to the teachers in appreciation for their work in the district so i'll do that tomorrow um very pleased that he would represent that he would choose concord school district to attend i couldn't think of a better place for him to come but other than that i really don't have a lot tonight obviously because of there are other reports jonathan will report out on equity i noticed on the agenda there's a middle school project will be some discussion as we prepare for thursday night just

074a reminder i think i put it in your notes this week thursday night there will be an online virtual meeting regarding the middle school project again an opportunity we will do a very brief presentation some background information why where we are and where we are in the stage of the project and that will start at 5 30. i did send out a parent letter on sunday afternoon and that link to that event is on that but i'll also make sure i didn't check the web page to see if it was posted but i will check that to make sure the link is also posted on our web page so that people can attend other than that unless there's some specific questions i can answer um does anyone have any questions for the superintendent we have

075a couple of reports and i really would like to yield to them we have two reports john is going to provide an overview and you can see it behind you on our our new screen the improvement continuous improvement plan for the office of student services student supports and then um ellen will be presenting the general assurances which you must vote on tonight and it has to be recorded so that i can submit that to the department of ed so she'll um update you on those assurances in there in your packet so john you want to start sure okay well thank you um as you can see um in paper it's about 99 pages or 98 pages of uh of information that i'm going to present very briefly to tonight so i will open the opportunity

076if any of the programmers do have questions beyond tonight that they want to reach out to me i can certainly answer any more about the about the report back in the spring about this time last year there was the board asked the former director to uh look into kind of an analysis of where special ed programming sat in the concord school district and where you were and and this was done through a um a request for proposal in rfp and was put out and when that happened when i came onto the district last summer it was represented to me and i i i looked at it and recrafted and put it out and it was very large because it wanted to look at many areas of culture and climate inclusion parent communication partnerships um our

077data comparatively other districts had a lot of components too and and were we doing the job we set out to do in in special ed and um there's a lot of components so what we did along the way was say and i've i've presented this before but i think it's important again we had to look at this as a multi-stage approach and really go into it and it enlisted a lot of providers that were out in the field and a lot of former uh directors and organizations that could help us um move forward and it's all about partnerships and it's all about um having others and others out there in new hampshire that know the new hampshire process and know kind of how to take a good look at where we are in in where

078we're going as a district so we worked with the the uh superintendents association we worked with um two two former directors toby chassis and mary beth goodell we looked with polly bath who's a pretty much a well-known uh behavior specialist behavior programist across the the country and then jenny mosca former superintendent um our own team to do self-analysis jane bergeron who um who does independent work as an educational consultant and and then some mentoring i'm looking at how can we break these apart and look at the multi-stages to kind of bring us to where we are so after i looked at all those components um we broke it down and we said okay how are we going to do something different and this whole process you look at about looking at an analysis is around

079complex change and how do we have a continuous improvement plan that leads us there you have to have all components that are listed here vision strategies skills incentives resources an action plan then you get change when you're missing any of those along the way you have a lot of false starts frustration you have anxiety you have high expectations with really low results and then you get confusion what my attempt here to do is to lay this plan out under four pillars and say how do we take all those analysis points and all that comparative data which you can find in the full report and break it down to something that's systematic that goes back to having all those components of of change how are our tier supports do we have the professional development we need

080and how do we get there where we have to improve our community outreach and program implementation and enhancement where do those need to go so i gave you hard copies of the board but it's a little hard to read because there's a lot of language on here and i've learned about presenting never put a lot of language on one board but there is a lot of language here and i gave you students to examine and look at but several things on here is things that i've come and talked about earlier and i had the consultants come and speak to our our admin counsel and kind of a little more into the weeds of this and say you know things like our service delivery model and look at that about how are we providing services to

081kids and what is that process of doing that are we are we identifying students the same at our different elementary schools and the answer was no to that when we looked at it so we had to go back and create deliberation forms that were consistent so when we are identifying a disability for example speech and language we're doing consistently across all six buildings it's not done differently in different buildings those are things you'll find throughout the report that we look to adopt things that give us consistency across the district that set up a clear multi-tiered system of supports and then align our programming so we are providing equal service and that goes right through from three years old to 21 years old and you heard um the nice presentation by michelle speckman about sarah hans

082who's on the other end of that and really working hard to get us get those students who may not um go on to a to a to a college degree or maybe not go on somewhere else but has gaining full employment after and that they are members of our society and that's what the hope is for all of our students so as you will see as you go through this i looked at professional development and mary wilson and i and janine richards and and of course ellen desmond we've been working very hard on looking at a good plan for professional development for the whole district but included in this it's really about some pd around training our staff further around the special ed processes and having a clear consistent process across districts there's some law

083and some new learning we need to do and we're going to do that throughout the years coming forward and developing a professional development plan then community outreach and family engagement this is something that um we've tried to commit to since coming on last year we've held parent cafes monthly we meet with tech often we're trying to get the word out and in creating our parent group that's collaborative it gives us an opportunity we've reached out and partnered tried to partner with with department of human services in the department of department youth services and we partnered with riverbend and we're trying to look at other community partnerships such as the ymca doing a lot of work with them to say what are some of these resources we can use that are outside of our district to

084partner with our community that we don't have to ourselves fund and be proud and ourselves hold all of it we can use other agencies that provide services for families and then finally program implementation we continue to meet about our multiplayer systems support and this is something that's going to be part of our plan you'll see this slide right here would be a lot of this that will overlap to our strategic plan because a lot of this is where we're going we need fluent momentum between our tiers and we need to be able to align our interventions and services across all of our buildings and then create district-wide teams that look at this data and have a common assessment of some of these things and that's what we're trying to get to and this will overlap

085very nicely with us to decline some of the work we've been doing on that committee too so again overall this is a 98 page plan that gives a lot of information and data it compares to uh four other strong districts let's see where we align which is very closely um the idea is to set the direction assess our needs create a plan implement that plan monitor it and adjust the course and go through that cycle over and over in a continuous improvement plan this lays the groundwork for the next three to five years for us and i think it was a um very fulfilling exercise i think for our team to go through and we continue to work with our consultants monthly to hopefully um you know provide a better service for our students and

086that's really what it comes down to thank you mr fabrizio if anyone on the board or anyone in the community would like to have more information with regards to the plan um where can they where can they find out more i will put it out it will be up on our website after tonight was the final presentation i've already presented to the the principals and um i'll get it up there as early as tomorrow and they can contact me and i can certainly speak to it fantastic thank you very much i appreciate this and i know there's a lot of parents that are interested as well does anybody else have any questions for distribution go ahead people i i see in each of the pillars that you have sort of a progress monitoring and measures

087of success is there a to-do list that you're going to be reporting on regularly to us and to the community about how we're doing on these recommendations um so it's a continuous improvement plan yeah let's do us keep sculpting yes so um as i make one step forward i'll report that progress i certainly can nearly talk about this i'm here every meeting i can certainly um identify some of the things we are working on towards this strategic plan will give us a lot more of these goals that are like yearly goals what we do in year one year two year three that's for the essence of some of that i think what you're looking for a little more of like when will this be accomplished when will that be accomplished i think that's part of

088our strategic plan that's going to tie as i said right into that that part of it okay all right go ahead and say i noticed um in the introduction and purpose page that you shared with us in the board book it indicates five priority areas and i i hope that we'll be able to pull those five areas out and make them easy to find i i i've struggled looking through this um to find those five areas that we'll be concentrating on and and as pam had suggested maybe some some goals in those so we can sort of check off as we go so i can certainly it's in the introduction of the mean thing they identify an introduction to five and five key all right so we didn't have that right there no that's right

089in the introduction of the main book and doing that and it kind of um it's an executive summary of that but i certainly can it can talk about those and they are um just for clarity i think thank you point that i think clarity is uh the organizational alignment the special education process iep development culture and climate and inclusion and then parent community involvement and partnership those are my five priority areas yeah yeah no yeah just to make those very easy to find so people know what we're working on you'll be great thanks other comments or questions just quick go ahead whichever john i like the fact it's continuous improvement plan i think i think people think it's things have a beginning and an end and they just don't it's a way of thinking and

090a way of organizing so i like it thanks thank you and and i think that part of that too is um we are still in a first few years of a real reorganization of the the special ed standards and laws in new hampshire and ida someday will be reauthorized right it's already many years past due right now so there is a side of this that just when we think we got it down right and we got all the laws and we're following all those standards it's going to change again and i tried to identify some of the areas that that we'll have to continue to look at the laws recently as a recent professional development day we had we brought in our district attorneys to talk about the changes in the laws around transition because

091they have changed and that was some of the talk about where sarah was here it was very timely because it's some of the work we're doing around improving our transitional skills for kids at this school go ahead mrs kenneth i would encourage anyone who wants to do a deep dive into this to look at the full report there is mind-boggling amounts of data um and and kind of mind crushing amounts of data to try and wrap your head around but it's it's there and some of it is a little eye-opening but um it's it's worth taking a deep dive if it's an area of interest [Music] thank you anyone else thank you mr fabrizio and as as i appreciate that it's a continuous improvement for our plan and as uh ms walsh and ms hastings

092pointed out we look forward to ongoing updates thank you [Music] all right good evening um i'll try to be really brief um so the my my intention being here is to disorient you a little bit to the general assurances this is an annual document that we have to sign as an lea guaranteeing that we will follow the code of federal regulations and any associated legislation that is incumbent upon any um federal fund recipient uh to to follow so i believe you all received this ahead of time so i can a answer questions if we have specific questions and b i just want to note there are only two changes from last year one is really simple because of covid there is an extension on a single audit deadline through march of this year and next

093year it'll be our certification of whether we um are required to do a single audit which we will because we get more than 750 000 in federal funds we will make that certification before the end of of this calendar year rather than next march so that's one easy thing and then the second if you wanted to turn to um page 5 of 17 in this document it's just a reorganization of the written policies and procedures um the doe has kind of re-categorized the way that they do this layout this actually is taken directly from their one of their guidance documents that comes from the bureau of um federal compliance at the doe or they're now called nhed education department not department of education um so this comes directly from that document and it just clarifies

094a little bit better which of these policies and or procedures we we need to have rather than just listing them by name it breaks down whether we need a policy a procedure or both there are no major additions to this with the exception of um calling out specifically the gun free school act which of course we have as part of our policies um and those were codified together as the 900 series earlier by this board and then the prohibition of aiding and abetting of sexual sexual abuse policy um that is also now added to this list we also have that on record that that policy so those are the only two additions everything else all of the two cfr the code of federal regulations those are all the same as in the previous year they're

095just they look a little bit different so any questions on general assurances [Music] so i just want to remind people when when we looked at that whole big policy 900 and adopted it as one big packet and then approved revoking i'm not that's not the correct word but removing the 10 or 11 other policies that were individual policies that we then packaged into one that's this is why we did that mr weinberg um can you just explain a bit under the procedure why some have been not applicable yeah sure so some are some we don't have to have a procedure for so the difference between the policy right the actual documentation written language um that is overseen by the board and then the procedure aspect of it is the way that we're implementing that policy

096so that's the procedure is actually what is in the grants management um handbook that federal grants management handbook that i've been working on um so those are living documents that we'll go through you know as a business office we'll go we go through on a regular basis to ensure that we're articulating out how we can actually live the policy that is in that 900. thank you other questions [Music] i'm also happy like if over the course of time if you're reading this and you have questions about any of the amendments or the code of federal regulations um i am happy to nerd out with anyone if you would like some education and information on any of the laws in here okay now this needs to be approved by the entire board correct is this something

097that we anticipate any public comment on or should we just make the motion at this point i have read through this previously thank you for sharing it with me superintendent so um i am happy to make a motion that we approve the assured general assurances uh outlined herein is there a second second second invention is walsh is there any discussion [Music] okay as soon as ken okay all those in favor signify by saying aye aye are there any opposed other abstentions motion carries thank you very much thank you very good [Music] thank you for knowing all of that so well a lot all right uh next out of our agenda is the middle school project superintendent who will be leading this well we just wanted to have a discussion to give you an idea about

098where we are in the process i mean it's obviously you know we're at the very beginning stages of this project we have lots of work to do but we um we have not heard any further discussions with center hope church relative to the land we're kind of waiting on that although we are reviewing the land and jack can maybe speak to that in terms of the the different testing and so forth that we have to do on the land um as as we prepare to see if that's going to work for us so jack you want to speak to any of the um any of the testing and the site work that's being done right now yeah so as we mentioned we have a letter of intent and we're waiting to move forward if there's

099going to be a move forward to the purchase and sale agreement if so we will do the bare minimum we need until there is a purchase and sale agreement in order to make a purchase and sale agreement so we'll do it in two phases one will be what's enough to get to july 1 and what's needed to apply for building aid then what is it to satisfy the purchase and sell agreement and would make sure that we would be comfortable purchasing the land rather than spending unneeded money that we don't need to until we know that the property can be secured okay thank you mr dunn and of course pending approval of the board correct thank you of course we continue to have a weekly meeting with the architect um and working on what the

100building would look like where it's placed how it's placed and all of that really that work is really in preparation for an application that's due july 1. so we have a very short window we know we know that we knew that it would require around the clock prep in order to meet that deadline but we meet weekly we review all of the documents um and all of the the application is is is uh pretty intense and remember it's a competitive application this is not an award for building aid that's given just given to you you have to show need and there's just um a great deal of information that needs to be provided so we're doing those kinds of things now in anticipation of that july 1 deadline for the application but again all of

101that it really falls just to put it on your plate it does fall on your shoulders because those are the decisions as we at at every step of the way whether it's the land whether it's the application uh is is something that will be brought to the board for your uh your final consideration as we move to the next step uh just a reminder we do have i i think i mentioned it earlier tonight we have a meeting thursday that will be held virtually and we'll have the um the link posted if if it isn't already it's also in the parent letter that i sent out on sunday but again we had a great meeting last two weeks ago thursday before we went out on vacation we had great input from the community i was

102really pleased to see the number of folks that came out shared their thinking with us you know we that was why we have these meetings because we want to hear from the public um and hear from the constituents and hear from parents and the folks in the community our taxpayers so it was very helpful we hope that by having it um online on thursday night that maybe some folks that could not make that meeting a face-to-face it's at 5 30 that sometimes can be a difficult time if you have young children you're trying to or you're coming home from work so if you can you know we will have it we'll also record it and that re that um meeting will be posted on our website under the facilities um icon on the on the

103web page so i i think that's where we're at right now um we'll again i'm looking forward to thursday night to hear additional information just one more point this isn't the last of the meetings um you know we're going to continue at every phase of this uh be meeting with the community having these kinds of forums so that folks can share their thinking with us which is really very helpful thank you superintendent and i i want to just reiterate that in addition to these meetings for input and providing information there'll be several public hearings and public opportunities to speak both to our capital facilities committee as well as to the board in general does anyone have any questions for the superintendent or mr dunn go ahead it's not a really a question and i i

104thought the first meeting was important but also an opportunity for us to think about how we can improve our responsiveness to the questions people are asking i think this process has been going on a really long time so it gives the impression that a lot of decisions have been made that haven't been made i think we need to be more clear about what the considerations were with the existing properties the district owns and why there are difficulties and additional expenses with redeveloping them and include that in the presentation i think we need to be clear about what the application process is and is not you know it is not the start of a construction project it is not even a approved design for a school at this point and i think it's important that we

105be clear with that i think we we sort of had goals in there about what we want that sort of jumped ahead from where we are right now and i think we have to um sort of reset the stage a little bit about where we are you know that we're not going to be starting construction in the next six months to a year um you know we are starting we're hoping within a year the or a year and a half the state may approve building aid to allow us to start construction after that if the board approves that um what kind of diligence we've done on our existing sites so people understand it and that we understand that there's no perfect site and the proposed site isn't perfect either but this is why it's better

106than some of the things we've been looking at so i think just having that in the presentation um would be helpful because i think we're jumping a little bit ahead of where we are in some ways that's just my two cents well thank you ms walsh and i agree that providing that information and um to providing that insight into the considerations and thoughts that have come this far is is very important to share with our community other questions or comments i think we'll do more of that that the prep work that's been done along the way i mean we did focus a little bit on what that design would look like we were trying to you know show the intent of a middle school with the pods where you have smaller groupings you know because

107that alleviates some of the concerns we've had at runlit so i agree there's been a tremendous amount of work done but no decisions have been made it's like we've looked at all you've looked at those things prior to my arrival here um but then um you know it was sort of put in in on a hold and we're back and we've had to re re-go we had to relive all of that again we can't just accept what was happened back in 2017 we've had to re-look at all of it so i mean just the land alone and the time that was spent by the folks just looking at pieces of property and we probably didn't do a very good job at articulating that to the community about why some sites were that's probably not a

108good site or it doesn't meet our need or it doesn't um fit the the vision that we have so um and and i also think that there needs to be some additional work around um what's wrong with the current building and why that is just hasn't is not working and the conditions that have required you to have moved this project forward so i appreciate the input it's really helpful i i do also get the question of what are we going to do with run lit and i'm you know like yeah it's a great question but i don't have an answer so sometimes when i when questions are asked i feel i think we all feel jack um particularly and matt who have been on this project longer than i have when we don't have an

109answer you know we know people look to us for answers but we don't have one we don't know um and until we're sure about what's happening in the site that we're looking at you can't move away from the run lit you know project you can't just dismiss it we have to house 900 students that we can't forget that and so that is a tough question kate it does put you and i think the best answer is is that there's possibilities um and but we're not there yet and as pam said we're a couple years away here and i and i would agree and i think that you know the one thing we will be is thoughtful and considerate as we look at all the options as we get into that phase of the program if

110we if and when we get there so we've heard some from some of the neighbors right some people want us to move some people want us to stay so you know it it but we haven't had a we'd really like to get out into the neighborhoods um and really have some discussion with some of the families and and and and make it so that it's easy for them to give us input and it might even come in a survey you know some survey um that we can send out and try to reach out to more people thank you and i think that's a great lead-in to you know we are looking for questions and input from the community we want to be able to know what you know what your concerns are what your questions

111are um please send them in or please participate in the meeting on thursday night um i know that you know mr weinberg and mr parker have set up opportunities throughout this summer that people will be able to you know directly discuss things and interact with us and we look forward to that as well um and uh you know this is a a pretty intense progress process but uh you know we will have many you know we have a lot of steps going then and we want to have the public to have their input at all of them so thank you other questions anything else superintendent or mr dunn that you want to bring up with regards to our middle school project this time all right thank you very much uh at this point um we

112asked for a public comment or we invite public comment for any any of the agenda items um i'll ask you to please adhere by our district for policy number 136 which we ask you to please state your name sign in [Music] and please do your best to limit your comments to five minutes per policy and with that does anyone have any public comment they would like to make this evening whichever of you would like to go first [Music] sure go right ahead please sit in there and i will ask you to speak into the microphone because we're on uh streaming and on tv so they that's the only way they can hear we have to sign in sometimes [Music] yep thank you [Music] okay um i um going back to the middle school and thank

113you very much for letting me speak tonight and being here tonight appreciate it um i was looking at the map the site map here that shows where the rumlet middle school is now the clinton street proposed land and if somebody could just i was looking at on ironworks road there's a big piece there's a big field there right where kids play sports who is that part of the city land is that part of like you know there's a field the kids play i ride down my bike down there and then i head down the road that goes you know over to clinton street that dirt road by where this proposed school is going to be no i i don't think those are that jack here those are on the island uh yeah i'm going to

114pull it up on the gis system sorry thank you thank you so that's that's that and then um i did call a few places regarding the land on center point that's being posed for the new build i called the new hampshire audubon spoke to a person there i called five rivers conservation land trust um a few other places and a biologist was telling me that the land that's proposed on center point used to be farmland and it's very very good soils farm soils and there's some nesting bobblings they're birds and woodcocks that that are very fairly rare to find and they nest on that land she said it's a wildlife corridor that land on center point because there's land across the street that goes along 89 and that's where a lot of bear and deer

115and turkey and other wildlife travel for safety she says it's safe for them to travel there otherwise it sort of cuts off that corridor that they're on i don't know if any of you have any of the people here on this thing have called and talked to people considering that land and proposed site for the bill but she said you know with the vernal ponds and other things there's other she wrote a statement for me and i can let you look at it if you want i'll bring it and present it to anybody that would like to see it here because i don't think it's a good site to take i mean especially once you take land and you pave it and you build buildings you're never going to have that land again she said

116it's not going to be productive and in the future if you're going to look at it as maybe a proposed site for a community place recreation you know um anything maybe fields for the kids to play sports you know for the high school or whatever just additional field land um i would think that there might be a different place to build or put the new school right i really do that is valuable land if the city wants to buy it for god sakes buy it okay and hold it in reservation for you know for even a bike trail there's bike trails that go down 89 on and the rail trails that are coming down on 93 it would be a great stop for even a bike stop there for the you know so that the

117land could people coming down on 89 there's bike trails proposed and 93 you know on the rail trails through 93 i don't know if you guys know about the rail trails but they're all over the place and it would be a wonderful place for like a community garden maybe a learning center so that people could use it as indoor gardening for the winter you know you've heard of hide what's it high pro hydroponics it would be a wonderful teaching place for for the community just think of it why would you want to use valuable land like that to put a school on i wouldn't even build on something like that myself you're supposed to you're supposed to find the worst land and build buildings on not take beautiful agricultural land to put schools and buildings

118like him and he's planting trees over here and by the way i'll give you a donation oh and i want to say have you ever looked at the boscoin state you know where they they grow trees and you can get them for almost nothing upon in boston so you might not need to spend a lot of money you'll get your trees for almost nearly nothing that's where i plant get my trees but it's just a thought okay i would please like you to talk to some people that you know you can't use i just don't think it's right to take land like that that's buy it i'm saying it's for the city to buy it it's a bargain okay and i'll give you money if you want a donation i'll start a donation fund to

119buy the freaking land and hold on to it and find any other place some other place that might be better for this school and i'm thinking maybe radoff if i am right on high works road close to the other schools think about it it's not on a state road so forget you know the kids can still walk there ironworks road it's in between all the other schools you said on your mission statement you wanted it close okay last thing bert had to leave he was sitting over here in front of me and he asked me to ask this question because he had to leave and i don't i missed it okay i'm sorry i don't want to take up more time but this is for him he said the question on behalf of bert cooper

120a south end resident and i'll put it on here do you really have to file a formal right to know request to get answers to our questions so far we have gotten generalities no details that's his question so we don't typically respond but um i don't think we should start that process technical question yeah it's the right to know we can if he can ask us we'll do our best to provide the information we can reach out we'll have we'll reach out to mr okay and we'll talk to him from the office i think yeah and if you see him before i get to him you just ask him to call the office and we'll we'll set up a meeting with him and having people come in and sit with us and we'll try to

121provide any of the details um that we can but we're fair you know we yeah we want to but we may not be able to give him the specific details that he needs but okay please have him give us a call i will yeah i will didn't know what i would like to just state that we will you know even though this may not be the appropriate form we'll do our best to provide as much information as as we can to anybody who asks um because we want to be as transparent and as as open as we possibly can in the process so thank you very much and i appreciate you coming in tonight and making your comments okay thank you very much for having me we will look up the things that you mentioned

122okay thank you very much if you'd send me the thing from the from the audubon lady so uh g candidate sa u8 i think i have you we're thank you sir for your patience please feel free [Music] and if you just sign in and then just tell us your name thanks man [Music] good evening board my name is dawn jewell i'm a south end resident i've lived there since about 1992 and two excuse me and i had uh three boys uh that all went to conant which is now abbott downing you all know and then went on up through runlit um i just wanted to make one comment um before i forget at the end it's wonderful when you're sitting back there to look up here and to see you know all the names across

123the ones that we're looking at head on but the ones on the flanks here where i keep struggling to see so is it okay to angle those a little bit maybe so that the public can see you know these people that work so hard to serve on this board would be wonderful thank you [Music] so as i'm going on i'm just really interested in the whole concept of what's going on with run lit heaven um three boys go through that school and experience you know what what we thought going through the school would be like and then having three boys go through the school and how they did after going through the school um it's been it was always a common thing that um was said um to us when our kids were in elementary

124school up through fifth grade that oh no well good luck going to run lit um it's just too big and there's just a lot of problems there and and this and that and um our experience as parents at the time was a lot of that was was true sending our kids through there um and for the most part i every time i run into a teacher i'll who happens to be a runaway i'll ask that question too and many of them will say the same thing it's just too big and it's too hard to handle those many kids at their ages and kids feel the same way too i mean my kids felt like it was just overwhelming when they went in as as sixth graders and so i feel like this is a great

125opportunity for this community to really look at how we can educate our seventh and eighth grade or sixth seventh and eighth grade kids in a better environment and i feel personally that we should have two middle schools [Music] i know like nashua has i think to at least three middle schools and i think what that does for the community is far better i think it creates better opportunities for the kids in middle school with with different athletic teams and just um a smaller environment to transition into high school and just the sort of rivalries between the two schools i think is would be healthy to just thrive in in in the community and i just really feel like this is the time where i hope this this and it's comforting to hear like what miss

126walsh mrs walsh said about you know making sure that we you keep us informed where you're at in terms of the process because some people get nervous and afraid that oh well it's too late now and that kind of thing and so just to know that our input still matters will motivate us to keep coming or take advantage of the opportunities we have to come so um that being said i mean i just think that um the vision would be to have you know one middle school built somewhere it would also walkability and ride bikes i mean it would would allow for more students to still be able to do that or increase opportunities for students to be able to do that and one middle school could be built and then some of the students

127however geographically it worked out would then leave run lit or leave or go from elementary school to that school and then i see like tearing down half of runlit and and rebuilding new um and then while the students that were still at runlit would stay in the part of reynold that wasn't going to be the new school and then um when that school was done then that would be occupied by the by the students and then whatever's left if it was feasible or lucrative or practical to lease out the space that was left or to occupy it but with other administrative school offices perhaps that would be a way to utilize the part that was left so um i've just thought about this for a while and i'm really grateful for the opportunity that i've

128had to come here tonight and speak about it thank you mr jewel thank you thank you the two school concept is something that you know we have heard from other people in uh in the past about and it's something that i think you know we should talk about and we'll just discuss as we move forward in the project uh as to where we stand on that does anybody have i think that's all i can say right now but i appreciate it and i hope you keep coming and providing input to us thank you very much thank you good night very good hey good night thank you for waiting and both of you thank you for your patience until we got to the public comments is there any other public comment to this evening okay with

129that we will move on to personnel [Music] are you going to be doing this or should we go is going to show up in the packets you have the um teacher nominations whether it's a one-year-old replacement for a math post or any higher options requests and then we do have one [Music] it did not make it into the packet they were interviewed today [Music] thank you [Music] yearly absence for other purposes [Music] all right these would be the teacher nominations on page 59 60 [Music] uh please just for the public so that they can they can hear you don't have to go through details just who they are what positions okay so you have a new construction trades teacher he would be moving from automotive at the current automotive position to the current construction trade

130teacher it's jesse gregoire you have megan burch who is currently a 60 english teacher who would be moving to 100 english teacher gabe cohen would be taking a partial leave of absence for the performing arts coordinator position [Music] brynn cohen would be going from an 80 percent to 100 music teacher frank harrison would be taking a partial leap of absence for the ropes position alice or chesky would be going from a she's currently 60 language arts to an 80 language arts because i'm sorry world language position joseph cadania would be taking a leave of absence to fill a math coach one year position erica izzy would be taking a one-year leave of absence for a math coach position [Music] heidi jones would be filling in for one year only for covering for everka izzy taking

131the math coach position we have hannah and kwada his preschool teacher she's currently at 6 7 sorry she's currently 62 and we would be moving her to a hundred percent preschool teacher for one year only and then sarah schreier is currently a one year only special ed teacher that would be taking a permanent position for a resignation for a special ed teacher at broken ground school and then mr emerson mr emerson is currently part-time position at the crtc who would be taking the recently if approved vacancy for the [Music] automotive position feeling that as a full-time position thank you questions go ahead i just want to clarify on the top of page uh the second page brian cowett it says he currently holds a hundred percent music teacher position is it correct it's a currently

132a hundred percent music position because of the leave of absence the annual leave of absence for gabriel cohen okay for the 20 performing arts so he's not adding his [Music] she's actually it's her she's she is oh grin sorry she's currently this year a hundred percent but she's next year eighty percent okay it she'll go back to 100 okay thank you gabe cohen's leave i just have a question it says what these positions were budgeted at uh [Music] and one of them says reallocation of funds correct there was it's a different it's positioned for one world language teacher 20 is moving over to a different teacher so they're taking the funds from one world language teacher who was 60 is going to 40 and then the 20 is added back to the new this is

133a portion of a salary that was already accounted for correct okay thank you any other question [Music] with that do i have a motion to approve the teacher nominations i'll make a motion to approve the teacher nominations as presented today thank you mr weinberg is there a second seconded by ms cannon is there any further discussion [Music] all right let's both all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed any extensions to motion carriers all right please continue uh spring coach nominations [Music] did you want me to read those as well sure jonathan lacey would be going to a co-ed track assistant coach thomas o'brien for girls freshman lacrosse daniel breen for intramural flag football and tony keane for boys track assistant coach that's a runway boys track assistant coach yes okay

134uh does anyone have any questions [Music] do i have a motion to approve the coaching denominations so moved from his walsh second second seconded by ms hastings all those in favor aye is there any further discussion all right all those in favor signify by saying hi hi any opposed any extensions motion carries all right thank you very much and um the last item in personnel is permission to hire through this summer this is a request that is made every year which allows us to fill our positions uh that are still remaining for the upcoming school year as we move through the summer am i correct you are correct and it's very competitive out there even today but i saw mr uh emerson this morning and you know um it's a hard position to fill right

135automotive so we want to jump on it i don't like to hand carry things to you i like you to have a chance to see them but when it comes to these positions where everybody is um scurrying certainly and am i correct though that if something would come up that would be a concern safety or otherwise we would still have the opportunity you know to address it with regards to anyone who's hired during the summer um not usually background checks or any of those things come up oh right right right yeah we would take care of that in the office if there were any concerns around background checks and all that um as you know this can be somewhat of a delay um depending on how quickly they get them done but for the most

136part they would be pulled right away so so all also all of our normal procedures with the approval of of the teachers you know would be in place right and i'll still bring the list to you for confirmation i think it's important that you at least see who the positions that are being filled look at the salaries all that kind of the information that you have in your packet is fairly important certainly and as i said we've done this pretty much every year that i've been on the board right does anyone have any questions go ahead mrs how many positions are currently open for teachers i know that we always have an issue with [Music] with ed assistance on the show paraprofessionals i was just about to go online and get that number [Music] um

137for we have approximately 13 elementary positions that does include some long-term subs right now and um for just teaching for high school teaching there's four and we do have some postings that have just gone out so there's probably at least 15 to 20 positions that need to be filled still and we're getting in we you know this afternoon late this afternoon i received a resignation so it's going to happen and um yeah we're going to want we're going to watch that right the district obviously has you know when you talk about long-term subs and those are things we can't do much about i mean those are you know for lots of reasons um the real classroom positions those who take on content areas those who have responsibilities like that those are our critical positions any

138other questions or comments in that case i would make a motion to give the superintendent the administration the authority to hire during the summer for the open positions for um the schools this coming this coming year um does that mean everything i think that you're looking for i thought so perfect is there is there a second seconded by ms hastings is there any further discussions here's a good question certainly why is it a procedure to give the permission because just because it's like a part of the job of the superintendent is to hire usually so why is this this gives her more latitude to hire without bringing it to us for approval ahead of time because the summer is a very competitive time normally they won't hire anyone until it was brought to us we

139had a chance to review and then we went in i guess i'm confused because you said that you would do that so none of that just for confirmation yeah instead of pre they'll bring it to us for confirmation after instead of right now none of the people that we discussed this evening for those positions have been formally hired and this case they were proving to be told after the fact right that's what we're doing thank you nope very good question excellent um i'm i just know because i've done this a couple times before but it's a great question and i think i'm glad you asked it because i'm sure that the citizens and the folks at home were watching probably had exactly that same question is there any other discussion [Music] go ahead i was

140just gonna say i think because when you have somebody who's certified who's qualified who has the experience you need to jump on it because most of the people have already found slots that are looking and so now it's now it's a employee's market so we really have to jump if somebody comes in can't just say oh well yeah we kind of like to offer to you but hold on to that thought until the next fourth week am i in corrections absolutely absolutely so that's the way it is you know you've always been very good about you know meeting you know having a special meeting but it happens every single day now between now and and the opening i mean it's it's daily that we're meeting with talking with people bringing people in now it includes

141bus and it includes you know all aspects of our work but it's every day now so thank you any other questions all right um so the uh concluding discussion all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye any opposed any abstentions motion passes uh next item is the update from communications let me check to make sure where we put the 9.5 9.5 oh okay so communications and policy so um ms cannon you will be presenting this guy soon yes thanks so i'm gonna go a little bit out of order for what's on the agenda um and i i'd like to start with the policy which is back before us for um a second reading and approval which was the staff participation in political activities which if if you'll recall we need a

142policy in place that basically says you cannot um engage in partisan political activity during your work duties um doesn't mean you can't do it on your own time you just can't do it during your work duties um and we had previously read it for the first time we'd read it for the second mr weinberg was concerned about some language that did not track with state law so we went back and we modified the language um to take out the part that was concerning and so that it actually mirrors the rsa so what you have in your book right now um starting on page now mirrors exactly the language of the rsa of of um the uh regarding the the [Music] we had put in additional language we did that did not track with the rsa

143and we took it out so um we i would uh we recommended at the meeting to bring it back for a second reading um and to ask the board for uh approval of this policy [Music] okay so move to mr weinberg seconded by mr parker and now discussion discussion i missed struggling to find the differences between the current policy that's in the book and the proposed policy oh um okay so because there's the new um [Music] okay now you're pulling me um i think the change is that red in red we added rsa not chapter 98 e that wasn't in our policies it is now no i think that's to imply that uh that's that's the addition it wasn't in the current policy the fact that it's in red is that it um i think

144actually that we may have duplicated a duplicate of the current policy or the a duplicate of the yeah that's um concerning hold on because the only change was in the word discrimination in this policy right and i think that they put the same policy and is this the original policy that's been put in twice or the proposed changes the proposal i think this is the proposed policy where what i'm looking for right now is not here right so i'm i would suggest we bring it back again yeah okay we'll bring it back because i'm only i know i just did the same thing yeah i did too i if you didn't notice jonathan did not like the word as it was written discrimination and so we brought it back we reviewed the law and we

145decided to pull it and so when this book was but i think what's labeled current policy is not actually our current policy so i will bring it back i will bring it back yeah okay we'll bring it back okay with you yep yeah bring it back again because this is not yeah i'm trying i can't quickly get to our committee meeting minutes to grab that but let's uh so i believe this will be remanded back to the to the communication and policy committee it's and then it'll be on and on actually wait i don't think that's accurate because we recommended to bring the new policy forward i think we have to bring it forward next meeting okay but i don't think we have to send it back to the committee to review it again i

146just think we need to correct the board book so we will have it so can we add this to the june meeting right for um second reading i guess that's where we're at second yes second time in the second reading or so so but okay so if uh superintendent you can add that to the agenda for that particular meeting thank you okay um so then the other policies um the 600 policies so part of the issue that we have is that the the law about how or what are required for graduation has changed and so the policy of what we can use to offer credit or give credit for that all of the various different ways that we can give credit um we're we're reviewing and updating so that when we finally get the overarching

147policy that says the following ways are ways that we can give credit policy uh 621 672 we'll have those done so that kind of like we're doing the legs to support the table um the overarching policy needs to get changed but the details that are going to be included in that policy we're tackling first so um so policy 621 extended learning opportunities is before us for our first reading i would i would encourage people to read that and if you have questions corrections wording that you don't like i would encourage you to please reach out to me and i will reach out to karen and we will we'll try and solve that issue so that's 621 and 672. the policy 620 home education is before us for our first reading because the um [Music] the

148new law that went into effect with respect to school districts and the relationship that they have with home educators if the home educators are choosing the school district to be the area agency so that when you pull your kid out of school to home school you have to one give notice to the school district but two you have a couple of options as to who is supposed to sort of oversee your home education program one of the choices is your school district and so what this does is it's an attempt to clarify and also codify in one place the relationship between homeschoolers and the school district so um which is not was not necessarily clear in the old or in the current policy um again i i encourage you to read it if you have

149questions please don't hesitate to reach out to me um i don't know if you all know i used to homeschool my daughter so i'm really familiar with with the regs um i'd be happy to try and explain why we're doing what we're doing and that's pretty much it jim okay and uh jumping back to our committee meeting it's the the the change occurs in the nothing in this policy near the end of policy 435 that particular paragraph it was what um you know what the change is and you can go back and we'll bring it forward for everyone to review and and uh and for a second reading and our next meeting yeah the problem is just it's not the correct one in the portfolio incorrect and uh with that um thank you very much

150for those uh for your comments on and uh explanation and we will bring those policies that we just went over in a 600 series also back the second reading in june so um okay any questions with regards to communication and policy all right with that then we'll move on to an update on the anti-anti-racism [Music] advisory committee mr weinberg today we had a meeting [Applause] very poorly attended but there were some great representatives from various stakeholders there and we discussed kind of the future of the committee and kind of future of how we want to do the work within the district and there were some great conversations especially as it came to when we look at hiring a person for a deij or deijb position and what that may look like and keeping in mind

151all the various biases that might come in play as it comes to terms with hiring and how we can make sure that it is an equitable process even through the hiring process and ensuring that as we look for the district in the future that we're also considering the success that the district has and a lot of the work that we've done already so not only seeing how far we have to go but also how far we have come and make sure to recognize that they go hand in hand [Music] um i'm going to just ask you for the people who are listening or watching at home could you just uh elaborate d e i j or d e i j b absolutely so it stands for diversity equity inclusion justice and belonging thank you very

152much appreciate that does anyone else have any questions for mr weinberg all right thank you for that update uh item 10 proposed calendar meeting superintendent [Music] as i said this week um you know you just we have our um project forum virtually on thursday night 5 30. next week um capital facilities we had move capital facilities originally scheduled for the fourth but we wanted to meet after that meeting to really debrief um after our second forum uh charity commission meets on tuesday on tuesday night oh and they have um they have a copy of the proposed charter if you would like to see it they're all bound or upstairs in the office if you want them if you want me to get some for tonight i can grab some before you leave uh if you'd

153like a coffee so thank you and this is is this their final meeting [Music] presented all their materials with a you know their proposal to the attorney general and now they're just trying to prepare for what eventually will be um you know on the ballot in november so i think they may have some more just work to clean it up and stuff depending on what comes out of the attorney general's office very good and i just would like personally to say at this point that i want to thank the the members of the charter commission for all their work they met you know every single tuesday for you know three months or so to do this and appreciate their efforts um and i'm going to meet with betty tomorrow morning i have an appointment with

154her around 10 to to kind of review everything and go over the the proposals and she's been really good about keeping us aware of all of the activities of the committee so it's worked out well and for this final document for people who wanted to look at it it will be online on our do we have a link right it's online it's a link online as well as a hard copy is available uh we we made 50 copies so someone interested in a hard copy you can come into the office and they're available right at the desk reception desk thank you did you have a question with regards to that no when we come back when we're done with the calendar we need to go back for a second to the committee meeting okay thank

155you you're right um and on the 11th is a city in community relations the following week we have an instructional meeting and on the 18th we are going to dear field to do a presentation um we'll meet with the board we'll present the data which we do they don't like to dig into the data necessarily they like to hear about what what what's happening at the high school um we're extending this to more than just the board uh we have inviting parents one of the things that we have realized is that often parents don't know about the opportunities at the high school you know they don't have a chance to hear about the programs and the courses and both additional curriculum after school programs none of that so this will be our chance to really

156share with the community and the parents as well as the school board what what happens at concord high school okay and as a point of clarification this is with the deerfield parents and the president and the deerfield school board correct thank you so we'll do that on the 18th following week we have executive committee and negotiations we are still in negotiations with the cea the teachers association and we have a tentative agreement with the bus drivers and we are now uh waiting for some dates with tutors [Music] they've reached out and we will meet with the tutors as soon as we can set up some dates and so we want to keep you apprised of what's happening there and then uh back to policy at the end of the month and the only other date

157on that from may is memorial day which is no school day no school in session that day in june um uh on your board meeting on the sixth just um we'll have a retiree reception at 5 30. we'll have the if you recall last year we greeted all the retirees they have a nice gift and presentation so that's on monday the 6th followed by your school board meeting capital facilities again on the 8th instructional and city relations the following week and that is the week of the last day of school for the youngsters on the 17th just to let you know the prom in case anybody wants to go on the 16th um and high school graduation is scheduled for 10 a.m um on saturday june 18. following week is executive committee and communication and

158policy [Music] there's nothing the following week i i will be at the superintendent's conference uh on the 27-28-29 so should you need anything i'll have to do it virtually i'll make a motion to approve the calendar for may and june do we not need this no no we don't really need one okay i appreciate you willing to i support you um and sorry it's it's in the minutes of the meeting but at the end of going through all the graduation stuff we had two different conversations one was about kindergarten and the entry age for kindergarten uh the the sort of general feeling of the committee was that having a policy was useful but also having a no exceptions wasn't necessarily useful or appropriate uh but the superintendent asked us to not really table but just

159sort of bring that in for a minute while she works on a procedure [Music] by which we can look at those students who want to attend early could be assessed as to their readiness um so uh right now yes it's being taken under advisement but we're we're trying to come up with some kind of procedure by which um go ahead yes david i don't know i i'm just when you're done um go ahead i'm done on that okay just just you know development what we've learned about kids early childhood is is a lot of new information in the past five or six or seven years and and what the superintendents to do is go to those specialists that know about this stuff and and give us some again as you said criteria so that it

160isn't just so closed which is what we say no exceptions and and not that we want to start all kids at three years old in kindergarten but we do need to we do believe we need some flexibility in that so [Music] thank you and the other discussion we had is um in relation to the the charter commission one of the recommendations that they're making to change the charter would involve um transparency regarding campaign finance and the fact that when we run for the board right now there is no requirement to disclose campaign finance they're going to ask the voters to change the charter to make that a requirement and i i personally think that it behooves us to look at that process because it's not a quick process to put a policy in place about

161that and so we have started discussing and looking at um proposing it's not a policy it has to be a resolution because it's binding on us so we've uh just as part of an ongoing discussion so all right very good thank you miss canada ms parker any questions for these items which also are from the communications and policy committee nope [Music] does anyone else have any further business with the board this evening i would like to ask that we have a non-public we have a we have a second public comment before we and so i'll open this uh before we go to non-public i'll open this up for uh any public comment on any topic not seeing anything uh superintendent we're going to go into non-public session pursuant to rsa 91a can you please tell

162me where what president particularly [Music] we used to have it on here i don't know where it went but it went off not publicly always put it in 91.83 see see yeah very good mr weinberg it was three feet uh i will uh so i make the motion that we go into uh non-public pursuant to that uh is there a second second second by mr weinberg and um at this point it is let me let ms cannon catch up that's okay [Music] all right is there any discussion with regards to that this can you please this is a royal call vote oh sorry oh that's okay thank you um mr richard yes mr cotton yes ms hastings yes mr parker yes ms walsh yes mr weinberg yes ms west yes and i vote yes okay

163so we'll be going into non-public before we go in i just want to let the people at home who are watching know that um after coming out of non-public session we intend to go directly to adjournment so we will be ending our television and streaming coverage uh with this uh with this uh movement to non-public session so thank you everyone we're non-public thank you probably not yet give me a couple seconds you