001e e e September 25th 2024 this is the school committee meeting welcome uh we start every meeting by reading the Ashland Public Schools mission Vision the Ashen Public Schools strives to be a model District that creates a culture of inclusivity for our 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 y'all are going to be on TV this evening and our plan for the evening is our call to order opening procedures agenda review and adoption we'll have some time for public participation reports and presentations include new staff introductions student presentations from the mindes school we've got the mindes Morning News
002ashin high school school basketball overnight travel 12728 2024 warrant approvals superintendence report assistant superintendence report our action items and discussion updates include the fy2 school choice allocations foreign exchange students International students school year 2025 2026 review and set tuition rate second read and vote of policies which include acab sexual harassment ADF Wellness JL CED guidelines for management of life-threatening allergies the consent agenda in including September 11th 2024 minutes gifts and donations reports of school committee members and then we will adjourn so I will take attendance and ask everybody if you're okay with the order of business this evening Marcy yes Tina yes Paul yes and just uh I know we're working on the the format of the agenda the reports and presentations would indicate that there's nothing in there we're going to take action on
003but yet we have but but we and but I understand why you put it there because we want to get that you know we don't want people here late so we figure out how we in the future how we how we do that right right we're working with a new agenda format so we're we're Point making our way through that with each meeting so thank you um and Mark Terry is absent this evening um so I'll start by asking if there's anybody here from the public that would like to offer public comment this evening and seeing none we will move to our reports and presentations the new staff introdu will be first thank you Mrs tosy I would ask the uh principles of the buildings to come forward to the stand and introduce any staff
004that might be here today uh as you know I think we mentioned we had over 40 staff members um added to the school year uh at the beginning of the school year throughout the summer and while not everyone can come tonight um certainly we want our principles to to present who's here but also to give you some names U who wants to go first first we're going to go in that order Sarah make sure the green light's on Sarah please green light yes hi everyone happy school year um we have a bunch of new staff oh sorry Sarah Davidson the preschool director and special education coordinator for our three four and five-year-olds over at the pway building um at Ashlin preschool we have a few new staff members Anna Ginsburg who's been a long-term sub
005off and on for probably four years has joined us as permanent staff in our specialized programming as a special ed teacher um we have three new esps Karen Burling game as an esp1 Jenna maray as an ESP 2 in our specialized programming and Courtney Ryan who has boomeranged back to education after a year or so off as an esp2 um we have a new staff member Heather Doon who's joining us as a long-term sub for the first half of the year in our dually certified um integrated preschool classroom teacher role and then we have two staff members that have um transitioned to us from other buildings Kim kadlick as an esp1 and Lisa Martin as our building based occupational therapist this year and everyone's well on our day 17 of the new school year kids
006are doing great staff are doing awesome so it's been a great start to the year excellent that's great to hear and welcome to all the new pway St hello hi everyone I'm Erica Lars I'm the assistant principal at the Warren school it's actually our grade two curriculum night tonight so uh Pete is there getting that kicked off and I'll meet him in a moment so I want to introduce we have a lot of great new staff so let's start with uh we have a lot here actually so uh Emma Burnham beik she is our new kindergarten duel certification teacher uh alongside her we have Rachel wean who's our ESP that also works with uh Emma we have Sweeney Chong here a new grade one teacher Emily Hansen also grade one hello and exciting news another
007first grade teacher we have Caroline Johnson welcome uh we also have here Christina tanaga one of our special education teachers hi and Abba Verma who's also an ESP with us as well uh two of our other special education esps who could not make it tonight we we have Megan Gibbons as well as Molly Willcox so welcome thank you all for coming too welcome everybody and thank you for being here it's so nice to be able to put the names with the faces and we hope you love ashin and that you have an excellent Year good evening I'm Janna laena the principal at the Mendes school we have a lot of new staff as well we have Christina long in our language based um program she's a special educator Suzanne Rod is our new literacy coach
008Debbie Eisen is a new rise teacher Ben Savage is a new grade five general educator we have a new office administrator her name is Kate jrom we have a new ESP ESP Bethany Jeffords and snea Gupta and Hannah Kerney are all of our new esps to started with us awesome welcome good evening everyone Ain La Chappelle principal of the Middle School um we have new principal of the Middle School yep new principal uh a lot of excitement there thank you for that Mrs tosy um uh here tonight we have Sarah Payne new school psychologist and also joining us this year we have Roxana De la Rosa Spanish teacher Michelle Wills Spanish teacher yanu Thomas Spanish teacher Mary Lee Mullen is doing a long-term one-year French position Ariana Casper is music teacher Kelly host stem teacher
009Lauren Noble reading specialist Christa Graves special education teacher Sarah cotton El teacher Paulie Krauss is a shared bcba between the high school and middle school Caitlyn Maloney is a shared um speech and language pathologist between the high school and middle school Courtney Lyman and David KFOR are esps thank you welcome to everyone at the middle school hello hi everybody Kelly ster from the principal Ian from the high school know who I am where I am uh tonight we have with us John chalia who is our new Wellness teacher um Emily fuchi who is teaching Spanish DJ Livermore history and jako Conor history um we also uh welcomed um Tran Jacobson as a new ESP uh Gian c kochek as our new bright social worker and Ethan written Bush as a new ESP awesome welcome everybody
010have a great year and thanks for being here thanks for coming too got something you need to okay okay um normally I tell you all to leave you don't have to stay and you can still leave it's okay but we're having a student presentation which is always the best part of any meeting we ever have and the rest of it you can definitely leave but um feel free to stay or go if you have to but kids are up next so welcome to the mindes school mindes Morning News yes you may thank you a long day for yeah this again um I will bring up the slideshow okay we'll play one of the fils the first one Whatever tell me when go I think the middle one okay you just tell me and then when
011the slide needs to be changed just tell me when y hello hi we they're going to introduce themselves and each person's going to take a little bit of the script and they're going to talk through what we do every morning I also wanted to introduce Mrs bro she is our computer teacher I didn't know if there was a different title fanc or title media Specialist or something um and she's here because she really is the heart and soul of the mes news she's the one who works with the kids and who does the videoing and all the coordination behind it so I wanted to make sure that she's highlighted as the person behind all this guys ready like this do we want to go do you want to go your own papers or do you
012want to put one paper here own papers all right good evening thank you so much for having us here tonight my name is Lexie hello my name is Emma hello my name is we are here we are here today to tell you all about the minda's news the news started last year as a way for us to start our day we have made some changes since we started we added a background and a microphone and we learned to stand up for the pet pledge next we imported tools to try our LCL lessons and announced the modeled them all week we also focus on a core value and give an example of of one how how we can be followed each week it is a fifth grade job to do the morning announcements each class has
013a turn and two people go at a time we film in the computer lab there there's great equipment and a green screen before we film we have a script that we fill out that we we are ready to go on recording day we have one or two practices before we actually film we don't film until everybody feels comfortable and ready we know it's time to record because the filmer is 5 4 3 and then two in one silent if we mess up we retake it it's not that big of a deal most kids need retakes when you already announcer you have to project your voice and anyone in the recording room must be very quiet since we have a great microphone that picks up all noises the green screen gives us a background that we
014can change digitally to include things like the American flag during the flesch it gives us a real newscast feeling Miss bro our computer teacher who is here with us tonight does all of the editing we are really grateful that Miss bro is willing to go above and beyond to make sure the fifth graders have a chance to do the job the recordings are shared with teachers in the drive and they are shown every day they include special announcements what day are we in in our rotation and many other interesting things we have brought two examples to show with you stand na thank you thank you so much for listening any questions what's your favorite part about being um I like writing script awesome how long does it take to you put it together not you
015have you have to take no it's you have to mute yours it's your speaker that's going through the phone your volume all the way down he's got a speaker on his phone on histop there you go very nice curious that's why always all right so I'll ask again just because I you probably answered and I didn't hear it uh how long does it take you to to do it in the morning um it it usually T takes us like 10 to like 10 to 15 minutes to like record and we do like three people lot of time hey Jenna can you make sure the green lights on there microphone they film ahead of time too we film like six in a row the week before do you guys get to research topics that you may
016want to talk about in the news yes yeah what's one that you researched and you lik to uh report on you can really pick anyone who you want yeah it's like any fact are you finding that you're learning new things yes I think i' this awesome experience yeah so good thanks so much for coming tonight you guys did a great job I know really great job and thank you to your parents you may all get your sleep and get your belly full for tomorrow us again your microphone was muted that your speaker was then coming through our I forgot that you have that issue it was apparently it was my are you presenting the boys basketball I can Mr CYO will yeah typically coach Norman is here uh but I think he had previous obligations
017tonight uh so it's it's pulling up some some reason my computer just closed on me but this is the same uh trip that Mike Norman has done for several years um they will be visiting um a overnight travel trip and they go to um I the CRA yeah the craigville retreat center uh and this is where he he spends some time with his team doing leadership activities um Mike has done this like I said for several years now um and and they have have it down to a science uh the students attending uh can't really be finalized until after the basketball trials take place December one so he's not sure exactly who but he'll make sure that he provides all the names um to the nurses to make sure that there's no specific medical needs
018um and like I said this is this is just something that's been going on um at least at least three years now that I know of and it's been a successful trip for Mike so I you know while he's usually here to answer a few questions know this is the primary content area just to develop team responsibility and education through developing young leaders as athletes and really it's great team bonding for them so you know from my standpoint I fully support yeah I mean if nothing's changed we we definitely have asked our questions before you have and and the one thing actually I was a prepare mic again tonight for Mr Kendall's question about um equity and making sure folks um and they do they've they've done such a great job of making sure that
019every kid is able to attend no matter the cost and and they take the money typically out of their basketball sub account therefore um it pays and and kids don't have to worry about paying so uh he's he's been fantastic with this trip um and the kids speak highly of it every year we're in full support as at so okay excellent do we have a motion to approve the bo school basketball overnight travel just one question so it didn't say where you're staying I'm where they're staying I assume it's that's something same place yeah y well I will make a motion to approve the um the basketball overnight trip as presented second all in favor I I I all right good and we'll make sure that that coach comes back and uh give us an
020update sort of like we had with the cross mind I think it's really important that they do that and get the kids to talk about the experience yeah yeah yeah so want approv us all right uh between July 24th 2024 and September 11th 2024 wait this is the old one isn't it m that would be the old one that would be the old one she gave me the link to the old one I do not have there you go next meeting let me just verify that I didn't click on the wrong one but uh wait hold on I might have clicked on the wrong let me make sure yeah I don't see it in the folder PA so that's my note that I already nope I got I got I got but it's not a
021file that I put in a particular spot it's easy to click on the wrong one in the threads but all right here we go uh between September 12th 2024 and September 25th 2024 I pa kendle authorized by my signature payables in the amount of 168,169 this includes general fund expenses of 51,1 15397 revolving expenses of $16,990 120 and meals tax expenses of $936 thank you superintendent report yeah the only thing I'm going to report on tonight is uh obviously September uh for a change is actually been a a month where uh we've been in school every day uh which is unusual right typically we have breaks uh I certainly can feel the rhythm of the school year has gotten off to a good start because of that um we've had some curious and unusual circumstances
022this year um the only one I'll reference is our coyote experience at the Mendes School and how um I I'm very pleased with how M Lorena uh worked with the ashon police department uh the Environmental Protection Agency and and folks to to keep our kids safe while still being able to go outside right so we had a a coyote watch if you will um we haven't seen the coyote at the mindo school in a week um so it may have disappeared somewhere and gone to another um area of the of the community but um at no Point were any of our kids in danger or um it was we always had a teacher watching the area and they never got close that the co never got close to the playground but I I know there
023was always this uh sense of anxiety that existed from younger parents which makes sense right I have um nothing but uh feeling I would be the same way as a parent uh but that has gone well busing seems in transportation seems to be not an issue um it as it was in the past uh there's still some roots that we're still working on but that being said uh this week I think was the first week we've really started looking at bus passes to ensure that folks were getting the passes and using the passes uh because typically we might get students just jump on the bus early in the year drivers are just trying to get the roots down uh so there will be if for a lack of better term a little uh firmer um
024approach to making sure kids have their past es um so buses do not become overcrowded in that sense um and I think that's really all I have other than I had a nice meeting with Chief Rossi uh yesterday uh as we move forward with uh actually starting potentially to implement a full-time uh school resource officer again in the public schools um we've struggled getting that person to be full-time partly because the the APD could not um hire enough staff um now they're they're fully staffed they've got a number of of folks who are in the academy though until they come back um we won't have the opportunity to have an SRO but she's fully committed she's actually committed to to eventually getting two full-time staff members back in the schools the middle in the high
025schools where we had them before so that's really positive news so I'm really excited that Chief Rossy and I had an opportunity to sit down for an hour yesterday and and work out some of that so it's positive stuff good Mike I'll be super brief today in terms of General curriculum as we walk around in the classrooms at this point folks are are kneed deep in it now they're already really getting going obviously the first few weeks of school are usually uh for setting up you know routines and and and and rules and making sure everybody's comfortable getting to know people but now we're really we're getting in to the curriculum the meat is being the meat is starting to be taught which is great to see um in terms of our assessments um the
026I ready assessments have have begun um as have other assessments such as you know early literacy assessments and whatnot that we do at the at the elementary level um mcast data the Embargo has been lifted so U at this point that that data is available um I'm sure you've seen the the articles in the globe about different you know different data Statewide um and then other than that we are continuing to move forward with our plans for our upcoming PD day on November 5th we've finalized all those plans at this point so we're ready um but nothing else to to add more than I gave you a pretty extensive one last last time so I'm sure the next one will be a a little bit more information to provide fy2 school choice allocations so each
027year uh we come before the board to ask for additional funding for schools uh in departments outside of the amount we allocate through um the general operating budget and the the amount has stayed consistent 153,000 total um with how it's divied up between the schools and the Departments uh for folks to remember as we budgeted this year uh we put aside 1.2 million in uh school choice funds to offset our operating budget already this is in addition to that 1.2 million that we allocate where District or you know principles or districtwide uh departments can utilize those funds for whatever need they have so it might be Kelly might look at it and say at the high school I need more textbooks for a certain Department we didn't budget for it but we're going to use
028those funds for that or it could be a musical instrument it could be whatever uh funds they have to offset uh unexpected expenses so we've had this conversation in the past how do we determine how much uh each fund gets we don't have a good rationale to be honest with you uh this is just what's been consistent uh in terms of our Approach at least in my 16 years in the district even as a principal uh and as a superintendent uh I certainly would take input on uh how you think we should be divvying up the funds um but if you look at ashon high school they have the most kids right so typically they're going to get a little more of the funding um but one could say middle school and Mendes are pretty
029equivalent right now right but mes has also got a new building or it could be needs based right it could be so but but the challenge has been at least with Mendes and Warren if you remember going back to the budgeting this year we were able to allocate Supply money $25,000 to each School which a lot of these funds would have gone to for the supplies and asking parents to fill in that extra need we shouldn't be you know I don't I haven't seen any emails saying asking for specific things anymore we shouldn't be asking anymore because of the the budget um but that has been the consistent approach we've taken so yeah I I don't see a need to change unless we actually had information to which otherwise yeah change based on right so
030you could use that logic of hey based on students but I don't know does a high school student have more needs than an element I don't know right so this has been working unless we have some information to base a change on I wouldn't I would think we should change it so I'm just looking for your approval to to spend the 153,000 to allocate uh the uh school choice funds to specific line items I would move that we uh allocate the school choice funds for FY 2025 as presented second all in favor I I I thank you foreign exchange students naal students yeah thank you so again we haven't had any International students for the past couple years um however we need to set a baseline for um tuition should we get some students moving
031forward so this could be for uh the spring semester if you will um in years past uh We've I think it was 12,500 or 13,000 right around there the the number I'm asking you to approve is our per pupil cost right so that's the number that that I'm asking for uh in addition to we've always added u a little more money if a student is an elll student uh or a student who's on an IEP and we need to provide additional services so the 15,100 tuition standard rate repres reprs the per pupil cost that we're looking to recoup if someone comes into uh the ason public schools as an International Exchange stent any questions concerns about that just just with the uh you know elll 504 and IEP stuff what's the criteria so I know
032with with some of the other other times when we accept students that hey we can't accept we can't base our acceptance or we don't have a choice schoolo Bas based on these things and but many of those have a built-in hey if it costs us X to provide services goes back to the you know this ascending District in this case because you're putting this in I'm assuming at least that back part is not part of this and so can you just speak to you know the acceptance and risk of accepting uh and opening up these these kind of opportunities with that potential cost so of all the times we've actually had International students we've actually never had a student um who was specifically put into an elll class or was on an IEP th those
033students typically are are vetted uh from the sending country uh and they have to have a working knowledge of English before they come here typically um and and but it's our way of saying should we have to provide any additional Services we want to at least charge uh the sending uh company but typically we have a an arrangement with with an organization over there and they have certain criteria where they're Prov they're they're kind of uring that there's there's going to be well good experience too right we send somebody that that doesn't speak the language and we're providing services and and and that's probably not going to be the best experience for the so we worked with a company Cambridge Institute years ago uh they were the ones who were sending us students um we
034hav't again we haven't had any applications in the past number of years and that's not to say we have to even accept them I just want to get to the point where we set up you know a tuition rate and then if we determine that that the student fits our needs uh quite often here in Ashland what we've found is we've had companies want to place students but there were no families who were willing to accept students right so that's another piece right it's a component um all kinds of things have to fall into place for it to happen and is there just the same um legal obligation to provide the services apply to International students that's a great question I don't believe so yeah but we want them to have the experience Absolut and
035that's the reason a to provide at a certain level and then there's an ability to pay for it that's one thing but let's say you know there was more of a need than the than the cost would cover um we it seems like we may not have the same legal obligation we don't but the expectation is when they do come right thing yeah yeah it's they've got that working based knowledge of English that's really the right the component so yeah okay so we need a motion to approve that I would move to approve the 2025 2026 international student tuition rate of 15,100 with an additional 2,000 for students requiring elll 504 or IEP Services second all in favor I I okay second read on the few policies that we started reading at the last meeting
036uh we'll go through them one by one um it doesn't have to be the final read if there are any issues but um hopefully anything that needed to be resolved is resolved between the first meeting and the second um so we'll start with the acab sexual harassment does anybody have any concerns additions retractions anything on that can I just make a comment here um we had asked Mark to review it partly because of his lens um as an attorney with school districts uh I did not get any feedback on any of the three policies I just want to be clear um with regard to any changes that were necessary coming out of the sexual harassment policy was written by our attorneys just so we're clear right so and in in our you know now you
037know we're starting up with some more frequent policy meetings policy subcommittee and when we feel that we need some legal input we've been trying to get it at that level so that before it comes to you right we have Council so um seeing no opposition or any changes to this acab sexual harassment we have a motion to accept the the new policy so moved second all in favor hi hi hi and what about with ADF Wellness any changes looked good to me a motion to accept ADF Wellness so move second all in favor I I and then same question with jlc guidelines for management of life-threatening allergies anything anybody caught or wanted to I don't think it needs to be changed but the last meeting I made a a comment about um under the parent
038responsibilities the piece that says that they don't yeah I've got language yeah no I do you know what change but just clarified a little that it's simply because a nurse is not there yeah I apologize I did not include the the updated Jen um Taylor did give me new language for that she did uh based on the comments that you made so um so that will be reflected okay uh let me I want to see um if you have it and can read it that'll probably be yeah I'm going to try to see if I can find it quickly and if not we we might have to do the vote at the next meeting because yeah I I would because it was um language but why why he's doing that so um see where she
039put just f what will be coming is there's a concussion um a concussion one that we just reviewed and I mentioned it last time there are there's there's a another um I think it's an ac- r and then there's an ACA policy uh one of them is uh a generic harassment policy um that that's that's you know uh more blanket than than this one I think our our attorney has updated some that some components of that so we'll bring that and then the r was we're going to remove it uh we just didn't put the removal on on here once we accept now that we have accept that we can we can do those removals so we'll probably have that for the next minute I men yeah I can't find it and I would feel
040more comfortable uh if we approved it the next meeting Y no yeah but she did send me something yeah and um y yeah I I yes I'd feel more comfortable y I agree thank you great thank you okay we're moving right along now we get to vote on the consent agenda somebody walk me through how we is it just make a motion to accept the consent agenda yes yes so you typically you say do anybody have any issues anything on this consent J that we would pull out and if the answer is no we would just vote to approve the consent this is new to me so does anybody have any issues on agenda excellent do we have a motion to accept the consent it so we know what it sounds like it just sounds
041like that I move to approve the consent agenda as presented second all in favor hi hi okay we are already at reports of school committee members I know it's a big wow Marc um I'd just like to give a shout out and thank you to all the teachers and students actually who helped with the back to school nights because been Tour on my world tour of school back to school and uh the it was fantastic and the teachers were all enthusiastic and I never took Spanish and I feel like I should take Spanish after meeting the high school Spanish teacher um Mrs wolf she had actitude positiva I said I don't know any Spanish but I'm G to have that now oh it's just great so just and the and the students too at all
042the schools directing the parents is pretty funny so just wanted to say that was really well done across the board um that's great to hear great feedback make sure principes get that yeah speaking of back to school night um at the high school the high school was the only one I attended but it was it was great they they did a really great job um and more than one teacher commented on how positive the positive impact they're already seeing from the new cell phone policy and so I just wanted to pass that along um and my son was very excited because he his biggest complaint was I like to listen to music while I do homework and St and study and Kelly shared that they can listen if they if they have the appropriate headphones
043they can listen to it through their Chromebook so he was thrilled to hear that that all of these accommodations are still available they just look different so um anyways I just wanted to pass on that feedback that teachers more than one teacher commented about what a difference they've seen in their classrooms and the student interaction and everything else um uh and then I there was an ashack meeting last week um it was very well attended there was a nice group of parents there which is nice to see um the involvement and they asked that I share um uh in information on a few events coming up so um the lighting the way Awards and kind of they meet the administrator night will be and I think I passed this on to you guys via email
044but um on October 8th at 7 at the high school library um and they're also super excited Mike about the um the PD that's coming up um the Easter shs presentation that's going to be a part of the PD day on um the 5th and so they you know kind of extended the invite to the school committee members if if we wanted to sit in with their ashack board at that um PD it sounds like it'll be a a really interesting um an impactful presentation by the Easter Seals um about you know why it's important to teach disability history in in um acceptance and then they're also holding um an event uh later this month on the 20th called The Ash packs Autumn Adventure which is on a Saturday or Sunday rather sorry um it's
045an it's an event for the community where it's going to be in conjunction with Ashlin Recreation so with Kelly run at the the field behind the community center and so they're going to have a number of activities for the kids to do and um in their families as well too that it's very inclusive and disability friendly for um families to partake in so I wanted to pass that along as well too but um there what was the date for that the 20th Sunday the 20th from 1:30 to 3:30 and well it didn't fall under uh the ospice of ashack uh you should have received an invitation uh for the open house for the launch program on Friday from 1:00 to 1:45 yeah which I got to see the the classroom um just before the ashack
046meeting last week it's great these two have already seen yeah it was really great and it h it just happened to coincide with I I think it was sixth grade open house that night and so the the teachers were were there that was their night to be there for an open house and so we got to to chat with them too and they had just been at the school committee meeting but it was just it's it's a beautiful space and I mean the enthusiasm of the teachers could not be um could not be higher they're just they're all really enjoying it and I mean you know you all got to see the presentation so it was but it was nice to see kind of the the space in action too great great great job over
047there Paul uh yeah I mean I went to back school night at the the high school as well and uh we had building committee meeting last week we had a policy subcommittee meeting so nothing as interesting as as for stuff but just boring stuff I'm feeling very left out I did not go to any back to school nights I did go see a wedding venue today for my baby so enjoy every minute it goes by very fast one day you open your eyes and you're at a wedding venue but um I policy subcommittee meeting and that's that's really it so far okay so anybody else to have to add anything before we move to adjourn all right we're there who's got it make motion to adjourn second all in favor good night everybody thank you
048good night good night for