001believe it's being recorded by waca cable TV but it is being recorded on Zoom by the district our order of business this evening is the call to order opening procedures agenda review and adoption there will be time for public comment um we will have presentations by the student advisory Council the administrative items tonight include the school Improvement plan for Mendes the school Improvement plan for AMS the superintendent update warrant approvals consent actions minutes from November 21 2023 gifts and donations committee reports of activities member updates action items and then we will adjourn yeah uh I'll just take the attendance and make sure everyone's okay with the order of business this evening Tina hearing yes Paul heing yes Aaron hearing yes Mark heing yes okay uh next I will ask if there's anybody here from the
002public who wants to offer the school committee some comment this evening I see some names but I think those are all our students okay seeing um we will move on to the presentations by the student advisory Council hi everybody I think some of you have to unmute yourselves hello hi who's going first tonight I know it's a little different because we're on zoom and we're out of practice some of us can go first awesome thank you so um we held the Powderpuff uh uh football game in which the uh seniors won so that was pretty successful it was a it was a sucessful stugo event and the Red Cross Club also held a u blood drive in which many people uh chose to donate blood so that was one positive thing that um occurred in
003the last few weeks as well and uh for seniors College decisions are beginning to come out so those who applied early action early decisions are getting their acceptances and there also happens to be a uh student run m page on Instagram where uh seniors can uh see their acceptances and all so that's something exciting that um that has occurred within the past few weeks thank you thank you who's next I can go next thanks Emily sorry my video is not working today um but so last week the band concert had their Winter concert night um and so we got to play a lot of different holiday songs um and two of the band members read The Polar Express story for um a lot of the young kids we did a lot of advertising at the
004the Warren school um and at the Mendes school to try and um get some more Community involvement um and then last weekend there was the illuminate Ashland around downtown where people could listen to um and see different like Arts programs perform and so the new banto Society is the uh the high school's new chorus Club so they performed then and then tomorrow the chorus and the B cont Society both have their winter performance concert at the high school excellent thank you who's next Vanessa yeah I can go next so just a little sports update um now all of the winter sports are up and running and both the boys and girls basketball teams um varsity and the JV teams played hackington yesterday and that was pretty successful both teams all teams showed pretty well and
005the boys hockey team have a game tonight actually against Norwood that was at 3:45 and indoor track has been doing pretty well they've had two meets so far they've won tonight as well in Boston and swimming will have their first meet tomorrow at Babson College vers Westwood and wrestling is doing pretty well as well and they have they they had their first meet this past Saturday and another update is also that we have our clocker Idol which is a singing and talent show uh which will be on Wednesday December 20th at 700 p.m. at the ashin high school in the auditorium and it's our 10th season so that's pretty exciting and we have eight contestants five judges who are teachers and then it's a $5 ticket uh to get in and you can either use
006cash or check and if you're using check you can make it out to the AHS Student Activities and all the proceeds will go to the ashin emergency fund awesome thank you idle is always a a fun time Karina do you have anything yes so on Sunday I'm GNA uh we had a very successful student council pancake breakfast and we raised a little over $1,000 and we had a really good turnout from the whole town everyone had a lot of fun which was good and then also the Ashland High School theatrical Society just had their auditions for the upcoming Musical Chicago and we just started rehearsals and the show is going to be on March 1st 2nd and 3D so that's really fun awesome thank you all we appreciate it lots of good stuff going on
007anything else anybody want to add and if not you know the drill you don't have to stick around we know you have a lot of homework you're good as well you thank you good night everyone than you good night okay next up mindes the school Improvement plan presentation Jenna turn it over to Jenna and I think you have full access to share your screen Jenna okay can everybody see that anything yet Jenna just the zoom thing you're on the wrong tab there Jen is it okay great so this is the um these are the Strategic PR priorities for the district um upon which we based our school Improvement plan I have it in a different format here just to share tonight though I do have it written formally there as well um the first bucket
008bucket is the equity and the standard that we looked at was promote appreciation of diverse perspectives to Foster mutual respect and cultural understanding um it's really developed uh as we've gone this year we were um able to join adaptive X which is a professional development development company through um the Department of Education and they're really leading us through a small leadership team there's six of us on it through um some modules so that we can then turn in turn work with the staff and develop a uh common understanding of what it means to be a culturally responsive school um it's a pretty big undertaking and so far um I think I've really enjoyed the PD and I'm excited to help our staff come on board with that are there questions about the equity piece the
009next bucket is social and emotional learning we chose to ensure all students have a sense of belonging and are connected to the school Community we spent all of last year as a faculty talking about how we wanted this to work it was really important to everyone um and to the site Council that we continue to have multi-age multi-grade learning in some way at mindes particularly with the new space in the new building so this was a perfect one for us um so we're doing Community Learning which is in that we took the whole school we shook them up and we created 30 new classrooms that have third graders fourth graders and fifth graders in them and each month we have an activity um and the kids are meeting other children and they are meeting other
010teachers which also um connects to our our need to watch and make sure that all children are connected to an adult and have a safe adult that they can go to in the school I've been interviewing some some kids about what they think about it and mostly it's positive I had one student say he didn't like it um but they're really enthusiastic about the activities so I my hope next year is to move some of the activities into some learning kind I mean it's learning always because it's social emotional but maybe some more academic based activities as well when we're meeting any questions on this one resource management this was a great one for us this year because with of the new building so our goal was to provide safe environments for all students and
011staff um and I have to give a lot of credit to Kate who really nailed it in the fall in terms of coming up with plans for our arrival and our dismissal and communicating that with everybody um at Mendes because we were we were ready on that first day and the kids came in and they found their classrooms and that was really exciting so we have all of our plans in place all of our routines are working we've done the practice for some of the drills and um I'll continue to work with the Safety Committee to make sure that we're up to date and um doing all the right things there this one will definitely change for the following year and finally curriculum and programming um we chose to improve student learning curriculum and consistency
012of instruction aligned to the vision of The Graduate across grades um we have started very formal and specific data meetings this year where teachers are looking at information from amplify and also from I ready to look at exactly where kids are in their learning and to see where we need to do targeted instruction to improve student growth um that's in the area of ela is where we're focusing this year I hope next year is to expand this to math so that we are able to provide um enrichment and intervention across all areas any questions on that one Jenna do me a favor just so the the committee can see the consistency from when Kelly presented hers go go to the yeah this one yep yeah just so so they can see that this is what's
013being posted Jenna just pulled stuff out to make it simpler for folks and we did all get that document earlier today so hopefully everyone had a chance to look at it and if you have any questions on those details now would be the time everybody good all right I'd like to just also thank my site counsel and Kate it's been a lot of work it's really well well I hear somebody but I can't see who's talking i g just thank the site Council for all the hard work that they did last year working to develop this plan and to thank Kate for all she's done since she's come on board and Paul who is our um leaz on so it's been pretty seamless so thank you everyone awesome thank you all right next up sorry
014Lori can I just jum in for a second I just want to want to make a comment that the things you see at Mendes but also at Warren and Pete presents that walking into the building and seeing all the data teams and to the different data teams not only academically but the teams uh it's really quite you know the teachers are quite engaged and really walking through all of that data has been pretty impressive to watch um I've walked into both buildings and Mike has as well to see the teachers um focusing on looking at the data and how we can improve uh student outcomes so it's been really really great thank you Jim last chance for questions for Jenna going ones letting you off easy tonight Jenna Lori just procedurally we um we don't
015vote to approve these is that right no okay unless the law has changed but I I know that uh we used to back in the day and then the law changed to that school committee just uh like if we had an issue this would be a chance to give feedback um and then you could go back and and work on it and come back but we're not uh officially approving or rejecting anything that's the job of the site Council thank you yeah all right Dave okay thank you we were all just waiting and saving all our questions for Dave and GNA pound him so perfect does that work yep y okay so similar to Jenna just front page we based um our school Improvement goals on the district strategic priorities and objectives most of the
016goals that um are on the template are new goals for this year we did have some that have that do repeat um but a lot of them are goals that were and things were implenting this year so under the equity priority um you know is something we have been doing that we want to continue to create individualized Student Success plans for all students who do not meet expectations on mcast tests we are expanding those this year um after the new year just going to be meeting in our teacher teams talking about what those plans are how would adjust plans to create them for um for all students so that's something that we're going to be discussing we have been creating issps now I want to say um I want to say this is year four
017maybe year five that we've been doing them so we feel they've been successful those get mailed out after Thanksgiving for those families and we'll be working on that the second half of the year for the template for all students can I just ask you generally I don't want to take us on Sidetrack but just how how that's going how families are responding to that process and um you know I'm curious any feedback you have on how the ISP issps are [Music] going uh yeah so it's it's going well I mean they were mailed to families uh around Thanksgiving um I don't know how many families reach out so the letter say to those families you know here's here's mcast scores here are some of the interventions that the team has talked about that they'll be
018implementing and of course we want to reach out to families to see if there's something that that um they feel would be helpful something that should be part of the plan um knowing their child the best so U I know that there are some parents who have reached out to to teachers and had questions around exactly some of those interventions or um you know what that process looks like some of the questions were more um we created them for anyone not meeting expectations and some reached out where their child was one question away from meeting expectations but just as um part a process we did those for all students so we didn't was difficult to draw a line but I think just feel it's going well you know those interventions they're working with those students
019we'll review them January February when we're sort of halfway through the year to see how the interventions are going and you know we find out how the students do as as we progress through the year um ultimately looking at mcast tests in the summer right when we get those results but now with us using I ready andl and some of those programs that we're getting more immediate feedback and teachers are looking at um data as the school year goes along so I think that's a huge help as well so so far so good but you know as I said earlier we we have a little more work to do in the spring and and if I I can just inter interject for a second I think one of the things that's been really helpful is
020our partnership with open Architects um and that's going to even allow us to take this to the next level I think we we discussed the fact that right now we're only utilizing the the free version which gives us mcass and access but we have um developed the contract with them and are on board now and they are currently developing our fullscale uh portal that's going to include all of our data um I'm expecting that to be done by February maybe even sooner and Dave will be able as as everybody will be able to now have easy access to personalized um data portals for every single student that's really going to allow the staff to to even Implement you know more detailed issps for all of our kids it's exciting stuff Dave can I ask you
021a quick question um since you've been doing these for a couple years or a handful of years for the students who haven't met expectations on mcast do you have any kind of anecdotal data of how they've helped those kids either be able to meet expectations or you know kind of make progress in whatever areas they need to make progress I mean I think most of the students have you know were have made progress I mean where when you look at our overall performance numbers and growth we're very happy with it I think some students we look at it right some students have done very well uh others didn't make the progress we would have liked and didn't have the growth we would have liked and teachers you know talk about why that might be and
022what we can do to help support those students um so it's I I think overall we we feel they we feel they an important part an important part of what we do and and uh again I really do believe that now that we're using um the systems programs like I ready in math and Ela orl or amplify in in science as well that I think this is only going to give teachers more immediate feedback and to be able to make those isps even more specific or to be able to adjust them really in terms of what interventions are aren't working so I I I think we feel it's um it's extremely helpful and and uh in terms of what we do excuse me sounds like that data comparison that Mike was talking about will be
023really interesting to see and be able to kind of track um you know kind of the progress of different different populations including students who have been on isps yeah absolutely and I think to have them all in one um one spot one um program is going to be huge um to be able to have that easy access and also to have it in one spot where you can easily get that data from all those different programs is is going to be that much easier for for teachers and that much easier to to look at data and be able to use that to Target instruction so I think it's I'm really excited about the open open Architects too is Dave just a quick question kind of on something you said relative to your answer to Mark
024and uh have you noticed that at least C certain parents it sounded like you you were saying that their perception uh and feeling towards these issps might be negative and and and they wanted to be on the other side uh of you know if there were one question in in uh on the on the uh needs Improvement or not meeting expectations right that they felt that the isps were negative in some way because if it was me and my kid were either on one one side or the other one question one question on either side i' I'd be really thrilled to have a individualized success plan right for my student so are they are they thinking that it's a negative thing to have an issp or uh I didn't get that I I get it
025that it was more of you know uh I thought they were you know I thought they were doing let's say so far they were doing well this year in class and you know then we we get the news that they didn't meet expectations are they doing are they doing okay it was it was really more about their performance now as related to the issp that makes sense I don't know that I got sort of negative in as much as do I need to be worried about what they're doing right now okay so it was it was more of an alert like hey whoa something might be might be wrong that I didn't think was wrong right exactly and that's why we have the teacher information and all their emails and contacts so they can just
026reach out if they because some those questions do come up um and they'll reach out uh it's it's not a huge number like I said to you um it might be a couple of parents who have those questions but I don't know if it was sort I wouldn't view it as negative in as much as I think they're doing okay yeah is that the case and so sometimes it's teachers talking through hey they're doing great they're right on track working hard this year you know so I know there were some of those exchanges with teachers okay yeah it was more just wanting to make sure that you know if we can you know somehow help them see an issp as a positive thing regardless of where where they are right um and I think Paul
027that's why moving to try to have uh or having all students receive those right so it would be everybody receives those it's just a question of what was their performance last year and what are some of the things that we are looking at regardless of of that performance so I think that may take that you know that misunderstanding away but I think a lot of what we got was more about uh they wanted to make sure that students were performing well this year to date and um from what when those parents reached out they were so I think it was just having those questions yeah great yeah Dave can I ask you one more question um so what does it look like for a student who may be on an IEP if they would be
028someone who would be flagged as a student that you might develop an issp for do they get that as well too or is it a conversation that happens with the IEP team yeah so a lot of the the accommodations on an issp would be the accommodations that are on their IEP right so that's the issp wouldn't change right so whatever they should be getting for their IEP that those would just be put into their issps right because those are some of the things that they need to access the curriculum or to be successful so um they really they carry over if you will right so it's just um so they would get both documents would it be um I'm just trying to think of how that might work within the special ed process because I
029can see how it would be confusing for parents whose kids might be on an IEP and then they get another document and wondering what does this mean how does what's the interplay with the IEP I just didn't know if there was a different process or different notice or um whether or not maybe they didn't get one and it was just something that was flagged for a discussion for the IEP team yeah no they they get the same they get the same letter you know that the other parents get so on that top letter just explains what an issp is and why it was created and um you know for a lot of them it's just that a lot of the accommodations are the same as what they would have in an IEP so it doesn't
030um it doesn't change anything for the IEP so no no and I wouldn't anticipate I'm just see I can just Envision where there may be some confusion on behalf of parents so just something to and if it hasn't come up I'm sure kids on IEPs have gotten them so if it hasn't come up I'm or if it has I'm sure you've you've been able to deal with it but yeah no it hasn't you know I think if we did have those questions those are things that we could put in the letter just to clarify but to to date I haven't had that question okay so are we good with issp actually Dave I think I want to go back to what antina's points at the beginning um so if we had let's assume 20 students
031who started out on issps at the beginning of the year that we identified as we're tracking the students their assessment what percentage of those students at the end of the year would we have identified to still be on an issp right so I guess in other words if we've got 20 by the end of the year we have 50% of the students are making significant progress to take them off issps yeah so um I could I'd have to go in and get those numbers I can't tell you that um our sixth grade had you know has uh most of them as you move to seventh grade and the eighth grade the the numbers of isps decrease in terms of what the percentage is I yeah I'd have to look but the the sixth grade students
032have or sixth grade teams have um a larger share and do more issps uh so seventh grade those numbers go down absolutely and then in eth grade is each year that has been the smallest number that's created I would just have to look in terms of what those percentages are but it is positive so the the eighth grade teachers are doing less of those isps because students are growing and reaching those goals then sixth grade and that's been consistent since we've done that okay that's the point yeah thanks okay so for um then the next one was just around math placement and uh just as part of um the math vertical team we're having conversations around the math placement process we've in really targeting and looking at math placement um from grade five to grade
033six so the ma the vertical math committee is meeting to review um math data student performer performance so that placement and programming you know we want to make sure that those are Equitable um for all students so um we're we've started those meetings we're looking at um our process and looking at student performance so that's something that we're going to be looking at throughout the year to make sure um that we make any adjustments or we we want to make sure that our process is Equitable and that all students have access to um to the advanced um math courses especially focusing on grades 56 so um that's taking place this year as and that's under our Equity under the equity objective and then the equity team you know one of the things we're doing um
034we've done some activities and worked with Staff last year around race and equity and Dei and we wanted to bring it to to students and have an impact there so last year we piloted The Playbook 351 program and that's training students um who are interested in the program providing the opportunity for a training around it's really an anti-bias anti-discrimination program so it entails um student students being trained um they do some teamwork activities and some scenarios um and largely it's driven by students so really the goal is to have those conversations or those activities run by um our Playbook 351 ambassadors or former ambassadors so um I had a meeting actually this week with um with Sam levenson who was a former play 351 Ambassador when he was at the middle school and he's working
035with um myself Miss makuchi who piloted the program last year our Equity team to um create a training for both seventh and eth grade students so we're excited about that to bring students into theold um we'll be training eighth grade students first which is next week and seventh grade at the end of January so we're just trying to as much student interest as we can start training students and I think it's it's a way that we can have um have a direct impact and have students involved I think that's what was kind of missing in that first year so the Playbook um fits perfectly within what we want to do so we're excited about that there are questions on math math um placement or are Playbook trainings for students the second strategic priority is um
036with it being seal something that has been happening um and we're excited that our guidance counselors monthly deliver lessons to students in all three grades they've started sending home a seal newsletter where families can get a background on what they've been doing in terms of the lessons they're including parent tips or strategies that relate to those presentations so um just listening to the counselors after the first two months they said students are doing they're excited students are doing an amazing job with it they're participating and um it seems like they really feel like they're getting something out of those conversations um the last lesson was around digital citizenship is certainly always timely um so those are going really well and we'll continue to send those updates out to families I think that's an important part
037to it um this year programs were still running for for this year the um signs of suicide program to be delivered in eth grade um that will be happening happening after the break I did connect with decisions at every turn well also be providing the minding your mind program to 7th and eth grade students um we did that last year as well Dave say that again what what is the minding your mind program it it's it's a program where young people so they the the presenters that they have are uh people who are uh in the early 20s you know so really um I think the kids look at them and they they come up and this program has them talking about mental health challenges that they've been through and their experiences and at the
038middle school level they they do also focus a lot on um the strategies and things that help them um on their path to to success around mental health so it's really just young people talking to our kids around mental health um so um it's last very well received eth grade and in seventh and eth grade last year so certainly gives them great information and talks about strategies and um ultimately we want to destigmatize that mental health and in talking about mental health so that's the underlying importance of the program in and of itself so um the presenters who spoke to us last year are coming back um year before that they were different presenters but they did a great job in the first year but it just so happens that the same two presenters will
039be um coming back to speak with us in another couple months so but it's a great program I think it's very happy with the way um it's been received so and and then I just noted the Metro West Health survey that we gave this year it's given by annually so that data typically comes we might get a summary in the spring but we have pretty much the full data in at the end of the school year and we'll review that data Insight Council certainly with staff and talk about goals that we can set for following year so I think that's something that we've been that data we've looked at every year and um I want to say each time the data does come out there's always goals that we set based on we feel the
040data the feedback and some of the needs that come from the survey so so that's an important part of what we do our as well questions on those so we had theal lessons SOS minding your mind and just we just did the survey last month and again we'll get data in three or four months so under Resource Management the two of those pieces were we implemented or piloted I should say we piloted goguardian last year with about a dozen teachers just to to take it on a trial run it went very well all the teachers a lot of positive feedback and we're using that our teachers are all using that this year and that program is really about monitoring online use when students are using Chromebooks and working in the classroom so we provided a
041training at the beginning of the year truth be told it was a brief training it's pretty intuitive and um the teachers who who piloted agreed with that it's really easy to use and um I I think people within a few weeks felt like they had a grasp of it and were using it and um right now we're really comfortable with it so there's a lot of positive feedback from teachers on go Guardian it it did have we have we gotten any feedback from students on go Guardian they don't like it there's a reason why I asked yeah I mean I've heard I've heard many many stories how many you know how many are uh tall tales and how many are uh are actual but uh but just yeah yeah you know I don't know what
042you're hearing is you're hearing probably a broader uh section than than I am but yeah yeah you know I think you know ultimately it's I think the teachers like it you know just it's it's good that the students know we have it too so that teachers you know if they're doing those activities that it's something that they they can use in in that they they can't we can use it to monitor students so I think um I think for the most part students have kind of gotten used to it um by now I I didn't think that they liked it when like the teachers pilot it they just kind of figuring it out but um haven't heard a whole lot of of feedback off of it other than you know for some students that might
043not be thrilled with the idea that teachers are doing that so it's a challenge right in classes where um teachers are kind of run those activities and uh especially in Middle School to students so tempted to open up so many tabs and try you know we want them on task so I think it's certainly a a great step in that direction yeah I mean so is there some of the feedback I've heard and I I don't know anything about it so take it for what it's worth um there were I've gotten some feedback from kids that they're there were some privacy concerns right uh that uh that teachers were able to see or do what what they were doing when they weren't in their class and things like that so I don't know um if
044there's anything that that we need to do to look at and ensure that we have best practices around um just implementing it and and effectively using it know in in the best way to to balance the the privacy and the control and safety of it right yeah I mean in talking to teachers they're they're using it when they're in their classes so you know in terms of it being turned off or if students are taking their Chromebooks home after school I I can't speak to that but I I know that teachers are using it they're actively using it when students are are in their classroom um so uh I haven't heard teachers are you know I don't know that they would be going and looking what students are doing in the next class because they
045have another class in front of them right so that might be a student perception so again I can't speak I can't speak that they might feel that way and worry about privacy but ultimately it's it's just teachers monitoring what students are are doing while they're in while they're in their class so um I I haven't heard students share any privacy concerns with me so anything along those lines it's just mostly not liking if they're off task and the teacher can see that they're opening a tab and doing something that they shouldn't be doing that's mostly what I hear from students right yeah um and then the second one was you know we be we did begin to install cameras um in hallways at the middle school so um we started with really kind of our
046two main hallways last year and you know each year we're going to be looking to add more of those interior cameras they're in the hallways um for us it's really helpful um where students especially at intersections where students are are constantly passing or in front of bathrooms that type of thing so it's just kind of monitoring hallway use and we have used them I think it's really helpful at our level so if there is a an issue something happens um that either isn't seen or there's kind of multiple stories it's it's great to be able to look at cameras and kind of see what happened so we'll be looking to add cameras as we continue to move forward you know there's a lot of hallways so we're starting with the main hallways and we'll go
047from there but I I think it's it is really helpful to have those cameras up and maintain safety and everybody knows those are there which I think it's a good thing so um we're going to continue moving forward with that but this is really the first year that we've had those we've had exterior cameras but um we have not had hallway cameras until this year so can I just like get back to Paul's question about the the Privacy I'm assuming these are all School issued Chromebooks right just for the purposes of of their education and their school workor so I mean it I'm not sure that there should be any expectation of privacy or how is it communicated to the kids that they're only to use the Chromebooks for their schoolwork and it's not for
048games or whatever else they're trying to do yeah that's by teachers it's being yeah and it's you know that's the acceptable use policy as well they should be using it for school purposes and the teachers are constantly constantly in them that that's the purpose of it so yeah as I'm just thinking I mean if it's a tool um for Education provided by the district then there really shouldn't be any expectation of privacy well so I don't think this is the appropriate time but I don't agree with that at all because just because it's a district tool does not mean that teacher a should be able to track what I'm doing whatever I she wants right so it's the same way that teacher a shouldn't have access to the students emails that's a district thing and
049the district as a whole has access so through Paul Carpenters group and stuff like that for the right reasons we can get access to it um it doesn't mean that teacher a should have access to everything that the students are doing whenever they're doing it so there there's just because it's a a district resource doesn't mean that every District employ emplo should have access to look at what they're doing when they're not doing something contextual to that that class so so that's not my understanding of like the implementation um I thought it was when when students are being asked to do a specific task on their Chromebook that then and only then pretty much the teacher would bring it up and just make sure the kids aren't on YouTube yep YouTube and whatever else that
050they could try to figure out what tabs they can try to open but yeah that's the purpose that's what they're doing yeah the teacher if they go into another tab the teacher can actually go in and close the tab like so if I went on YouTube and was watching a video um they can go in and close the tab and then say the student focus on your work so um I think the teachers the teachers do teachers do find it they do find it helpful and students knowing that it is helpful to try to um Rand them in because it's difficult a lot of times those seats are in groups they're all facing in different directions it's challenging for teachers when they're using their devices to keep them on TK so yeah we need with
051the shift in education and the leveraging of Technology there will also be a shift in the tools that help us manage it and you know we first had iPhones there were no controls on them now we have parental controls I don't see this as any different and like I said I don't think this is time for it but the the intent isn't what I'm complaining about or even bringing up as an issue that there's no controls saying that if teach that teacher a can only use it for that reason or only use it at that time right so uh but again that's that's a to topic for a different time okay what questions on cameras too just again for us it's new we just started it this year and we're going to continue to work
052to just you Dave on the cameras when you think about years past where you haven't had them and you haven't and you've had incidents and are you feeling more supported as a administrator and able to deal with things better now having them yes yes I think especially at our level too where you can you try even it's try to figure out an issue let's say something happened and maybe a student it was an issue a student was hurt or something happened and you talk to four students and you get four stories that's challenging and you want to ultimately make sure you're having the conversations you need to have and um if there was a safety issue or something happening we want to make sure it's addressed and it's hard to do that sometimes if you
053don't exactly know um what happened and it certainly helps out with other with other pieces as well whether it be you know if you're worried about vandalism you're worried about people being in areas of the building they shouldn't be things of that nature so um I think it is I think it is really helpful I know that uh Mike Morrow my assistant principal I know he he likes it sometimes where it's helpful to not have to talk to 10 students if it's in an area where there's a camera and he can just kind of okay that's what happened and move forward from there so it can it's great for safety and I think it's great for us making sure we address the situation properly and I I think it's ALS also a huge time saer
054too where you know it can it can take a long time if you have to talk to seven eight or 10 students um in one of those areas so now I think it's been I like it I know I know if he was here he would tell you he likes it um so J Jenna Jenna and can and Kate can tell you how much they they appreciate the cameras yes they do yeah just anecdotally I mean I know at this time well not December of last year but last all there were Tik Tock challenges that might have exacerbated things but do you feel like you've seen a reduction in vandalism as well because of them I would I would say yes we we didn't have a there wasn't a significant problem with vandalism until that
055Tik Tok challenge that's um really what where we saw a lot of our issues around that time um but I I think it's it certainly is definitely helpful because if something does happen we can narrow down a time as to when it happened and that that helps helps us out a lot so um I I would say yes if I think about even this year we we have not had many of those types of issues um so you know whether it's the students know that the camera's there now I I don't know but I know that um we we haven't had um those issues this year to date which has been which has been a positive because the students notice they're there the students know they're there um but uh which I don't think is
056a bad thing thanks and the last priority for just under curriculum programming we are using new software um this year so for our science department that is amplify so this is the first year where all really all three grades are using the same software so teachers were trained um to use the amplify science program and those are being implemented in all grades so um again I think the great thing about that is in terms of being able to assess students along the way have have them use that as benchmarks and and be able to to see and apply that data and how students are doing um is a huge positive so I think it's a lot it's a it's a new software program I think um I think the science teach do like it I
057think it's adjusting to that and figuring out um what they want to use more of what they want to use less of but I I know when using the program they see it as a positive and I see it as a huge positive that all students in all grades are using the same the same program so um that's one of the programs as well as I think I put it that down here as well and that that's I ready both math and ELA teachers are uh implementing uh I ready diagnostic testing and one of the other new programs I didn't put it in here other new programs piloting is also ISL so there are some probably about a dozen teachers who are using ISL that software um so I think I know Mike we talked
058about open Architects earlier no if assuming that we're moving forward these things it'll be hugely helpful when we're talking about you know amplify um I ready potentially I Exel to be able to house that data and be able to access individual students and performance in those in one spot will be um will be significant um and the last piece on there really is I know we've had conversations just about um scheduling and and looking at scheduling and we've had a SK you know scheduling Committee just to look at things like um class sizes and numbers in our school and you know making sure that whatever we're doing schedule wise or programming wise U maximizes performance and maximizes opportunities for students so that's something that we're we're looking at I think we're continuing to look at
059sort of where numbers are falling in our school and enrollment but that's something that we're continuing to analyze for this year as well so Dave can I ask you a quick question about the scheduling piece um my understanding was with the the half team that was brought on to the Middle School um with the funding that we'll have to absorb for those new teachers one of the things we were looking at in terms of class sizing has been the the change in schedule and how that may be able to help um in terms of class sizing so I had in my mind that kind of a new class schedule or kind of this analysis would be done for if there was going to be any change would be implemented next fall um so what is
060your thoughts on a timeline in terms of implementation of any scheduled changes and and kind of how that may impact the the Staffing issue for next year yeah in terms of timing I'm not not sure how long it would take I mean I've had conversations with superintendent Adams too just about sort of um enrollment numbers and I think last year we had had those conversations in scheduling committee and um our the numbers shifted a bit so it's something that we we started looking at it you you're right I think if we were to make any changes for next year that's something we would have to identify by the spring for sure we start our scheduling process um really in in around April or May is is if we were going to make any significant changes
061we would have to make the changes certainly certainly by the spring right if if any changes were going to be made for the fall for the coming year so if there were any major changes um that we were going to be making to the schedule that's something that would have to in terms of timeline um for the 24 would have to be you know would have to happen or we'd have to make those decisions by um would want to make them by March or April of this year at at the very latest and do you feel like the scheduling committee is prepared to do that or like where where I guess I'm curious where you are in the process y so we yeah sure Jim so Tina um couple things with this I think as
062we're looking at our enrollment numbers uh we sort of put put it on pause a little bit with regard to uh the scheduling committee at the end of last year because we we couldn't really come to a consensus at that point with the faculty and staff that really met the needs of all of our students special education students our Pullins our pullouts uh you know the push-ins uh the the additional services that that students needed the current schedule is meeting that need and we weren't able to figure out a way to actually design a schedule that actually reduced staff or not necessarily reduced sta but took away that half team if you will uh and able to to then offer the same services that we were um required to offer our students on on IEPs
063504s Etc so as we were looking at it even going into the 2425 school year those half teams we envision to exist at least one more year um until we can really figure out a schedule that is appropriate that meets the needs of of our all of the populations there's no perfect schedule that's what we all figured out um but counseling staff special education staff uh voiced a lot of concerns about moving away from the current schedule and how we are going to provide services so it's a much deeper longer conversation um but if if there's going to be a change my guess is it would be the 25 26 school year that's helpful to know thank you I like I said I just had a different timeline in my head so it's helpful to
064understand that thank you yeah yep and that being said I also want to state that we did start absorbing um into the operating budget this year in anticipation of the Esser money being um taken away so and that was the last piece of curriculum and programming any other questions for Dave I don't see any I don't hear any thank you Dave thank you to the Middle School site Council and the Mendes site Council and to all of you for it's great to see like the consistency in the reports and everything trailing back to the district goals that we had set so great work everybody thank you so last chance for another question and I'm going to move on to Jim for his superintendent report okay Jim Dave Dave can you stop sharing thank you uh
065just a couple things one um you know I've done this in the past and it's nothing I ever want to do again in the future but um I as a as a community and a administrative team and school committee and the entire faculty staff and the community of Ashen just start our thoughts prayers and hearts go out to the Noel family and um loss of one of our former students unexpectedly uh right before Thanksgiving so um you I just want you know to state that upfront that um you know the support that the district and the community has given um to the family is been outstanding and and continues to be so so um you know Pete was on here uh I would just tell you how impressed and grateful and thankful that I we
066someone like Pete um leading that building and and how he has approached this entire um tragedic sit us so so that's you know I I just want to start with that um secondly um there will be a calendar survey coming out uh by the end of the week uh as we continue I've had a few Community questions but also teachers who've asked about usually we have the school calendar um already approved sometimes I have two years worth approved um by now um typically in November um but I I felt like we needed to to ask some questions uh with regard to uh next year's calendar and calendar moving forward um so a survey will be coming out um if I was to present a schedule to you right now um of of the timeline for
067a calendar itself we would be ending the school year in 2425 right around June 28th um uh if we had five snow days so um just something that we need to be thoughtful of in the future um the Strategic plan um I know we've been waiting and finalizing that Mike and I are actually hopefully will be finalizing it with Prem on Thursday of next week uh finalizing meeting ready to come to you as a board for your final input um so that's our goal um and then we are also in the process of developing a a team to review our student management software system uh currently we have iPass uh we have two more years left on the contract but uh it's not really the most efficient and effective um student management system uh and
068there's probably only about six more six districts in the state that are actually using this system now when it used to be actually um pretty high and so we're going to take the you know a thoughtful approach and we have teams from each building uh and looking at three other um three other systems um that will hopefully provide us again when we talk about the data and the open Architects and uh the data that we're trying to pull from iPass um it's really a challenge at times um and even parents and teachers and user friendly we we want to open it up more for for families to use so um I think that is all I have for an update uh next Friday Friday is an early release day uh for the winter break December
069break that's it thanks Jim Paul do you have warrant approvals I do uh between November 21st 2023 and December 13 2023 I Paul Kendall authorized by my signatures signature payables in the amount of 85,681 .7 this includes general fund expenses of $56,700 183 in Grant expenses of $2,250 and meals tax expenses of $833 thank you uh minutes from November 21 2023 does anybody have any recommended changes seeing none hearing none who has a motion I move to accept the minutes as presented second all in favor Mark got do this one by roll call um but yes Erin yes Tina yes Paul yes okay and then gifts and donations yes yes for you oh did I not say Paul no yes me you just kind of raised your hand like you're yes gifts and donations uh
070yes we have a few I'm going to lump up we've got like 15 um that donated to the helping our own fund uh so I'm just going to lump those all together um $660 we have a $3,000 donation to the student travel expense from Kristen and Michael Worster we have Planet Aid $210 35 for miscellaneous gifts and donations and massachusett Institute of Technology 2200 for uh miscellaneous High School gifts and donations for a total of $ 6,873 thank you do we have a motion to approve those move to approve as presented second all in favor Mark hi Ain hi Tina hi Paul hi I and member updates we're at the end who's first I'll have know first I don't know who's first Lori but can I go last absolutely thanks I'm happy to go first
071Goa you can Mark we'll fight over well my update was going to had no update so there it's notu it in um I just wanted to update there was an ashack meeting last week um that I was able to go to and um Christy they had invited Christy Arnold to attend the meeting as well too to talk about collaboration between um ashack and the um El parent advisory Council that uh Christy is trying to get off the ground and so um you know they kind of shared some ideas in terms of collaboration Christy did a great job of course as always of explaining um you know kind of her role and her staff's role and kind of the the overlap uh for certain students that receive both El services and special ed services and so
072there was um you know a nice conversation about uh parent Outreach and collaboration so I think that'll that'll be nice uh moving forward um and it was a nice group there were a number of new faces at at ashack as well too so it's nice to see that group growing thanks Tina um I'll share next I I've only uh gone to the warrant site Council since we last met um but we had really great communication there about communication uh there's a parent on the site Council who has dual citizenship and her husband has dual citizenship and she had put together an excellent PowerPoint about um communication from that point of view reaching out to our immigrant communities or you know the the groups that we've talked about for all these years U about trying to
073reach and I I thought that her presentation was really well done and um it uh brought up a lot of you know points from uh it we just had a lot of empathy it was a very empathetic conversation and I thought that it would be helpful if she brought her Powerpoint to the school committee at some point so if you guys also would think that would be useful it was just it's a really great parent perspective and it opened up some really great conversation um so I'd like to add that to an agenda in January if that that sounds good to all of you that sounds great yeah okay Paul uh I know there's several things I'll probably forget the I think the big one is I think I mentioned to the group before uh
074that the legislature had approved $100 million uh to funding to the msba to uh provide some additional funding to projects that were adversely impacted by the pandemic and so we had some estimates I think I threw out there that we expected it would be around 3.4 to $3.8 million or something like that uh happy to report we we just received the updated convoluted spreadsheet that they Ed but uh the end result of it is that uh it uh we're going to receive 5.57 million more from the msba so that's that's some good news um good news on that front now just so you understand what that means that just means that the proportion of the pie that they're paying is more it doesn't increase the the project budget or anything like that so it's uh
075instead of them paying a little over uh 26 uh well and this the final number won't be done until we know what our final budget is and what we expend but uh the max maimum Grant was just over 26 million and now it's uh just under $32 million so so that's some some positive positive news that's hot off the presses from when did that come Jim yesterday day before yeah yesterday yeah so that's all I have I'm sure I'm forgetting some some things but well that's excellent news it's always good to hear about money coming in rather than money going out so good news Aaron okay um well my first update is I attended my first ever Ashland high school wrestling tournament and um she's not on tonight because she's at a meet right now
076but I wanted to call out Nora um because watching Nora wrestle was one of the most inspiring things think I've ever seen an Ashland athlete do um and then not only to have like wrestled and just lost a really intense match and she was in the stand and then immediately saw one of her teammates was wrestling and as somebody she's very close with she ran right back down to the mountain got on the floor and was cheering for them and it was an incredibly special moment uh last Saturday both Mark and I were there um but being able to see not only the whole team um but it specifically Nora and the fact that she is our student liaison I was just incredibly impressed by her and wanted to say that before I go on
077um so as most of the committee and uh admin team knows and for anybody that knows me on LinkedIn um my entire group um at work uh was divested from GE to ernston Young a month ago and it's taken a for me to kind of understand um what our future is and what will be expected of me in light of the changes we have an extremely bright future despite the fact that there were quite a few layoffs ity yesterday uh that are in the Wall Street Journal but my group specifically we have a big ask in front of us and being on the leadership team I will be tasked with a lot um I've served on this committee for eight and a half years and I have loved the relationships that it has brought I
078have so much respect and admiration for the intellect the empathy the capability of everybody here but I also know in times past when I have tried to balance too much or pull myself too thin you know lots of different things have happened while I've served that it's been not only a disservice to my family or to my work but it's not been the best I just I know I'm going to be in the office a lot and I'm going to be traveling a lot and I won't be able to to give this what it deserves anymore um and so with that tonight is my last meeting and I'll be tendering my resignation um effective immediately um the few people that knew about this have already said oh well hey now you can run Ai and
079I was like no absolutely not um the only thing I will be doing from a volunteer perspective for like a while is being the kids night out face paint lady for two more times and then my career with that is also over um but it has been sorry um still sitting off camera holding my hand it has been an honor serving with you all and I'll jump in if you need a minute just to catch your breath um thank you for I mean eight years volunteering on this board we all everyone here knows what's involved in that um I know sometimes it's hard you know the community might only see us and one or two meetings a month and um isn't quite sure what we do but but I know that you have uh put
080your whole heart into wanting to make this community better and thank you for your service and thank you for um you know it sounds like you're going to be having an exciting new job and you'll have the ability to give that the attention and your your family and I just wanted to thank you for your contributions and wish you the best I'm I'm not going to say goodbye I'm pretty sure we'll see you again and we'll figure something out in that regard um but thank you yeah I'm I'm not going to say it any better than than than what she just said so uh so I'll just say thank you as well and and did what she what she said so yeah and and I want to join in that too AR it's been you
081and I didn't know each other really before um before we started serving together and which was very close in time we both joined the committee about the same time and um it's been a pleasure become a good friend and and thank you for everything you've contributed to you know to our group as a committee as a team rather than just a committee but to our community more generally thank you and I've served with you the shortest amount of time but um thank you eron for all that you've given um you know your time and effort to the to the school committee uh no doubt that you're going to continue to find other ways to be involved uh but it's when you need to to take the time to make sure that you have time for
082your family we all understand that um and so you I wish you a ton of luck in your new position I'm sure you're going to knock it out of the park and um like Lori said this isn't goodbye um but thank you for all that you've done and I'll jump in just from the administrative side eron uh you know it's always a balance right when you have someone come aboard and and you've been with me 10 years my my entire you know just about my entire 10 years superintendent but when when folks come on to a board such as this with children within the system it's that balance of trying to figure out okay how do I be um an advocate for my child how do I be the the leader I need to be
083from a school Committee Member and you always kept that in Balance so I don't think any one of our our administrators felt as though you crossed a line with us or with them uh as as a parent versus a a school Committee Member which takes a lot of work because I know in many districts that happens all of the time and um so thank you for that and I think it's a that's a model that I hope everyone can can continue to follow and our board does that I'm not saying it doesn't it's just I want that to be known that you've done that as well so Aon would you like to make the last motion to adjourn um I move to a journ second all in favor get a roll call I think Paul
084hi Tina hi Mark hi me I Aaron we'll be in touch we're gonna get together and celebrate you and Aon I my final I thank you good night everybody thanks everybody bye