School Committee: December 11th, 2024

001e e e good evening everybody it is December 11th this is our school committee meeting and we start each meeting reading our vision statement the Ashland Public School strives to be a model District that creates a culture of inclusivity for our diverse students and staff who feel safe and supportive 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 waa cable TV our order of business this evening is our call to order agenda review and adoption public participation the reports and presentations will include our student presentations with the school committee student advisor Council cares Miss St cerr from Ashlin High School unified basketball Josh Sanford field trip proposal Greece April 2026 Mr McAn

002El report Christy Arnold warrant approvals superintendence report assistant superintendent report our action items and discussion updates and votes include Chesterton Academy of the immaculada Catholic School proposal in Ashland approval of policies um including jjf jjf D athletic concussion regulations ad vision and mission statement ecfa face coverings DJ purchasing first read of policies includes dja purchasing Authority DJ bidding requirements bhe use of electronic messaging by school committee members the consent agenda includes approval of gifts and donations Grant approval minutes from November 3rd 2024 and then we will move to enter reports of school committee members and then we will move to enter into executive session under mgl chapter 30A section 21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel superintendent Jim Adams or to conduct collective bargaining with the intent of not

003returning to public session and then we will adjourn okay I'm just going to take attendance and ask if everybody is okay with the order of business this evening Marcy here yes Tina here and yes Paul yes Mark yes okay great um so first I'm going to ask if there's anybody from the public either online or in the room who would like to offer public comment and seeing none I will move on to our um student advisory Council presentation you guys are welcome to come on up to the podium and introduce yourselves and fill us in on what's going on hello hi I'm Sophia wety and I'm in 10th grade um so couple updates so we recently participated in the Alice drill which is like practicing barricading classrooms in case of a lockdown and um however

004some students didn't take this situation like completely seriously because they knew about it ahead of time time although it's definitely a good overall practice since some people like had never like learned how to like barricade their classrooms before um there's also the NHS induction ceremony recently where 63 students were inducted into the National Honor Society bringing the club participation total up to like above 90 and um so also the honors band and chorus participated in the senior District's music competition um and 12 band members and five chorus members qualified and for fall Sports um so there's a lot of successful teams so both girls and boys cross country made it to all states for the first time in history um girls volleyball made it to the final eight boy soccer made it to the Sweet

00516 and both girls soccer and girls field hockey made it to the playoffs as well and we had 23 total League allar or 24 League All Stars and um also Mr Anderson made all of the sports banners in the gym like a uniform design and he purchased um new record boards for swimming and track and field awesome thanks all right good evening everyone my name is Max Mambo and I'm a junior so right now freshmen are beginning to plan their High School uh path in freshman seminar and juniors are looking into colleges and career paths in their junior seminar um it's an exciting time with lots of thoughtful planning in both grades on another note uh I'd like to address the recent change in the French program as you already know it's being phased out

006and I think it might be a little bit tough for the middle school students who are currently um taking French it might be forced to switch over to Spanish um I'd like to propose offering an alternative language like something like Portuguese which might be easier to staff in considering like the finding French teachers is considerably hard um and I'd also like to touch up on the upcoming winter break um as you you know it's the longest it's been in years and I think it's a positive change considering most teachers are already wrapping up like all their units by by the end of this week or the next week and um so it doesn't really interrupt the flow of learning and I feel like it's a good time for kids to come to connect with their

007families y so that's it thank you thank you that's very helpful input hi um I'm Sonia with thei and I'm in I'm a sophomore um so for Club fundraisers there was the Red Cross which had the blood drive and we got a lot of or they got a lot of participants um from students as well as teachers also make awish hosted a Harlem Wizards fundraiser which allowed um them to raise around $177,000 which allows them to Grant almost two wishes which is amazing um also right before Thanksgiving break we we had a hallway decorating competition and a lot of students came to help their class out and um there were so many creative designs and effort put into each hallway and uh yeah the class 2027 won um with their hallway of candy cane theme

008um also for college and military branch visitors there were several College visits um that that's been happening every week during xblock um some upcoming meeting dates this week or upcoming is Monday on the 16th and Tuesday on the 17th um a bus point Cadet who is a former graduate at Ashlin came to during X blog to and held an info session about what he does and like um the program um also students have seen military branch visits during lunch um who set up tables and provides F Fires for their program which many students love to check out and participate in awesome thank you thank you thank you all right all right thanks everybody we appreciate that all that great information and you are free to go whenever you want to uh Miss St CER cares

009on cares you going to do both okay beautiful awesome anything I'm really not doing anything but introducing them so um excited to um welcome our co-present for the cares team um who we're going to talk to a little bit tonight about what the car's team does at ashon high school so they'll introduce themselves and um explain a little bit about what we do um it's an unique group at ashon High School in that it's not just a student Club it's actually a group of students and adults who meet together regularly um so I'm going to let these wonderful young ladies explain it to you hello hello everyone my name is Genesis bukenya and I'm a senior and I'm co-president of Caris with together with I'm Sophia Silva and I'm a junior so a bit about

010cares um car stands for clerus for anti-racism equity and social justice we attended the connections conference and just this past year we presented and our topic was empathy in action programs to cultivate empathy from childhood to adulthood there were 5ool six schools in attendance and 600 people we also have the flag day that we do every year but now we've changed it to every two years it's a 60-minute old school assembly where students and staff sign up to represent a flag or country they feel a connection to you and each flag representative shares a couple sentences one or two about their connection and the assembly begins and ends with a beautiful pageantry of flags the car's team also has a reading team which is a team of 12 students who read picture books full of

011diverse characters and stories and they lead um a class discussion with students at Petway Warren and mes Caris is also responsible for the wome mural right at the front and we paint um a mirror with like the word welcome with with 28 languages at h a students speak and if any language that a student speaks isn't there make sure to add it and additionally we are also responsible for the M Martin Luther King Jr Court like right by the front office thank you okay um for cares we host um movie and book discussions and so our lineup for this year is the first book Is This Book book is anti-racist by Tiffany juel it's a book about how with 20 lessons on how to wake up take action and do the work next is a

012graphic novel Palestine by Joe Sao and it's a book that is the political and historical depiction of Palestine for movies we have on these grounds it's a documentary about police brutality then viral anti-Semitism in four mutations and talking about how anti anti-Semitism is rising and worsening in the US in Europe in not in ways not seen since the 1930s this has already passed we I was co- facilitator for this and it was a very good discussion a lot was learned in the community um next movie was on the basis of sex is a film based on the life and early cases of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and then the next movie is called the disruptors it's a documentary about n neuro Divergence in ADHD um in light of recent of the recent swasa

013found in the boy's bathroom we are offering a x block entitled anti-Semitism the SW the swasa and AHS and it's a way to create a safe space for education and dialogue about the what H has happened we are having a short video on the history of anti-Semitism and questions about the video and how people feel with the swasa in that was found yeah also for any of the book discussions anybody part of the community it's free for the entire Community to join we would love to see people there just to come participate and discuss with students and faculty does it happen at the high school the no on Zoom online okay it's usually in the evenings for movie discussion it is one um one um 1 hour and 30 minute discussion but for books we

014have like every other week no every week we have like a Wednesday meeting for example and like how do we find out more about the schedule like if someone wants to join Zoom I think there like the information is on the the Ashen website but if not um we can contact misser or Miss nameth um at the high school awesome thank you thank you thank you great work thanks Miss Zer again hi again um at this time I'm going to invite up the coach and one member of our team a unified basketball team who we're going to talk to a little bit about their season um this year and their very special award [Music] hello hi oh little bit okay hi my name is Ethan ritterbush I am the this year I was the coach

015of the unified basketball team I'm taking over Holly LeBlanc who was the coach last year this is Noah George he was a student on the team um Noah has a little statement he would like to read and then I'm going to present you guys a Sportsmans sh award we won this year and then talk a little bit about the program does that sound okay fabulous cool thank you hello hi guys hello everyone my name is Noah George I am a senior at Ashton high school the INF Sports has been a a blessing in my life I am lucky to have this program at our school I am representing my coach and my teammates I have loved playing basketball and track at Ashen high school for 3 years now Sports make me a better person in

016life we hope to see you come to support some of games in the future thank you thank you thank you great job thank you Noah so um this is a sportsmanship award that we were awarded at the end of this year um that we won and congratulations to Noah and our players who hope to win it so exciting yes we were nominated for the award by the town of Hopkinton um if you want to learn more if you want to see more from our game against them there was a Metro West Daily News article about it um that you can look up um the prog program is a very good program you know this is my first year coaching and being involved with the program what I've seen it's great you know beyond just uh

017giving an opportunity for people um because we it's a Unified sports is a way for PE uh students with special needs to participate and play with students who don't so it's a very it's a very inclusive Sport and Beyond just you know being useful because some of our students don't have a lot of opportunities to be physically active um Beyond being a boon to the community in that degree um it's also just the culture is great you know it's not you know super competitive you know as you know um and I think that uh it's a it's a good league and I enjoyed my time with it and I think a lot of our students enjoyed our time at least that's what I heard from them do you guys have any questions or done is

018really important that is great what an honor to be nominated by another community so they're not you're being noticed so great work thanks for all you do and have fun thank you guys for recognizing us thank you okay follow that Mr Manan I don't I don't think you can can although I'm a very proud counselor right now because Noah is one of my guys ah um uh hello everyone uh Corey McAn uh school counselor at the high school um i i u doing a a trip to Europe uh for April 2026 um this is Athens uh Greece and the islands Greek Islands I did not know that they were making a sequel to Gladiator when I pitch this but we the kids will be seeing the Coliseum um so that's good um yeah uh typical

01910-day trip um avoiding uh missing school like the plague as best as I can um and uh it's going to be about uh four days in Athens and then uh visiting the surrounding Islands questions how many kids do you typically expect to get on a trip like this it's a good question um I I don't like to take too many um for a variety of reasons um so 36 to 40 is my sometimes 44 um and my communication to EF is I want to stay on one bus and their communication to me is we will get you a bigger bus um because they are trying to uh uh EF is the travel agency EF is the travel used for other trips correct that you've worked with in the past since I've been in fifth grade

020I mean I've other than Coca-Cola this organization has been in my life more than any other um they are the gold standard they are the best they are worldwide and I know that when I'm in when I'm on tour there is a hotline number that if I need anything um it's it's immediate and um there's been a couple situations where I've needed to utilize them and it's amazing how resp responsive they are so that's what I love about EF the most they are the best Paul uh so I know over the last couple years you've been trying to really improve the front end of this and and the sign up and in the communication can you maybe talk a little bit more about changes and how that's evolved I actually the the last uh um

021when I uh uh sought approval for the last trip that's leaving uh in April I did implement the change of um staggering the signups not just based on year but also for students who toured before not t before I'm planning on doing it the same way where um we have the information session and then a week for Rising seniors who have never traveled before then a week for Rising Juniors who have never Rising sophomores have never traveled before and then looping back around Rising seniors who have had the opportunity Rising Juniors who to make sure that there's the opportunity that if you want a spot and you've never been able to do it and favoring the upper classman because for a a rising sophomore they're going to have to the rights of the Apple other

022questions and piggy back that with the most typical question in terms of the the efforts to make sure that students and families are aware of you know if obviously these trips are not cheap so you know kind of the efforts to make sure that there is inclusive as possible yeah so I make sure to put that in the announcement about the information session and then I I talk about it at the information session as well and then have one-on-one conversations with anyone that that 6m do you do you have I because I having gone through through cuz McKenna will be uh in in this next trip but uh I know we're trying to do this but you are going through EF and they have a process which involves some upfront you know funds and the

023commitment and and everything like that so have you have you talked to them about how to soften that for anyone that might be in that situation because it's still their process and at the onset when you sign up they're like I need this much money and I need a commitment to draw down on some account right these payments right up front whereas if we're trying to help somebody that might be a bit of a challenge right the sense I I've never had specific conversations about what a family would need in that moment the sense I get is that they're flexible especially since compared to most schools I I do it much earlier um because I give it I don't do it typically for an April trip most schools will that they'll introduce it that September

024um within that Academic School year I always do it the year before to give plenty of time it does two things one it lowers the the monthly payment for everyone but I anticipate that if I went to EF or the family went directly to EF to say can we not front end it as much um there's a way to do it especially if you don't do the automatic payment plan you just do manual um the just to hold your spot is $95 but that's fully refundable uh if you choose not to go um uh but the sense I get is that they would be flexible for individual so maybe just think about how you would work with a family because even though that that's what they're taking at that time I know when they sign

025up you're a commit you're also signing up for that draw right it only if you do automatic payment if you do manual payment you don't have to pay anything um up up front other than the $95 deposit other questions I know some of us have chaperoned with you before yes Mr mcan's an excellent chaperon yes um I it's a lot of work a lot of work can confirm I don't quite sleep right the whole time but uh but I know that's something that uh parents who might not know you or know what your experience is might want to know that uh some of us up here can vouch for you including me I apprciate can I I just want to ask some more just about managing international travel and safety for kids right and uh

026you know just kind of come back to that what what are we able to do to as much as you can for anybody who's traveling internationally or anywhere yeah you know what what are we doing to make sure we are keeping track of the safety of our kids and chaperons like yourself it's a great question so that's by the way that's number one reason why I go through EF because they just have people everywhere um and so if anything happened it's so quick for them to get um staff with us we are so EF provides us with um a uh tour director who is with us literally 247 for all 10 days so they are not with their families they're not with anyone they're just with us they're in our hotels everything um um so

027I always have someone who knows the area um immediately as well as the hotline that I can use at any point anywhere I I'm in the world I don't let the kids buy themselves um they're always if they do have free time and they're always in a a specific area that's safe um and they're always traveling in uh minimums of Threes um and the ability we use the WhatsApp uh app to be able to communicate so they can text me uh and immediately um I've also given out my my cell on tour and I tell them as soon as we land you are not allowed to text me or call me um but in the moment I want them to be able to like get to someone quickly the other thing that I do that

028I think um is really effective is um I always break the um the large group into uhp what I call groupo um just small groups and each chaperon has their group of five six seven kids and they really get to know that group of five six seven kids so they always have the ability to contact their groupo leader as well as me in case anything is happening so we've been very lucky um that we've been very s i I should also say like I definitely pick the trips based on safety um there's a reason why you know I I generally pick you know major cities which have a lot of tourists um EF is comfortable traveling there I wouldn't travel to places that are a little bit off the beaten path I I wouldn't feel

029comfortable myself doing that um I I I like I like tourist traps there's um it's great for the kids because they get that sort of experience of uh uh someplace where it for them it's totally different but but the city itself gets tourists all the time um and specifically American tourists um so I feel much more comfortable in that regard thank you thanks you have a motion I don't have it up but I move to approve the uh international trip as presented second all in favor hi hi thanks I'll just say Corey I appreciate you coming in a year and a half early for these things agreed yeah it gives us if yeah if we if we got stuck on something it gives me plenty of time to kind of come back and and provide

030more info so I think we've gotten better at that over the years and I just wanted to acknowledge that yeah it g it gives a lot of flexibility for me certainly for me the families um just us as a school just so that it's nothing is basically I'm just waiting for things nothing is last minute I'm a super especially when I'm a tour I've got my three- ring binder I've got all like I'm I'm super uh fixated on making sure that everything goes really smoothly yeah I appreciate you coming in in person to do something that is at this point with us almost Prof fora it's a it's a you might change up the the you know the cities but it's it's the same trip every year but you're you're still here and and and

031represented it so thank you yeah I'm I'll keep it short but I'm really proud of it I think it's a really good thing and kids come away from it with just uh an experience of culture and language and just also as a school counselor like I think learning how to travel and do so effectively and be able to kind of go with the flow which you definitely need to do with a group of 50 people um they they learn things that they take back to their families or or and a lot of kids will tell me that they did study abroad when they're in college one of my former AHS Travelers now lives in Germany um so it's a it's I I'd like to think that they had that early experience and then off they

032went so yeah you sure you don't want to take 200 down to DC thank you but but I what the important thing like I for me person I do know my limits as a counselor I would never want to put myself in a situation where I'm not feeling like it can go really well and I think that's a smart thing to do so yeah thank you I went on this trip um my God was it last year yeah and um London Paris Madrid LPM yeah and it was one of the best trips I've ever been on in my life so I just like to thank you for running this every year and kind of bum that I'm on the bottom of the list because I'm I'm going you never know man never know we'll see

033but but what I liked about your groupo is you correct me if I'm wrong but when you guys went off after your lunches I don't think you ever went to any of the chain restaurants you went to the local spots every time we went to one we went to Nando but that's local to London that's good but the immersion is amazing we went to I mean I can speak French Maximo is fluent you just met Maximo he's fluent in Spanish and um it it was just an amazing trip so you were speaking to everyone in in their native language yeah it was great that's awesome well that's nice to hear thank you thanks everybody all right have a good one okay Christie my son was on the trip last year as well and had a

034bless good same yeah all right are you Noah Noah Arnold yeah yes I am yep um so I'm Christy Arnold director for English language education thanks for having me here tonight I put together a few slides just to go over um some of the numbers currently in the program looking at some of the data uh for progress of our English Learners as well as um and as I go over some of the progress some of the uh reasons why I think we have progress in the places that we do um was it ding yeah yeah your like what do I say heart wasn't come on I'll try but I'll try harder for the next slide okay so um So currently so the numbers that you see here um just to distinguish between a multilingual learner

035and an English learner multilingual Learners are um kids that have or either speak fluently another language maybe their parents speak it maybe they're exposed to it in their home not all multilingual Learners are English Learners because they could be bilingual or bilingual trilingual actually we have some families that speak multiple languages at home because they've traveled they've lived in multiple countries um So currently we have 926 multilingual Learners meaning they've listed a language other than English as their primary language at home um so out of that 926 225 would be identified as English Learners meaning not fluent in English yet so somewhere between newcomer and maybe a level 3 four meaning almost proficient in English like you might be able to have a conversation with them but they need a little more support with academic

036language so English Learners is a wide range um and then former English Learners we currently have 147 those are students that were in the English language education program but met the exit criteria meaning they're proficient in English and can perform classwork in English without any support we monitor those students for four years after they've exited so that's the number of those students who are within that 4-year period there are more kids that have exited but they're past that foure so we don't keep count of those anymore so then in the next section where it says English Learners I just broke down the numbers by school um so at the so we've had increases at the high school in Warren this year the middle school we had a small decrease Mendes and uh uh pway were

037about the same and also our total number of multilingual Learners was actually the exact same as last year 926 so new students coming in Old students is it stayed the same in frame of reference the 926 is about a third of our student population that's really striking me just listening to like amazing thank you because I don't do well percentage um any questions about any of those numbers cuz we'll just keep moving forward ding thank [Music] you gosh so then this slide just um highlights the various languages that are spoken um in Ashland um Portuguese being the the highest after English um and then Indian languages and dialects I put those together um and then Spanish Russian Arabic ch Chinese which incorporates Mandarin and Cantonese Romanian um French and then if you see the bottom

038all of those other languages in no particular order have less than 10 but are represented in our student population including other because that's a choice um so here uh we'll start with some of the data um in this information I was able to pull from um open Architects which does a great job of putting together the data in a in charts and graphs so I don't have to figure that out which I think is great um so this is based on last year's we for Access scor so that's a test that all English Learners take in January February every year it's listening speaking reading and writing for most students it's online um for kindergarten it's all in person in first second third grade they do the writing part on paper everyone everything else is online

039so last year we had 196 students that took the um access test um and our average overall level is a level three so like it's one to six one newcomer six proficient and five six is proficient in English so in the mid level um is where our average is hey Christy the the uh 196 being 37 less than the previous school year is that is that because we we couldn't we we had a capacity issue on testing or did we have less to test less students to test at that time so that's in January February that's how many Els we had at that time so there might have been more in the beginning of the year at the end of the year but that's how many tested so the year before there were more kids

040in January February Okay so we've went up but now we're 30 students from that point yes okay I was trying to get there's a lot ofu we're 225 now and so yeah there's a lot numbers if I run the numbers tomorrow we'll be up three from today or plus minus one because someone could move um and then the bottom it it shows like firsttime participants so there 62 students who were new um Els that includes kindergarten so they were never tested before so of course 100% of those students made progress because it's their first time taking it um and then the 134 students that had taken access before 54% made progress um and then attainment means they made the um exit criteria so that's what attainment means ding [Laughter] yep goad can I ask a

041quick question so do you look at like when they make attainments so like in terms of schools like which schools and do that's maybe I didn't yes we can look at that I'm not going to look at that this today y um I can talk about it generally today the slides the next set of slides are about progress okay um and but I I can touch on the attainment we do look at we look at that um typically it depends on how many years they've been in school yep right so if they start as a kindergartener we're looking at attainment second third grade but if you started as a third grader yep then maybe it's sixth grade M like so it it varies on when the student started and what their level was when they

042started got it so it's hard to say we should have attainment at this level because it's it's fluid from when they started yeah no I was curious because it struck me that Warren has such a high number and that could be because they're young I don't I'm learning so um I was just curious if the number drops because you know they're making attainment or if the number drops because I don't know I I was just so I can tell you it kindergarten is our biggest number okay because it's their first time being screened tested and they're they are qualifying um I want to say at kindergarten right now there are 48 students okay got it thank you yes and just uh on the made progress for the pre students that previously were were tested um

043what's what's the number you're shooting for there uh you know just and coming in ignorant 54% seems like hey that that means 46% didn't make any progress and which would be alarming if I don't have more exactly so the the state determines the the the target based on how long they've been in US US schools their level their grade right so those three things so Pro so progress is something that's defined not just hey they no progress not being the 46 doesn't mean they made no progress they just haven't they didn't hit met some The Benchmark some Benchmark of progress correct okay so let's say like they would get like overall access score of a 3.2 and back it up so let's say they started at 2.1 and then um the state says okay this

044student should get a 3.1 next year if that student gets a three they they don't have progress there was progress but they didn't hit the target right so that's where that number comes in that makes a lot more sense because I'm like I know all the work you're doing so this correct this number just when you read it in layman's terms it looks absolutely appallingly low which I I know is not and then so for all those students that don't make that progress Target if you will they go on a Student Success plan where there are goals and we are measuring um and looking at those students closely to say okay what what do they need to work on what domain is it listening is it speaking is it reading is it writing but so

045yeah there's usually progress and we do look at each student individually to say okay were they point one off were they further away why why why aren't making the progress making the progress yeah great thank you good question good question okay so this is the data um since 2020 um again making that progress and thank you for M having me clarify that because it would help understand my next set of slides um so in 2020 59% of the students made The Benchmark progress that we were looking for 2021 obviously after Co there was a dip down to 36 and now we're on the way up and I'm hoping that we will continue to go up with progress in students making um making progress we put in some new curriculum and things like that Ding so

046one of the places that I'm really um proud of is up at the high school because if you can see the their dipped down was so last year was about 15% the year before was 16% and now up 32% and I believe that is due to the fact that um in the past couple of years the high school has created new classes um specific for student levels so that when they go in there they're getting the curriculum that they need at their level versus having all the students in there and the teachers trying to do lots of things additionally um they've created a math class and a science class for newcomer or students that haven't been in school before s students so students that might have interrupted schooling and so they're going into high school

047with maybe a third grade math level because they haven't been in school right they they just weren't in school and so I think that those so the pictures that you see there are the new science class that's co-taught with a science teacher and a el teacher the math class was um which was started last year the year before um is co-taught with El teacher and a math teacher and so really targeting instruction for what the kids need to learn English to access the content I think is making this difference here um additionally this year we've created a bridge support class so students who are El's and maybe they're that level four they're they're almost ready to exit so they're in general English classes but now they have a targeted support class with the El teacher

048to help them with some of those nuances of language to so that they can access that content and and be successful and that's going really well this year too so I'm excited to see what that um produces with attainment so you mentioned like you mentioned the dip with covid that that you saw and here um how has this group been able to rebound because I got a feeling that it has to be compounded exponentially right they're they experienced curricular covid like everybody else did and and created gaps you know academically but they also lost some time and and and some progress in this space which then just puts them even further kind of compounds the issue uh how how did am I right in saying that you saw that and and how are they been

049responding and and getting back on track absolutely and I think it's um and for some of us so specifically like a lot of our high school students a lot of them are newcomers so they have just arrived to US schools in the past couple of years and so for many of them school was completely shut down for covid and Beyond like there were there are families that I've spoken to and school never reopened like even after covid and so creating these courses and having um these spaces for these kids I think is really is really helping to build back up and to help close those gaps sure um is the um 50% figure a mark of like the average um is what's expected by the state for for each for each City or is it

050so um not necessarily and I did compare to State day data and forgive me I don't have it and I don't fully remember the state um data but I believe and Micha will fact checked me but I believe we're doing better than the state average but I don't know okay that's a good question because I I just saw the 15% from the past year and I was like I was a little confused do you see do you see that Trend across across the state or not so yeah he's going to check for me good question though yep um dang and including um so I asked the teachers to send me some pictures and we have an e student that was inducted into the National Honor Society very proud moment so I'm really excited about the

051work that's happening up at the high school all right and then Ashlin middle school again this is their progress over time so what the benchmarks were sent for set for those students so we see a a dip in the number here at 42% um and so one of the things that we're working on is updating the classes as well as the curriculum to try to model what we're doing at the high school which is working really well um and so that's something that we're working on with scheduling at the middle school I think that's going to help us to be able to set up the model at the middle school a little bit differently to so we can see some more successes there you talk a little bit about the uh you talk a little

052bit about the the 61% there that's kind of an interesting number given the other Trends and then of course it's come back down a little bit any sense of what was driving that number that year you know I I looked at this and I tried to look back and I don't know I can look into it and and see and get back to you on that but I'm do not know well and and how many students was that there right so a jump of 10% might just mean that you know three students did did or two students did did did better right so that the the these are small numbers probably so just a couple of couple of achievements probably skew things greatly I mean I I think it's a fair point but if you

053also look at the data points like we're not we're seeing some improvement like the high school on the last slide just enough tick right and you know good one last year but we're kind of getting back to the 2020 time frame like you know were a little bit below both middle school and the high school were a few points below where we were but it says it suggests some consistency to it yeah but that's why I ask the question yeah no and I'm curious too because as you mentioned before these numbers are very fluid and so if you have a number of students that move into the middle school halfway through the year who are level one it it's May likely change what this looks like so is there any way to put put these

054numbers into context with those numbers right in terms of when students move in what the levels because I would imagine that impacts I mean that that may be a much bigger ass to put that into all into perspective at the same time but I would imagine that has an impact on it as well but it has it has somewhat of an impact um because again if they move in and it's their first time taking access then they have 100% growth um and also so the kids who have taken it before um one of the things I do see at the middle school is kind of at that place where we have long-term English Learners so these are English Learners who have been English Learners since kindergarten and sometimes they're still um they can't hit the

055exit criteria because of maybe a disability because of a suspected disability so things like that and so the middle school is that place where we are definitely defitely trying to figure out a little bit more um and so that's where we're really trying to put in some of the energy yes because there are definitely students there that have been eels for a long time and they're not making progress possibly for other reasons as well but we want to then see okay well then how can we shift curriculum how can we shift classes to meet their needs so there'll be I mean it's the conversation that we're going to have in the next couple meetings with regard to the astral Middle School schedule right that that has a tremendous impact and Christy alluded to it uh

056that you know making sure that the schedule is appropriate for English Learners uh at the middle school it needs to be adjusted as well as um a defined curriculum which is what she started to implement you know the first tick of the 61% is a direct relationship to the first year chrisy was here so you might want to stop where you are now Chris yes I it was me just want to throw that out there I think it's fair to it it's fair to say you had a great deal to do with it correct I I know you you asked me to fact check you and unfortunately I do not have that information at my fingertips as I thought I would okay but what I what I can add to this is um we talk

057about students that are that are making progress it's I think it's more important to talk about students who have at least increased their percentage or increased their score from the previous year um and when I look at that data real quickly 88.1% of our students increased their score from the previous year so I we can delve deeper into that data to see maybe if that student was new to us or if that student has been with us but when you look at that it's pretty impressive that might be a slide later on I it's not but so so 88% though is is a pretty impressive data point to to talk abouts of our success right yeah can you tell we love data um I was going to say the other thing that would be interesting

058just some at some point in the future is following the cohorts of the students so like you know because you're you have five years here you're jumping kids are jumping schools right and so how does that look and is it the grade level or is it the the cohort of students or you know we could just slice this six ways to Sunday because we just love this stuff so okay this is great this is and not to get ahead too far ahead on the other ones but it looks like the trend is the percentage of uh progress as defined by the state kind of is lower at the the older the kids get but is do you think that's probably due to the curricular demands as well so you know if you're if you're at

059kindergarten whatever you're kind of doing social emotional learning you're doing all this other stuff you can really make a lot of progress on the English learning whereas you're a freshman in high school you're trying to you know access that curriculum via English and trying to learn English at the same time correct and they're competing competing resources in your uh in your learning there right absolutely and and in the younger grades there's more language instruction in general for all children yeah and yes you'll see in my next two slid okay dang he's giving me a look all right so ad Mendes um so we do see a small small dip from last year to this year however I did dig into this one a little bit more um and so and the last time I was

060here we I talked a little bit about flashlight 360 360 which is a speaking and writing progress monitoring tool so I Mendes is really taken flashlight 360 and really doing like flashlight Fridays and the kids are doing more speaking practice so I looked at the domains specifically and there was there was an increase in their speaking and writing scores um over last year so that that gave me a little bit of hope that they were really focusing on that and that improved um this year they do have new curriculum in all of the the 3 four five ELD classes um and also they are working closely with the mtss team to discuss the students that are not making progress um so the they're they're working on that they've met with the reading specialist to discuss

061every single English learner and have targeted goals for all of those students so I'm I'm hoping that the efforts that we're putting in this year will get that number uh back up at MES ding so Warren as what you alluded to more of the kids are making progress at Warren so that's where we have the least number of kids on those Student Success plans because they didn't make their Target because it is very much a language um Rich environment in general so they're they're making good progress um I don't have any notes on them and they also are adopting um new curriculum in the ELD classrooms here they're using flashlight 360 um so their numbers look good does this progress include like the the various amounts of 100% that the students get for um Baseline

062just completing the test for the first time okay yep so the kindergarteners there was like 48 of them well last year it was smaller they would be 100% right so there's more kids getting 100% at War um and so one of the areas and I talked a little bit about this and speaking about the middle schoolers we do have um that discrepancy between students on IEPs and not on IEPs making progress um so that is one of the areas where again we're working um with goals and trying to have more communication with the special education staff to really um figure out what we can do differently to meet their needs one of the El teachers at Mendes is getting her Ms in special education so she is doing a practicum um in the special education

063class and reverse the special education teacher going to be getting her El license as well and doing her El internship at the same time so that we can really have a programming for duly identified students that have a disability and [Music] rs so I spoke talked about flashlight 360 a little bit you can click on it so this is that progress monitoring tool that I spoke about um and so the students don't press play yet so the students would get um a prompt like this they might be a pictures the teachers can pick whatever prompts they want it might go with their theme it might go with the style of writing that they're working on the student can look at it and they would label the picture um so here they could type in there

064or they could do it together so the student like wrote book backpack lunch school bus then if they're doing speaking they would record themselves speaking and they can do it three times or if they're writing they could write it and then the teacher can give them feedback um and they can listen to the feedback and give them a goal right in here and so I put I picked a recording of a student who is at Mendes he um was he's been in US School for 3 years and this is his recording so you can press play hopefully you can hear it you can't hear it maew are something I need to do is there something I need to do to hear the speaker button is off yeah mind hold on no but the speaker um

065so no so so right on the right hand side on the bottom there's a little speaker there that's I think that's a speaker under the image right there yeah right there no it starts right away yeah oh there we go yeah yeah you're got get that mom says I love you and I and up that's all about his routine you know I was like I need to find a good one I listened to three and I got to this one I was like that's it that is it and so they have benchmarking on that so they do the like the Benchmark speaking and writing in the beginning middle and end of the year and then we can track the data and look at that in addition to having the access scores as well and that's

066it questions thank you thank you War approvals uh one sec between November 14 2024 and December 11th 2024 I Paul Kendall authorized by my signature payables in the amount of 7929 this includes general fund expenses of 23,6 120 revolving expenses of 2 Grant expenses of 8,935 27 and meal tax expenses of $82.60 thank you superintendent report just briefly I just want to mention that this weekend on Saturday we have our first budget Workshop uh this will be an an interesting year what what we've done as you know we always start the process in the fall for the next year and um this year we've been meeting individually so Chris myself and Mike have been meeting individually with principles as well as directors going through their individual budgets first before we bring all the admin team

067together uh it's been helpful to identify truly what the needs are um individually before we we meet as a full admin team so Saturday uh will be our first meeting uh with the school committee uh and I just want to preface it by saying it'll be unlike any of the other meetings we've had in the year's past uh partly because it won't be about making decisions um at this point in time it's really to give an overview of of where we are uh in the process and I want to caution folks that uh when we look at the initial budget uh it it's always scary I think uh the admin team looks to me uh because I have Doom and Gloom always uh but we we eventually get through the the um every iteration uh

068with a a budget that's appropriate and it moves our district forward um and that will be the same we've got a lot of moving Parts this year uh with uh scheduling um adjustments at the middle school um for FY 26 uh looking at our special education population our out of District population uh the use of the one-time funds that we utilized last year how does that impact us moving forward um and and you know that's that's something that's it's important to understand next Friday uh obviously is um the beginning of of the December Break um and a lot of Spirit Week opportunities in all the schools and it's kind of a fun week in in terms of um you know the the different days um Mike and I are used to it now and Aaron

069has them every Friday at the middle school which is kind of fun uh yeah it's it's it's definitely a different vibe there right now um and and it feels great so um that's about it that's all I have confirm what time and where on Saturday yeah uh what time do you want to be no um I it it's posted for 8 uh and it should be from 8: to 12:00 at the David Mendes uh school but in the music room where we had it last year yeah and and I fully anticipate at least three meetings this year uh I really do uh based on where we are uh currently so and thank you to Chris I sent him an email today um just saying I apologize for I've always these stream of thoughts through my

070head with the budget and I'm constantly just shoot instead of writing one email with 15 things I write 15 emails with one thing uh it's just it hits me and I'm like I got to remember to get this to Chris but the the amount of time he puts in um and listening to me is um you know I feel sorry for him if you want to give us feedback for his evaluation certain yeah thanks thanks Jim Mike last week uh was able to attend a really fabulous conference uh the case conference is an annual conference for Title One leaders across the state um in this year I was able to bring Christie with me as well as assistant principles ER Alaris and Kate Alman good opportunity to hear about um how we can best serve

071our Title One population um with terms of interventions and um we've got a lot out of it most importantly it was a great time for the three of us to get together to collaborate as well so it was good discussion between us and how we can better serve our our students who have severe needs but aren't necessarily special education students um but a lot of these students are our English Learners so it's was great for Christie to be able to be there as well um we had a science curriculum leadership team meeting yesterday and it was it seemed like a perfect segue from Christie because one of the things that we're really um digging deeply into this year and all of our curriculum leadership teams is to the E is is in particular the El

072data um around mcast and we took some time to sort of dig deep into what specific areas our students are struggling the most in but one of the things that was was a proud moment was to listen to Kelly and Colleen Sherman talk about the success of the current programming that's happening the new class that's been developed for uh our English Learners specifically in the area of science those two Co toe cut co-taught classes and seeing um a breakdown of our students in their successes right now in those classes of first term was was pretty impressive so we're proud of the work that's being done right now and we're going to have some real time data to be able to track how those students are doing uh as opposed to how they did last year

073without those supports so it'll be nice to be able to to look at that regularly um data team meetings are continuing uh I feel like I said that every week we when we meet but those are happening on a regular basis and uh we had our second educator evaluation U committee meeting today uh which had a spirited discussion uh we are we are looking at our curent rubrics and the rubric that we utilize to to um assess teachers performance and uh for the state in terms of AD Val process uh we are taking a good hard look at the 2024 model rubric that was provided by the state we're comparing what we're currently using with the 2024 model um and we're going going to work hard to make some probably substantial changes to our current

074rubric um but it's it's a it's a really collaborative conversation between District leadership as well as our our teachers and I was I just left the meeting today excited about what we're going to be doing uh because the conversation was pretty rich um other than that our our students hitting the fact that we did have our first major districtwide Alice drill in terms of our Safety Committee procedures and protocols uh it was a barricade drill uh we tested it across the entire District uh while I I was reported that some of our high school students didn't take it as seriously as we wanted to I can say that every other school certainly did and the message was sent to our high school students who didn't take it seriously that this has to be something that

075that we take seriously but overall our our population did a fantastic job all of our rooms were safely barricaded uh and the police and fire department uh collaborated with us to do it efficiently and effectively and I can say that the drills for the most part um took under 10 minutes so it was really a a minimal disruption to our day teachers and students were able to move on right afterwards and uh you know Chris joined me for many of the scho TOS to walk around and it was it was really an effective drill excellent I'm going to put Chris on the spot just when Mike was talking about the educator evaluation um conversations as as you remember as we started negotiating contracts last year uh with the AA um you know we had formed

076a couple subcommittees and and Chris has been leading the charge uh with regard to our Student Activity um stiens Etc and just really high level Chris just a brief overview of of you know number of meetings you've had and the work you're you're undertaken with the Union leadership yeah so so we've been progressing uh we met uh I met this afternoon um which was my third meeting we've had one side meeting PRI you know outside of the larger group so essentially four meetings and um you know I think at this point within the next you know I'd say eight weeks we should be in a position where you know we can have some kind of recommendation hopefully to to Jim and I say eight weeks because you know the obviously holiday breaks coming up and

077everything like that so that you know um but I I think uh we're at a we're at a good point um and you know I'm right now I'm pretty satisfied with how the discussions are going I don't know if that provided enough Clarity on it or no it did thank you yeah it it's important to understand that you know I've sort of been pushing Chris on this as and he has been pushing the leadership uh because these are U monetary uh implications for our current budget for FY 26 uh as well I said listen if you want to slow it down and and not really worry about it we can push it to 27 I'm good with that but um prefer we have not adjusted stiens um in terms of looking at the ratios and

078the amount of time and what they look like in my 16 years so it's it's time that we um really focus on that and uh and thank you to Chris for doing that and keeping an eye on how it impacts us from a fiscal perspective as well thank you Chris thank you Jim okay we're moving on to the action items discussion updates votes and we've got U Miss calvo hello thank you for being here we've exchanged some emails and I know you've been in touch with Mr Adams yes I just want to introduce TOA Cody's my vice chair hello and Steve is on the board and we have two ashon residents Molly judge and Kelly JY who are friends of the school as well here wonderful thank you so do you want me to just

079give a yeah I why don't you just because I I know we've been in touch but I don't know that I think everybody else needs you to start at the beginning sure yeah okay so Natalie calvo I'm the chair of the board of Chesterton Academy of the immaculada we're a new school in the works to open in the fall this coming fall and we're requesting approval to operate as a private school high school in the jurisdiction of Ashland we are a member of the Chesterton school network which provides a rigorous classical curriculum taught through the lens of the Catholic faith there are currently over 60 Chesterton schools in the country the closest one is in Rhode Island and our curriculum is laid out in the course catalog that I included with our application that meets

080and exceed State curriculum framework all teachers are required to hold at least a bachelor's degree in education or the subject area they are teaching or related field many will have an advanced degree the school has provisional accreditation status from the Chesterton school network and will be eligible for full accreditation in the spring of year three our facility will be the St Sicilia Family Center located at 48 s Street in Ashland it includes six classrooms which are currently used for Religious Education on Sunday and afternoons and a large Hall and we are working closely with the local authorities to ensure compliance with state health safety and fire regulations including unnecessary inspections and certifications we will comply with all state repor reporting requirements and recordkeeping practices and we believe that Chesterton Academy of the immacula will be

081a valuable education option for families in Metro West Boston and respectfully request the school committee's approval to operate as a private school in Ashland and please if you have any questions happy to answer them because I know we've done this before yeah just for a frame of reference that was G to be ask Jim to give some background Natalie reached out to me and there is a process that's outlined by the state um and part of that process was Jim um reviewing the curriculum and and you can take it from there sure uh so school committee policy LBC talks about school relations um with non-public schools um and Mass general laws very specific uh with regard to the the role that we play um and there can be no undue denial of a school if

082they meet requirements that we would have uh internally as well for ashon high school for instance uh that means graduation requirements um the amount of school the types of classes they teach um ensuring it's a safe environment following policies of you know whether it's hazing whatever and and Mike and I both have reviewed uh the package and it meets all requirements um the last time we did this I think was 2015 uh when there was a hockey School uh that was looking at at Warren Conference Center uh where they were drawing folks not necessarily from Ashland but uh they wanted to set up a school inside of of the town the proper and therefore you know we did approve it then as well they met all the requirements same here um so I have no

083concerns with with having the board approve that so we have to then send a letter back to the state saying uh We've approved it so but we cannot deny if they've met all the requirements which they have so essentially we're just acting as the local correct administrator of both the state and any local requirements that's all right I mean certainly if you have questions that you're curious about like which communities around us for instance will you be drawing students from um yes so Framingham NAIC um marbor even there's at least one applicant from Ashland um so surrounding Metro since maryan high school closed there really isn't a Catholic co-ed option in the area so so I guess my only procedural question at all is um you I've certainly heard your your state statements of what

084you're working on right that you need to get approvals from other places we're okay going ahead with the approval from our end now just looking at the curricular thing understanding that there's some health as an example right safety uh health safy safety regulations um that they've got to make sure they comply with before they operate but we don't have to hold up our approval for that correct right and go ahead I'm sorry no go ahead I was just going to say and I'm assuming that you have whatever rental agreements or property agreements with st Sicilia so that you know that you have permanent use of that that space right we're in negotiation with them and part of that process was to get approval from you guys as well and and you know so the last

085one we did you said was the the hockey School uh and they were at the Warren Conference Center so being in a in this location and operating in a high school are there other either uh ashin uh resources uh that you need uh because they got the Warren conference are lots of lots of space to you know go outside and have you know PE do do different things where St Cecilia is pretty Compact and and there's not Fields there's not other things and so are there other resources in ashin that you'd be looking to use I think about field field scheduling Stone Park and and and all that and how that would jive with uh the other Youth Sports and different activities in town yeah so the field close to St Cecil is as long

086as it's not being used during the school hours we we would love to be able to have the students walk over there um knowing that you know it be reserved obviously for athletics for your programming yeah I don't know that that's something we have to get into it was more it was more just curiosity how that how does that work in this and if you haven't thought about it then there's there are the scheduling of fields are tight in general right I would imagine I mean I I don't know this that this is the answer but I would imagine they would go through the same process as anybody else outside of the district that wanted to use the uh the school property corre you know just in compliance with our policies about we we rent

087certain fields and so forth and so on um yeah with if um Mr Adams and Mr KY are both satisfied that they meet the statutory requirements i' move to approve the petition to operate the private school as presented second all in favor Marcy hi hi hi thanks thank you very much good luck good luck luck good luck if I just Contin a moment since we have you guys are all set um this came up but because you know I'm counseled to some school districts and um I was getting questions from a particular one about a private school application that was presented to them yeah and one of the things that appears to be the case I don't remember the dates on this is but it looks like desie has put out some further guidance and

088and set of details and things that that we should be looking at yeah I think we accessed that okay yeah that's what I included within the letter that's the that came directly from desie so yeah and appreciate that there was a lot of that data was in there um what I was just going to suggest is if it if we haven't looked at our policy the LBC y to for inclusion of that it's probably now and we don't have one in front of us great opportunity so that 5 years from now when there's somebody else that comes forward great idea um you know that we kind of make sure our policies in line sure um rather than saying oh well we should do different I was going to put it on the um attit was

08925% 25% right right you you guys are all say you don't feel for the next the next contestant question yeah thank you have a good night thanks good luck yeah I just the reason I flagged it is because it become an issue for that particular client the issue was people started looking at what desie had out there it went beyond what their policies were yeah there I don't remember if there was opposition to it or not it was just details that people were getting the weeds of but they were trying to reconcile what they had as a very thin policy that just mirrored the statute which like that and then they're trying and like I said let's not get into a position of telling people no because we're putting up Road what appeared to be

090putting up road blocks at the wrong time right so that's why I wanted to flag it when I saw this on the agenda and just suggest that at the policy up committee level um whenever it suits your needs might be sport looking at no that's that makes a lot of sense speaking of policies um we have been talking about some set up for that reason alone yes exactly um and and we had the first read of of the next group that's coming up so we'll go through them but uh unless there are any issues hopefully we should be able to move through this pretty quickly the first is the athletic concussion regulations do anybody have anything to add or take away from that after our last discussion and again I just want to reiterate this

091is this comes directly from the nurses uh it was their work uh in addition to reviewing it with attorneys but also uh MIAA as well as um you know local um organizations hospitals Etc so right and then we looked at all these things at um policy subcommittee before we even came here and got some clarification before they even came here so I will move to approve policy JJ if- athletic concussion regulations as presented second all in favor I I okay next is the vision vision and mission statement it's just that we need to remember to change it and up every year make sure that that's still yeah yeah I mean again we just hadn't updated it and it's was significant so we we want to make sure we want to make sure our policy manual

092contains the the most updated version of it so it is something that we should I move to approve policy ad vision mission statement as presented second all in favor I I I um you'll remember the face coverings that was changed just based on the Rel that's just the removal removal resending that resending it yeah yeah so I move to resend policy ebcf face coverings second all in favor I I and then purchasing DJ purchasing yeah again um well it's it's really one uh two words that were changed within the policy it just under uh masc updated their policy in 2023 uh we have not had not updated it and there's literally a change to read the agent versus they will develop and we're just adopting MC's language that's all it is anybody else want to

093turn to make the motion keep it simple come on for excuse sorry fair fair enough I move to approve policy DJ purchasing as presented second all in favor I I okay first read of policies uh we won't be voting but we'll be discussing dja purchasing Authority so these were all like relatively minor things we can't well again I think we talked about Paul and Lori refreshed my mind memory when we had the policy subcommittee meeting um you know there's language such as in this one it says contracts may be entered into for a period up to three years do we want you know in a couple of the other policies do we want to stay consistent with what masc is saying or do we want to uh enact how we feel versus you know going

094with this that's all just these this is first reads I thought the change was small if we could just approve but well that's fine I I just I that's all yeah yeah and and and I I agree although we put it in first read so I would probably which is f just follow through that this time yep so there was really nothing major except for contracts maybe entered into remember that law changed a couple years ago with regard to purchasing and procurement stuff sorry yeah this this also didn't somebody raise this concern forgot what it was and it wasn't a real issue but it touched on this kind of thing so it had to do with uh when we were renting the um maintenance facility uh and long as the lease was less than three

095years and not not three with an option and take the option in the first year which made it four years uh it's and that's what it was yeah right um and and this uh is a straight adoption of correct their current that's right yeah so that's that then bidding requirements uh DJ uh certainly more significant changes um as recommended by masc so um based on chapter 198 of Acts of 2022 we just our last time we looked at the policy was 2017 just uh in the uh agenda the links for some of these are in somebody's trash so so I adjusted that today uh because when you copy it's interesting with Google Docs you can you can make a copy but it actually and place it in the folder what it doesn't do and I

096didn't notice that until today it doesn't take the red line or the green line in this instance the green line version it actually makes a copy literally a copy but no strike throughs right so I went back today so if you go back to the agenda now uh it should link no no I'm in I'm on the agenda right now doesn't yeah it says it's in somebody's chair you can take it out of the trash and look at it it's in the folder it's theer as red line I adjusted that not copy of red line so I apologize I'll make sure I didn't notice it until I went to review them today so but that's what it was Paul yeah thank you yeah I have the folder up too yeah the folder there with the

097red line I'm just going to click on it here and then then it's always in I adjusted it I added the red line but I forgot to do the links that's what I did so I okay take a hit for that one bhe which is use of electronic messaging by school committee members uh again they just strike per masc in 2023 the last uh part of the um the fourth paragraph so as long as nobody has any comments or questions simp we will vote on them at at our next meeting and then next up we have the consent agenda just looking for a motion to so I I would make a mo [Music] I'm not sure if we can do it this way that Paul had drawn this to my attention once we just sat

098down here that in the grant approval document yep and on the hockey program issue you've got it up here Paul there's reference to it as a cash gift as a as yeah it's it's it's not so so I think just from a consent agenda perspective where did she put that I wouldn't make a motion to approve the consent agenda because that's a problem yeah because it says funds to purchase right so why don't we I guess I would suggest nobody make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented and we'll just go through the items one by one okay so let's uh if gifts and donations so well yeah I mean we and so we can pull it out we can say you know with that if if there's verbiage that Chim has for

099that we can we can we can adjust the verbage we can adjust the verbage and uh approve it as amended right yeah because he's changing itang consent agend is either take it as it is or don't yeah pull it out and then do change on the Fly love computers it's it's it's donation of jerseys hockey jerseys for the girls hockey program it's all is okay okay all right well then I'll move to approve the consent agenda as amended as amended I guess there you go second all in favor I I excellent thank you that was easier wasn't it mm all right reports abash you have anything else you want to share well you didn't get to share with the students no so I had a junior seminar actually so sorry I had a junior seminar

100actually when they were preparing um their the remarks on today's meeting so um I mean they talked about it as well so I think they hit most of our bases so nothing for me excellent thanks Middle School site council's tomorrow so I'll get you next time okay and I want to say thank you to Aon she moved up a couple of the meetings um partly because again there the conversations with regard to the Asal Middle School schedule itself right um so I I I mentioned here at the last time I think there's a there's an order of how we should be doing business if you will uh in terms of the conversations with faculty and staff which will occur tomorrow as well uh in individual conversations how things might impact folks as well uh have

101have occurred already but then an entire faculty and then site Council because again if you look at the site Council roles and responsibilities it really has a lot to do with from a budgetary standpoint and in conversations within each school um so um before she comes to us on Saturday it's just sort of a um I wanted those conversations to start so um last week there was an ashack meeting um uh you know that discussed you know there were some questions about if we had started budget discussions yet which of course we haven't so I told them I'd have more to update um on the future um one of the things that parents brought up and asked me to kind of you know kind of continue to have the conversation with the committee um was

102around the community service day at the high school um that happened in the fall um there was there were a couple of parents there who were concerned about the fact that they felt that their kids um were they did not use the word excluded but I can't think of another word to use right now because there some of the kids in their the their students that they were speaking about who were in sub separate programs um either didn't go to school that day because their teachers weren't going to be there and it was a little too disruptive for them for their schedule so they felt as if they missed out on a day of school um other students uh were not able to get their their choice of volunteer opportunities and without kind of having

103one that they felt as if they connected to it didn't feel like a meaningful experience and so that student ended up staying home as well too and so we talked about it with Britney and Britney has you know some thoughts and ideas of how to potentially change things next year to to to really focus on opportunities for students in that classroom um and you know to make either a a community event and an outing potentially in conjunction with the um with the postsecondary program or you know be able to kind of better tailor opportunities for them but you know she did acknowledge that you know for some students it it ended up being a missed day um and so it's you kind of an ongoing discussion but one that you know there there were a

104few parents that continue to be concerned and want to know that it's it's a part of the conversation which Britney assured them that it is um yeah um and then this past Friday the um Ashland High School band did their holiday music concert in the Ash Music Association in conjunction with it for the first time did their first annual hopefully um they called it a winter fair so it was you know there were craft activities and games for the kids and pizza and hot cocoa and baked sale and you know lots of fun stuff so there were I don't know the total number of people but it was close to 300 um that came which was a really great Community um showing and everybody seemed to to have a good time and um so that

105was a fun event that I was able to attend uh and I think that's it since our last meeting awesome uh not a lot I did actually end up uh going to the Harlem Wizards uh event the make a wish event that was you know really really fun it was great to see the uh no one and his team out there for for halftime and and getting to play out there on the court and get cheered on it was uh was a pretty cool event and uh yeah I think that's going to enable them to do two wishes this year which is pretty amazing so um so I just came from High School site Council for this meeting um they picked up the biggest point of discussion was picking up the discussion around weighted grads

106and uh one of the foreign language sorry World language teachers um came in and talked a lot about concerns about weighted greeing trying to go to more proficiency based class structures um and something that the I guess the World Language Department would like to do is is move to sort of structuring their classes around proficiency rather than Spanish 1 two 3 4 kind of thing um so there there's a lot of conversation about that obviously no decisions they're going to talk to some other schools that have recently or more recently gone away from weighted grading like we have um I would say interestingly perhaps not surprisingly that most of the adults around the room were more away from weighted greeting and the kids were the ones who were being competitive about it um Miss Shield's

107shared an interesting comment too and she said you know when people came to talk to her five years ago six years ago three years ago and were concerned about stress related to grades it was the pressure that parents were putting on the kids but now it's the kids competing with the other kids um around grades so there's there's some good discussion um like I said the next step is to sort of examine what I think the districts were Holliston Needum and maybe Wayland when was the third have all kind of done this work recently um I don't think Kelly is anticipating it' be a recommendation that they're looking to implement for next year at all I mean it's still it's still somewhat in its infancy um but good conversation is going on there so just

108a question on uh I know when we have just talked a little bit about it we've talked a lot about how colleges approach things and stuff like that but uh are we also as are other groups like National society and other other groups that do also need to potentially modify their things are they involved in the conversation such that you know any decision we don't we're not missing somebody that does look at it in a certain way today that would need to look at it a different way if we did make any changes I I I would say that I I think to some degree I'm I'm surmising because I well it's a it's a really good question and it it didn't come up in today's conversation may have come up last year and I

109don't recall it um you know there are multiple administrators in the room right as well as faculty Representatives so there's miss cerr both Deans are in the room um Miss pille Shields is in the room um two faculty Representatives Miss Ean and Miss Tumi are in the room um Mr colant is in the room so there a lot she's the NHS yeah so yeah that's what I was gonna say when I was on High School South site Council she was always in and she has she is always there yeah I choose that one but I'm assuming there's prob most part that's the one that the GPA with regard to admittance beginning you know just getting the offer there there actually discussions sorry um there's some discussion actually about sort of tracking both weighted and non-weighted

110and then thinking about trying to come up with like a study period over four years five years whatever to see what happen happens with kids who choose one pathway or the other how that implements but sorry go um and most of the clubs that I I mean I don't know of many clubs that actually take GPA into into account but I know of NHS and academic decathalon which I'm both a part of and academic de cathlon just counts it completely separately it doesn't even take into account the Ashley and GPA system because it's more of a national kind of thing they have their own guidelines yeah exactly so if it's you find with some of the colleges too they don't exactly most colleges just recalculate your GP anyways based on your course fig and that's

111that has come up multiple times in this conversation um there apparently had been a recent conversation with um some of the guidance staff including Mr McAn who's here tonight um and I think Mr McAn still has this sort of secondary business he does in terms of College counseling for non- asland students um sort of like a private college counselor um you know and I I think his voice weighs heavily on this point and it's that colleges are used to looking at you know transcripts from 11,000 different schools if you talking big schools right and they've got their own way of looking at that and sorting through that and um and the weight seems to be more on our kids taking challenging classes you taking honors level AP level um and pushing yourself a little bit

112more than sort of how well you doing those um seems to be the the prevailing thought you know um but anyway I I won't get into the weeds of the conversation because it's going to be a while but um just the conversation's continuing um I also went to the Harlem Wizards I worked the front desk and I helped count the money at the end which was very fun and uh it was really nice to see um how it's going to impact make wish and it was fun it was a fun night and it was fun for me to see all the kids H there having a good time with their families um and also attended the um Warren site Council and what's going on there um it was our first meeting of the year so

113Pete was just getting us up to speed on what's happening in the building um some interesting conversation about how they're approaching like some data collection um about like getting to know different things about each student in in along the lines of what we had talked about um you know having a plan for each kid I mean they're not they're not to no one's to that level yet but in the motion of trying how do we go about this and what kinds of things do can we find out about kids and there are a couple teachers who are um experimenting with this program and adding data and getting together and having meetings um so that was a really interesting conversation yeah no the only if you're done I the only I wanted to uh mention and

114Tina jar of memory and I turned the mic um right before um Thanksgiving on Wednesday uh or was Tuesday I guess it was of of Thanksgiving week uh the launch program provided lunch uh so um me and Mike and a couple other staff members um were over in the launch room and it was awesome it was they did such a great job and we had a fun time you know um breaking bread with with the students yeah yeah I actually did not hear that piece but I did hear about the food drive that they did which was very successful very excited about that great also um budding entrepreneurs because they have just started a holiday gift wrapping business oh fabulous sign me up teach staff so I'm sure if you are interested in having some

115of your holiday gifts wrapped by our by our amazing launch students what a great idea fantas we are doing it and the price is right I will tell you so if you're interested let us know I'll see what I can do for seriously in yeah yeah I'll be in touch I hate rapping um it's awesome so okay well I'm going to move to enter into executive session under mg chapter 30A 21A to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel superintendant Jim Adams or to conduct collective bargaining with the intent of not returning into public session and I will take the roll call Marcy would you like a second first oh yes thank you second okay second first yeah second first first second all right we I've been seconded so on now I

116can see if you all um are on board with what we're about to do Marcy hi Tina hi Paul hi Mark hi hi all right good night everybody thanks good night