001All right, cool. So, we're back in our open session. The next uh the next section here is school committee reorganization for this one like we did last year. The meeting is going to hand over to the superintendent or interim superintendent to run this next portion. >> Okay. So, this is my favorite time of the year where I um it's like Christmas where I'm overseeing the whole school committee at this time. Um, so at this time I'd like to open up the floor for nominations. Um, do I have any nominations for the school committee chair? >> I'd like to nominate Mike for school committee. >> Okay, chair. >> I'll second that. >> Mike and a second for Mike. Any other nominations for school committee chair? >> I would like to nominate myself >> Jessica. >> Second.
002>> And I have a second. You could all these notes. Any other nominations for school committee chair? Last call. So I have two nomine nominees for school committee chair. I have Mike and I have Jessica. Both have been um been second. I now open the floor to any discussions on on who would like to be the who the nominees are or if they like to say something on their behalf as well too. >> Yeah, I'd like to talk. >> Sure. Um, so I've been a member of the school committee for three years now. Um, when I first moved back to Boilston in 2019, I said I wanted to keep my head down and keep out of small town politics and I found myself running for the school committee because I wanted a seat at the
003table um, when things were discussed. Um, as a family nurse practitioner and mom and someone who majored in science-based studies, um, evidence means a lot to me. And if I don't know information about a particular topic, I do like to seek it out, uh, find out information, talk to the experts, talk to the stakeholders within the district, um, before I make decisions. Um, I know before I joined the school committee, I was quite passionate about particular topics. Um, I do have ADHD, so sometimes I do see things with black and white and sometimes difficulty seeing the gray. Um, but that is something that I have become more aware of and recognize and try to take a deep breath before responding. Um, I do appreciate how Lori when she was chair, she disagreed with what I
004was saying, but always made eye contact with me and treated me with with respect, and that's something that I have a goal to do as well as chair. Um, I've attended two of the Massachusetts school committee conferences and I will attend the one this week too. I think it's a really amazing opportunity to see how other school committees are run um see what is the practice the best practice by the MASC um who are members and who are running our uh superintendent search right now. Uh you know in the beginning you're required to do charting the course. Um, there's also summer sessions that you can attend for different topics. Uh, I took an online Robert's rules class when I was told I couldn't amend a motion when in fact we can twice. Um, I've also
005more recently attended a Zoom OML session run by the state um to become more knowledgeable on this as well. Um when Lori and I ran for this back in 2022, we were of the only contested um candidates within the election and so I feel that I have earned a spot to to participate as chair. Um I have attended two times the uh how to be a chair at the MASC conference and in those trainings said the chair is supposed to be the servant of the assembly first among equals chief volunteer um and and these are my goals. I have no agenda um besides the students trying to get the best education they can and that may not be what my viewpoints are and I'm really excited for a free exchange of ideas. Um like was
006mentioned sometimes we run in silos and so we don't know what other people are doing or attending or what efforts are being put forth and then you know when discussions are made it's realized that that things might already be done um by someone else. Um so I really would like to serve the committee. I'd like to serve the town. Um I know it is a time commitment and I know it is something that I would like to do. Um in many districts they're respecting open meeting law. there's no discussions prior to the meetings about who would like to be chair. Um, and so that's why I nominated myself and so I would very much appreciate the opportunity to work with everyone. I know Lisa, we've attended the MASC conference together and we've not always seen
007eye to eye on things, but we've had pleasant dinners together and discussions. Um, and Lori, I enjoyed our time together on the school committee. I mean the um, superintendent search as well. So, you know, I would really like the opportunity in the next year. I'm very excited about the potential our district has and the future leadership that we have. Um so I respectfully would request your support in running for the chair. >> Thank you, Jessica. Um Mike. >> Sure. Um [clears throat] I'm very interested in continuing as the chair. I think this last year um we we've focused quite a bit on rebuilding rebuilding of the central office, re buildinging in the district, rebuilding in the relationships with the town. I feel that I've started to build some pretty positive relationships, especially with central office.
008Uh the towns um haven't told you this yet, but the towns will be coming uh to the December 9th meeting to talk about the budget with us. I invited them, both Kristen and April. Kristen's responded. still waiting to hear from Abel, but I think that's going to work out. Uh, I want to get through another smooth budget process. We have this year to continue the work we've been doing, cleaning up everything from the past, getting things where they should be. I know uh we're getting ready to close up FY24. FY25 went relatively smoothly. We got the budget passed smoothly in FY26 and hopefully again in FY27. I want to continue the work that we've done and the momentum that we have working with Al getting the new superintendent hired and refocusing the committee work on
009the actual work that a committee has to do budget superintendent policy um and the things that go around that. So, I'd really appreciate continuing that momentum, continuing to be the chair for that and handing over a well-running, welloiled machine to the new superintendent, whoever that might be. So, if that's something you're interested in, I would appreciate your support as well. >> Thank you, Mike. Any further discussion? >> Uh, could I'd like to say something. So, um, I appreciate that both of you wanted to do this job because it's not fun or easy. Um, so a couple years ago, I was talking to someone from one of the select boards, I can't remember where, and they said it becomes very dangerous when someone becomes chair for more than two or three years. and Mike's already done
010two years and it's because it becomes their committee and I think it would be technically I think everybody should take a turn at doing chair, right? I understand not everyone wants to do it because it's a lot of work but [clears throat] Jessica has put in so much time and so much effort into learning Robert's rules, open meaning law, how a meeting should run. She always tries to make sure everyone's, you know, things are on the agenda. Um, and I just think it would be nice to have somebody else have a turn to do this role. >> Any other further discussion? Thank you, Megan. [snorts] >> Any last call for further discussion? [clears throat] Okay, with nothing further, it is time now to vote. Um, I'm asking you, you're voting right now for the school
011committee chair, and I'm going to do it in alphabetical order. I feel like that's the fairest way to do it. Um, I'm going to start with Jessica. You first, please. >> So, we're just saying names. >> Yes, please. Sorry. >> Jessica. >> Megan. >> Jessica. >> Lauren. >> Mike. >> Lisa. >> Mike. >> Beth. Man City. >> Abstain. Mike. Mike. So with Beth abstaining, will we do a majority with five people voting, three for um Mike as the chair and two for Jessica. Um Mike Totten will be our new chair for the 2526 school year. >> Congratulations. Thank you. >> Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you Jessica as well too. Thanks everybody else. So at this point I'm going to turn over um the meeting faculty chair of the BBRSD um which is Mike and for
012you to fill the vice chair school committee district clerk as well. >> Uh yeah. All right. Thank you Al. Uh so same process for vice chair. Is there any nominations for vice chair? >> I would like to nominate Beth for vice chair. >> I would second. >> I will nominate myself again. Okay, >> I'll second that. Uh oh, sorry. >> Any others? >> All right. Anyone anything to say? >> I thought it's supposed to be a Berlin Boil. I thought we try to do one from each. >> I think we broke that rule when we did the subcommittee for superintendent, didn't we? >> But never chairs. >> There's no such rule. >> It's not a rule. It's just we've tried to keep it so that >> the leadership is lit, but I I >> So,
013we we looked at the regional agreement. There's nothing in there that designates that it should be going back and forth. We've had some and you guys know this regional agreement better than I do. Where were previous districts that was specified in the regional agreement? Why one but doesn't does not appear anywhere in our regional agreement, but something we're looking at revisiting our regional agreement that could be something that we absolutely put in. So this was an expected outcome that we had to research the regional agreement for. >> No, no, we were looking at the regional agreement constantly. The towns have been asking No, the towns have absolutely been asking us to be looking at our regional agreement. They actually want to meet with Aaron and I to talk about the regional agreement budgetarily wise. So
014we are constant, as we should be, looking at that regional agreement over and over and over again. So it wasn't had anything to do with this, but we've been looking at that in the past as well. To Lor's point, I mean, we didn't care about individual town representation when we did the vote for that search committee. So it's not a rule. It's not in there. You can vote how you like to vote. >> Okay. >> Jessica nominated herself and I'm wondering you were nominated and do you accept the nomination? >> I would be willing to do it. I I was interested in possibly doing chair. I did not feel ready to do it. >> Okay. Um >> so you do want to do vice chair? I wouldn't mind doing it, but I don't want >>
015Oh, [laughter] we'll go in uh the same alphabetical order if I can remember correctly, Jess. >> Uh point of order. Should we have a moment of recess? >> Should we? >> I think we should. Do >> you need a moment of recess? You >> okay? >> Yes, you should. Okay. >> Jessica, >> Megan, >> Jessica, >> Lori, >> Lisa, >> I bet threw [laughter] us in there. >> Uh, okay. Lisa. >> Uh, was it Beth first? Sorry. Not Lisa. >> So, it was Jessica, Megan, Lauren, and then Lisa. >> You're abstaining from voting for yourself. Okay. this >> uh I I think I'm gonna vote for J um for Beth. >> Okay. >> I mean, vice chair. >> All right. And Beth, your vote. >> I'm gonna >> Okay. I'll also vote for Beth. So,
016same same uh abstaining. Uh three votes and two votes for J. Beth, vice chair. Uh next position is the district clerk. Have any nominations for district clerk? >> I'll nominate Li if she wants it. [laughter] I'll do it. >> Okay. Anyone else wants it? >> Nope. >> I'll second that. >> I can train anyone. >> Any other nominations for district clerk? [snorts] >> Only nomination. Only one nomination for district clerk. Uh so we'll still do a vote though. Jess, >> Megan, >> Lori, >> Lisa, >> okay, the district clerk. Did you get Lisa in the end? I'm sorry. Okay, good. Uh, so the district clerk will be probably the biggest thing we're working on is the election this coming year. All right. >> You could go off with it. >> You got it all. All
017right. >> And Laura, that election papers are due usually July 22. >> Yeah, they have a whole timeline. Thankfully, I did it before, so I hoping kind of coated. >> Yeah, they'll give us the dates. Congratulations. >> They're really good about it. [laughter] I just said congratulations in school committee. >> Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. >> Okay. Um Okay. Now, let's let's uh let's start the school committee meeting now. Uh is there anyone here would make like to make a public comment on any of the items on the agenda for tonight? [clears throat] Looks like we have a taker in the back. State your name in town, please. Jason Carol Clinton, >> can you come up to the table first, please? >> And your business from Clinton in Boston Berlin Regional District. >> Yes. >> is uh
018related to the um sports >> the school choice? >> Are you school choice? >> I'm school choice. >> You have students in the district? >> Okay. >> I have a ninth grade in Tanto. So through Berlin school choice. >> Okay. I forgot to print what I was going to say. So, if you don't mind, I'll just read it off email. This will be a little briefer than uh I sent a related email already to the athletic director Al with um Lisa and um Rich Cameron on copy because uh it related to um the student advisory council group that Rich runs I believe Rich Cameron. So, my daughter who comes to Toronto as a ninth grader is on that student advisory council as well and um I believe the meeting was a week ago from Thursday,
019so about 10 days ago. And a rare teenager who still communicates with me. So, she tells me the um intricacies and the ins and outs of what she goes through every day, which is good. in uh oh after this she told me she's not talking to me anymore but she uh I told her that I emailed some of the admin to just give my similar feedback that she had that day. Um so she let Rich Cameron and the the student advisory council know that she had a different perspective than the rest of the people in that meeting regarding specifically sixth graders playing on varsity sports teams. Um I the topic may have been related to middle schoolers playing on varsity sports but uh specifically in this uh what she brought up to me was sixth
020graders playing for varsity sports. Anyhow um so as I mentioned she was alone in being opposed to that idea. So, she spoke up um in the meeting and gave her opinion on um why she felt that sixth graders should not play on varsity sports. Um her and I have kind of witnessed firsthand over these past couple years that she's been here. Um how um at least one of the varsity coaches will come into middle school and JB practices and handpick the young middle school athletes. he knows from travel and AA leagues and move them into varsity part-time by mid-season or by the end of the season anyway. And um I've always been in involved in all sports growing up as a kid. I um my passion was sports and fortunately my daughter's passion is is
021um academics. So she'll she'll be a scholar down the road where she doesn't have a lot of interest in sports. She she just plays basketball because that she wants to be, you know, plays a sport to be popular, but she is um very competitive. So when she when she goes to practice, tries out and plays, she is all in. Um, so it it bothers kids like her who are, you know, 9th, 10th, 11th grade seeing um varsity coaches come in and go through sixth and seventh and eighth some eighth graders to pull them up to varsity um you know over the older kids and um I just worry that that's um opening that door here. I I I was surprised when my daughter came to sixth, seventh grade here that um that the district allowed
022middle schoolers to play JV and varsity sports. That didn't exist um 30, 40 years ago when I was growing up down the street. Um and I know in a lot of schools in Massachusetts that still doesn't exist. Um we didn't even have middle school sports. We just had recreation. I love that this district is small. the same size as the town public school I grew up in. And I love that they have middle school sports. And um I just wish in my in my mind, middle school kids should play middle school sports. And if you have a a talented um larger eighth grader who's um athletically gifted enough to play high school ball, then and especially if you need an eighth grader to fill a J or potentially varsity team, I don't have a problem
023with that either. But um I worry that opening the door and allowing sixth graders to play high school sports is a it seems like a risk to me to the school. Um you know, I joke with my daughter sometimes that there's sixth and seventh graders coming out when I pick her up at school that look like the size of a preschooler. And um I joke about it, but they're, you know, 3 feet tall, maybe 50 pounds. So no matter how talented they are, to take a young child that's not full grown and put them on a varsity team to potentially play against seven 17 18 year old adults who are my size or bigger I think is a risk. So I just wanted um school committee and admin to know that I'm personally opposed to
024the idea of having sixth graders play high school sports, especially varsity. Um, and that's it really. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Are there any other public comments? >> Thank you. >> Okay. All right. No [clears throat] other public comments. So our next item is the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Megan and sorry Lori and Lisa, would anyone like to say anything about the consent agenda? >> Yeah, there's just an edit I wanted to point out. >> Sure. >> Uh so this was the October 14th. Um and it was under item seven and MCCAST. Uh I just the last line of the that section says masks and it should be screens >> screens like computer screens or phones
025just be screens. >> Where are you saying that? Jess >> section it's right above section 8 under MCCAST. It's the very last line in that section. It says Miss Delbury brought up the amount of time that students are at home and time spent on reading and masks over the summer. also something reflected on it be screened. >> Jen, you do with that? >> That's it. I would like to amend that agenda with that replacement screens for the word masks. >> A second for that amendment. >> Second. >> All right. Discussion on the amendment. >> All in favor of the amendment? >> I. >> Anyone against? Okay. Uh any discussion on the rest of the consent agenda? All right. Uh all in favor of the uh consent agenda. >> Anyone against it? >> All right. So
026the consent agenda is passed with that one edit. >> Uh is is Mr. D here? >> No. >> Sure. Understandable. Uh so next up is superintendent of schools. Great. Thank you. Um, so before I get started, I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for a really great professional learning day today. Um, our our admin team, our curriculum directors work really hard in preparing today. Um, if we look at our calendar, it lined up perfectly with having a day off tomorrow for our veterans day to honor our veterans. Um, a lot of our communities around us, I know, are doing that as well, too. So, it really worked out well. But planning a full day of professional learning is is a lot of work. So, I thank our admin and our curriculum directors
027for that. For those of you that also may not have heard, we start our day um or at least what was on the agenda was um for Diana Ya to talk about about an hour presentation about uh cleanliness and get better results data when you look at having clean um buildings. Um so, we had Dan Slater for an hour of that this morning. Um but what we really did and Dan was a great sport about it. Um we end up having um a comedian um named Jimmy Cash um come in and did an hour presentation that was absolutely hilarious. Um that that we had our nurses there, we had our teachers, we had our parish, we had our admin, we had our custodians, uh we had our cafeteria, um we had our our our directors.
028Everyone was fair game and myself included as as this admin team can certainly say, but it was a really um really fun way for us to start our day. Um, one of the things that you've heard people talk about even in these school committee meetings is culture. Um, and trying to improve the culture. If you want to see a a good culture, everyone laughing this morning and laughing at each other and just really having a good laugh this morning. Um, Jimmy did a great job. if you have an opportunity to um look at him on um his YouTube channels and things hilarious like his snow day calls and things regarding being a custodian. He really is a custodian um full-time in in the Worester public schools. Um actually was my custodian years and years and
029years ago. Um so he was he did us a great thing today by coming in and we were able to cop some time in there. But I I I thank our admin team for being good sports. We hit it really well. We brought him in the back door and so we were able to surprise him and we bring him out and I don't know if anyone ever you want to say but how how fun it was to start off our day like that. >> Well received by my crew. [laughter] >> I love the uh like the people who were here and they were mad they had to be here on so just delightful. >> He was like a movie star at the end like everyone taking pictures with him like everyone wanted their pictures taken
030with him and stuff. It was a really good culture building and and just credit for professor Lane Joe following a comedian like who does that right beside [laughter] Joe >> mad and the comedian says Jimmy says to us phenomenal if you have a chance to follow look at him what he does like how much longer do I have Al and I just said you know you got to pretty much wrap it up because we have Joe coming up next to talk um about our math program right so but um he he did a great job with that as well too so I thank our admin uh I think certainly Jimmy and certainly Joe for following up with that as well too. So it was really a good time. Just got to tell you I got
031one of probably about 15 um emails at least and I haven't checked my email since five. It says, "Hi Al, thank you so much for this morning. Ju was great." I think it was exactly what we need to start our day. I think sometimes we need to laugh a little about our daily lives becomes just a little too serious. Have a great day. And that's that's just one of the emails that we receive from our our staff about today. So I just want to make sure um I I share that. Um it certainly was camaraderie that was taking place this morning throughout our entire district. So it was great. So thank you um everyone for that. Um right now I'm going to turn it over to Renee and John um our two curriculum directors to
032give us an overview of our district MCAT scores. Um this will be followed by what our needs are, what we're going to be asking you as a school committee that we need budgetarily right from looking at our data. Um that was the focus, the lens we looked at. Here's our data. We got some growth. We did some some nice things were happening, but what do we need to make sure we continue to grow? And I think one of the things we talked about, you've heard a lot um is about ELA coaches and stuff. So, that's one of the things you'll probably be hearing from um our two curriculum directors on that. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Renee um and to John to join us, please. >> Sure. >> Can I just plug
033this in or I can speak to the slides, too? You can unplug it. Plug in. >> Okay. >> So, I had shared um kind of the very detailed um slides the department heads have put together for you. Um I'm not going to share that again. Right. So, I'm just I just summarized some some kind of key takeaways that um I will highlight for you. If you have specific questions, I ask that you note that like specific depart department questions. Um, I want to make sure we give the department heads the opportunity to respond appropriately. Um, rather than me just kind of, you know, without all the additional information in front of me responding. Happy to have those answered for you. Um, but I'll, you know, I'll still get back to you. Okay. Um, so these
034are just, you know, our the takeaways that that slideshow, I think, was like 60 slides or something, right? Um, you might not even had a chance to go through it all. There's some great slides on there. They've really put some really great >> [laughter] >> for lack of a better word, but we're all high tech. >> It's a company >> that makes the the bubbler. That's why it's called bubbler >> up in the west. I don't know what you're talking about. >> No, no. It's a Wor thing. It was a Worcester company. Just so you know, that's all right. >> Okay. So, this is just in the order of those very comprehensive slides. Okay. So, I I literally took the takeaways and they started with special education pieces because that historically had been what Tatanto
035had done. So, I I did that again. Um, so just the takeaways from special education, if you had read those graphs, we're we're still, you know, our our special ed education students, the population, it's increased slightly since 2019, but it's about 30%. It's rem it's remaining about the same. So the needs, if you looked at that high needs chart, that includes high need students and IEP students, right? So sometimes we we we put them all together, right? Because they're all part of a category called high needs, but we have ELLL students in there. We have um students with disabilities as well, right? So they're they're put in that there's two kind of graphs that you were given. Um the specially designed instruction, these were kind of the bullet points that Janelle really wanted us to
036convey to you that we still have to have IEP goals that are based on the standards, right? because majority of our IEP students are are taking the MCCAST. Um data informed instruction, small group instruction, scaffolded instruction, meaning you know we kind of pull back, you know, little less support each time and the consultation with teachers. Um [clears throat] the next slides were all based on ELA and math content and um we really want to talk about the 10th grade. We saw Lisa and I sat down today and we looked at these graphs and we said, "Wow, there's a lot of similarities with 10th grade with ELA and math." Okay. And really that it's all good news in 10th grade for the we we're we're doing great. We continue to do very very well. ELA and
037math performance continues to meet or state the the state benchmarks. Um we we continue to have sustained growth and we have strong outcomes. Now I want you to be mindful, right? we skip ninth grade, right? So, right, so we have a whole bunch of data for middle school, eighth grade, we have no ninth grade test and then we take a 10th grade test, right? So, we have almost like an additional year, right, to prepare, to get to know those students, to figure out what we need to do. I also want you to just be aware as as each year changes, the students change, right? You'll see right now some data that has preliminary data of where our ninth and tth graders are. Today, we did a whole deep dive in data, right? after we had
038the comedian unfortunately they had to do data in middle and high school right and they said hey come up here let's take a look where we are in ELA specifically with some of these first you know um achievement pieces we need to do some additional pieces to get them to continue to stay here and so you'll see that in some of their their asks from the school committee uh middle school performance it it remains steady um we we continue to usually uh you know exceed meet or exceed those those state benchmarks, but we we see the data with an increasing need for targeted instruction tiered supports. This the teachers have the availability if you took a look at um especially the Elaine math, they they were able to look kind of idle um item analysis
039on specific questions. So, they're able to see some of those gaps where they are with specific skills. So we we are really fortunate that we've been given some time in some students schedule to support that but not in all. And so that will be another ask that we're we have to try to relook at things in order to get this targeted support there. Again I'm just noting no ninth grade MCAST because it's I'm sure you're aware but sometimes it's something we forget. Um so what is the ELA department doing now right that they're looking at their data? um they are determining that three primary areas in the grades need to really we need to focus more on power standards. There's so much to teach so little time. It's a common problem throughout all the content
040areas. Writing topic development. It needs to be something that needs to be at the forefront. Also talking to the humanities um department as a whole. Today we went in and um Lisa and I we were also talking to history. How can history support? Right, they don't they have a civics exam in eighth grade, but how can they support this writing? Right? So, we need to talk to them as well. Reading identifying um literacy techniques. This is [clears throat] this is going to be coming into play too as we start hoping to do more vertical alignment with the elementary school um language parts of speech. We're we're thinking we've had a big conversation with department head Peter Dory today of the ELA department. Do we go back to some some grammar pieces in our curriculum that
041then extend into their writing? Some real, you know, foundational skills. We we may need to add that back in. That's what the data is showing. Um vertical alignment, like we had stated, build an MCAST Google classroom. Kids kids do well with that. They're used to those platforms. um something that and and I don't want to embarrass her but give a lot of credit when you see the science scores um to principal Squira she not only although she's principal now right science is still her passion her love and she's she's phenomenal at teaching it uh last year we recognized that science was going to continue to be something that we needed extra support with and we have built into some of our grant funding that extra support for math and bio We're gonna maybe need to
042do that for ELA as well because we have different students each year. So each year may look a little bit different. Okay. Math department. Again, this department had really was thinking about everything they've been doing. Just there was a big thank you slide as well. Um that I don't it's not included in here, but a lot of this work right has been in place because we've added additional math teachers. Okay. Um who's in the room right now by the way, but I won't embarrass him. We we've been a because of that we've been able to do additional work in math. Now what we need to do is make sure that we are having additional offerings at the high school because of our math department. But now we need to say strategically, right? Does that extra
043position where does that fall in line with our MCCAST data? Right? it it's so difficult because we're small to make sure that we're able to offer the supports and the scheduling that tiered interventions need and the additional programs that are high and AP courses deserve right so it's this fine balance working with it all the time um so regularly re regularly meeting to take a look at what those achievement and growths are by the subgroups formative assessments something we've been working on as a district um supporting our high achiev ing students. Again, that's part of adding in that additional um position. Incorporate open response questions into assessments. This is huge, right? Because this is a piece where in math typically even our students that are really great in their foundational skills and calculation, the open
044response questions is is not something of their strength. This is, you know, a cross department, you know, type of piece of work. Um this new curriculum see that's being utilized right now from 6 through 8, which I think you had heard us talk a little bit about. Um as we are starting to take a look at the elementary curriculum as well um they really feel that this has been a great contributor to the increas increased math and pass scores um middle school spends also a lot of time again it's in their schedule it's in their schedule to look at data it's in their schedule to have an intervention time okay so there's additional time and support for those those teachers and those students to do this work and it works when you have time right
045um sixth grade team they make effective use of that wind block. So that's that intervention time that sixth grade sixth grade only at this time has dedicated solely for each student. Um science, technology, and engineering. Um eighth grade combination of all four content areas, life science, earth science, physical science, technology, engineering. Um our STE tests are unique in that we can't allow full cohorts, but we did see that the group was not as successful as previous years. We were not surprised by this, but it caused us to identify areas in literacy that we need to strengthen. Um, and and again, there's been a we've had two days of PD now to really kind of look through those item analysis, take a look at those questions that those students we need to focus our instruction and
046our um intervention on biology. Again, we were we're pleased we had no failures. Again, don't want to embarrass her. She spent a dedicated amount of time. she won't come up here and tell you that targeting a group of students she knew needed extra support and she knew that that was the way to do it. Right? So, but it you have to take a look at the data and you need time. Guess what? It wasn't in their schedule. It was after school, right? And and the parents were committed, right? There was personalization there. That's something that we can do in small school, right? So, there's pluses and minuses of that small school piece. Um, civics was really wonderful. I I you know, Mr. Ganham didn't highlight that great article. Um, but I I'm hoping that the
047school committee got to see that. Um, we had a a lot of our um, and that was something that just was sent to us, right? Like, wow, we didn't even know it was coming, right? So, we had a lot of great high-erforming uh, pieces in there. Um, and civics was one of them. And let me tell you, this eighth grade um, class is a a quite a quite a broad span of all different learners, right? So this current ninth grader, this eighth grade class, this is really an accomplishment. I think this also speaks to the fact that this is a projectbased class, project-based class. They have to present, they have to work as a group. This is this is great results. Now, this is new, too, right? So, this is the first time we've really
048had data on this. Um, and and that the teacher should be really, really proud. By the way, she didn't even send us that article, right? It was one of her colleagues that did. That was great. Great. Great. That's something we wanted to highlight. Next steps, um continue to review our standards reports. The eighth grade um review session prior to MCCAST. Um the high school biology review sessions after school and Zoom, those continue to be helpful. Um incorporate SD performance assessment tasks for 8th grade. Um implement formative assessments per UDL. Um this is something we had our second half of our day at Tahanto. We had a wonderful speaker today in uh Mero Chardan uh really speaking to us on how we look at assessments and it's not just your summit of assessments, it's your everyday
049form of assessments and what you do to take away from that. Um that's something we'll share with the whole district. It's something though that um you know you know what you need to do but there's drivers in order to do the work and that's what we'll need help from you. We need help to make the drivers all work. And unfortunately, a lot of those are budgetary pieces, right? And so that's where sometimes the stumbling happens. Okay, here's the favorite part. This is WHAT YOU GUYS ASKED FOR. OKAY, so a lot of these pieces are specific for math. Our um Francine Gleason put these pieces together, but they they really speak to all content areas that are um that are assessed on the MCCAST. Prioritize staffing to address the growing needs for differentiated instruction interventions um
050in in math, right? Um with math coaches, with interventionists, um there is something here at the middle high school with with paraprofessionals. We have many paraprofessionals that spend a great deal of time in one content area and they really become like, you know, specialize in that content. If we can do more of that when we're doing our scheduling and staffing, we can't always do it, but if we can have that at the forefront, the teachers, I heard this not from math, I also heard this from our department head in science, this is critical. If I was the pair professional in in math one day and then biology another day and then I had to go to, you know, AP Lang, that would be very confusing, right? How am I then going to support that curriculum
051for those students that need the extra help? um evidence-based interventions. We we we just don't have that beyond a small pocket in middle school. That's something we really need to look at, especially I'm telling you, our data is looking good, but we have different students each year, right? We have different students each year. The data continues to change um and the needs continue to change. Um we don't have any math intervention. Right now, we have a title one grant, right? um through our ESR grant that does contain some very small amount of funding um for reading intervention, but nothing for math. It's something that we really should consider. It doesn't have to be necessarily a full-time position, but something that we may need to consider. Invest in professional learning because perhaps some of these pieces
052are done by staff members that are already here, but we don't have the time or the scheduling to work on that. Right? That's the other piece. um equitable access to materials. Um this is something that there's going to be an audit I think with the math department especially as we start this vertical uh you know alignment. What do we have for manipulatives? What you know kind of what do we have already in house and what do we need? So that'll be part of the budget process. The problem right now is that where do we have the time during the school year? So do we fund things outside of the school day whether it's after school or summer work. this may be something um that we need teachers for in order for its students to come
053in and become more fluent. Um this is this hiring an LT teacher an additional L teacher is something that I know you've heard before but is something that is now affecting some of the data right um not that it hasn't before but because if you look at that high needs chart that is one subgroup that has continued to rise okay um and so that is something we still only have two L teachers within the whole district um and because of that for example I just you know just speaking with our L teachers they're being pulled out of core core content areas is right, like ELA, like math to get their L services provided, right? So, they're missing core instructional tier one instruction, right? Um, and and because they're limited in their schedules, right? Not that
054we know it's best practice, we know it's not, but because of their scheduling. Um, so that's something that all departments continue to see as a need. Um, substitute teachers. Um this is because we are pulling our paraprofessionals out of what they you know we may have trained a paraprofessional to work in chemistry for example we did that a couple years ago right [clears throat] but then if you don't have appropriate subs we may not have that same paraprofessional in that chemistry class um so that's something that we see throughout I think all of the district but something that they definitely wanted to highlight some additional supports um this had more to do with ELA some more science putting back into the budget, the positions that were lost at Tanto. Um, that is part of our
055scheduling part, right? It's just one part of our scheduling kind of issues right now, right? Because we're down to teachers. Um, so that's also taking a content specialist out of maybe their their core content teaching and teaching another subject away from their lensure. That's also um taking elective times, right? So instead of having an elective teacher teach those electives, there may be a math teacher trying to um teach, you know, some kind of an additional elective there. Um instead of those um those pieces coming back in, we really need to start addressing specific student IEPs and intervention needs during um those pieces. Losing two full-time teachers, I think has impacted that. Um we are seeing I think of course all grade levels like Mr. Ganham had spoke about um reading and math specialists. We have
056people that you know it was actually Mr. Shardan today said that not everybody's going to specialize in every content area. You need to bring the ones that are specializing in the area so that they can really move the data. Um and that is something um that that ELA department feels very strongly about. um just historically many years ago. So when I came to this district three years ago, I said, I don't understand why there's only 45 minutes of English language arts for six, seven, and eight. Um it's something that I hadn't seen before. And they and so I was starting to do a little bit digging. It sounds like and I I don't have the the exact date but it sounds like probably in the move up to this building maybe shortly thereafter there was
057a lot of budget cuts that happened and they went down to just one English language arts period. So instead of having kind of your grammar, your writing, right, and then having a literature, your comprehension, all those pieces, right? It you had to say, "Oh, we don't have the money. Here's 45 minutes. Do it all. We're it's catching up, right? When we're looking at the data, we're seeing it's catching up." Peter Dory is very u passionate about this. He said, "I knew this was going to happen, and here we are. We're seeing bigger gaps. Although we're still grow growing, although our data is still looking good overall, some of those gaps are becoming a little bit wider because we're we just don't have the time and especially when we don't don't have dedicated intervention, especially seven,
058eight, nine, right? By the time they get to 10th grade, we're seeing that. Um that would be a recommendation bringing um an additional English teacher back into the middle school. Um that could maybe not just be the middle school, right? We have plenty of ideas to help you out with that. But really two positions um lost and you know they're looking also for an additional piece for ELA additional special education teachers. Um you've heard that it's very difficult to address all these needs um with our special education population without certified teachers in there especially as our programming has shifted. Um we now have you know two bridges classrooms. So the population has changed a bit and um that is still also a need. Um but we were able to do quite if you really take
059a look at those slides for math the amount of movement that we're able to do with one more teacher with math significant right um so it it's it's like it's it's worth that you know extra FT if we can get it in there's so much we can do and and we we were able to really accomplish great work the last couple years with that. So thank you together. Thank you together. that could work too, right? So, thank you for your support. Um, any specific questions, please write them down. Um, let me know what they are. I'll get those to the department heads. They can either come and address you at the next meeting or I can, you know, however you want to address that through the chair. We can get that information back to you.
060Okay? So, I know you might not have looked at all the slides before, but feel free to dig deeper in them and if there's specific questions, just let us know. Okay. [clears throat] Thank you. Thank you. There there's a lot of information we're giving you, a lot of data that we put in the drive that talks about really good things that have taken place. I I I know I shared that article with you that was in the TG about the success of us being recognized across I should have thanks Rene for for catching me on that. That is something we should be very very proud of, right? Um we're seeing some really nice growth here in our district. We want to continue to see that growth. We were also recognized um this year that we're
061doing better than precoid, right, as a district. We we want to do even better than that, right? And so you're hearing loud and clear um that we need some additional staffing to really work on those intervention groupings that take place. The other part I'm going to be talking to you in December school meeting. I'm going to be increasing um working with Aaron and principles. We're going to be increasing their pay for subs. We need subs. We need people in our buildings to cover. We have teachers that are out and when we don't have coverage for them, we're pulling off cameras, we're pulling other people to cover them. Um, Jen has done some homework for for for me and really called all the other districts around in the local area to see what they're paying for
062subs as well, too. So, we're trying to be a little bit more competitive to see if we get more people subbing for that. So, that's a key piece as well, too. Thanks, Rene. >> Yeah, John. >> Great. All right. Um, thanks. I don't know. I'm gonna follow all that. I don't have this many slides. Um, and I've done this the way I've done it for years and years. This is my last MCCAST presentation. I wanted to be as consistent with tradition as possible. So, I'm going to use some of the same things. Assessment thoughts. MCCAST testing does not measure the worth of children or teachers or schools. I say this every year. It's one task at one point in time that gives us a snapshot of where we are relative to standards and students in
063our schools across the Commonwealth. And then finally, what terrible lighting. Um what each MCAST assistant can do is point out patterns of performance and you're hearing that at the middle high school and areas where we need to improve. Okay. Um we'll start with language arts because it's the most important thing we do. you said that a thousand times. Uh these are grades grade three scores. Uh in talking with Rob in Boilston and the superintendent, we decided to focus on one school district rather than separate schools. So these are our district goals or our district results for the MCAST test. Last year in ELA, um, our kids scored garnered 53% of the available points. And you can see this is the meets or exceeds graph. It's relatively flat, right? It's down slightly um, relative to the
064state because the state's always at about 44%. Uh, we came down a little bit this year. >> Looks like the state's going up there, John. >> Well, going up, let's see, from 42 to 43. >> Any improvement? Somebody has to um grade four uh more successful 63% of the possible points. Um and our meets or exceeds percentage was again essentially it was the same 56 and 56 and again to Mr. Tottenham's point the state went up four points. Good for the state. Um in grade four you get a measure of growth for the first time. This is our grade four growth graph. You can see that we outperformed the state in terms of the meets or exceeds. We're pretty much average in terms of student growth. This is grade five ELA. Um good year in
065grade five. Uh 63% of the total points. And you can see uh we jumped up as a district from 56% means or exceeds last year to 64% this year. Um I have to pause here. We not doing individual schools, but I did promise Peter Dhy that I would recognize one person. Um, some of you who have been around a while have heard me talk about, you know, we should get 80% meets or exceeds every year, yada yada yada. Um my fifth grade ELA teacher um uh Tia Cougler now uh Tia two out of the last three years has gotten 80% of her kids to meet her exceeds which is just phenomenal. Um so Peter said if I didn't say anything he's going to punch me in the nose and I'm scared of Peter. So >>
066she's a great teacher. >> She is a great teacher. Um so you can see and that's reflected in the uh growth chart here well above the state in terms [clears throat] of metric seeds and above the state in terms of student growth percentiles math Mr. annoying. Um, here's our grade three math results. 68% of the possible points in a matrix seeds of 67% which is good for us. Um, and and well worth noting. We did a lot of work last year around math and I think it really showed up. Um, >> the year well well we we won't emphasize it too much because then there's grade four. um 59% of the available points. You can see for the past couple of years um our meet seeds number has dropped. Um part of that and this
067is where I'll talk about it because we're such a small school district if you have a significant number of kids kids for whom this test is not appropriate it tends to drag down your score. Um, so for example, in fourth grade last year, a third of my fourth grade, a third of the kids are on significant academic plans. Um, it's not an appropriate test for them. Um, and as if they wanted to prove it to me, none of them scored me or seeds. Um, which kind of drags the whole thing. Not for lack of effort, but that's kind of weird. is you can see that our matrix seed number is high but our growth is lower lower than the state which is not good. Uh this is grade five. Um and again you can see
06858% of possible points available. Our score again dipped um from 69% last year to 51% this year. Uh the state went down a little bit not as much as we did. And you can see it again matrix C's were okay but our growth is a little below average. There's all of that. The other thing I wanted to point out and this goes back to my point about um students with academic needs. Um we heard a lot of talk last year and Mrs. Fitzpatrick would um back this up. This is that indicator three data where you look at the number of students with IEPs who scored proficient meets or exceeds as opposed to the number of students without IEPs and then the gap in proficiency. So you can see for language arts in third grade it
069was 46%. The gap in fourth grade it was 61%. And then in fifth grade 49. You can see students without IEPs doing reasonably well. my kids with INPS, not so much. In math, very similar numbers. Um, grade three rocked it in math. 80% of them beats or exceeds 65 and 62. But you can see that gap is very large still. Um, and it's, you know, it is what it is. For some kids, it's not an appropriate test, but not for all kids. So John, before you go there, so our job as as educators to educate all of our students, right? And we we talk about the training we're going in through UDL for formative assessments and right, how do we individualize UDL, universal design for learning, right? The way Renee learns might be different from
070the way Lisa and John and I learn, but yet the MCCAST test is the same test given for all of our students, right? So sometimes not a match for all of our kids, but it's certainly the data that we look at, conversations that we're having today. We're rich um at our schools about looking at this data and how can we educate all of our kids as well. Um but it's it's a fact, right? This test is the same test we give for all of our students. Even though during the day if a teacher gave one test for the same exact amount of kids, we say to them, you know, come up with a form of assessment, come up with universal design for learning, other ways of testing our kids and teaching to our kids. But
071yet the state says this is the assessment we give you at this time. [clears throat] >> They're setting a bar and that's fine. >> That's correct. >> As long as we understand what the bar means and you know, how fair is the bar really? Our job is to educate all of our students to [snorts] the best of their ability, which means holding them accountable and that sometimes is a real challenge. Um, my list of what do we need, how can you help is not nearly as long um as my colleagues at the middle high school. Support for teachers. We need to support our teachers better. Um, we need to maintain our math coach. We desperately need to add a literacy coach. The most important thing we do is teach children to read. It's true all
072the way across the board. If they can read, everything else can be fixed. If they cannot read, we cannot help them in other areas. But we don't have a literacy coach. It's crazy. >> That specializes being litery John that has that certification. Rene has that certification, right? And in that district, right? When you think about students that are graduating from colleges and universities become teachers, they have one class for learning how to teach reading. One is all they take, right? Imagine that, right? When they're especially those primary grades where kids are learning how to read because then they can read to learn. Like we need experts in this field to be able to help us out that have the certifications of reading specialists that know the science of reading to teach our kids from where
073they're at and how to move their head. And to pick up that, you know, read to learn. You used the old day used to be you read to learn and then you learn or you learn to read and then you read to learn. >> I think you're hearing from the middle high school. That's not true. We're still teaching kids to read in sixth and seventh and eighth grade. That's part of the help that they're asking for. So, we need to do that. Um, we need to support our special education students. And it's so ironic that Mr. Gamma already brought this up. Um, there are kids who for whom this test is not appropriate. There are other students in my school and I'm sure it boils as well for whom the test is a challenge but
074not impossible. You you get kids who'd rather not write a whole paragraph but if better supported they might be able to. We don't support our neediest students to the level that we should. We need to add a um I know Rob's talked about another teacher, but we um it's a special education teacher that we need along with a more effective use of administrative special coordinators. Um they drive that practice. They drive lesson planning and goal setting for these most needy students. We need people who, you know, I got Sher Tran one day a week in my school. It's, you know, it's not enough. Miss Fitzpatrick, Janelle Fitzpatrick comes in, too, but, you know, she's got like 7,000 other things to do. And then finally, um, we need to support our elementary school teachers um because
075we need to give them time to plan and work together. That was the conversation PD day in the afternoon for us today was a discussion around ELA for next year. Um, and looking forward in terms of ELA programs and we're going to get better. We looked at strengths and weaknesses. What they said over and over and over again was, "We need time to have these conversations. Our professional development for this year is done. It's November. We have no time." And unlike my friends at Manila High School, my teachers get four prep periods a week. There's one day when they teach from 8:20 to 3:00. If they want to go to the bathroom, they need somebody to come into their room. It's madness. We've got to do a better job. And I know all these things
076that you're hearing from me and from Renee all cost a million trillion zillion dollars. Um, and I think we have to be honest with ourselves in terms of where [clears throat] are our priorities? The towns are up against it. I get that. But we can do better for our kids than we're doing now. As well as we do, a lot of what we do well is based on zip code. We have great parents. We have kids that get read to at home. But for the kids who really need us, we're stretched much too thin. So that's my little my little rant. >> Before you go, could you go? You say support elementary teachers by giving them meaningful time to plan. Motion to give them more time to play at work. Seconded and approved. Like we
077would do that specifically. How does that happen? >> Well, it starts with >> you more teachers, more parents, more >> limited >> literacy coach. G tell us what is it specifically? >> PD days. Do you want more PD days? >> I want more PD days where they get to talk to each other. I want a fifth special so they have time. >> More PD days or more half days? >> See, I would have gone back to half days. The challenge with half days and we learned this relationship. Well, there are two. One is that people consider school babysitting. So, the big complaint was, "Well, who's going to take care of my kid on the half day?" You know, if the really good school districts can do half days, we should be able to do half
078days. And this is all, by the way, easy for me to say because I won't be here. >> Yeah. >> The challenge with half days is that it's a ton of planning. Way more than I thought. Joey was great last year, year of math. But that was like half of it each day. In other words, what do we do with the other half? How are we planning meaningfully for the other half? And when it was me doing all the other things that I had to do and plan, that became more way more challenging than I thought it would be. And and I I would respectfully dis disagree because I think our professional learning is continuing all year. We have a second faculty meeting each month that is that our teachers are working together, right? And
079that's supposed to be the focus of un universal design for learning. uh teachers collaborating with them. That is why we have that second meeting. I know that you might not necessarily agree, but that's the focus of that meeting together. >> It's not happening. >> So, more time, right? Time not time's not free, but half days, more PD days. It's not really going to show up in a budget. >> That's free. >> Well, it but it'll show up in pain for you guys because you get the same complaints you got last year. >> Sure, we'll get that. But is that the only thing? Is it the coaches, the specialists, the [laughter] Do you need more teachers? Do we need another teacher at BMS? Do we need one at BES? What? >> Well, I know BMS has
080a separate prop because they've had they've always had one one grade of two >> and I think this year you're done, right, Rob? >> Bees has a a need for a fifth grade next year. >> Yeah. So, there'll be there'll be that is part of the challenge, Mike, is that >> that small class is graduating at BES, >> right? But more in terms of like giving them more time. You get to the middle high school, you know, they've got a lot more flexibility. You know, they're scheduled for little blocks here and there, >> but they've got seven and eight periods a day that are free. Not free, they're working. They're working hard. This is not a criticism, >> but they have a good deal more time. The illusion, the mistake we make in our thinking
081is that elementary teaching is easy. And anybody who thinks that it's easier to teach it in an elementary school should bring themselves down and run a first grade for effect hour for soccer. [laughter] >> I would never coach a team for Yeah. >> So we'll have we'll have specific things to look at in December. >> Yeah. >> If you ever want to validate that about the middle school and the high school as opposed to uh of elementary when people that bring it in from county brings them in for subbing, they want to sub middle and high school, right? try and find stuff at the elementary level is is is is a lot of work to do. I think what you're going to see our admin team be asking for you later on. Um when we're
082talking about that that we're looking at that elementary level, there's some skills, technology skills that we're going to come back and revisit that we're seeing that our kids don't have those keyboarding skills that they need, right, to be able to work on the computer, take the MCAT. >> I mean, we eliminated tech and a reading teacher last year. So I mean >> y we didn't know where we didn't know where our budget is and we still we eliminated two teachers at the high school as well too to make our budget work right. So, so that's why we we are completely understandable that the school committee supports the decision we make, but it's our job also to go to towns and all of our community to go to towns and our teachers to go to the
083towns and help us fight that cause because anytime we're asking for something more respectfully Chris and April say, "What are you taking off the plate?" Right? So, we know that, Bob and Cla. >> Yeah. Well, darn if you do, darn if you don't, and we have to make hard decisions. All this we no one I think no one in this room would disagree that we need all of this, right? All this plus more. But how are we going to be able to afford it all as well? >> Now, can I ask a quick question? So, that reading coach I thought that was in the budget. >> We had one. It never got rehired for my >> It never got rehired, but it's actually in the budget. And then Boilston put another $50,000 into >> No,
084it's not in the budget. >> Okay. Boilston put another $50ish,000. And I thought we were using that for literacy. There was an additional we voted on it in July. >> There was money available for for PES, >> right? So, I thought that we were going to use that for some type of literacy support. I don't know if that has happened yet or but I mean it sounds like this might be something that you're just telling us you need help. >> We have uh on the December 9th meeting, like John just said, we'll have a all the specifics for the what you need, what it's going to cost, what the budget's going to look like. I just want to clarify. So I know last year we did not have a reading coach and it was not
085hired last year but we had one the year before. Is that correct? The 22 to 23. >> Yeah. >> So if you look at the ELA scores at the lower level, they all went up or level grade four ELA went up um and grade three stayed level, grade five went up and ELA too. So I mean I think there's support to say that it does make a difference. And we've heard it loud and clear from our teachers as well um about that. Our admin team is saying we need that we need to have those people that are specifically trained in teaching how to read that that that critical element. >> So time stamp for this meeting about 6:58 a.m. to 7:36 people can watch this and prepare for coming to talk about the budget next
086month because uh I know one of the big complaints is nobody ever knows when we're going to talk about the budget. So, we're talking about it next month on the the 9th. Uh, and this is a pretty good segue into that meeting of what we're going to need, why we're going to be seeing. >> And this is just a stop, by the way. We're we're we're in November, just in the start of November, but we're start to see things, right, that we're going to say we're going to need for next year. [clears throat] Some of the things we put in place, we don't need we don't even know that. We don't even know we know yet. But one thing that we're hearing from the people is they need to have some skill sets in terms
087of technology. We're absolutely seeing that need take place. >> I'm curious like you know we identify the fifth grade teacher who is consistently getting her readers up to 80%. in ELA. I'm curious, are her skills like washed or like does she coach other teachers? Like I like you know identifying amazing educators with from within. Can other people could probably benefit from what how she's teaching the curriculum that is technically the same across the board >> and and that's what happened today, right? Those teachers all working together, right? We broke them up from primary to to in the secondary and the elementary like sharing their skill sets today. But to if I sure please um to your point I think we could really have like a model classroom right we can have model classrooms across the
088district but that's a whole piece of culture that needs to get worked in when we don't have days across the district right we do have the second faculty meeting I can appreciate that but that's building based right so in order for fifth grade in Berlin to have that opportunity with this grade in and boilston right th those additional professional development dates need to be thought about again the calendar I think needs to be thought about in a different light I can very much appreciate I'll be very blunt that the planning we weren't prepared to know what that really looked like and to be effective last year we also didn't have the support of a specialist in place to facilitate that professional learning right this is a different understanding now right so we did a oneoff
089year it maybe wasn't the best and now it's like geez we could have learned from that and implemented right so nobody's fault right just but when we're looking at that calendar for next year really something to consider because it takes time because we have to train you we have to have a whole culture shift in order to get teachers in one another's classroom it's a great way and and to be honest high performing districts do it and low performing districts do it they take those model classrooms and they learn from one another but they have a plan um based and and they have time. So that would that's something that I think would be excellent and I think they'd be willing right if they have that time >> but it's even coverage for that right
090so having that model classroom for people to go and visit it while she's teaching right we're trying to develop that culture John and Rod and Renee are doing walkthroughs to our classrooms but for me being able to say honest conversation the fifth grade teachers in Bolston we're going to give you the next three hours off traveling to go sit in that fifth grade classroom in Berlin we need coverage for that to happen Right? All of that is what we need to take place, but it's going to cost us money for subs to be able to hire them for the day and say, "Okay, fifth grade, you're going to spend it in here for three hours and three hours, the fourth grade teacher, go visit in Bon, but they're doing well in that fourth grade class."
091All of this is what we want. The other piece of this is elementary teachers, I can only speak to elementary teachers are as a rule, not forever, but as a rule uncomfortable holding themselves up as role models. Oh, that good. It it's it's unfortunate, but it's true. And that fifth grade teacher is a perfect example of Cheetah. I'm going to mention her success rate. Part of the part of the reason that coaching is different than like tutors, you know, highly paid tutors is that you want coaches who will go in and I know Mr. Fla has done some of this and have that difficult conversation that doesn't get back to the boss. It's not evaluative. It's just, hey, you might want to think about being manipulatives when you do that lesson. You might want to
092not go right to the algorithm when you do that lesson. We need people who can kind of speak truth to teachers in a way that they can hear that they don't find threat because that's how that's one of the ways you grow. It goes back to the culture, right? Like you've heard me say everybody needs a coach, right? And we're not used to that in our community, right? We used to say I used to say Tom Brady even had a coach. Someone's training them, working with them to get them for debt. We we're we're slowly moving in that direction so people can feel comfortable up doing that. Honest conversation though, right? You're right at the last budget. Some of our teachers got up and said, "What do you want to cut?" And they said, "Cut
093our coaches." Right? Because they don't realize and appreciate the value of them. Um and they're so important to be able to help our teachers and work with our teachers and work with our admin on that culture as Rene said. >> Thanks guys. Jess, >> one more question. every day. Um, so you mentioned 2013 there's been like a steady decline um and there was a you know we cut some things for um ELA. >> I don't know that this specific year I was we were kind of looked historically like when did this happen and I was I was told probably about when the the build like when the new building came in there was some you know so it could have been but I don't quote me on that. Just another interesting coincidence like if it
094was around 2013 that's when smartphones started having apps and became have algorithms to be more addictive and phones stopped being tools. So it's just an interesting thing to point out that we don't read as much anymore too. >> Yeah, absolutely. Right. >> So they gave you some good data. You have a lot of data there. If there specific questions, please email either Renee or John and we'll sort of get that information data to you. And just one one last clarification, our teachers are all working hard both at the elementary school and the middle of high school. It just looks a little different, right? What their days look like. Um but everyone is is extremely working hard and we're starting to see some good results up there, but we need to continue and look at have
095a hard look at some of those things that we're not getting success in right now. >> Thank you, Rene. Thanks, John. >> Thank you to all the educators. >> Yes. >> Al, you have something to say about buses? Yeah. Sorry. So, my next thing is just about that Beacon um connect app. Um I just wanted to give a little clarity about that. I've got a couple of um comments on that. So, we finally got that app in place. I should say the bus company finally got that app in place. It's called Beacon Connect app. Um the app tracks the bus, not the individual students. Okay. It tracks the bus. Um but I I guess one of the things that we heard and we had a look into it with Joe and myself and Aaron and
096Jen. um you you're given one number, right? That's the first number they call in terms of where you can program in when you're going into beacon connected. They drew that information. We shared with them power school information. P school when you're putting your information in P school, we don't control this. Let me be clear about that. They ask for the father's name first, then the mother's name second. It's just the way power school is set up across this country. So we gave that information to Beacon Connect. The first number that was drawn was the father's number. So there is nothing else there besides the information from from beacon and I know parents were asking us why is it my husbands are the father and not the mother just was the way it came through through
097powers school. Joe am I missing anything with that Aaron am I missing anything on that? No, just if people have issues, um, use the Beacon Connect email. That's your first line. >> And everyone received home, um, as well as all of you received that school committee this, um, app that came through um, that we shared out. It's really they're they're the they're the first line. If there's any issues, if they're not get resolved with that, then certainly let our our principles in um, our admin assistants know about that. But really, they're the ones to be calling. Um, but so far we've sort of, you know, eye those little things here. >> What's the significance of the telephone number? Is that who's who's called in case of emergency? >> That's how you sign up. >> So
098[clears throat] everyone realized like all the moms got on and were like as the primary phone number, but the first number that was in the system was all the dads. >> Yep. So, it was all it all went through the power school and it just drew the daff number first on that. >> Okay. Um, and that's my report to school. Thank you. >> Thanks everybody. >> Um, all right. Up next, Jess, do you have an update for yourself committee? >> No. Uh, I think we've not discussed in other meetings. We're waiting for the superintendent. >> Okay. Uh, Megan. >> Yeah, we met and um we talked about the SRO um or potential for an SRO. So, uh, the majority of the meeting was a public comment session. Um, and then we kind of left it
099as, um, Al let us know that I guess there was a survey question on the district improvement plan survey that went out that was asking um, families uh, you know, community members how they felt about an SRO. Um, so we're hoping to get some feedback off of that. Um but really no resolutions drawn, just a lot of information given. Both police chiefs spoke. Both are in favor of it. And the public comment was mixed. There was some in favor, some not in favor. Um obvious the admin team was not in favor for the reason of the budget um and just the funding. So, at the end of the day, um I think it's something that we can, you know, decide if we put something in the budget, but really I think it kind of is
100something that has to go through the towns. Um >> did you get a number on how much >> we did not he did not present a number, right? >> No, they had all different ideas. So, one of the ideas was, you know, to do some we talked about a phased approach. So, maybe you just do something part-time. Um, in Berlin, I guess they have a DARE officer, which is Officer Goodie. He comes in and he does a DARE program at the Berlin uh, elementary school. We don't have that in Boilston. So, we talked about maybe um, seeing pricing that out. Uh, but one of the things we did draw the conclusion of was that in Boilston that had it had to go through the town budget. That was how the Boilston chief was adamant that
101it needed to be something that was on the town budget and worked out with the town and then they would build the school district back for that. So there were no prices discussed at that meeting. >> So the police said they would build a school for the time that they've been in. >> That was how Boilston had framed that if the town agreed to fund an SRO. Uh the point was he wanted the officer to be on the town's budget in the event that >> [clears throat] >> um if you know obviously the school leadership changes he he doesn't want that position to be at the whim of the school committee or the the schools he wants that position to be reporting in through the police and you know part of the police budget. >>
102Regarding the billing back to the school did you get a number for that amount? >> There were no numbers discussed. It was literally just to I think it was more to get information from the police chiefs on how it would work and if they were interested and gauge if the public is actually interested and honestly it was mixed. So I think we ended it with taking a look at the survey before we decide if it's a an item that we want to advocate for. Let me clarify with Chief Shartner that the school is not paying for officer goody. This is so what we [snorts] would be asking for is through the town. So to and then you discussed that even replicating the whole situation is just not even an option. [laughter] >> Right. And I
103don't think there we'd have to Aaron would have to sit and work to get a a number because this person would do training on the police side, right? So those hours and and the the the individual could work for the police force. They're not going to be working full-time for the school district. It would be, you know, school hours or whatever is needed. [clears throat] So they'd have to figure out >> if they do it on an hourly rate or how that's worked out. That would have to be something that was um sparsed out. But I think the first step is going back to is this something that towns are able to put on their budget and >> warming up what we're asking? >> Yes. >> Specifically, like what are we asking for? Because you
104can't price something if we don't know what we're >> right. And we need to gauge the interest in the community. I mean, we've it's just kind of worked out perfectly that Renee and Lisa, I guess I had no idea that was on the survey because somebody asked somebody in public comment actually said, "Why don't we survey and see if people there actually is interest?" We did a forum before >> and she said, you know, there was very little parent turnout. So, and then uh Lisa said, "Hey, it's already on the survey that went out." >> It hasn't gone out yet. >> Oh, so we're we're finalized. So, we haven't had a second, right, with the last couple of days. So, the street set No, it's set to go out this week, right? >> It was
105set to go out. Yeah. >> No, we're we're ready to have it go out. We're looking for that final front page telling parents about it. Um, but the question is added on there. I got to thank Lisa, myself, Renee spent hours um and hours going over the questions about and looking at those questions as a parent, as a student, as an alumni, as an admin. Um, but also we had to do a test group of people. So, we're not going to just send the survey. So, we set it out and said, "Okay, are we having any glitches here?" We're working that out as well, too. There is a question added about cell phones, right? About getting input on that. Question added on about also about the school resource officer because we're hearing from pockets. We
106had a meeting on a th Tuesday at 5:00, right? We had a small group of people show up. Let's really see what our community feels about this and all that data will be helpful for us with climate and culture and everything that goes on with strategic plan. There's I mean also so like goodies providing like DARE and so I'm curious like I mean Boise used to have a DARE officer back in the 90s and so I'm curious like is there a separate question? >> Yeah. So, so just for clarity, I could be out of my lane here, right? >> There's no dare anymore, right? He's using >> He just used that term. >> Yeah. So, dear hasn't been around. >> I don't think so. >> What did What is it actually called? >> You know,
107John, >> I I think he's using the deer curriculum still, which is fine, but there's really no deer. >> Yeah, >> but he's just going in and he's definitely going in and giving a program or something like that in at BMS. So, we did talk about, you know, I left it with John that, you know, we did or the police chief from Boilson. Is there a potential to do something like that in Boilston as well? Again, obviously the school committee would have to approve that and want that, but all that would filter through the town budget. That would not come back to the school's budget if they went and did something at the elementary school. That would be on the police budget, which is what the chief wants. and and I I I spoke to
108both town managers, right? And and the the message to to me and sharing with you guys is [clears throat] what are you taking off the plate, right? So, what what what else, you know, here wise that we're looking for adding on. Um but I think we the first thing to like everyone said, let's get that survey out gets from feedback from everybody in the entire community what they feel about having a school resource officer in our schools, a true school resource off officer. And if that's not what you want, is there some sort of other method? look and we really phrased the question well so to get parent input on it but it is the question that's added on that that strategic plan survey >> can people free type responses on that or >> yes
109there is a spot to to free response on a lot of things >> so people should if people feel strongly about things that's a perfect forum for people to if they're unable to make the school committee meetings or they don't feel comfortable writing an email this is a perfect forum >> we spent hours and hours going over each question to make sure we're able to really get the the pulse of what's going on in our community so we're not just having these one-offs here or there. People saying all these people feel this way. Here's an opportunity, right? Um we we want that. We we even did that with our strategic plan. Even to do the SWAT analysis, we need people to show up for those things and and give us feedback. So, we didn't have
110many people show up as we know. Um very limited amount of people showed up for my strategic plan. Renee, not to put you on the spot, but very How many people >> for the community forum? Yep. >> 12 >> for our home and educa educators. How many >> six >> educators? >> Six. So we're we're not we're hearing that all this stuff is happening out here from school, right? This is all happening. People are feeling this way. We need your input. So we get maybe people couldn't attend those strategic planning meetings that we had them at night. We had them every event that we possibly could after school, different locations. So now we're going to do the survey. So, here's the survey. Please give us your information. Please give us your feedback so we can
111have that. >> Yeah. Is the survey anonymous? >> Um, it's anonymous to us. It does not go to us. >> To us, it goes out through So, it'll go out in several different ways. It will go out through the school kind of um [clears throat] school like school messenger like as a a blast, but it'll also go out through the town's um email databases. So like for example, if you sign up in Merlin or Boilston to get all the notifications of town meetings, that becomes an email database, right? So it goes out and blasts. Um I don't I don't think it retrieves the email back and if it did it wouldn't come to us. It would this is an outside provider remember. So this is teaching learning alliance, right? So they're sending the survey. We're
112not sending it. >> Right. So you can't see who's how. Yeah. So I think this is a great form for people if they have thoughts and they aren't comfortable with putting their thoughts in an email or coming and speaking at a meeting or showing up at a meeting, maybe they want them heard anonymously. This is perfect. >> Yeah. in in we're working with a company that this is what they do for a living. Do surveys, right? We we you know, we learned through COVID the way you write a survey, the way you write a question up, right, might elicit certain responses. This is what they do for a living. We worked on it for hours. We gave it to them and they're like, "Okay, let's maybe check this and check this." So, we're not looking
113to get a certain response from people, but um we we hired this company to work with us. So, we'll be and that that cover letter is on me. I'll be working on that tomorrow. So, we'll be able to get that out on Wednesday. Thank you for the time. >> Thank you, Lisa, for that. You did some great work in that including me. >> Uh there's no policy update either. Uh anyone want to make another public comment? Second chance of public comment. Jump up. Come on. Uh future agenda items. Uh I want to mention one. So a couple weeks ago, uh town administrator Boilson reached out asked if we could get a a meeting for them to tell us about the budget. uh the dates they threw out didn't work. There were a lot of uh
114superintendent serve dates uh over mixing them. So I they also had didn't include Berlin in that. So I sent an email to both Berlin and Boilston uh inviting them to December 9th meeting because that's when Aaron is going to be giving us a first look at the budget. Might not be the full budget, but it's a first look right according to your schedule. Uh I heard back from Berlin. Uh the the town administrator is going to come possibly some chairs. I haven't heard back from Boilson yet, but I expect to. So, they're both invited to the December 9th meeting to talk about the budget. Um, >> and along that budgetarily wise and the regional agreement wise, they're looking at that budget wise. So, they want us to keep revisiting this regional agreement. So, I know
115you said you heard it at one of the town meetings that you went to or heard, right? This is a conversation that's happening. They want us to be looking at this regional agreement as we should. All right. >> Um yeah, I just want to mention again I mentioned last time about January community night um anxious generation and cell phones. Um I just want to kind of put it again back on the agenda in December. Um or hopefully after the superintendent search has ended for a January event to hopefully catch parents maybe in fifth grade or fourth grade before spring and looking towards going up to the middle school think about cell phones. Right. And and I would just add to that one of the things that we're learning about and working on. We're not even
116here AI, right? So we haven't even talked about that as a school committee. There's a lot of school committees and hopefully these next couple days we're going to learn a lot more about it about policies that we're going to be asking school committee to come up with with artificial intelligence. I know they have some um conversations that happening with Renee and Lisa, but we're we're the kids are furtherheaded with AI than we are right now. And we really need to be looking at that. It's not going away. So, how >> the state has a task force as well working on things to >> uh business items. Um, I have a motion for the approval of the graduation requirements. >> So, moved. >> Megan. >> Second. >> Lori, this was in the drive. Same. Al, do
117you want to give a little note on this? First, >> I know she presented myself. >> This was the first [cough and clears throat] read from last time. >> It was the first read from last week. Uh, last month. Y Is there any change from what was given to us for the first read, please? >> Um there um so I I I did submit a um a letter um identifying um the graduation requirements without the MCCAST requirement. So it really is a decision between do you want to retain the MCCAST as a requirement or do you not want to retain the MCAST? So there are two um there are two proposals. Um if we retained MCCAST as a graduation requirement, we would be the only district in Midwatch to do so because of the vote,
118you know, the the November vote. we retained it because we we knew that it would impact anybody who was graduating and so we were bringing this forward um you know at this time and so that's really the difference >> and your recommendation >> and my recommendation is to um is to not have it because currently on the docket for the state the governor is putting forth information on EOCC's and of course exams as opposed to having MCCAST. So that that is the legislation that's coming down the line. >> All right. So the letter you gave us does say your recommendation is to exclude MCCAST. That's what the motion was for. That's what the vote is for. >> To approve [snorts] that letter. >> What's that? >> To approve her letter. >> To approve the graduation
119requirements, which she is suggesting would exclude MCCAST. So a vote yes is to remove MCCAST from graduation requirements. Any questions, Lisa? >> And just clarity, we're still going to be given the MCCAST. The importance is still of that. We need to make sure all of our students and families take it. It will be a data, right? And scholarships that go along >> in the money that comes to us from the federal government because of that. The John Adams and Abigail Adams scholarships that go along with that. >> Make sure your kids know it's still important and it'll pay off late farther down the line. That's right. And that's why when they're sitting for that MCCAST that they realize it's still important. >> All right. Uh, anything else? All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone against
120it? Okay, that motion passes the approval of the new math program. Are we calling this the new math program or we What are we calling this? >> Joey, you want to join us? Pip. >> Okay. >> We're not calling the new math program though, Joey. Right. Yeah. What What are we What do we approve? What do we approve? >> I ready. >> Can I have a motion to approve the adoption of the I Ready Math program? >> All right, Beth and Lori, got it. Um, everybody, I think you guys got a chance to take home some materials and take a look at them. The um, math scholars want to talk about them. >> I trust you. You guys did a lot of work and I trust all the work that you guys put into it.
121So, >> I will say we we had a chance to look at it today with the full staff and we so I've presented to a couple of committees at this point. So, you've heard my spiel about how we really tried to make sure that it was from the ground up. We had the teachers make the rubric. We had the committee look at the rubric to measure all of these. We started with curate which is the the status that you have to pick from this program in order to apply for certain uh grants. And that's only going to be widened as we go further. Um I think the things that really the takeaways for me um were that we had kindergarten through fifth grade all unanimous unanimously uh behind this program. Then when we took it
122to the middle school and high school um we had them look at it. They also were supporting it. They felt it was more in line with the way that they expected the students to reach them. Um so for me if I could get kindergarten and high school to agree on the same program felt like it was a good match. I think it really uh you guys talked about the reading and writing up there a lot. This program really puts a lot more emphasis on the student discourse. Um something we've talked about in PDS in years past is about taking sort of the the traditional approach of the teacher being in the front of the room and talking for the whole time. It really spends a lot of time removing that piece and having the students
123talking to each other and having the students explore and learn. Um so for that many people today we did a um PD with all of the teachers giving them a chance to explore it and overall it felt really really positive. There were a lot of really good comments um people really digging into it and looking so they they seem excited and that's always a good feeling when you get people excited about math. So, um, overall I think it's a it's a and I followed up the comedian. So, I really it was not an easy sell. Um, but I think overall if that many people are excited about it, there's really because I've had the math committee, the teachers who served on that as active participants. They were going around and asking questions. So, we had
124a a lot of um a lot of engagement with it, which was great to see. >> Awesome. >> I see that T. >> Thank you. Final comments. All right. Uh, the motion is on the table. So, all in favor? >> Anyone against it? >> All right, that motion passes. So, what that means math working with Karen to put that in the budget. So, you'll see that come now that we approve this math program. Again, you don't approve individual books, but we're doing a curriculum across the entire district. We want the approval for school committee and teachers obviously. and then we'll be coming to the budget process and seeing about being able to afford that and put it in the budget. >> Thank you. These next two items, Al, are you suggesting these to be done
125separately or as one because they are embedded in each other? I I I would hope. Well, we'd like to do it as one because it is the the student handbook, right? Um we know that there was a little conversation, say a little about the athletic handbook piece of it. Um we heard public comment um today as well too. We've had a number of meetings with coaches as well too. Um we we appreciate we had a meeting here [snorts] um recently with all of our our coaches um that were invited um with our athletic director. Lisa, if you want to join us up here as well too. Um all of our coaches including Beth Mancini by the way who is one of our volunteer um coaches who coaches cheerleading. Um and by the way just for
126the record because I've heard right small community she doesn't get paid her she it's volunteer um she did all the ethics and reported it there was no conflict of interest. So we received that information both to the chairman and myself. So I'm sorry you had to go through all that whole process to do that for a volunteer job um that you had to go do all that even with the attorney. So thank you for doing that. Um, but we had a chance to meet all of our coaches together and give feedback and we came with an unanimous decision. Um, and Lisa is going to share it. So, to answer your question, we'd like to approve it all in one month. >> Just said yes. >> Okay. Sorry. [laughter] >> Yes. I got to get that
127in about as well too. That's >> Thank you for the details. I appreciate that. >> Okay. >> Um, Lisa, before you go ahead, uh, so it's listed on here twice. That's why I asked the question here. So I'm going to ask for a motion to approve the Tahhat student handbook and athletic handbook which is embedded in the student handbooks together as presented in the single document that we have available. >> So moved >> Megan second. >> I heard Lori first. Sorry. Lisa, a quick update. What do we are we what are we doing? What's what's the big change? >> So the big >> on page 39. >> Um I know I'm trying. Okay. So here on Well, on the athletic handbook, uh, >> 89 >> on page 90. >> Yes. 899. >> 8990. So, it's
128really about the process putting in place the process for participation for middle school students. And I think that that has was something that was lacking. Um, previously we only had a very small section that said sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students are expected to try out for middle school team. They may try out for JV if there isn't a middle school team or instructed to do so by the coach. So there wasn't a process in place. And so so you know building culture for an athletic program and trying to move in a in a direction um where there are more guidelines in terms of you know how how sports participation um is managed is important. So we sat as a group and identified an appropriate process um through which this could happen in making sure
129that students are academically um physically and emotionally ready um to participate in sports um at the middle school level and what level they should be playing at because there we see that there's very different circumstances in the circumstances have changed because of so many club sports and and so so we have really had to put in place a process because there are so many you know our there's so many different teams there's so many different situations that we can't dictate every single sport I can't say you know this this per these people can play at this sport and not this sport. We we just had to have a process and including coaches, parents, you know, administration, athletic director. >> So that process is on page 90 here. And to summarize it, like you just said,
130sixth to eth expect you to go from middle school. But if those individuals, coach, athletic director, parents, principal are involved, if potential to play up, it's laid out here on page 90. And so that's what we're approving right now. >> Can I just ask one question? I noticed under D roster protection, it says no upper classman grades 9 through 12 may be cut from a J team to make room for middle school student. Did you not include varsity because it's such a rarity that a middle school student would play varsity? >> Yes. Okay. And then then if you read the document from like top down top down, there's like stop gaps in between. So, and and and that was I think we all kind of got caught in it when we were talking as a
131group, but you have to you have to read through the document. The process is a process like a step process. So, that so you have to read it that way. >> That was what I assumed as I went down, but I just wanted to double check because it did. That's that was my feeling. But, >> right. Yes. >> And we finally have a process that we're trying to get in place. Right. So, and we need to make sure our our high school principal is involved with that process as well as the parents and our athletic director, not just the coach making any decision. No one should be making any decision in isolation, but getting team involvement on that. >> Any other comments on it? >> Yeah, I was curious. So like up number three, A3,
132you know, it says parent guardian notification and approval before they try out. But then under B, like playing up halfway through the season, it doesn't say parent or guardian approval. So I'm curious >> because the tryyouts would be approved. >> So that particular individual would have had to have the the approval to try out. They weren't originally chosen, but then halfway through then that could change. Okay. All right. So there's still parent approval for that. >> It's that whole September call >> baseball fans. >> It goes back to what our parents said, right? Like every child's different. >> All right. Any other questions on it? >> Yeah, Beth, I mean, you were there. Do you feel like the coaches? This is >> I could only stay for an hour. So, the real meat I feel
133like took place after I >> It was very collaborative. We really, it was the first time I believe that so many coaches were in the same room and it was a really meaty conversation, a much needed conversation and we also walked away with understanding that you know what different levels of coaching were feeling about the process. us what different sports were feeling because it's very different because when you're talking cross country or track and field it's very different than when you're talking >> contact sports >> or even the baseball coach right he's like I don't want my student pitching to a sixth grader right or standing on that right so it was >> so and I think that was important and we came to realize that there has to be more of those conversations ations
134and really developing programs based on what we're seeing in sports. So if we see that there's this really um you know large influx of students who want to play soccer then you know how how do we manage that? We want everybody so what are we looking to do as a group? >> There were es and flows in that meeting for certain right facilitated a really good meeting along with the other administrators as well too and our athletic director. So thank you for that. All right. Um, anyone else? >> So, I'm curious. So, like at the end, was this kind of like the draft that was >> we were typing and the editor made everybody agreed on this. Did everybody agree on this? As are we? Yeah. I mean, it was very >> each word. We
135went bullet by bullet. >> Great. That's awesome. >> Yeah. Thank you so much. >> Nice job facilitating that. >> You did. >> Anything else, Jess? No, I just, you know, a lot of public comments and so it's good to know. >> All right. All in favor? >> Anyone against it? >> Okay, the motion passes. Uh, next is the nature classroom nature's classroom dates. >> Yep. So, I know there was a conversation last time about first the financial fun Thanks, Lisa. Financial fundraising for nature's classroom. This is to approve the dates for nature's classroom. It's May 19th which is a Tuesday we start online and the last day is May 22nd which is a Friday of 2026. So it's a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It's obviously happening in Charleston Mass. But we're asking because it's
136an overnight field trip for you guys to approve that on the record and then we'll have Mike you sign off as the chair um um approving an overnight field trip which all school committees have to approve first and then signed off by the chair. >> Al, we don't approve these dates. Are there other options? >> No. Okay. >> So we learned a lesson. We booked the dates ahead of time as John said because they book up fast. So we really just need you to approve these if we could. Could >> I have a motion to approve the nature's classroom dates for May 19th, 2026 through May 22, 2026. >> So move. >> Yes. >> Second. >> Megan. Any questions on that? >> All right. All in favor? >> Anyone against it? All right, that's approved.
137um the bees roof. Aaron, could you come up and talk to us about this? >> Sure. Thank you. >> So, you have a memo from me. Uh I was at a meeting of the uh Boilston Select Board on October 14th. Um the uh the discussion was around uh the proposal from uh the designer and the contractor to uh replace the BDS roof. Uh, the select board was in favor of doing the full project. You'll see highlighted in in yellow the 4,113 Whoops, sorry, I took my glasses off and I shouldn't have. Uh, 4,113,68. Um, that would be done through uh a combination of MSBA funding and uh a debt exclusion bond um that the town would take out um So you're looking at about 50% give or take. It's probably 52% might be picked up
138by MSBA. Um that final calculation will come when they figure all of that out. Um but uh this does include some contingency money. Um you know the the ch next challenge is going to be this is going to have to go to town meeting and then to uh a vote by the residents of Oilston. um it wouldn't impact Berlin um as it would sit on Boilston's books for capital. >> So Aaron, even if we approve this, it's it's not a done deal. It's got to go through town meeting just town meeting and [clears throat] are they doing a separate meeting? >> For for a debt exclusion bond, you would need a town meeting than an actual election. So the >> right so it's like like last year it'll be Yep. >> Just like the fire
139station, it's going to be the same exact thing, >> right? So, was it always this number, four million the roof? >> Um, it's it's been this number since so we we I mean this hasn't gone back I know this goes back quite a way as the roof. Um, this proposal came out in early September. So, this is why, you know, it went to the town of Boilston. Uh, April and I have been back and forth a couple times about, you know, whether this would be something the select worker would support. Um, and interestingly, we took it with, uh, these alternates. We wanted to give them some options to look at. Um, they were pretty much set to go the full um, if we're going to do it, let's just do the whole thing. Let's do
140it right. This will uh do uh the roof will be PVC which is a higher grade material. Uh it is easier to patch you um actually somehow weld it rather than patch it. Um so uh it's I I don't know much about PVC roofs. Uh April seemed a little more knowledgeable than me, but it's a it's it's a a cleaner process to patch the roof. And this is both Boilson Select Board and Finance Committee are good with this number, >> I believe. So, well, this was a select board meeting. Um, so I I don't know. >> So, I'm trying to get at if we approve this number tonight, are they going to come back and yell at us and say, "No, what are you doing? That's crazy. >> Select board already approved it." But I
141don't think we're This isn't a number that we have to approve. I I think they just want >> We have an option. This is the MSBA. This is what So, this is through the state. if we don't do this, it's their decision if they do less. But the other there was a lesser quote, but it wasn't through the MSBA and it wasn't to do the full roof. It was to just like put resurface it and then we'd have to pay for that ourselves, which would be about $1.5 million. So it'd be about the same. This we get $2 million from the state or two million and change from the state. The other one the town would have to pay. So when it comes to our budget vote for town meeting, does any of this get
142into our budget that we approve that if that doesn't pass at town if the roof doesn't pass at town meeting, the whole budget doesn't pass? >> Not not not directly. No, not the operating budget. So if anything, this would hit some of the capital considerations, but again, it's a so there's conversation about, you know, this would be taken into consideration as part of our capital, but I mean, realistically, our needs are our needs, right? the conversation was >> even if the captain doesn't pass the town, >> if the boiler goes, the boiler needs to be replaced. I mean, that's that that's an amount that the town's going to have to come up with. So, you know, it's also a debt exclusion bond, so it's not necessarily going to hit um their excess cash and things
143like that. >> I think it's on the town budget, Mike, to answer your question. >> It's gonna be on the town budget. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> So, this isn't going to affect passing the school budget. No adjusting school budgeting warrant, right? >> It's a different warrant item. It's gonna be its own warrant. Okay. >> And we just wanted to make sure that you knew about it. And what they asked us to do is to put it in front of you guys for a vote. They wanted to make sure that you guys knew what's going on with this. >> This is supporting >> That's right. >> doing the full project. >> They they voted. >> Just want to make sure we're not shooting ourselves. No, they want they want us to be in alignment
144when it goes to town meeting so that it's not like oh the schools didn't want this but we did or oh well the schools wanted it but we didn't. They want everyone in alignment and this is what they decided they wanted to do. So this is the I think it's the best case scenario for the school. >> Without getting ahead of myself I would imagine the schools want it >> but at the expense of literacy coaches and other teachers and two high school teachers. You know that's what I'm trying but it's a separate thing. Yep. >> Cool. >> Separate. And this is we're getting two million from the state on this. So if you're thinking about it like that, this is the only if you don't >> So going for two million from the town
145and 2 million from give or take. Yeah. >> But if you don't you pass up on this opportunity. >> Yeah. You lose that. Yeah. >> MSBA. >> You you would never want to give up money coming from the state, right? No matter what it is, right? Free money. Free money comes in. Let's be clear though that free money we've been working [laughter] really hard for the amount of paperwork with April and myself and I mean this is like free it's not nothing's free let's be very clear about this >> probably quarter of >> the amount of signatures and you know certifying information we like it's been a lot of work to get this >> so Aaron you have a recommendation here so could I have a motion please to confirm the our school committee's intent
146to pursue the proposed full boilston elementary school roof project through MSBA VA and a total estimated cost of $4,113,68 in conjunction with the October 14, 2025 affirmative vote of the town of Boilston Select Board. >> So second, >> Lori Megan. Okay, any further questions? All those in favor? >> Anyone against it? >> Okay, that motion passes. Thank you, Eric. >> Thank you very much. >> Uh, next is another executive session. We're going to vote to go to exe executive session. We will not return to open session. There is no vote, but there is an update. Executive [clears throat] session pursuant to May I have a motion to enter executive session pursuant to mass general laws chapter 38 section 21A purpose 3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining. BBRSD custodial staff team serves local
147170 if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of public body to the chair. So >> declares so move. >> Megan Lori. >> Roll call. A >> Hi, >> Gloria. >> Hi, >> Jess. >> Hi. >> All right, we're going to go into executive session. Thank you.