001e e e good evening everybody and welcome to our first school committee meeting of this new Academic Year welcome back or welcome welcome to Ashland if it's your first time and welcome back to all of you it's some ways it feels like we never left and in other ways it feels like it's been a while we have a new student rep and so uh since it's our first meeting um some of us haven't even met each other yet so we're going to all introduce ourselves um to you and to each other um and then we will get the meeting started so first I would like to welcome you I don't even know your name yet my name is Lori tosy I'm the chair and I'll have everybody else introduce themselves after you do but tell
002tell us who you are and something about yourself great okay so let's see if this is working uh so my name is abash caric and I'm the I'm a junior and I'm the student rep for this year's school committee so I'm very excited to be a part of this and looking forward to a good year well welcome we're so happy to have you and if anyone hasn't told you already I mean we welcome you to as many meetings as you can get to we understand you're a student so if you ever have like something pressing for school and you can't be here we understand um but we certainly appreciate your input when you're here and we actually value it so please participate as often as you'd like and we're I'm gonna have everyone introduce ourselves
003so you can hello Chris Matthew Director of Finance and operations for the school district hi I'm Marcy culverwell you're I was on but I'm not close enough I'm Tina fanes I'm Mark Terry also known as Kaden Matthew's dad and have you guys all met yes okay but what about Mr Kendall online Mr Kendall that's Paul kendel he is the fifth member of our school committee and he's um going to be virtual tonight we we still have a virtual option can you hear us Paul I can hear you can you hear me awesome I can hear you now okay bye Paul Kendall uh I I also chair the Mendes School building committee awesome thanks Paul okay we have we have a lot to get through this evening um I start every meeting by reading our um
004school mission and vision and reading the topics on the agenda for the evening so I'll start by telling you what our school vision is 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 supported are empowered with the academic and social emotional skills to pursue their chosen path and embrace their roles as positive contributors to local and Global communities this meeting is being recorded by waca cable TV our call to order this evening includes opening procedures agenda review and adoption we will have some time for public participation if there's anybody here tonight wanting to give public comment and our topics are as follows reports and presentations student presentations we have the high school cross country team building Retreat waca Mendes
005award director of student services the launch program and the start of the 2024 2025 school year superintendence report assistant superintendence report our consent agenda includes the June 12th 2024 minutes July 23rd 2024 minutes warrant approvals titles 1 2 3 and 4A grants Student Activity account accounts bank reconciliation July 2024 gifts and donations our action items and discussion updates include first read of some policies acab sexual harassment ADF Wellness JL cedr guidelines for management of life-threatening allergies and then the next topic is appoint superintendent to the board of directors for the accept collaborative we will have reports of school committee members and then when we will adjourn so that now I'll just take attendance and ask all the school committee members if we are okay with the agenda this evening I'll start with you Mr Kendall
006yep I'm good with it okay Marcy I'm good Tina yes yep Mark okay um I will start by asking um if there's anybody here from the public that's here to give comment this evening and then seeing none we'll move right into our student presentations we've got the Ashland High School cross country team building Retreat yes you should be hi I'm Sharon you've got a whole crew with you Sharon I do have um so uh coach Briner John um and I and Emily have asked our cross country captains to speak of our cross country pre-season camp and I would would like to say first annual because we felt it was s such a success so guys come on welcome everybody I've got the I got it he so just you just tell me when to click
007all right hi all right everyone me all right hello I uh David senuk I am a captain of the cross country team and I'm a senior uh move here uh over a Labor Day weekend uh this past Labor Day uh the team went up to Vermont uh to one of our coaches uh coach ry's parents uh property uh we had uh loads of Transportation there uh with parents and coaches very efficient worked smoothly got our stuff there uh once we got there uh we set up uh had the uh tents as you can see there uh very uh better uh than I thought would be we actually got them out pretty good and they're all uh pretty stable none nothing happened with them so that was pretty awesome uh yeah and throughout the uh weekend
008we ran hiked swam other various activities and sports uh we made fires uh cooked uh ate a lot and I mean to the core of it we socialized with each other and bonded deeply as a team thank you awesome it hello I'm will um captain of the cross country team and I'm talking about the runs that we did so the day that we got there we didn't run because we we ran before we left but the day after that we had a six by 8800 to workout at thatf Academy and just like it's a beautiful like trails and like mountains everywhere was a fun fun workout for the whole team and then we came back and then we like played cornhole and frisbe in the backyard then the next day we had a sixmile easy
009long run on uh on a road um like soft Gravel Road beautiful in general so I think everyone really enjoyed that and I think everyone benefited from it as well so thank you hi I'm hi I'm Garrett Wolfram and I'm also Captain um on the second day we were there we went on a hike as a team um and it was just on a nearby Mountain um a short distance away um once we got there um I mean it was a beautiful hike uh the trails were great um and I think that Not only was it a good experience for team bonding um it was also just good as a workout for the whole team I mean it was a long hike um but once the fog cleared um you can't really see it in
010that video I mean that photo on the right but um the view is beautiful from up there um it was a great part of the weekend um also on the last day um a lot of people got up early in the morning to go for a short hike to like up the up a nearby Hill to uh watch the sunrise which was also a very beautiful experience um just great for the team I think thank you hello I'm Kristen VES and a senior at ashin high school and also a captain and obviously the best part of the trip um was the running and Hiking but we also did several other activities um we had a movie night in which we watched the movie McFarland USA and this inspired this entire team um especially to run
011as fast as they could for the workout the next morning we also had a talent show which tightened the team's Bond so much and every single one of the um team members that went on the trip participated um and we performed a bunch of fun showcases such as dances songs and skits too and we also took a couple visits to the lake which was very refreshing and everyone had a smile on their face the whole time and on Sunday if we even got to visit Dartmouth College for the the Juniors and seniors who are thinking about college which was very educational and we got to see the town which was nice as well and I haven't heard a single complaint about the trip and it was super it was a lot of fun and everyone
012had a blast thank you hi I'm Jane Goss um I'm a junior and I'm also one of the girls captains um while we were camping we also had everyone on the team contribute to the meal prep and the cooking um so all of the members of our team were randomly split into three separate groups each group was like seven to eight people and then each group was responsible for one breakfast one lunch and then one dinner over the course of the trip and then um so the groups were responsible for like cleaning tables setting out plates utensils helping in the kitchen and cleaning up at the end um people were also put in random groups not with their friends which all helped us like Bond more and know each other better um so for example
013like the day that we had like pasta for dinner some people were helping cook some people were helping put out plates utensils some people were focused on cleaning um so overall like dividing up the responsib for the meals in my opinion helped us all like first of all get to know each other better plus we got to really practice um communication and teamwork outside of just practice and at the meets while we're running so awesome thank you nobody talked about the um's the talent show sorry yeah that's the talent show so fortunately oh there's like meal prep so we had some veggies healthy meals beautiful that's like some more meal prep we played a lot of cornhole we in the bottom right or left there we're doing some [Music] yoga movie was the sunrise hike
014that was the sunrise hike but these guys we left camp at 5:30 in the morning so they really embraced all beautiful you know fortunately for us oh sorry fortunately for us um I honestly have to say that it was a cross between um camping and glamping because we did have the benefit of um the Grossman's home um so they took everything in and put things through the dishwasher and and whatnot but everybody as you saw um camped outside um we also have to give a shout out to our Eagle Scouts that made fires from Flint for our s'mores and and whatnot but um I think overall no Triple E and we came home with everybody that's a win yes so thank you for the opportunity um for allowing this and as I said we're hoping
015this is our first annual um to do this in in the future but did you have any questions for us does anyone have questions are you Paul I just had one was every member of the team able to participate um those who wanted to participate could participate and financial barriers were not a barrier so um so what was the participation level I mean was it we had um 50% so awesome well it sounds like it was a great experience and we really love when you come back and you tell us all about it so thanks for coming in giving us all the great pictures and the information have a great school year everybody thank you okay wacka Mendes award is that you Barbara hello everybody um it's nice to be here um back in the
016spring um waca entered a media contest which was um accepted entries and submissions from media centers throughout the country well we were happy to um to be awarded first place for two Awards and I'm happy to say that both of them were School related one was calling all kids which was hosted by former first grade teacher Jennifer Temple which she did in 2023 these were entries in 2023 um which she did in her classroom she the story about Jackie Robinson for Black History Month the other one which is the reason why we're here tonight was a um documentary that was hosted by Claudia Bennett and edited and and shot by Paul Bowden which was the last day of the mindz school um so it was a really nice piece and I have CLA here for
017you but before I do that I want Paul to tell you a little bit about um the the piece since he uh did it well the pieces uh you know first of all thanks Claudia for for hosting it for us last minute we called her up and said we have this idea and she said fine and she called the new principal at the school which I'm sure things were pretty crazy for her that day too so we did it and we we got great footage of the kids running full speed out of that school at the end of the school day and they had warned me they said I said where can I get a shot of the kids being exciting because it's the last day of school and she said stand at this door
018and sure enough they came running full speed right into the jumped into those buses and left and then after that we went on a tour of the school we talked to some of the teachers that had been there for a long time and we saw the um gymnasium and we saw the auditorium we got shots of that shots of the shops and all the places that you know people might want to remember even though that building was um needed to be replaced it was a a a strong building had a lot of memories for a lot of people I think so hopefully we captured some of that um and then we followed the story we got some Drone footage as they tore down the Mendes school and opened up the building and it's you know
019such a giant job and then it finally ended with the beam raising when you guys opened or you know ended got near the end of the construction process and then actually the real end was we had opening day at the Mendes school too I almost forgot about that so yeah so you know this award is not for Ash and cable it's really for like you know everyone here that worked on the whole project throughout the thing it was a a nice piece to as a um memory of a classic building that is no longer here but um before I give out these plaques I'm going to have John our board president um give out the plaques to um Jim and one for Jenna who I I don't know if she's here but she's not um
020I I will have let you um get it to her so well Mr Adams before we give you this award one thing I also wanted to put into your uh with the demise of local newspapers I REM I've been doing this long enough that I remember there used to be a reporter in the room every meeting what we've tasked at wacka is to become to replace that missing piece of public media now and as much as I used to love to torture my boys when they were looking at Twitter accounts on uh snowy mornings and going is Mr Adams going to close school is Mr Adams going to close school I can't think of nobody better than Mr Adams to start doing a podcast because wacka we're starting to do really increase our portfolio not
021even just for municipal government but for all businesses and anybody around so we're extending the invitation tonight that you start coming doing I don't know let's call it the Adams report or something like that but uh you've always had a good Knack with the with the community You' always had a good Knack with the kids and I can't I couldn't think of another person better or more importantly knowing most of the people sitting at the table if anybody here is also interested in doing a podcast and I especially think that maybe something from the athletic department would be well received as well too so with that you have an open invitation you can work you can work with Barbara and Paul on that I strongly encourage it if anybody's out in the audience and they
022they think that they want to do a podcast as well we can do that but I I know you have a busy agenda tonight so we just want to come out and give this award and then maybe get a picture so the hometown media Award winner last day of the Mendes congratulations thank you for everything you do for the community okay thank you guys for everything you do um it's so nice to see your like familiar faces year after year after year it's a great community and it's great work that you do all the time I don't know if anybody else has any questions get the link yeah yeah we we'd love to see it um but congratulations um you do excellent work all the time and uh we've seen it year after year thank
023you for everything you do appreciate you appreciate okay next up Britney thank you so much yeah the crew the launch crew y great so I met some of you last we in your classroom Mark and I and I think Paul got a chance to go in there as well Oh I thought you said something um so this um year is the start of the 18th through the 22 program in Ashland and this is our first group of excellent young adults who've been working um with Cassie as the Lead Teacher and Yara as the support professional working to get community experience and our awesome young adults involved in the Community as in as many um opportunities as possible so um obviously being that it's only September we're slowly rolling out some of you know our community
024connections with as many people as possible and cassia has really taken the lead um in order to do that um from all of the community response that we've received so far it's been very positively received and everybody that we connect out with is very eager to to have US participate in some capacity um some capacities I think we're not quite prepared for um in terms of uh some of the requests that have come through but Cassie has been really really great and making sure that it's meaningful and supportive of the young adults that are here before me um I can't thank the crew of parents enough that are here and have got our young adults here tonight Francine in particular who sorry Francine name dropping H hurricane hurricane Francine um as she likes to be
025referred to um in participating in all of our um parent meetings with um people in the community who um I selected to outreach um in terms of program development and really getting parental input in what they need um you know as frine I think is so comfortably vocal with us in the right way encourage you know our other parents to do the same if ever they want something better more differently of us in the program to support this fine group of uh young adults that are in front of us so it's really really been awesome um we're going to be doing a a open house on the 27th and the school committee will be invited as well as parents um we can't have too big of a group because the space allthough it is giant
026is not capable of housing many many people all at once so I will let cassia take the lead and our adults here on some of the slides cie just tell me when you want me to push T next okay okay um so we have put together some photos of our space at the middle school um so you want to talk talk about Sophia some of the things that we have in our classroom I is space office office space kchen area and na area perfect yeah our classroom is set up just almost like an apartment minus the bedroom um we have laundry we have refrigerators stoves microwaves um we have basically done a wedding regist so we have all the plates and pots so we are ready to cook and um work on all of our
027daily living skills so we can go to the next slide our pictures aren't show they're not showing up oh there that's all right so Marcos do you want to talk about one of the internships that we do where where we go all right we have daily Cafe pre restocking items cleaning services and other tanks as needed as sign assigned assigned and where do we do our labeling and prepping on the cups put some stickers at which business uh Ashland nutrition yes yes so one of the internships that we do in the um Community is we go to Ash nutrition we help get their cups and their labels ready we help refill water um Jose you want to come help with our next one yeah okay Jose do you remember where this one is and and
028more p and more so what's something that we do right here what do we get a AA we get the water and we have to help we have to do the plants and all the flowers right why and what was Sophia restocking what was she putting in the refrigerator AA yeah more AA and other drinks so in the back they have a kitchen area so we help to restock their refrigerator and then you can't see you on this picture but you're helping the tables what do we do with the tables and the chairs for the customers we help to cleaning cleaning yes yes we make sure everything's clean for the customers and ready excellent all right Sophia you want to help us with our next one okay what's our next business that we go to
029for our internships we're going to this Dr greens Dr Greens in town what's some of the things what's your favorite job when we go to Dr greens testing the screen test the screen you want to read the other ones down the corers Serv and car sweep H in sure station and wall pepper Wes the towels yes so Sophia's favorite job is when we get to test the screens we have to make sure they work so we get to sometimes use our golf clubs that are there sometimes there's um different games like cornhole today she was helping to test the screens and soccer but while we're there we also um help cleaning the surfaces and prepping the floors for the customers all right let's see what our next internship is you want to help with this
030one Marcos yeah is restore reverse shop Place item onto correct shelves shelves Shop clean up and wipe down Services yeah so restore we had so much fun you walk in there's 10 carts of things that we need to go put back on the shelves so we're matching where they belong we're walking through the store and we're making sure that everything's put back in the correct spot and then while we're there we also can help with sweeping floors cleaning surfaces yeah great okay um while we're you know talking about other internships we are starting to reach out to the other schools in district and how we can help provide some Services while we still work on vocational skills um and daily living skills so one thing that we did last week we went to each of
031the schools and we were welcomed with welcomed with warm arms when we came to collect paper to shred um we will never run out of a job we heard so we'll try to do that more of often um so we went to each of the buildings we collected brought back to our office space and we did some shredding we're looking into reaching out to the PE departments um seeing if we can help launder any of the pennies or possibly help with um uniforms and then we're also looking into connecting with cafeterias if we can help with any lunch prep um any kind of restock that they might need reaching out to the custodial Services we have a meeting this week um of just more various jobs that we can start working on put on their
032resumes yeah Marcos or Sophia you guys Jose you want to talk about the last one some of the places that we've been in the town where have we been going Ashlin State Library restore no um um Shaws and um where' we go today um ashon State Park yeah we went for a walk outside today right near your house right yeah yeah Sophia what was something that you like to do so far that we've done out in the community a place that we've gone on Library I look for screens looking the from the books from the movies that's right we were went to the library she was using the computer to search up some of her favorite movies and books very good and let's let Jose have a turn Jose what are you doing in this
033picture where'd we go here yeah what were you doing in that picture shopping shopping yes we went shopping and then we got our ingredients from our recipe we went back to our class room do you remember what we made that day what did we cook some pan pancakes yeah we had some pancakes that day for lunch so we were able to make our list before we went went to Shaw picked up our ingredients went back and then that's what we had for lunch that day yeah is that the last slide yeah so we've all been having a lot of fun just going to throw that up there but it also has been you know really meaningful things that we're doing so we're working on those daily skills vocational um and we're feeling excited so thank
034you that's Wonder awesome does anyone have any questions comments yeah great job everybody room is amazing and it seems like you're getting out there in the community and learning new skills and meeting people so thank you for creating such a wonderful program it looks like it's real success and thank you for coming to share and I hope all of our young adults will come back another time during the year to update us on what you guys have been doing Paul we'll bring the pancake that would be [Music] great thank you thank you we have one more member on did you have anything you wanted to ask or say Paul no uh I just repeat what everybody said I I I had did get a chance to look at the space it's awesome and a great
035job for getting this off the ground and and very impressed with the with our young adults there and and totally excited for the program so thank you very much awesome have a great year everybody thank you for coming in please come again thank you yeah yeah it sounds like she has some good support too so teamwork see you later so awesome I'm very jealous of cassia it's she's got the best grw um and then just overall for us just the office of student services we've really been focusing this year on consistent practices with all the special education coordinators and working on finding um the most efficient ways to formally collect data across the district so um there's been some research put in to um supplementary data collection materials like goal book which not only houses
036um data that is transferable from building to building but also um kind of pre-created uh Baseline assessments and continual progress monitoring so um I'm excited to start trying to work with that and seeing if it is a um sustainable system to be using for the district to help collect that progress monitoring for our students any questions for Britney thanks no thank you not a problem have a good night good stuff that's great stuff superintendent report so just a a few things to to start with um you'll probably notice uh there's just a little different format to the agenda uh certainly you know coming out of the retreat we talked a little bit about the agenda but making sure that we're having all of the proper information uh on here but also I I took you
037know the Liberty to to try a different format to see if it it looks good uh if if you don't like it let me know I'm going to continue to modify it but within the folder I'm going to try to simplify things where uh you can just click on the links like so uh all you have to do is click on the link and automatically come up for you through the agenda yeah so that that's a that's a work in progress so here's what I'm going to ask of the committee um typically Gretchen tries to post this on a Friday before and it's really a challenge to get all of the U backup documents into the folder would you mind if Monday mornings she can post the agenda but if Monday mornings she shares that
038folder with you uh I can make sure that we have all of the information in there with the links created uh I don't know how many of you are actually you know looking at it the weekend of or the weekend before you may start looking at it but um especially when we get into policies there's they're long some of them uh so uh if we can test it on a Monday so the next meeting um I would really appreciate that of course was that yeah Paul I and maybe the bad assumption but I assume that all of the folders for each meeting are in the similar place would it be possible just to share the parent folder with us and that way in you know we we can go there and get the information at
039our but then she can send that email saying hey here's the this in this folder this is ready and that that way you know we can we can do both and it's not a burden to her you that stuff yeah yeah I can do that I can have her do that she I mean I I had to have her share with me the folder itself as well U because I didn't have access to it before so yeah we can do that yep great so let me just continue um obviously uh we haven't um had conversation or meeting since school began uh this it was a a challenging start to the year and has been um and for for a variety of reasons uh I'm really proud of our our administrative team and our teachers and
040and all faculty and staff uh we had a good opening day we spent a lot of time with our our safety and our training uh which Mike will will talk about a little bit I'm pretty sure uh and I I just want to emphasize I don't know how many people will be watching this but I want this to to go uh on record um we've got to be really cognizant as a community and uh our families need to have really good conversations with uh their students and their children and those under their guardianship when we hear things or students have a tendency sometimes to think they're joking about something of a of a nature that um could be construed as as threatening Andor um I don't what the word I'm looking for um where there's
041there's this thought that the schools are in danger of any sort of way um even today we had a situation uh at the middle school where a student you know thought it was funny to make a send a text to a friend who wasn't home or wasn't in school about you know violence and what that does is it creates tremendous pressure confus usion um consternation anxiety uh within our community and we have to stop everything we're doing as a community and we will stop everything we are doing to ensure our kids our faculty our staff and our community is safe but it is getting early on to the point where some of what is being said Andor construed on social media um is being being done so in a way that some think it's joking
042and it's okay to do that and what I'm asking folks is we can't have that we take this stuff seriously we will stop immediately the police will be called and we will hold folks accountable for what they say and what they do and we want our schools to be safe we're spending time and energy to ensure that our students our faculty the folks who come come into our our buildings are indeed safe but we need assistance from our community from our parents from our students talking to one another because then when something happens if something happens we need to be able to react appropriately and not have it be um you know what's the was the the saying about the cried wolf right yeah the boy who cried wolf and we can't have that right
043but we will stop everything and having constant messaging to a community to say this occurred today we've investigated we've taken hours upon our day which take away from instructional time is something that is not acceptable um so to to say today was another frustrating day Michael um would be an understatement um we're ask asking and I'm asking our community uh to to just consider having conversations at home with your children have conversations with your friends that this is serious stuff and we want to make sure that um we're doing everything possible that being said um you know Athletics is underway uh as you can see I mean the programming this is the stuff we need to be celebrating right this this is the stuff that we need to be excited about uh and having you
044know the con country team and the launch program and that's what we want to be you know having a conversation about um so the Year is off to a rocky start a little bit um knock on wood buses while I have a little update Transportation on the next meeting uh as always it's it's it's smoother this year than it was last year but as I've said to folks give us three to four weeks of actual bus runs so we know exactly what the timing looks like um so I think that's all I really have um for the start of the year uh but I look forward to to having it become a really positive um school year focusing on students student well-being uh our strategic plan Etc so J can I just ask what other
045never know how people watch this don't I don't think watch a lot on wack but stream it later or whatever um what other efforts are are we making collectively to try to express the concern and communicate to parents and yeah and and honestly make sure people are reading those Communications so so really good question mark um Friday we will be having from my office um a very detailed um email sent to the community uh that discusses is the things that we are focused on and focused on in terms of of our programming the the procedures we're doing and undertaking when uh if something occurs within our building uh some new procedures in terms of coming into our building uh in terms of checking in with a new software system that we're using uh all of
046that will be outlined in an email this Friday to the entire Community uh and in that certainly I'll have plea in there that everyone you know I we we notice folks do read those if they're not every single day um and we will make sure that that is pushed out not only by me but by our building principles because sometimes it's read more at the local level if you will if the students at Warren um but it'll be pretty extensive in terms of uh we won't get into specific details of everything we do but we will say this is the model we're following this is the training we went through over the the summer that we trained our staff with at the first on the first day of school and that we're continuing in November
0475th for our professional development working with our staff so yeah I guess I was thinking cut well I was just going to ask do you think it would be worth putting a link in Michael Herbert's Town newsletter too sure um given the importance to the community it may be a way to reach more people I having lunch with him tomorrow so I think um that's a great idea I'll bring it up to him for sure m I was also going to suggest particularly I think there have been a couple incidents already M you know there was a police cruiser just being visible when I dropped my daughter off this morning up at the high school um you know if if this is a place for and believe I don't want to get into your administr
048stuff it's you know your your thing but for the old old form like letter going home acknowledgement sign acknowledgement receipt I've had the conversation with my kids kind of thing return the letter I don't think we do much of that I think we should be doing much of that but but this is obviously it's critically important I think you're asking appropriately for parents to play their part in the process parents and Guardians to talk with their kid about it and to communicate whatever the consequences might be for the student I you know it it's so I don't think people people realize that kids say things that they shouldn't happens all the time and no matter what kind of conversation you can have that's always going to happen um but the significance and the disruption that
049happens is not as simple as a kid getting called down to the principal's office and being told don't do that right and you've just outlined for us you know sort of just at the high level what happens when these things occur and the disruption to learning the disruption of the community the anxiety it causes um particularly in this day and age it it just feel like this the kind of thing you want to bang people in the head with I think Mark um you know Mike is Mike leads our safety committee so I think that's something he can certainly bring up uh and have that conversation with within uh the group that we have and that does include APD afd um you know our admin team members and and their facilities so you well the
050other piece who is obviously you know asking you know families to to take their part and have those conversations but I know and and this may already be a part of the conversations that happened especially at the high school level maybe at the Middle School level with you know kind of the assemblies that happen with students and you know in terms of you know obvious will tomorrow at the middle school right you know it's it's that's only one piece of the puzzle of course um but that's I was just curious in terms of the conversations that are yeah at that level too it will uh Mike and actually had that conversation today um while that was not necessarily something that we have we had done with class class assemblies it will occur it needs to
051occur that was we sort of had that conversation today after this yeah seems your your your response is appropriate and I certainly say I appreciate that sure thank you Sor it sounds like it's been a big disruption yeah sorry about it is what it is yeah we'll deal with it so so my attempt this year is to streamline uh the assistant superintendent's report a little bit to make sure I'm providing you the information that you really want to hear um so I have a few different topics that I I'll try to touch upon each time uh some will be shorter than others but just in terms of a general curriculum update um our curriculum leadership meetings our vertical leadership meetings will start in October um so we once again have vertical leadership teams uh for
052ELA Math and Science and as you know those are great opportunities for us to get together uh to make sure that we are aligned uh and and just communicating among the different buildings about our expectations and and uh our success esses uh in this summer too we were really proud of it I think I touched upon this a little bit with you but we had over 50 curriculum projects that were that were um completed this summer uh ranging from um uh Scott Smith doing some work with watercolor his watercolor curriculum um that was one of the ones that just came to mind right away and and then um many others a lot a lot in the area of English learning um this year um and also special education too so some great some great things
053that were accomplished from our staff members is this summer uh in terms of assessment updates uh mcast data is still embargoed at this time but we you know have been doing some initial planning uh teachers and and leaders have been looking at the initial data that has been uh provided to us by the state uh to be able to pre-plan and to make sure that we're putting uh things in place for our students to make sure everybody's getting what they need as early as possible um obviously since it's embargo we can't go public with any of that data right now um but it will be shared um with the public as soon as the was lifted accountability data was shared with District leadership today um didn't have a chance to go over it in detail
054yet um but again that's also embargoed but I did have an opportunity to re to begin the reviewing of that data uh we'll be sharing that with our with our building administrators in in the coming days as well when when is that information unemaro um typically typically uh in the next few weeks I would say um but it's definitely going to be by mid October same with the m yeah yeah um over the course of the next month uh in September and early October uh all of our students in grades K through 8 are going to continue to do the assessments that we've been uh doing uh over the course of the last two years with I ready so again everybody K to8 will be taking our Ela and math diagnostic which provides us fantastic
055information about students current level and uh it allows us to see growth during the year so those assessments have have begun uh and also we will be continuing to do our literacy assessments uh at the younger grades particularly Dibbles to to ensure that we are um finding any potential um it's our it's our dyslexia screen so to ensure that we catch any uh potential Flags uh for children who might be dealing with this Le year uh in terms of educator evaluation that process has begun um I'm really proud of our of our building administrators uh have already gotten out there um we we are making that a huge priority this year we really believe that Ed valuation is a important tool and important process to improving the instructional practices for our entire District we've made
056that a a real um key goal for all of our leaders this year and they've been out there already so unannounced observations have begun I know that they've begun in all buildings and the initial meetings between teachers and and their evaluators have already started in terms of the teacher self assessment and goal setting process so that is well underway at this point uh in terms of a professional learning update uh as Mr Adams had had alluded to we had a significant two-day training um in the principles of Alice which are protocols and procedures relative to what happens during an event such as an active shooter or some violent event that could take place that could um you know harm others in in some way shape or form uh all of our building administrators including principles
057and and assistant principles and Deans as well as variety of District leaders as well as um three members of the ashin police force and um Captain Moran I always say her name wrong Moran of the ashon fire department um were trained in the Alice principles and we are now all official Alice trainers so what we have done is taken what we learned over the course of those two days and during our opening days with our staff all staff were trained in Alice principles um and we are going to continue to work with our staff throughout the year to ensure that everybody is feeling comfortable with these new processes and procedures as Mr Adams said we will be sending out a letter to the community on Friday to uh introduce Alice to everyone um we will
058continue to to do that throughout student students have already been introduced to the concept during the first days with with the the building leadership uh special education staff participated in a training with uh alen Bloom uh who's a a guest consultant regarding the new IEP um I've note for some other things that happened mindes Educators were trained in St Math you know that we brought that in this year it was a success at Warren so now mes has adopted it as well and this year all of our esps participated in a training um every year we we we feel like that's a one particular group that really needs to get some more uh relevant training for their particular roles there such play such an important role in our district so we had a consultant come
059in to do some training with those folks and the in the basis of it was just to really talk about the different disabilities that impact the students that are in front of us um so while it may have seemed um Elementary for some of our veteran esps it was great for everyone to to better understand who was in front of them every single day to learn about these different disabilities uh we're planning actively our November 5th professional development day as you know we have a full day plan for that um planning is fully underway uh actually I think the principls are getting less time than they want to do their own thing in the buildings but we are going to be doing some more significant Alice training with our staff on the 5th uh in
060order to be ready for a an ALICE drill that we will do with all of our students by the end of November and um we're we're also going to be focusing en large part on special education on November 5th we have a speaker coming in to talk about special education law and through the uh collaboration with ashack we have a group from Easter Seals coming in to give a presentation as well we're really happy and excited to be able to have them join us uh for a portion of our November 5th day um other things just quickly uh the Safety Committee which right now is on everybody's mind we have our first meeting on Friday the 20th uh we have plenty to talk about um and just because the safety commune hasn't met yet doesn't
061mean we are not talking regularly about safety it's certainly been um the major topic of discussion for all of our administrative team this year um we have adopted a new system um for and Mr Adams will be helping to roll out this process on Friday in his email um for any visitors entering our buildings it's called Raptor technology and essentially it's it's going to be a way for our uh front office staffs to ensure anybody who comes into our building is a person who is safe to enter our building so this will be the first time I'm I'm letting the community know that you should expect if you are visiting our building for the first time to have your ID ready because we will put it into our system to ensure that you are someone
062who actually belongs in a public school many schools have adopted this a long time ago we're we're jumping in and we're going to begin this process um as a district officially on October 1 we are still going through the phase of making sure everybody is is fully aware of all the process processes and procedures around this Warren school is an an early adopter they are doing some um pilot testing of this for us on a not on a 100% basis but they are looking to see what pitfalls we may incur so if you are at Warren if you happen to visit Warren you may be someone who is asked to to um put your ID into the Raptor system um before we roll it out officially on October 1 I say you know haven't been
063in other school buildings in other school districts I have one client that does use it now and it's a little bit clunky at first when you got to enter all your information the second time you're coming in it's like a piece of cake yeah you know and then you can see that the tracking on that is so much better than than the paper you know the sign the paper with the sign in sign out thing that it's really going to help us with a lot of different things including consistency among buildings I think one of the big things that we is everybody seems to have a different process for this and now we will be consistent um from prek to 12 uh and finally um we're really excited about a new new Adoption of of
064clever uh clever is a technology that is going to allow us to uh make sure that all of the different software programs that I talk about on a regular basis uh amplify for Science and for our Dibbles iel which is a program that we use at the middle school primarily I ready what clever will do is it is it works um in Tangent with iPass our student information system and we no longer will have to manually enter students and classrooms to these different software programs so clever will take data from iPass every night update things and and it will take a lot of time and energy away from folks who had to spend hours uh uploading and rostering the different data uh it's been a little clunky to start um but I really have to
065give a public shout out to Bill mingles of Our IT department he has taken this on and he has been a a true savior in terms of making sure that this is happening smoothly I know that's a lot but I'm I'm just trying to make sure you get as much information as you need for me busy sure uh I just wanted to say to do with Alice uh you guys have done a great job with that the I know the second day I came to school uh three four teachers told us right out the gates um that this is what we should be doing in a lockdown or if there's a school or like God forbid something bad were to happen but um it's it's great that I mean I know me and all the
066other students take the safety we have in our buildings for granted so it's great that you guys are doing a good job with with our school safety thanks thank you that's good feedback it's good to know I guess there's one thing I did want to share too I'm just going to pull up my screen for a second uh one thing we've been working diligently on is trying to create a calendar for the community that um my dream create a calendar for the community that is actually active and it pulls in all of the school calendar ERS as well as a uh districtwide uh lens so we're it's still it's it's not 100% perfect yet we're changing some colors Etc but but if anyone goes to the website and clicks on uh schools and calendars you'll
067see a District web calendar so it will pull up all of the things that are happening in each school if it's on a school calendar into one location so it's a it's been we've always found a challeng especially in May when Mr Regan's trying to do a playground with popsicles and Mendes has got a the the marathon run or whatever it might be and families are like well you got everything going the same day so now it's sort of when we book it they can check there before they put it on the calendar it's just one more layer of of communication that we've been struggling with and we finally last Friday I had had enough and I called Paul Carpenter and John lq S and said we need to do this right now yeah and
068so the three of us and esmer worked through it and within three hours we had it squared away so I don't know why I didn't do it earli but I was just frustrated so so I just wanted to share that with you so it's there okay that's all I have Laur excellent uh minutes next up June 12 that was our can can I ask just a structural question because we we haven't done this in the past with the consent to agenda you my my understanding of consent agendas generally is sort of you take it as a whole unless somebody wants to explore anyone piece um that said you know sort of what we've got dark I me like Paul's statement that he reads on warrant approvals wouldn't necessarily be subject to a vote um he
069I think and I assume while he's still going to read his blurb on on expenditures and warrants right um but I didn't know if that was intent I don't know if that we had any conversation about that about how we wanted to sort of use great question we have not and again I was modeling this agenda after a number of different districts um and I'm certainly I've seen consent agendas and we've used them the BOS does correct um so the question becomes we can just call it something different um but the whole notion these all technically could be with the exception I don't know with the warrant approvals that we give Paul the ability to to just report out we don't usually vote on that so we pull that one out pull out else um
070but all of the other things here you would have to vote on yeah so I think I mean I think the way boards that use a consent agenda is like a motion to approve the consent agenda and then everything that's listed is done as one one big um thing and then if anybody said well wait I say I had something on the July 23 minutes you'd pull that out vote on the rest of it and then deal with right I mean it's that is that how we intend to try to use it that's how I was intending but again it's your agenda as as a board um and and again I can move the warrant somewhere else I just didn't know it could probably should have been under reports and presentations to be honest with
071you because it's a report out s can I steal my pen I stole your pen so I can I can I mean if if this works for folks yeah I mean I all I'm doing is sliding that up yeah but everything else there is we so why don't we talk about the warrants and then we will then we'll do the consent agenda so do you have warrant approvals tonight uh I I do but I had similar questions about it I mean because you also and I Mark conferred it but you also typically do not discuss have discussions on things on the consent agenda right now we always have you state the gifts and donations right u in the past so uh how we've typically done that wouldn't conform to a consent agenda right because you
072always uh report that before we vote it so so that that's another procedural thing uh that if there's gifts and donations that we are approving um that needs to H how that's reported and how that's con conveyed to us needs to be done in a way that it would would match we never actually have discussion about it so is it no but I think I think Paul I'm following your question right like we need we need the information as my my report yeah I I report it typically with consent agendas there's no discussion on if you want to have a discussion or somebody wants to report or something on a topic in there uh before action is taken you pull it out right right well the difference Paul is that we vote on the gifts
073and donations and we don't vote on the warrant approval but but but I just said now twice typically we cons set agenda not discuss and and report on things it you take it as a whole you don't say and this is otherwise it's a regular agenda item yeah I think I mean I think we're saying the same thing I mean for for right now certainly the warrant approvals comes out as its own thing I think Paul's point is simply if we're going to approve a consent agenda the ordinary if nobody had anything to talk about on on whatever the consent agenda includes it would just be like a motion to approve the consent agenda which in effect in this case would be an approval of the June 12th minutes without discussion the July 23rd minutes
074without discussion uh the approval of the grants or acceptance of the grants without discussion the approval of Student Activity accounts bank reconciliation without discussion and the gifts and donations in order to be able to do that like you often I think Paul's point was you often list for us read the gifts and donations right we need that in advance so that we see it corre part of our packet and then we can vote on it because we have sufficient detail is that where you're going Paul yeah it's there I mean right it is part of I mean that's that was sort of my point too with the the agenda and having them Monday is to have make sure every document's in there so I mean if if and it will be in there in advance
075corre it won't be we won't be seeing it at the meeting for the first time correct and and I've and I've made let me just I if we're getting off topic um to a certain extent but in the in the document this is what you're going to see from here on out with with gifts and donations got you will see this document right in in the file folder yeah so you can see everything right so the only I gu is there if there's a preference to hear it listed at a meeting you know and move it somewhere else otherwise it make the meeting more efficient to just yeah no I think that's fine so quick just I'm not a finance person so like when we look at things like the grants like you know the
076title all the grants it's just helpful for me like I don't necessar I I can look at it I'm fine with the numbers I trust you on the numbers but it's helpful for me to hear the explanation of what they are because I don't always I don't always remember what they all are you know just off the top of my head so just for It's Kind this kind of a point of order for me if we're moving to more of a consent agenda thing and I just want to hear this explained so that I know I have a better sense of what I'm voting on do I pull it out like how do I how do I how do rather than just say yes I'm okay with the documents I was presented yeah and I
077think to Tina's point it's typically more routine things and while yes the grants are routine but they're like annual routine um so maybe maybe those because I think to her point if you if you you know said hey this grant what's it's for could I always tell you probably not so maybe maybe those might not be a consens general thing yeah Fair Point yeah just because it's not it's it's routine but it's not frequent right sure right and again this is looking at the document I'm preparing and sent you this time I'm actually trying to outline this is what the useful how it's used absolutely that's why and I haven't used an agenda like this before so it's helpful to talk through what yep and and and I like the the changes Jim so want
078to just be like poken holes and that's oh no no fair enough right we just want to make sure that the topics that belong there are there and the ones that don't are not there so I guess for tonight do we want to go through them individually just to because it sounds like there's questions about the grants warrant approvals is a separate item and we can do the other four things there is by consent but um yeah may maybe just while we're getting it organized we just go through each one individually take the warrant ones we'll P pull it back up to the reports and presentations it's a report so why don't we deal with the warrant approval first and then we can then do the grants since you haven't had chance to any of
079us have haven't had a chance to understand what they are prior to this meeting and then moving forward I mean we won't see those particular grants until next year right correct there might be others throughout the year the deal is we're supposed to um be aware of of all the grants and approve them that come in throughout the year but I think that there's different timing for different grants is that correct yes yeah and and again what I've done in trying to organize this a little bit better right and streamline it as I actually take the policy and there's a link to the policy so if anyone's wondering okay why are we reading the grants Etc and the acceptance of Grants they can click on the policy and it goes directly to the Ashen school
080committee policy on acceptance of donations to school facilities right or right and that's why that's why we're reviewing them it's not because there's really going to be any discussion about it it's more because the policy requires that the grants passed through the school committee then we're just accepting the money cor yeah almost like the gifts and donations we're not going to not accept a grant we're not going to challenge it we're but we have the right to know what they are right and so to to that point because that puts it in a different context for me to that point maybe just add a a little you know title one is for books right no it is I I write that title one use teaching staff at Warren Mendes and Ash middle school so we're
081paying salaries okay yeah and I'll figure out a better way to to to phrase my question because I I'm not phrasing it correctly but I hear what I I see that too okay yeah and the other thing is it's it's also for public as well to be if it's a routine thing we do all the time then great put it in there but if it's not and there's value to us even if it's a 30 second explanation of something then we should probably not have it in the consent agenda unless it's explicit enough on the agenda to be clear as to what we just voted right okay so let's take let's start with the warrant approvals all right between July 24th 2024 and September 11th 2024 IAL candle authorized by my signature payables in the
082amount of $1,945 4.35 this includes general fund expenses of 600,000 uh 86620 revolving expenses of 476,000 $451 and Grant expenses of $1 16,9 4764 thank you and then for grants for tonight or is it are we gon to keep it under the consent agenda or did you want to no we can keep it under consent the consent I figured out how to better word my question though um so like for like Title One just in parentheses you know federal or state grants offered to schools for student you know to to address needs for students or like high needs populations title three just like parentheses correct exactly okay beautiful that will put it in a better context for help me remember what they're for yeah I will actually I will add that to this document awesome
083okay and then is the best practice for me to list everything that's on the consent agenda before we vote again or we already read it in the beginning yeah it's listed on there so if if the warrant articles weren't there I think a motion would be I move to approve the consent agenda right and I would cover everything in this case I'll just I'll make a motion okay I move to approve the consent agenda um items a b d e and f second all in favor I I roll call Y hi Marcy hi Tina hi Mark hi I excellent thank you and Jim if it's working properly a consent agenna shouldn't be 15 minutes just night one we we just getting used to the new the new routine PA yeah yeah I know he knew
084he want to talk you're a prophetic there but uh okay first read of policies um I I'll just give some background the policy subcommittee did get together um and started to review some policies I don't know who was able to get to um the attorney who came in and talked to the admin team and we were invited I was there was anybody else there Paul Paul yes sorry Paul um that was a long time ago um so there are some changes in the law so because of that the policy has changed enough that we have to have two reads uh Wellness um there's been a lot of changes to that policy and I believe Jen Taylor is here to talk about that um and then same for the next one so that is why they
085are on the agenda for two reads if there're just little tweaks to policies um you will not see two reads this is especially for Marcy really for everybody because we have not brought too many policies forward in a while and it used to be a regular thing on on the agenda uh in in the earlier years and I think we will probably start bringing them back so two reads for anything that's a new policy or change significantly one read for um anything with little tweaks and the policy subcommittee is going to start a process of reviewing the policies but we'll start with the um sexual harassment policy um and and for that reason I I guess I should also add that it it it's then becomes more important to review it carefully before the meeting
086because most of these policies some of these apies are pages long and we can't be figuring out what they say at the first read like we should become prepared to with comments um so um is anyone Jim do you wantan to sure that's fine uh acab the sexual harassment policy uh this is in uh direct um the title 9 August 1st Title 9 regulations change and our policy uh did not uh represent uh the changes that were um set forth in Title Nine so Jen King our attorney um I had asked her to take our old policy uh you I will make a habit and I did this time of giving you the redline version as well as a clean copy of what it looks like after because it's messy when you see all of
087the strike thrs but it's basically she just took the policy and rewrote it it to um you know to show how the regulations have changed and how it impacts Massachusetts because it's different in other states uh but um you know I I feel confident and comfortable obviously you know the sub did go through we our attorney right and we went through it as a subcommittee but again was the first read um you know I I know Mark has probably dealt with a little bit of this I think what's what's one piece I do want to share with folks is as we had the training uh there were two pieces that came up one was the uh ashon educator Association um did ask to bargain language uh to ensure that this information was put into the
088uh faculty handbook appropriately um and the second thing is Jen King had suggested that as we go through a process if anyone has a title 9 uh complaint that we separate some duties in terms of um you know the respondent the investigator and then from there and we have two folks who will be actually being coordinators if you will so not necessarily people who are investigating but who will get the initial report so one will be for students and the other will be for uh faculty staff the adults if you will um so Britney uh is that per initial contact for students and uh Christy Arnold uh is the person for adults um and that sort of help streamline things um to meet our so in other words to make a complaint that's who the
089complaint would go to and then they would kind of manage the process so in here you'll see again I when looking at the regulations itself the receipt of the complaint so you'll see that you know right here how what's the process right it's a little more it's clearer than it was uh here's what we're looking for and um but that's really you know the first read is it's it's direct language from our attorney I'm not nothing that we came up with right um we did have some debate about some of it um but at the end of the day you know we're obviously um trusting our attorney to steer Us in the right direction we had some debate about language and so forth and bringing it back here it's the committee that votes on these
090policies so anybody always has the right to raise any concern about it um but in this particular case you know especially where the attorney is making it consistent with the law um hopefully folks are comfortable yeah I mean I will take a look at it I will say that um having spent way too much time this summer developing on policy like this with with three other people in my office yeah it is um there's a lot of stuff in the regulations that's changed um it's got a complicated history that isn't worth getting into so when you see a lot of stuff there and you go do we really need that in a policy or whatever the answer is probably yes um and we're still tweaking ours every time we read it right so it's uh
091but it's the the the thing is for this policy uh whether it's the first read today and the second read on on the next meeting the 25th it's critically important that we get through it because it does impact our employee handbook uh and the bargaining component of it we just want to make sure our policy is up to date so the did the um AA raise any other concerns other than just wanting it includ those correct no other concerns it was it just a you know MTA uh standard letter just saying make sure this is updated yeah does anybody have any concerns or feedback that you want to give on the first read I honestly didn't go through knowing it was a first read and and um and I and I didn't get the chance
092but I will take a closer look and great okay so we're we're good for tonight and then we'll take it on the second so before we move on just uh to give you a heads up so we'll have it on the next meeting there's two related policies that we have uh so there's ACR which currently has some definitions in and who the title 9 coordinators are and some legal references uh so given how this is currently structured that's seems redundant uh and no longer necessary so we'll have that on the next next agenda to once we votee the new one in to uh remove that policy and then there's ACA which is uh non-discrimination policy which is the broader policy that is not uh sex based so there there'll be some updates to that as
093well Paul just a general uh comment I thought it over as you've worked through different policies when we've come across the RS which are kind of more supposed to be administrative regulations thought we've been pulling those out of our policy manual because like the school committee sets the policy but the regulations or implementation guidance is really sort of superintendent perview is that am I remembering that right or did we decide not to do that I I I think because I've seen ours be different things um you know so I don't know that there's been a total consistency on what they meant like this one it seemed to be hey don't modify the policy put your references and your other things that may change like the people in that policy in that R right um and
094then that's something that can can change more frequently than the policy itself uh things like that but I've I've seen it in a couple different ways so I don't even know if we can have a standard way to approach it but we certainly look at them to see if they still matter and it makes sense to have them separated based that conversation too Mark um in our meeting except for that you know we are going along with um you know what Ma he sends us and that's how you know some of them are coming from them still and and Jen King I I'm still running the RS by her as well yeah so when Paul talks about removing that from the next meeting you know Jen King waigh in on that yeah I think I
095think the r issue is really a matter of whether it's like something we vote on or whether it's something you do to implement the policy that was always my understanding that if has if it has an R it's not school committee policy it's direction to the administration extens of regulations how to implement it so I think that's where the difference is is that we don't vote on the r but to Paul's point if it's redundant if it says the exact same thing that that's yeah I mean the challenge is that that's not what the RS have been like that one has definitions in it has it's like well you can't put something in our handbook that has a definition and say we shouldn't vote on it right uh it's not strictly these other things and
096so and if it should if it should be that then it should has no place in our in our policy it has a place in whatever uh proper place whether it be a handbook whether it be whatever so it's just a thought that gu as you guys do your work it's it's clui for sure and I think there was some inconsistencies over the years with how M masc has uh done it but in their defense we also for the last few years have not upkept on the update so that's one of the things we're going to well that's the other thing it's probably time to take a deep dive dive into the manual as a whole and see what still fits with how we're operating and what doesn't and so forth but that's yeah and
097just uh you know Lori mentioned kind of conversation I think part of that does so that ACA is the general discrimination uh policy as opposed to the sex-based one and the only the only thing I think we had more than a two-minute conversation on was in that third paragraph where it says where has determined that inappropriate conduct whether or not such conduct constitutes such discrimination has occurred we will promptly eliminate blah blah um that's the only one that I had question on like okay that now is in this policy but actually talks about something that you know what we're going to do even if it's not applicable to what the purpose the policy is and I'm not against it being there just it it it left some questions for me as like okay determined by
098who say somebody's trying to be supportive and somebody says yeah that sounds inappropriate now somebody's going to hang their head on that statement saying you need to stop this even though maybe it's maybe it's fine I don't know right so um that was where it was so there wasn't anything of of of substance I don't think relative to the policy but that was the you know that was probably the the discussion the long longest discussion we had kind of something like that all right so no no input for the first read um come back next next time and we we'll right um Jen Taylor thank you for your patience um Wellness uh there is a wellness subcommittee by law I'm on it with Jen leads it and um there were some significant changes there um
099with input from um assistance that that Jen had um from Jen you can fill everybody in I won't still your Thum hi everyone Hi um yes so um part of um our job as the wellness subcommittee is to um look at the local wellness policy um every three years we have to use the school um The Wellness School assessment tool um and go through the policy and uh basically score each part of it um and um any areas that score are zero meaning we do not have it included in our policy we need to make sure we include those pieces um this is uh something that um the department of Elementary and secondary Ed requires um us to do and um they uh our director of nutrition services has to um submit our our local
100wellness policy to desie uh every year uh and they look through to make sure that we um have all of those elements in there uh so we had a consultant working with us this year um to help us go through the school Wellness assessment tool and revise our policy um so we did as um Lori said we did significantly revise it um we basically started from scratch as you can see from the red line to the P that up yeah Jen just to so the ENT yeah so this was the original wellness policy ADF it's it was all it's all removed was was this one in our packet yes you should be able to click on the link too should operate into it try that go ahead sorry Jen oh no that's okay so revised
101yeah we we completely started from scratch the um the consultant had given us um to model um districts of Massachusetts um neighboring districts to us and um that had already been approved by dessie and had gone through um working with the consultant um and uh so we knew that they were policies that would be approved and met all of the requirements of the law and um so we we use those to help us craft this new policy um and and using the tool um I I think that our committee our subcommittee agreed that this was just a very a more organized way of making sure that we were addressing all of the areas that thei requires that we address um so that's why um you see such a difference from the previous policy to the
102current one um and I don't know if I said this before but desie um has already approved our policy um our proposed new policy and said that it meets all of their requirements so I think that's important Jen to just to reiterate that the policy that you have before you after the the clean copy has been approved by the department of Ed like that's where you know that's one of the things we had to make sure that that policy met their standards so but you still vote on it so if you have any feedback no was the struggle Happ is it didn't appear to be attached to the PDF um that question sends out and that's what I was looking at so I didn't see it oh I got you no that's and that's why
103I asked for Mondays on the PDF because she sent the PDF out before I had a chance to have everything in the folder so if you go to the agenda in the folder it's all attached yeah and then I didn't get access to it wor I'll figure it out think I'll figure it out she's old school first day of school just so the last part is the guidelines for management of lifethreatening allergies Jen yeah um again first read because there were significant adjustments uh so um uh part of our um job is to look at any policies um that relate to um health and wellness um that the committee wants to to review and look at so the nurses and nutrition services um felt it was really important to update um the life-threatening allergies um
104policy because they felt um that things have uh significantly changed since the last time that it was updated um so the nurses and um our director of nutrition um really took this on and um outside of our meetings uh worked on this and as you can see um with what J Jim just put out they um uh took out and added um and changed the wording of quite a bit of this um policy um I think they just wanted to make it very clear um what um to to everyone with the responsibilities of all the different parties are I think that um one of the biggest things that I heard from the parents on we have to have parents on our Wellness subcommittee the parents on our committee and um uh the nursing staff was
105just they wanted to make it very clear um in each building um what really what the the food policy is um because we do have you know a high number of of students with life--that allergies and um you know we need to really take that seriously um so I think that was sort of Theus behind really kind of making the policy A Little Bit Stronger um so there were quite a few changes in there um and I didn't have any hand in writing this one this was all from the nurses and the um nutrition director any questions or input on that one when I first read it the one thing that popped out at me popped out to me is uh the the bullet for under parents when possible make arrangements to be on field
106trips be where no benagil is available on field trips so and and I I don't disagree that it's important to inform um parents of this and and let them know um just the way that it's worded yeah feels exclusionary to me a little bit um I can see some parents raising an issue with it and just thinking about the wording in terms of you know be you know the the be aware that and whatnot um kind of making sure that we're informing parents that you know benad drill is not available because obviously we cannot administer over thee counter drugs without a nurse nurses are not available on all field trips um obviously there are teachers trained in epipens epipens can be used by those trained by epipens but benagil obviously is different so just just
107a thought I I don't I don't have a suggestion for rewarding it um but um maybe with greater explanation of the why okay if that makes sense so absolutely and I think we can certainly ask um you know Nancy or one of the nurse leaders to come in uh when we have a conversation about this yeah because I think it was worded when I looked at the um other version I feel like it was worded a little nicer last in a little nicer way last time and I don't know why so I think that is a good question yeah back well just kind of with with more details of the why in terms of who's allowed to give out benad though they a teacher can't just carry and give it to they're like legally not
108allowed to do that so just just a little bit more context is the why um I think may be help just but it doesn't need a lot of change maybe just like because we are not permitted to um bring benad dril um please consider attending with medication if you feel your child might need it something like that something like that or you know kind of be aware that no benad dril is available on field trips as teachers are not legally allowed to administer over the counter drug something okay all right I can go back and have fine excellent anything else no all right all right good Jen thank you thank you thanks Jen thank you very much thanks Jen have a nice night you too thanks for your patience no problem pointing you to the
109board of directors of the accept collaborative right you are unless somebody here wants to do it for the 10th straight year right yeah so uh and again this is I'm going to get in the habit of trying to provide you the background right of such as this appointment which we do every year uh so it it would be in your things but again in accordance with chapter 43 of the acts of 2012 School committees uh must annually appoint a representative to the accept collaborative uh traditionally this has been the super of schools uh and I'm just requesting the school committee appoint me as a representative so I can ship that over to the accept collaborative and they can they have every superintendent on the collaborative board of directors has to do this annually so it's
110all it is not and not to beat it not to beat a dead horse but uh that would probably be a great consent sure yeah yeah because I mean you can describe it just like that you know in that agenda we're done that's perfect but for now I'll move to for now a discuss so anyone want to discuss it yeah second all in favor I I call hi oh Paul hi Marcy hi Tina hi Mark Lori I thank you I'm really excited about it awesome have the best year ever mhm all right it's time for school Committee Member updates so at at the end of the meeting we all go around and give updates about what's we've done in the community or what's going on in school and you are more than welcome and we
111welcome it for you to share something with us about how it's going the beginning of the school year anything you want to share with us so we'll start with you so uh it's I think it's been a great school year so far uh Athletics start are starting everyone's excited about that um there haven't been any major major problems in the high school that I know of yet so that's always a good thing and I think it's everyone starting to get into a routine so it's going to be a good gear are you a senior I'm a junior you're a junior yeah awesome Marcy anything Shar Tina I know it's meeting one so most of us have been out not yet yeah I feel like there was something but sure not coming to me right now
112so I'll pass yeah I mentioned it earlier Paul and I did go to the um meeting about the um new sexual harassment rules um but other than that I have not done anything else Paul anything you want to add no I'm sure there I'm sure there's stuff Jim or Mike from things that were happening over the summer but I I I can't remember any of cool all right guess where we are who got a motion to adjourn second all in favor hi hi all right good night everybody night welcome back Conor thank you okay beautiful we're good ab ab you survived your first one e for