001Good evening. It is December 10th. This is the school committee meeting and we start by reading our vision statement. The Ashlin Public Schools strives to be a model district that creates a culture of inclusivity for diverse students and staff who feel safe and supported, are empowered with the academic and social emotional skills to pursue their chosen path and embrace their roles as positive contributors to local and global communities. This meeting is being recorded by WACA cable TV. Our our order of business this evening is call to order, opening procedures, agenda review, and adoption. Um, I will be moving to go into executive session under section 21A3 to conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body.
002And the chair so declares to return to open session. This is regarding the Ashlin Educator Teachers Association Athletic and Extracurricular Stipen MOA. Um, we'll have time for public participation. And the reports and presentations this evening include AHS student advisory council update, English language education update, Christy Arnold, accept quarter treasures financial report, FY27 preschool tuition rate increase recommendations, Warren approvals, superintendent [music] report, assistant superintendent report, and our action items this evening include superintendent's goals, pitway rate increase FY2027, consent agenda, Approval of gifts and donations, approval of grant funds received, minutes from October 22nd, 2025, and then we um will adjourn. Everybody okay with the order of business this evening? >> Yes. >> Okay. And we I see Marcy, Paul, Mark, and myself, Tina will be joining us a little bit later. Um so I am going
003to move to go into executive session um under section 21 A3 to conduct strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares to return to open session Ashlin Educators Association teachers athletic and extracurricular stipen MOA. We have a second. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Roll call. >> I Yes. Hi. Hi. >> Hi. Thank you. So, we just need a couple of minutes to have a quick executive session and we'll be right back with you everybody. Thank you. Okay, thank you and welcome back everybody. >> Thank you. >> Sorry. >> Do you want me to be quiet? Um the school committee is just returning from executive session um where we voted
004to recommend uh to accept the recommendations on adjusting the ratios for the stipended positions in the district. And now we are going to move on to public participation if whether there's anybody online or in the room that wants to add any public comment. And seeing none, hearing none, I will move on to our first category. And we might need a minute for that. Are we waiting for some other students to come? Okay. Well, how about the English language education update? Christie, are you ready for that? Awesome. Thank you. Welcome, Christie. >> Sure. Do >> me when to push the button. >> Good evening. I'm Christy Arnold, director for English language education. Glad to be here again. I was here last year, I think December 11th, so I like giving my annual update. Next slide. So,
005as usual, I will share the updates of our enrollment for our multilingual learners, our English learners, our former English learners. As you can see in the district, we have 930 students that report a primary language at home that is something other than English. That's about 31%. Of those students, 20 uh 226 are in our English learner education program, meaning they qualify for additional instruction in learning English. uh 239 are former English learners, meaning they're they've exited the English learner status, but in their they're in their first four years of monitoring. And then I have the breakdowns for the schools, high school, middle school, Mendes, Warren, and Pitaway. Comparing those numbers to last year, they're all about the same within 10 at each school. I think overall I think we're up two students in the English
006learner category and more in the former English category. We exited about 50 students last year. Uh students new to US schools, that's 55. Um keep in mind that includes 22 kindergarteners because they're all in their first year of US schools. And English learners with disabilities were at 35 right now. Next slide. Um, I broke down the languages. This slide has not changed much from last year. Portuguese is still our number one language. And then we have, I think, 42 total languages spoken in the district. >> Chissy, is there any, you know, any sort of change demographically over the last five or 10 years in this, or is that still pretty consistent? >> Um, [clears throat] I would say since I've been here, four years about the same. It's about the same. Next slide. So, um,
007this year I decided to give a little bit more information about our access for ELEL assessment. That's the annual assessment that measures growth in English proficiency in the four domains, listening, speaking, reading, writing. Children can score between one and six. About 4.2 is what we're looking for overall for proficiency with a 3.9 in literacy. So in the first column where it says made made attainment, uh those are the percentages of the ELELS's that are currently in the program that have made it attainment, meaning they've exited. So that's about those those 50 kids that exited last year. Um the more important number uh that I'm looking at to see whether or not our EEL program is successful is making progress and the state measures making progress based on how long they've been in the the United
008States schooling as well as their age. So the growth targets are a little bit different based on those. Overall they're looking for students to make that exit mark that 4.2 uh within six years. So how much growth they need each year. So at the high school we have 344% of students making progress towards the goal. At the middle school 26 Mendes and Warren um 62 and 82% respectively. Now Christie, is is that uh primar the the older students uh on that attainment at a lower percentage due to both their age and the workloads and what they're expected to try to do and and >> that that is that is correct. That is correct. They have a lot more to to learn in English as they get older. >> A lot more challenging to learn. >>
009Yes. So as you see the numbers go down, >> right? 82% of uh Warren students are making progress and 9% are exiting that means there's there's a lot of growth happening there and then at Mendes the same and then it slows down a little bit uh in addition so looking at this information uh last year when I came to you we discussed a little bit about curriculum changes that we've made as well as using flashlight 360 to regularly monitor growth and progress whereas this is like a one time a year and that's made a huge difference in my opinion in how students are doing. Yeah, I think that was one of the other things I was going to ask is since you've taken over, I think there's been a lot of changes that you've implemented
010and have we been tracking uh the impacts of those changes and and you know, say if it's a student that entered into Mendes, they had previously been taking X amount of time to you to get into attainment, but maybe you've made changes and the average now is is less than that or do we have any metrics that are kind of tracking the the How similar? >> So looking at the so looking at the numbers of students making progress. It's hard to track student by student just because the variables there are a lot of variables there. But looking at that making progress point that has been going up. >> Awesome. >> Yes. And then um >> yeah just do you have a [clears throat] sense of excuse me how the progress numbers compare to sort of
011statewide data points >> above above the state average. Yes. >> Okay. >> I don't have it off the top of my head but I can't do the comparison. >> You know we're we're doing okay. >> Yeah. She's pretty confident in that one. [laughter] >> I did look at that number. Um, and so Flashlight 360 is that progress monitoring tool that um, I I spoke about. And last year in the spring, we had a few teachers that came because they were um, I forget flashlight honores, if you will. As a district, we're one of the top 20 districts in the United States for growth. So, we're one of the language legends. They sent us t-shirts. I meant to bring one to show it to you, but I forgot. We have t-shirts and each of the team
012members got them and lanyards and buttons and we were definitely celebrated as one of the top 20 districts and again we're using this to tool to provide meaningful practice for the students. we be we're able to give the students feedback, set goals within it and also to inform instruction and this is I think one of the pieces that has really a game changer in in the work that the teachers are doing. Do um parents how do you educate parents about flashlight 360 like are they able to look at any of the metrics? >> It's on I'll just point it toward me. Are they able to like so are parents able to see like metrics from flashlight 360 or is that just the instruction method? >> It's the instruction method. the teachers are sharing updates um
013and they can share the goal sheets and teachers are doing it differently at different levels but the students understand the rubrics at this point because they're used to getting the feedback so they know what a one answer is versus a four answer. So when we're saying say more or use vocabulary, they're understanding when we're saying, "Okay, this is what you need to get to the next level." And this the flashlight 360 is really helping the students understand what we're looking for in the English assessments. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yep. Uh next slide. Uh so flashlight and access and these things at our family engagement night. So, we had one at Mendes in the fall. We'll have an official LPAC meeting. In the winter time, and then in the spring, there'll be another family night
014where we talk about the access scores as well as summer um in sports programs offered in Ashlin. >> And then I have a quick twominute video hopefully. So the family night at Mendes, the students each took a part of the school to do a tour for the families to do a video tour. And so I trimmed it down and let's see if we got to get the sound. Hopefully it works. My favorite lunch is pizza. >> Any other way to show the I think >> no. office. Miss P is the counselor. the side. and that's it. >> Thank you. >> Hey. Hey. Hey, Mike. Just uh similar to what we were asking her um with the if we're if we're seeing improvements in uh their level of attainment and and things like that uh are
015we also seeing accord the growth uh in those students uh from on the academic side. So, are are they are are they actually able to then, you know, get access to the curriculum better? >> Maybe it's not even trackable, but >> No, it's it's certainly trackable and and we we talk about this all the time. We understand that we still have probably our biggest gaps in our achievement data is still within um the majority of our um our sub our subgroups and our population. So special education students continue to um fall behind in some of our achievement data as well as our English learners and obviously that's a major focus for us and that that is going to continue to improve as things like access data does improve and and the use of flashlight 60
016becomes more prevalent and we we continue to make these effective changes. But yep, it's it's certainly something that we're well aware of that we continue to have gaps specifically for our English learners. >> Yeah. I know I know we have gaps, but you know, is are they is that gap shrinking with the improvements? >> Not not at the rate we'd like to see it right now. It's it's still it's still a pretty large gap. Um I I actually have some data that I'm going to be sharing with you shortly. Um hopefully that will become sooner rather than later. We've been have to continue to push that off, but I do have a presentation that'll be ready that will be about all of our achievement data across the district. then you'll notice that the the biggest
017disparity right now is with our English learner population. Um so there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. Um but in terms of what they're what what our students are doing in for their access to the English language, I think that is >> uh pretty impressive >> like that opens the door, right? >> Correct. And that's the f that's the first step >> and then we just need to figure out that's right >> that if it's not a one to one I see the the attainment getting much better and if we don't see the growth on the academic we're figuring out that other component. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's a that is a um that continues to be uh number one our number one priority right now in terms of our our achievement
018for our district. >> Excellent. Thank you. Do we have everybody for the student council? >> Awesome. Welcome. I see some familiar faces. Come on up. >> Somebody come out. >> Is the green button on for the mic? >> Can you all hear me? >> Yes. >> All right, perfect. Um, my name is Zohasai Ali. I'm currently a junior at Ashlin High School. At the high school, we're um currently underway term two. So, classes are going very well. Um currently, as an example of that, um in Spanish for honors, we're currently watching a movie in Spanish about the Bolivian water wars in the early 2000s and learning more about human rights from a more um Spanish perspective and a more South American perspective, which has been very interesting. And another thing that's also underway at the
019high school is um seniors have started to hear back from colleges. mostly early decision but also some early action and that's been very exciting to see where people have been getting in. Um, and has just been a really great experience to see people really happy about that. Um, and another thing is we all like to thank you for the new sound system that we see in the gym, in the cafeteria, in the auditorium. It has been working really well so far and it's been a great improvement to the school. >> Happy to hear. >> Literally. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Hi, my name is Yash. I'm a sophomore at Ashlin High School and term 2 has been going pretty good too. In chemistry, we did a lab today on mixing a green powder, copper oxide, and
020burning it with the Bunson burner and turning it into a jet black substance. I found that pretty interesting. And going on a more schoolwide level, we have Clocker Idol coming up next week. It's pretty interesting to see the participants. I enjoyed watching it last year, too, and I'm going to enjoy watching it this year. And tomorrow we have our presentation by Nick Turner on addiction and other diseases, substances, and just to make sure that all students are making great choices. >> Thank you. >> Hi everybody. Uh my name is Sophia Warnetski and I am a junior. Um so recently we had the National Honor Society induction ceremony. Um 51 new club members were inducted with 49 juniors and two seniors. Um and the club is looking forward to more fundraising in the future. Also um
021lately winter sports have started up. For example, there is an ash and wrestling invitational coming up. Uh also winter track has their first meet tomorrow with a roster of 95 people. Uh and additionally the swim team has a waiver to have eighth graders on their team. So they are seeing a lot of more participation this year. Um and that's all. Thank you. Thank you. >> Hi board members. My name is Oil and I'm a junior. Um right now the Makea-Wish Club has been able to do a partnership with Kendra Scott, a popular jewelry brand um which will help them raise money towards their cause. Something else that's been going to be going on um in the next few months is the PenPal program. I've had the opportunity to be part of this program for two
022years now where students exchange letters with Japanese students for a few months and then finally get to meet them in person and show them around the school and around their classes. Um I get to be a part of this the program this year too and I'm excited to see who I meet and who I get to talk to. Lastly, a few weeks ago, um AHS had their annual hallway decorating. Um the freshman theme was space, the sophomore theme was jungle. Um the junior's theme was Dr. Seuss and the seniors were Spotify wrapped. At the end, the juniors won for a third year in a row and the class of 27 ended up with two uh 126 points while the senior class ended up with 120 points. So, it was still a close race. Thank you.
023>> Thanks, O. >> All right, you guys. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you coming in and filling us in. All good stuff. Okay, next up, except quarter 1 treasures financial report. >> Yeah, so this is not anything that needs a a vote on uh but in keeping with the bylaws of the except collaborative uh they are supposed to be sending because I'm the representative of the school committee to the collaborative uh and school committees aren't necessarily part of those meetings. So even this morning we had our our board meeting and it was a a reminder from the executive director that we need to at least present to the school committee uh the quarterly financial report but anything that's happening within the uh collaborative throughout the each quarter and it is just a habit
024that we're going to get into from the collaborative standpoint where we have not done that in the past um and for a variety of reasons but it the conversation today was there's no voting it's just it's a reference that we have to then be able to provide back to the de to desi that that the collaborative is actually indeed sharing uh information from the collaborative. So, uh, it's just it's there for you, uh, and it'll be posted with our minutes and in our, um, presentation packet. >> Is is there anything from a summary perspective we should take away from >> No, no. I I what I would say is this and and I'll say it more holistically that uh we've been frustrated with accept over the past number of years um from a management standpoint
025and uh and a number of our students we've we've been looking for. The whole purpose of a collaborative is to provide an opportunity for districts uh to have students who might need um out of district placements at a at a lesser cost. Right? It it's only $4,000 for us to belong to the collaborative, but we get a significant discount at 25% of what it might cost in another setting. Um but we haven't been really pleased uh with a lot of our um sending a lot of our students there, not making the the growth that we expected. Uh we have a lot of hope. So I guess what I would say is >> coming out of even today's meeting, we have a lot of hope for the future. Um and yeah, very good. We're Cat Burnclaw,
026who's the um interim executive director, but in interim we gave her a two-year um interim >> um position, not a one. What's her name again? >> Cat Brun. She was with uh Medway for a number of years as the director of student services as well as Welsley. Um she's outstanding and she's made a significant uh when Arvin Pers actually says something positive, you know, it's pretty good from Medway. Um but [laughter] that can go on record too, Armen. Um but but he he brought that up today saying there's so much more um uh faith in uh where we're headed with accept. So it's in a good really good financial position. I I guess getting back to the agenda item itself, >> we're in a really good financial position there. Um the transportation has always been
027a struggle, but that's a that's a a byproduct of transportation is really costly and getting students to a variety of of stops. Uh coming from Ashlin, maybe having to go up to the Northshore, it's a challenge, right? Um but very good spot. We're in a very good position right now. >> Looks treasury is in good hands with Mr. Ran. Barbara is the treasurer. Yes. >> I was I was going to say the the numbers are probably questionable. >> Well, they're they've been reviewed >> at best a penny off. >> The audit report we just got back is was glowing as well. Some of the the procedures that are finally had been put in place from our past audits. Yep. >> Great. >> Excellent. Thank you. FY27 preschool tuition rate increase recommendation. So I I will
028pull up the presentation and >> do we want the presentation or do you want >> Let me see. >> Let's see the share recommenations or just the spreadsheet. >> Is this the spreadsheet? Curs is the only thing and and Amanda she's on here as well. Was it correct? >> Yeah. Okay. I don't know who's speaking to it. So this is similar to what we how we presented it last year which is we're following the similar format and the the recommendation is for 3% tuition increase over prior year for this current year. Um so going into fiscal 27 um the intent is to cover operating and salary costs. I was going to ask is is it is it basically hey covering the cola basically that you know >> and that's where the 3% comes from is
029just align it with align it with cola. >> Yeah. >> Thanks questions. >> Yeah just real quick on the um left hand part of the first column left hand column excuse me it says community peers full day half day. What are the the numbers? It's at 8545 for the who's >> the the number of days that those peers attend. So five full days. We might have four half days. >> The the first one says eight community peers though. So I think that's what throwing them off. >> Oh, I apologize. You know that's a carry I apologize Mark. I'm not that >> um >> because the enrollment is the enrollment is the community period. Correct. Correct. Correct. That's a carryover from prior year spreadsheet that I should have just caught. >> Okay. All right. So, that
030the enrollment figures of 24, that's all community peers that we're talking about. >> That's correct. >> Okay. I think that's what I'm looking for. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else have any questions on that? >> No. >> Great. >> Do we have a motion? >> Um, I'll move to approve the recommendation for FY27 preschool tuition rates as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? Hi. >> Thank you. >> Next one's been >> warrant approval. Paul >> between October 23rd, 2025 and December 10th, 2025. I, Paul Kendall, authorized by my signature payable in the amount of $2,251,946. Uh this includes general fund expenses of1,125,832.95, revolving expenses of 1,112,647.18 and grant expenses of $13,340.97 and meals tax expenses of $83.56. >> Thank you. Superintendent report. Yeah, just quickly a couple things. Uh thank you for the folks
031at the table here participating last week in the district review. Uh the department of ed uh was out for the entire week uh where they spent um numerous hours interviewing teachers, students, administration, school committee members, town manager. Uh and it was really a comprehensive review of the district itself. uh where they're looking at relationships [clears throat] um where we are financially what procedures we have in place uh but they also took the time to visit I think um close to 50 classrooms and do observations uh where they have their own rubric if you will to determine um you know what they're seeing in the in the classroom whether it's instructional whether it's looking at for anal component etc. So, this turnaround time is about three months uh in order to get the report and we'll
032share that out. They'll send it to me. Uh I have a follow-up meeting with them next Tuesday with the department. So, they will come in um present a report, allow us to review it, send back uh if there's something factual missing or if we have questions on it and um and then we go ahead and uh we'll accept the final report probably in the March time frame. Uh, and then when we do that, uh, we'll present it to the board. Um, but FYI, that's coming. Uh, I want to thank Mike, uh, Britney, um, and numerous other folks, uh, Colleen Brewer, who helped with our coordinated program review, which we did last year. Uh, but we've been having, uh, quarterly, more than quarterly, but monthly, um, uh, updates that we've had to provide to the Department
033of Ed. It's another um audit if you will of but this focused on special education, civil rights, our student handbooks I think as of yesterday. Um we uploaded our final document. We hope Michael >> we hope. Um but we'll see. Um but we've we've sort of taken almost a year or more than that. Yeah, almost a year to to go back and forth with with the department on certain aspects of of the coordinating program review. So, we're hoping January time frame was when we had to have everything completed. We're done, we think, as of yesterday or Monday when I submitted it. >> Uh, and I guess the last thing, last two things. One, obviously, we'll have another meeting tonight about the budget. We're continuing to work on that, continue to have conversations with each um
034department um building principal, etc. Uh, and the last thing is there will be a letter going out to the community um most likely either this week or early next week just with regard to fundraising and donations uh just so everyone's consistent uh with our process and understanding the process um because we I've had conversations with certain outside organizations um who have made donations to say an athletic program and that athletic program it was a direct donation from a youth organization as opposed to going through uh the Clocker Club, make the donation through the Clocker Club and then there's or make it directly to the Ashlin Public School so we can then expend it properly. Um so it's just a reminder of process. Um there's nothing nefarious here. It's just sort of a a process of
035of making sure everyone's doing it the same way. Um if you're donating something to the schools that it goes through a process where the school committee is required by law to accept it. Uh and similarly when we have negotiated contracts uh for coaching stipens making sure that coaches are paid at the rate that we agreed to. Um it's okay to donate money to have a coach an extra coach but we haven't built that into our budget necessarily but it needs to go through the proper channels. So it's really just a reminder to folks. So that will be going out. >> Yeah. And I think the other other component is if you plan to make a donation because you're going to have a fundraising event for the purpose of that. >> That's right. >> You still
036have to >> and you said right and there's a process. Right. So, it's just a reminder of all those things. >> We have policies on these things and >> believe me, I'm I'm excited that folks are donating and the youth organizations are donating, but we just need to make sure that >> that we can account for it all and do it appropriately. So, >> okay, >> that's it. >> Thanks, Mike. >> So, as I I as I said earlier, I I do have a a pretty large presentation that I'll be giving to the entire committee um at a at a later date, but just a a quick teaser for you for your Paul. you talked about English learning. Um, one of the things that we're really concerned about right now in particular is that uh
037in math for instance, we outperformed the state in nearly all areas for our MCCAST data, but we saw that there was a 3% dip this year for our English learners, particularly in math. Um, we're not sure exactly what that's related to. It could be the fact that, you know, with the the changes in the MCCAST, um, that that may have made students a little less motivated, but what we are very concerned about is that we also for the first time went three percentage points behind the state, which normally isn't the case. Um, so that's just a small glimpse of some of the things I'm going to be talking about in that larger presentation. And what that's all part of too is that one of the reports that we just did send to the state. We
038did a pretty significant institutional self-evaluation this year. Um so you'll be getting sort of a summary of that document. Um when I am able to have the time that is needed for that pretty significant report that will be presented to you about all the data from the district. Uh in terms of just a quick assistant superintendent report, um we did have our first education educator evaluation committee meeting to discuss the changes that we're going to be making in our rubric. Um this work, you know, started last year and has been a long ongoing process that's been really collaborative between uh administration and the AEA. Um, we're getting we're getting close to coming to an end of the rubric portion of this and then we'll take the next steps in terms of the other pieces that
039are involved. But we are almost all the way through standard three. We finished standard one and standard two. We are almost finished with standard three. We're hoping to have that done at our next meeting next next Wednesday and get into standard four and then hopefully we can start the next steps to actually get to a rubric approval and make some significant changes in the educator evaluation process for the district. Um, other just great things to to announce, the Ashlin music department uh is proud to announce. The following students will represent the Ashlin community in the 2526 Massachusetts Central District Music Festival. Uh these students were selected through a rigorous audition process comprised of over 70 schools and over 1,000 student applicants. So we want to congratulate the following students for being accepted for chorus. Eric
040Almita, Eric Alita, uh Caroline Diamond, Gabby Illan, uh for band, Jonah Bloom, Millie Jaywall, Rebecca Cricggsman, Daniel Lee, Sabrina Lynn, Hassini Reddi, Niha Ruther Morphy, and Kaia Smiths, and for orchestra, Andrew Martin. And in addition, the following students based on their high scores in the district level audition were given an all-state recommendation which allows them to audition in January for potential placement in the allstate music festival which happens in March. And that is Caroline Diamond, Gabby Illan for chorus, Millie Jaywall, Daniel Lee and Niha Ruther for band and Andrew Martin in orchestra. Uh and in addition, Acadec had their first competition on on uh quite a quite a while ago since we were have last met, but that was uh in NITMK and 16 students competed and they won at least one subject award in
041their GPA bracket. Um and and some of these students that uh won special awards and recognition are Gautam Rajes Shuria Senukamar Sid Ma Manavlad Nick Novak Hassini Reddi Na Rutorthy whose name you can continue to hear today Adicha Carik Aron Abishek Carik Yashuja Sonia Mutaswami and Zia Kashwan so congratulations to all those students who are representing Ashland Well, >> wonderful. Congratulations. Thank you, Mike. [clears throat] Okay, superintendent's goals. >> Sorry, I did not receive any feedback other than >> nor did I. >> Right. So, um so all the goals that I presented at the last meeting, just ask that you approve um so I can post those and continue to work on them. >> Keep it consistent. >> You want me to do it? I move to approve um the goals for the superintendent for
042the 2526 school year as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Excellent. Thank you. Um >> I assume the next one is a repeat. We took care of that. So, uh we're on to the consent agenda. We have a motion. >> Move to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. And I think that's it. >> Down reports. >> Oh yeah. Thank you. >> We've got 13 minutes. I mean, you might as well use them. >> Tell us what you've been up to, Marcy. >> Parenting. [laughter] >> Yeah. But I will I will I don't think we've met since the Makea-Wish trip. So, I just want to thank everyone who Thank you for chaperoning and thank all the students who went in the club. and it continues
043to be just like such a magical experience for all the kids and families who go and um I just really commend everyone for doing it. It's great. >> Thank you. >> Um I don't have a ton to update on. I did um last Friday the um Ashlin High School band had their um holiday music movie concert and the Ashlin music association has started to do a fundraiser before. So they do it's really for the little kids that come with some crafts and games and stuff. We had Elsa um come to join us this year which was a lot of fun. Um and then um a couple weeks ago there was a middle school and high school concert that I attended and one thing that really stood out to me is one of the middle school
044students composed one of the pieces that the middle school band played which was really cool. Um so I thought that that was a lot of fun. >> Yeah. >> Uh I I'm probably missing things but I don't have a lot. Uh obviously we did have town meeting since our last last meeting. Uh it was pleasantly very quick. Uh I think everything passed unanimously which is I think the first time I've ever >> experienced that even like the budget sometimes will get a a no a single no or something like that. But uh other than that I'm good. And only thing would be what what you mentioned earlier Jim just participation in the district review um interviewing with the consultants or whatever we call them hired by DESIE which was an interesting process to go through
045um you know and just Marcy I met with them one person together while you were in another room Lori and um you know I said interesting process they certainly were doing a lot of examination about relationships and how things work and um felt like I was almost being too positive because I felt like they might say you're kidding, right? You know, but we'll see when we get the report. So, but other than that, I don't >> we did highlight too, it's worth mentioning that one of the best parts of the school committee meeting is the students coming to the school committee meeting and I offered that before [clears throat] they asked about that. So, it's great. >> Oh, check the box. >> Yeah, I I enjoyed talking about that as well. I did do that
046as Mark said. Um I went to site council yesterday. Um there was a really healthy discussion about um the budget situation. I don't know if it's on if you've asked for it to be on the agenda at every site council meeting or if principles are just taking the lead and um but they're trying to sort of follow up with our discussions that we're having on the wider scale and Jim's been around to the buildings and so at least at our site council at Warren um it was shared um with the parents in the room and and they had a lot of really excellent questions about it. Um, and that's what we talked about most of the time. Um, Makea-Wish trip, amazing. I'm the best part about it always is um the feedback that we get
047um from the staff at Makea-Wish, but also we almost never come home without getting letters from somebody um either a parent that we met um who our kids really impacted or you know, somebody from the outside always writes to the district and says like, "Oh my goodness, your students um and a great group of kids." Um, I was sharing with Jim the other day, um, you know, and at this point I've had the chance to travel with all of your kids, which has been an amazing experience. Like, we just really have such a diverse, um, amazing group of of students that we should be so proud of them out in the world. I mean, that's been one of the joys of of the opportunities that I've had to spend time with them. Um, I'm a
048grandma now. Like, do I look different than the last meeting? Uh, today's my son's birthday. He's 31. I mean, that's what's going on over here. Other than that, >> um, that's it. >> Yeah. >> I I felt terrible. I forgot to add this one thing in my report. We had an event today at the middle school. Um, and we we need to recognize the folks who are working with our launch program, uh, specifically Cassia Ashman, who has done such a tremendous job with our with our students who are in our 18 to22 program. They hosted a movie event for all of our specialized programs throughout the district. So, our students were bust over and our launch students were the um the employees of the movie theater and they sold popcorn and snacks and tickets and
049all of the uh students in the specialized programs were given money to pay for their treats. And uh it was when when I I was on my way out to go visit Mendes, the students were arriving and the excitement that was in the air was contagious and it was just a an amazing event and I'm so grateful that we are able to uh offer all of our students this opportunity, but specifically be able to to provide the opportunity for our launch students to have this sort of leadership opportunity and get them ready for the workforce. So it was really a special day today. >> That's great. Thank you for sharing that. That's a good one. >> Anybody else before >> just for folks who are entering into the school committee meeting now if if you're
050looking to participate in the tri board meeting, there's a separate link uh that you'll have to you'll find under um the town of Ashland's website under their agenda for this evening. Just I see some different names on here that normally haven't checked in with us. So, if that's what you're looking to do, uh there is a separate link uh that that you'll have to log into for the Zoom session >> and you'll be able to find it on the town website or right next to this meeting right after this meeting. >> So, are we adjourning this meeting and then reopening another move to adjourn our meeting? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I thank you. Good night for five minutes. I just I didn't want There were some people that