001and that it's 5 o'clock I call to order the P school committee meeting on Tuesday February 4th um public comment um public comment we have't do we have anybody in the room who wants to give public comment all right so just because somebody may actually view this public comment can be emailed to SC public comment at arps.org by 3 P.M on the day of the meeting public comment can also be left by voicemail under 3 minutes at 413 3621 1891 by 3M on the day of the meeting um we will move on to approve the minutes from our last meeting do we have any I make a motion to approve did you make a motion approve the I do not okay I move to approve the minutes second uh any discussion about the minutes all
002right all those in favor great um all right here so warrant reports are here for anybody who wants to see them there are three this month um we actually have a gift this came in this afternoon middle of the afternoon very great it's great to see it um would someone like to read William would you like Sarah hi uh move to accept Roger Wallace excellent and teaching award Foundation Inc number 1031 to support social justice curriculum materials speaker events Etc as described in the attached letter the amount of $500 second are you second I am uh any any discussion about this there is a second page here with an explanation of what the grant is for um so uh We've accepted that Grant gratefully um G to move on on to the chair's update so
003since we actually have people in the room uh I just wanted to say um that just a couple of things about how we run our meetings um the public comment is intended to be for the school committee to sit and hear people uh we don't answer we don't have discussions but it's an opportunity for people to give us their input um the other thing is that this you know we follow open meeting law and something that I found a very useful way to think about it is it's a it's a p it's a meeting in public so the meeting is amongst the school committee we don't have a public meeting where everybody participates unless we have a a special meeting or a forum which might then entail some interaction with people um so I went
004to the student concert this morning Willam was there as well enjoyed that very much really liked the students dis announcing what they were going to play and they had their little things that they read about the different pieces and really enjoy seeing the students um thank you for sending the meeting invitation because then it was on my calendar um I have put up I put it under the chair's update it isn't something we need to discuss tonight but Micky I asked last time if we could get a list of all the positions in the school and she put together this this list which is very nice because it goes by grade it shows teacher and Par educator and then there are also the other positions but are not directly in the classroom that are listed
005here and I think when we have our budget here in this will be really good information to have so you know hopefully we'll have a chance to go over it before we come for the budget hearing um there is a the pjo is sponsoring a multicultural night on Saturday and on their calendar it said it's at 6:30 a.m. so I'm assuming that's incorrect and I was going to look at the sign and I forgot so do you know what time it is Mick I'm 6m I will let you know just saw that I'm not going I was GNA say is there a place because I was looking today and there seems to be multiple old places to look at online for different events going on in col is there a current place where people can
006go so I know from the district lens um once the information is shared with Seth and and the superintendent's office it's pushed through um all of our social media Pages um and then also I know that individuals and I because I get them mi's team Marita sends it via parents Square as well so I don't know I mean you could talk about school based but District based as yeah I I know I think we're in the works of getting a new website platform and the old one I tried to be trained on last year and it it's a lot so I did a because there's a new one from 24 that has bricks on it that's that has like placeholders but no descriptions on the calendar oh I don't know about that one but um
007I was just curious I was looking today to be what time and I was like you really supposed to look you get the parents we do not I don't I get parents Square for middle school high school my students no so I know we're supposed to be getting it you should be we we'll double check we'll double check that okay would be great um I just wanted to note uh that some policies were updated we had a joint meeting with the region in ammer and several of our policies were updated at that time um we've decided to try to meet jointly when we have to do approvals of policies and a couple of other things so that it doesn't have to happen three different times at three different meetings so so far that's worked really
008well I think we did get rid of the one specific P yes yes thank you okay thank you for mentioning that um and I then I just wanted to say that we have the budget hearing which I believe is the 25th 20 I think 24 the 24 thank you okay and I just wanted to check Dr Z that that's going to be like a special meeting yes and that means that we can take qu I mean the people who come can ask us questions at that point in time is that correct right yeah yeah okay it'll be about um I think it's supposed to be half of the time um the ammer chair sent me the the write up on it and so we have to present and do our presentation and then public comment
009for about equal to okay so then that's then I have to reach out to the region and Mar will decide what that public comment time would be okay great thank you um all right that's my update um Mickey oh no do wether Rie have any updates um continue to the APA negotiations of continues to negotiate our meeting last week was postponed our meeting was not available and we have tomorrow okay but things are going really well good oh wait I can give you the real update so we have one of the things we have decided in our meeting is to have a joint statement that we write as an update at the end of every at the end we write together at the end of every meeting so our statement is good evening the negotiation
010team for the apaa 2025 2028 contract which includes apaa members District administration and school committee recently had a productive meeting we began by having every member of the team and the ground rules following this we identified and discussed various interests many of which both are left these interest were categorized into three phases one easy clean up phase two process or procedures and three economic issues our next meeting is scheduled for January 29th is one I got postponed during which we will finalize all interest for discussion after this point know interest will be introduced and we can will continue to work towards alignment instes thank you okay so we'll move on to the principal update Mickey okay um so I kind of have it in different categories students first uh the PTO has been running a
011readathon and it has blown away expectations um the students are so into it it's really fun and um the PG member who's really taken it and run with it has been more than amazing um to kind of coordinate with this monthlong readathon um we have a couple author visits uh one the PTO set up one I set up um so I can tell you more about the one I set up um the author is coming I coordinated with the library and the Council on Aging and they're the author's going to come and do two different readings lower grades and upper grades the book is called mending small things and it's about community and an elderly person um mending a stuffed animal for a younger person and so the Council on Aging is g to be
012coming and mending stuffed animals that the kids bring in and the librarian is so excited because she was she's gonna have a stuffed animal sleep over at the library so the public libraries and just in case you're wondering kids are not sleeping over at the library um but the stuff animals will and she's going to be posting on Instagram and whatever all social media the seff animals having their sleepover super cute um so I'm excited about that and then in between the two readings the author is going to do a like a lunch group with the older students on like a writing Workshop so the PTO um is helping to sponsor that and also um you know it was it's great that we're able to bring in the Council on Aging and the LI the
013public library because we've always been trying to do more community events um and then there's a bunch of things coming up like a walk ride stroll to school is coming up in the in the couple months from now but in preparation for for that the um Mass Department of Transportation is coming out and working with the PE teacher to do some bike safety some crossw pedestrian safety um and then mcats are coming so we're preparing for that did a little fighting with the computer yesterday trying to upload stuff um and luckily the kids it's not on their radar quite yet but they put it on their own radar in you know out of recess they talk about it unfortunately it's start getting stressed out about it um the school council met recently we sent out
014a parent survey um parent and um uh and a student survey and we divided the student survey in by younger and old to really get a sense of how students are feeling what they might need more of um and that was it was really helpful to start the conversations around that and the goal is to um create new school Improvement goals um so we're gonna we're working on that and you mentioned the Multicultural night and then the grant which is social justice um we're meeting a meeting with the staff in a couple weeks to think about how we want to use that because we have um done a lot of work on social justice and have a framework from which we've been working and um so that the next step would be how do we
015want to continue our work around that and money um and then the final thing is our Safety Committee has um met a few times we've met with the fire chief and the police chief and the safety protocols have been updated a little bit for the state and the police chief um and I are working on dates for them to come in and do a 4-Hour training so we have to kind split it up among days um but it's been really um I don't love having the safety meetings because you think of worst case scenarios but it's been really good to have them and in the past I I think our our planning around it hasn't been as deep as it should be should be um and so I'm hoping plan planned for the worst case
016and never have it so we're having lots of meetings around that and we had some tabletop um exercises which was a recommendation from the police and fire chief um with the staff and we went through you know different scenarios in different places of the building so don't want to think about it but have you okay and then next time we meet I'll give you some more updates on um the student academic growth the preliminary results um are looking really good um especially in math um so that's exciting I think the new curriculum is proving to be um very effective and accessible so that's really exciting so I can bring that next time okay any questions all right then we'll move on to mrct good afternoon um first off I like to just remind everyone that
017we're having our four towns meeting on Saturday um and so definitely I know that pum feeds into the it's really CRI difficult to just hear what's happening um I released a grim data um which CA a little tiic for some schools and and just so we ended up updating it that we were clear on the fact that there are multiple ways that we report um and that's a part of the findings that we have in terms of why schools may not have um any data in in the system I believe that we have about two cases that were in pelum um one case of bullying confirmed status um two are listed in the Raw data and it may be a duplicate and then one case is currently in progress so um we are working diligently
018um we had a couple PRS complaints that came in around this situation and we've been looking at our buling protocol um we did find the team and looking at I did find where there was some language that D requires that are that are intervention protocol did not in in include um but then we've been working also on what is the investigation protocol so there's a bullying um prevention plan but we need to kind of outline what the investigator is supposed to do and put that together so we have the tools we know need to talk about how to use the tools um so that first report um went out but we have some work to to continue to do um we also started our portrait of a graduate work so thank you Margaret for showing
019up from representing P um and so it was a really great two days of deep talk deep deep conversation diving into data and we agreed that we are actually going to take an additional step so what we're going to do next is host focus groups um and have like elementary teachers come in and different individuals come in to kind of get that buy in and roll up together so we're working with um Dr leand to kind of do that um and then for me I'm doing some opportunities I realized that um a lot of a part in building relationships in the first six or seven months of my leadership has really been at the central office or School leader level and so I'm actually hosting um some sessions at the different schools kind of more
020of a get to know you um and I believe hel is our first school up and it is on Thursday so um yes it is right th yes Thursday at 2:30 to 4: p.m um so I'll be here I'll be available I'll reach out my team and I reach out to Nikki to see where's a good place for me to centralize and and be and it's really so that individuals will get to know the real do z um also that Thursday we have our budget meeting um to start diving into the final pen budget so that we're ready for our budget book to be posted it has to be posted I believe seven days ahead of the meeting so um we have our budget meeting that same Thursday 11:45 a.m. it's virtual um to kind
021of hash through the budget and look at the positions um with Mickey and just you know walk through what next year is really going to look like what what can we afford um we got some numbers in today we I'm going to wait till tomorrow to got my head around it and need to sleep on that I'm a bit but that's really where we're at um I have to say I'm really really grateful to to make you for the work that she does um here in pum and you know between her and now she has do and then we have Marita and um your I know as the adjustment counselor and the counselor they really hold like a real administrative team to move the school forward so I'm very very grateful for that work that
022she's leading at the help um and of course I want to say thank you to the community um and ending with a good quote my favorite from my Angelou do the best you can until you know better then when you know better you do better and so that's what we'll continue to do thank you thank you question I would just have a couple of questions sure on the um bullying stuff in pum who is the is the principal the one that's in charge of everything or how does it work for procedural wise so the counselors um will do the investigation um and then they'll present the investigation finding um to me and we'll have a discussion and um then make a decision and then um do does your staff all understand that they need to
023put it into brim or do you feel that staff are not putting it in brim and judging it before they put it into brim um I do think that people think about it before they put it in Bri most of the time it's a discussion and I put it in for whoever brings it Forward um it's so small that the counselors and I are usually the ones hearing about it and thinking about it with whoever tells us happen I do not all right thank you Dr Z all right so our next order of business is the afscme contract cont J to present so I brought two copies but I think s have seen this at least Twi before but I'll give you another copy if you want can share all right here you go thank
024you so um on the top page you'll notice um marget that there's a summary of changes and a lot of this are are changes to language you know increases in in number fre days but really I'd like to um point you to the most substantial changes which are um the financial changes so for instance um changes for the bus drivers who moved from this is this contract I should start off by saying covers our maintenance facilities custodians and drivers um and so one of the most substantial changes was changing our bus drivers from a grade uh e up to a grade F and the other was changing our maintenance specialist so our hbac technicians electricians plumbers um our mechanic from grade L to M and that was an effort to retain but also recruit um
025individuals into those roles since they are such short staff roles and it's hard to recruit um individuals um who who hold those licenses we've also negotiated a 2 and a half% increase for this current year so this is R it will be retroactively applied for the members in this contract so 2 and a half% for this current fiscal year 3% for fiscal year 26 and 3% for fiscal year 27 we also did a really great job of aligning a lot of the language in terms of retirement benefits with our um Unit A teachers contract and other contracts which is a push that we have because we do have different language in all in at least five contracts that we have um but we increase the longevity payments for our ask new members to reflect what
026our administrators and teachers and cl and cafeteria staff workers have the same with our retirement benefit um and with our Bally fiveback that applies to individuals who've been in the district for at least 20 years I'm trying to think um we've also increased the Footwear allowance to $225 it was previously I believe it was $200 um but most of the the other language or the other summary of changes that you'll see here are really language changes they don't have a monetary impact um per se um but they did help clarify a lot of the things that you know could have led to Mis understanding between management and um the union group and I would really like he's no he retired rer but I have to give him a shout out every time I do this
027he was our former director of facilities he did an amazing job of integrating all of Theus previous M us that had been um negotiated into this larger contract and he also made it completely gender neutral so he did the bulk of the work on this and so I I have to I have to give him um credit Rec credit to but I'm not sure if you have any questions or anyone has questions um I I don't think I do um I like the things that are in here that you mentioned you know I know we struggle keeping those people getting those people so I think recognizing them in that way is Meaningful yeah um I have to attribute that to to our business office Kate hulum she was incredibly creative in coming up with pay
028structures that would recognize the work that they did and I think it really went a long way for the Union as well to see that we were trying to be creative in ways to to bring you know bring people up to another grade or create a new grade and create you know acknowledge them in different ways we also have um to that end we feed a training program where we train will help train our own um uh members to get their van driver license or their bus license their their school bus license um and reimburse them for that training as well all an effort to recruit and retain folks in most positions it was was a very collaborative process it was it was a great process good thank you well I would make a motion
029to approve the 2024 through 2027 AFS CME contract you got it all right all all right [Music] thank you J of course um made your assessment Mickey you're back um so I didn't bring any numbers because I didn't think it was fair because the parents haven't gotten um assessment of the children right on that reading yes yeah um they haven't gotten report CS yet and we're such a small school I just didn't want to do that um but I can bring it next okay um and like I mentioned before the students are like in particular the math program shows you their growth and their growth is considerable um so and I do know the um I don't remember the acronym for the person who was here yesterday but um they they mentioned they saw two
030teachers no last week and um really walked away saying I think other teachers to come observe what's happening so huge compliment to our teachers and what they're doing great okay thank you that means you're up next oh nope sorry after sorry so we have not been able to meeting with the after school individuals think last Wai on them to give us so we'll reach back out okay so we'll wait now Wayne so um here excuse my voice my voice little loud but I'm here to give a quick update highlighting our uh student and family engagement um inititive that our sua has uh initiated putting family and student engagement on the school based level so I'm just going to highlight tonight our um P mentoring groups and as well as our pum family connections okay so
031uh and I wasn't able to do this this last time but I'm going to just quickly run through the mission statement for each initiative and then get some data feedback on where we have been from the first session okay so the P mentoring groups is here to to empower students with the skills and mindsets needed for successful transition to the middle school and Beyond through mentorship we focus on emotional regulation respect making good choices and personal growth we strive to create a supportive environment where students build confidence develop positive relationships and learn to navigate challenges with responsibility and resilience by fostering self-awareness and a commitment to kindness we prepare students to be positive respectful and proactive members of school and community so I want to just report that we have successfully completed our first four-week
032session of the Parliamentary group for the fifth and sixth grade groups which ran from mid November through mid December our PMG 5 which is pelor group five which is the fifth graders we have about 19 fifth graders and we have about 17 sixth graders um for the first session we really focused for the fifth graders we focused on recognizing identifying and and regulating negative emotions and how to be an empathetic good friend so that was the focus on our our first sessions and for the sixth grade we focused heavily on respect um a little bit on self-confidence and preparing for middle school but respect was a big big topic that we talked about with sixth graders and through this initiative um we have expanded um um from the group mentoring we're going to expand out
033to peer mentoring for uh four fourth grade students and for the fourth graders we're going to be focusing on responsibility um taking responsibility academically per uh personal feelings and relationsships with peers and outcomes and consequences of actions so we're going to run a smaller lunch group with about four four grayers and as well we're going to expand out from that to individual mentoring so we're going to start I'm going to start doing in conjunction with the principal and and the counselors individual mentoring for a couple of sixth graders and a couple of third graders and we'll be you know uh develop really building relationships developing trust between us so that we can go into some of the things that they're dealing with uh ranging from anger um taking responsibility as well being empathetic and then
034how to deal with peer relationships so I'm very um excited that we have expanded and we're going to grow our mentoring program uh a little bit little bit of feedback uh so we just did a quick survey for our fifth graders so far so I wanted to give you some feedback and we uh surveyed the fifth fifth grade mentoring group in I'm not going to go through the whole survey but a basic question of how do you feel about mentoring in general and I would say about 90% positive got a couple of borings which was not bad because I got to see but mostly range from I feel good it's fun I like it it makes me happy I like it it's calming uh mentoring is helpful um it's fine I'll take that one said
035I enjoy it I get to connect with classmates one said I think Mr D does a great job teaching one said good but also I like this when he said sad because I wish my friends from the low grade was here to see how we do this so that was very touching light okay that show that that expansion to the p and individual is going to be uh SU uccessful so um so that is moving forward and I look forward to Bringing more data and information as we move into the second session now uh also I wanted to um just highlight that and just feedback we had um Helen conducted our kindness week in the mid mid December and it was very very nice all the students came and gave notes and it was so
036heartfelt so I just wanted to share you know because this I I think it just really grounds you in the work that we that we're doing really makes me makes me individually um personally I'm sorry uh really uh value the time that we have with the students and the important uh impact is making on their lives so one response and I only have three responses but one said Mr D you're so kind to the team I love when you come to um I'm sorry sorry sorry sorry um said Mr D I love when you come to tell them because you were so happy when we come to the field thank you one say thank you for supporting the fourth grade soccer team I look forward to the days you come and one says thank you
037for being outside at recess Monday Wednesdays and Fridays you're really nice and really fun so it just shows the impact of you know even out on the recess field even at lunch you know we we make differences we make impacts and following up on that uh from that was the student engagement but now we're going into our family engagement and this is one that I'm really Hing in on and looking to expand as the district's initiative of every account and we're looking to really uh bring out the voices of the P family so I'll quickly read our mission statement for p family connections and just give a quick um update on where we do and uh one one feedback um from a family so the pel family connections initiative and our mission is to build
038strong collaborative relationships between families and our school through meaningful and consistent communication we're going to strive to build Bridges and create a strong sense of community by fostering open respectful and meaningful conversations with families through engagement calls we aim to connect listen and collaborate and we will ensure that every family feels uh heard uh valued and empowered as essential Partners in their child's education so this is an initiative that I'm looking to really grow uh I we are looking to do at least two per family that's our hope and our goal which is very ambitious but you know we got to have vision and we got to have something to strive for so I'm looking to get that done and uh we are as Micky mentioned uh the P caregivers survey went out so we
039have a lot of feedback from the families and also with the uh family arts and culture be connecting with families also fostering this connection and getting these calls going but we were able to just wrapping up we were able to conduct one uh P family connection call which went for about 45 minutes and it really came off of you know some issues that what happening and it was a good connection point but I just want to read the feedback that the dad sent me by text um after we finished so he said great meeting today I really want you to know how much we appreciate the initiative that we were taking and seeing our children's well-being and educational Integrity remain intact during their school years which is extremely important to us thank you and I
040won't say the parents name but that really touched me as well and it let me know that there is um a value in these making these connections and also from my standpoint trying to highlight their voices and bring them into all of the P families into what's happening with the school um the the P PTO and also try to get them um uh on the hel school council as well so I look forward to Growing that get having more dat to bring back and um also just uh excited to be back and and and continue the work and I'm really seeing the value of having a school-based family and student supports so any questions com so can you you said something about two two two I I didn't understand so our mission was to have
041two of these pum family connection uh connection calls with the family with each family one in the beginning of the year and one towards the end of the year okay yes and to reach out to each family is what you're saying I was just gonna say on positive note that it seems like to me I've only been here for a year but that since the family center is more school-based versus at district offices that we are getting a lot more services to families than have their asked so I would like to publicly say that that I think that it seems like it's been very positive to have the offices at the schools and it seems like our kids propelling were getting more Services than we had ever through the family center that I've experienced all
042right thank you thank you I would just say to that point it has been my experience and we're really making connections with the students on the ground and I think after sometime as we as we build really solidify it I think we'll see great results but I do agree with that same thank you thank you this is another attempt to make family connections is I did have a conversation because we're we have two vacant seats on the committee we have no one with children in the school right here we have two vacant seats there's two more no one on the committee Who currently has children in the school so I did have an opportunity to talk to somebody at after the concert today who indicated that they might be interested and it's another it's another
043way to connect you know which is hard to do so anybody who knows anybody please yes um okay um which is I don't have anything to add um so the next thing would be to talk about what we want to have in our next meeting in March um I am wondering because in the past we have had occasionally presentation from the um curriculum person or and others about a particular curriculum and I know you know I really appreciated when they they did a sort of an indepth presentation about the IRA the math program and I'm wondering and and I keep hearing about a writing program I'm just wondering is there something else that you're doing in the curriculum that you can bring to us and talk about sure um I think there's some leadership trainings
044and different trainings time can definitely don't put it on her calendar to come in and present okay so we'll talk about that all right um I don't have anything else at this point Micky I can bring the assessment data yes that's right um after come back abely while can she come back with the AA cont next P Margaret General T do it he said maybe you could bring the APA contract for our next all right well in that case me all those in favor we areed 43 minutes