001all right we're going to call this meeting of Berlin Bo Regional schol committee to order thank you could you all please stand PL Allegiance United States Amica all right thanks everybody um 15 minutes of public comment if anybody's here yep go on up in the front uh name address and uh what you want to talk about Jason Berlin um daughter is an eth grader here son is a fifth grader ATS um regarding upcoming budget stuff um how the fiscal 24 and 25 budgets were handled by both the district and the town damage trust at this point it doesn't matter how why or who was right or wrong what matters now is that the district facing the voter base that is skeptical and in some cases out might possible and spiteful hopefully that's a minority but
002they're also very vocal and perhaps influentially last year's presentation of the voters felt like a false choice between two polar options either accept massive tax increases or except the loss of all electives and extra per District failed to rationally explain why there was no middle ground available why was a modesty increase with some modest reductions not possible and asking for a large increase there was virtually no transparency there was a few top level numbers on a slide deck but no supporting information or commentary behind those numbers until after count meeting last year we request that a budget book similar to what as and other districts make available so it is promising to he that a budget book will be in outl of distri budget process P for to its availability with that in mind I
003offer a suggestion for your consideration please help the voters understand why the only options are large tax increases or cing and cuts if the district is running so lean that there are no impact sa then please demonstrate that with supporting evidence and commentary tell us your story with supporting data last year there was live discussion but no documentation to illustrate the point about a large portion of the budget but cannot be cut due to State requirements or capacity considerations such as 50 kids in a grade level have must have two teachers and so on to help illustrate how Le the district is already running if that is the case it would be helpful to see the budget articulated in terms of min requirements versus discretionary as then if we have to because this is where
004they have to come from as this story was not being well articulated or supported by the district last year I personally spent hours pouring over n school spending data comparing it to comp Ral nearby rural districts trying to learn if the district is running lean or has room to T it Bel that story should be told by the district to all voters who need to hear it tell us your story dat it would be helpful to see not only the top drivers of increasing cost but also where the district has Gree savings that help offset required increases for example there has been some discussion about seeking savings from agency costs by hiring those positions directly what other areas has the district look for savings or reductions please demonstrate what specific efforts have been made to
005rein in costs tell us your story with supported data the general sentiment from parents with students in the district tends to be that we choose to live here because it is a great district and we don't want to see it g that sentiment can only absorb so much in terms of tax increases the rates increases are we've seen are going to become untenable if they haven't already it doesn't seem reasonable that the only choices are major tax hikes or just I don't see anybody anybody else no he's not all right all right one last time for public comment anybody out there all no all right uh could I please have uh any Communications that you might receive anyone no all right then could I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda so I
006heard Lisa second and Megan second all right any discussion questions on that that uh has a warrant and two meeting minutes the warrant will have some spending information out there as well uh people are interested in looking at that it should be available online any questions all in favor I all right against okay um for my report tonight I'm just going to briefly read uh a little summary of our meeting last night so for those who don't know we had a meeting last night to discuss um the superintendent search and what we're going to do our next steps for that uh so last night we met with our masc rep to discuss these next steps and uh she did suggest several things Tracy Novak was here um she said based on our District's current status
007issues we've been dealing with uh the situation last year with the budget mess the fact that our current interim superintendent was thrust into a situation with uh virtually no team in place over the summer having to start everything over from scratch she suggested that it might be worthwhile to do an interim search for another year to give us time to repair and improve the situation with our district um mainly we're talking about things in the central office uh in order to make this a more appealing position for someone looking uh to be hired as our next superintendent uh so if we were to take that path we would still do a public search for an intern person Ally you'd be more than welcome to apply for that position if you were interested I don't know
008if you would be or not uh and I think uh what we agreed last night uh although we didn't vote it uh was that that might be our preferred approach uh and so we do have a last minute addition to tonight's agenda uh to add that as a vote so we'll discuss it later on that uh just a few more notes about last night Tracy did go over the timeline of a full search and what that would mean for finding a permanent replacement for our superintendent if we were to start this winter uh she suggested and we kind of agreed with her that it would make it a bit rushed uh process if we were to start this winter based on the timing of where things are and it might be more natural fit to
009start a full superintendent search at the beginning of the school year have that sort of full year start new school start new search and then give plenty of time for a transition period um she also discussed what the search might look like if we started at the beginning of the year giving us some more breathing room to actually prepare documentation to get ready for that search to put together a proper search package uh and it would be you know more natural fit uh so there's probably a lot of questions right now about why we didn't just start a full search right away in August when we heard that um so in August uh we didn't start immediately once we heard that Carol costell decided to end her cont contct after the first year uh if
010you remember at the time central office was having a hell of a time actually paying the electric bill never mind anything else so uh it was kind of all we could do to get someone in place with two weeks to go before the start of school to just lead us through here we found Al and he he was named our interm and even though we looked for other candidates uh only two applied one was Al the other was uh the consultant who had been part of that that group over the summer uh so we have Al here now and later on tonight we're going to put a vote on whether we want to officially start an interim search or if we want to start the full-time permanent search this winter so that's my chair report
011that I have tonight update everyone we'll get to that later on in business items uh next up we have our superintendent of schools report so Al if you wouldn't mind taken away great thanks Mike um so if I can ask we're going to go a little bit out of water I know car here um he is our athletic director he's a little bit later on in administrative updates but um I know he's got a couple games going on he asked if you could go little earlier so G turn it over than that yeah I was asked to um talk about what I do you go front yeah so I think we have your power there so we're going to try uh ladies and gentlemen in the future to make sure everything um is put up
012on this bhead screen so people can see things there'll always be H copies but we're going to try to move away from that if we can we can have it um seene for everybody out there as well um just was GNA talk about what to do as an athletic director um first again it was a quick overview a few sheets I guess quick overv and sorry L I bringing the other team in and um just talking about budgeting first um you know I don't have a secretary or an assistant um so I order all the supplies for all the teams or set up the budget for all the supplies for all the teams and how we put that together Transportation I'm the one that sets up all the buses when we do it now you
013know I we have the game we set up a bus another piece of that is we have been had issues with the buses I'm sure you all know that overall buses but um a teacher here at school Chris cabino decided to be basically our personal bus driver from nrt signs up to nrt and then we get Park bus here so although we still have some issues sometimes and we got multiple games going on for the most part I mean it has been there are schools out there that having major issues we have a bus here park almost every time we have a chance to do we work around if they don't have a bus sometimes maybe a little bit later we have someone to bring them in but I mean it's it's been Chris compared
014to everybody else officials I'm I put the officials together I got to get them paid gotta write down every game um fast but there is probably somewhere else out there too field rentals our Fields have not been great towards the end of the season of also when rain comes they get flooded um so you know we've had to go a lot lot of area places but really going other places we haven't had come out of the too much I don't know what that'll look like in the future but a lot of I guess that um same with um EMTs we don't have a trainer that's another thing that we don't have here so when we have M AA games we have had quite a few over the past five years when we go into the
015state tournaments is required to have an em or official so fire has em great another big favor that we get um and then also putting together the whole the workforce for all of our gam um ticket sales to basketball is really the only one where we need a work course for selling tickets and putting together people outside but when we have an M AA game year whether it's soccer or basketball again or lacrosse we need to have ticket sales for those games it's you set up a whole outside section and all people we have B people at soccer games all the time but the entire Workforce put that that would really be the budget section of stuff I wanted to throw a few things on there scheduling um again schedule all the games now we
016are in the midw walk and being in the midw walk is a big Midland watch league is what it's actually called there's 26 schools in we are one of the smaller schools don't get me wrong but being a part of that um one advantage is you are in leagues a all schools are in leagues don't get me wrong but you know and being in P of the middle of Wachusett these leagues are a little bigger and half of your games get scheduled I would say about half and then I have to go out and get all different makeups for what we're not makeups um opponents for where we're going to go and I mean that just started last week so for fall fall schedule comes out last week in the middle watch C most schools
017February 1 and then we are already this past week I was setting up next ball which we're pretty much all we I've set it all pretty much have our game set when we're going to go but I mean that's how far in advance we are setting these things come March we'll be setting up next winter so that's been a big thing that's been going on this week trying to get BS SC set up transportation we already talked about the buses so what I we put that together uh coordinate communication with the co-op teams and communities you know we play West Bo and football um which has been big the past few years but we play Hudson hockey which has having a phenomenal year this year uh we play Hudson boys lacrosse we have lacrosse here
018here for girls West Boon comes to play with us um we have Cross Country Golf and track West Boon comes to play with USA ski we have some kids in the really good ski in I mean it's these co-ops put in organizing and trying to get everybody together it's another form of the schedu schedule officials talked about those um schedule of Workforce talked about that in the last one can be tough though trying to get people to do ticket sales or someone that wants to work at the side of a soccer game going to get the balls as they go off to the side but um the kids really really help us out on that um administer all these Games supposed to be out there right now for the middle school game two middle school
019games today and then JB comes in and vars for Gardener girls games today so um that's you know I'm administering all those games um this is but a big part is the changing of the schedule and I mean kind of example this week I've been watching weather since last Wednesday There's this week Thursday we could very well have a snow day or there's bad weather coming in I've been watching that since Wednesday and updating parents since Wednesday that this could happen it's also supposed to be our senior game come Thursday anyways I have to tell the other schools all our workers every over the weekend anyways come Monday I um finally pull the trigger and I I wanted to do it earlier make sure we have officials like officials can be short when you switch
020stuff up we're playing the day before tomorrow instead of going to Friday and as I did that a director came out that a lot of people were now trying to work to move Thursdays so I was a little ahead of it and they were told they cannot move them to Friday because IR enough officials so the fact that we move it we're not playing Wednesday at least we're not to wor about putting it into vacation um and we have officials where some people might not get and the reason not going to vacation is because our basketball teams are doing great again this year and they in the central M tournament so another thing today is trying to get everything together we are we are hosting they're both the one and the two seed in the
021Central Mass tournaments and we are playing on Monday now on President's Day over vacation yes and it's another day off yes but we had to get that done to be able to play the game so that's another an example of trying to all St um Minister I said that ches sched and then you know coordinating um facility of availability that's more of other people want to use our facilities you know got travel basketball in here on Sunday got to make sure we have practices still going on people want to use that baseball fields you have to make sure a wider rate SCH um let's go to registration this is longer than I would have liked um registration family ID Arbiter we got this last year so this will be our first time for the spring
022so this year we started with it has really been much easier we just do Google Sheets now we can send this out everybody registered once you register all your information is there um it's just an aspect of piece of technology that has made my life much easier as um this share has gone on also with this family idea uh ID aitor I probably say this later but I'll tell you now communication there is you click on button and I can do can email the entire season of everybody I can break it down to just players I can break it down to just one parent or a couple parents I can break it down to the team so today we have moved we just found out about the games are going to be Monday so I
023just literally before I walked in here sent out another email to all the parents of both boys and girls rby teams that they are now playing probably have to see on Monday over vacation of the two games that we had so it's you know it's a very really good for communication which for coaches to use for anyone to use especially for me to get it out to parents um physical that's involv regra but now to make physicals easier it was always trying to chase kids around trying to get find out if they're eligible play they cannot play it that pH physical expire day it expires you're done so you know I have the opportunity then hey it's it's going to expire so me and the nurse we can get our emails to those kids so
024know you got to make sure they have physical up today that Time payments not very good on that family ID arer you know I can write down the people PID but isn't really a spot to show how much they paid when they paid we have some that might be on you know um get a waiver and then just doesn't add it up and that's me trying to get them all together family caps just takes up a lot of time but at least it has a spot I can see that um that I think I to on that um another piece of this is um with Team organization you know registration data analysis to understand which teams have enough players trying to put everybody where they need to be sometimes we don't have enough to fill
025a team sometimes we our numbers to make sure we have everybody for all teams so this year actually have more time we had time and to do pre sign up so then I go around to all the kids first and find out who's playing what so that you know we only have 20 kids signed up so we might not have enough for a different team that we had or we got to put the kids in different spots or how many teams we're going to have and that's just pre-registration that's just me putting up like a Google form or going to everybody and then for two weeks doing a lunch making sure I get everybody signed up then finally they register and then we at least have a good idea that's especially for sket um hiring
026all the coaches and sometimes gener ready coaches um you know that's on me bring them in hopefully interview them with our other head coaches or the admin or whoever would like to be involved in that hiring process to get coaches um and then you know coordinating an outside candidate when we have someone in the school it's easier know it's nice person in school sometimes got to go outside school get people too post that outside and then bring them in have interviews more Cory CH and fingerprint you do that for everybody but as a teacher they have that already so now know a bigger bigger step to get them um award ceremony that's something I would like to change a little bit because um it's great we have this big huge awards ceremony at the end
027of the year but like to make that a little different that's something I would like to change up for next year um not put try put three hours into one night maybe have three different ones or individual you know it's a lot of planning we W use the auditorium but it might make it easier if we change that up a little bit um new this year again AR Ed that's a basically what it is is and teachers use it also but it's a platform that holds all the information for all the coaches that we need from signups that they had to um I think you coach down to certification like having CPR having um concussion having concussion training so this new arc Ed makes again life a little easier because all this somewhere says they're
028ready to go or it's 90% got to go get this other stuff and then also bringing back these preseason family meetings is now going to be another thing coming into play you know we've been us talking about send out medic sign all the information out but coming back now we're going to be able to put these pre-season meetings together which is people don't necessarily like them but we get all the families in here and then talk to them what we're looking for for just a few minutes but then they get to meet with the coaches and coaches their expectations it's actually pretty big to see it and do it person so that is something that we're going to bring back um communication again talked about this already I feel in the in the last couple
029but um how family ID makes it easier but communication also Daily I am doing this you know walking around a school checking the car it is and then while I'm doing that you know I can have these meetings with admin with the coaches that are in the schools in the school other schools in athletic cor is 90% of this job is done during the school don't get me wrong have our games in practices after the school but administering being there for the games but all the planning all the budgeting all that dealing with the other schools that we're going to be playing or or even players in our own school that is done during the school day and it's just you know it's very time consuming um and being able to be in the school
030and go around and talk to all these people and make sure and you know when they have prep or whatever or whether suddenly turns on a dime that is pouring out it's I can get that out and then I go right to family ID aitor and tell all parents hey don't have um and there's the weather that was that's weather coming that's the buses we got to talk about but then it's a lot easier when I have also um in um there's another piece though student supports which you know we got the brand this brand new um academic you know the quarterly support for struggling students now and we just you know put put put together a letter for that for these kids when they're struggling and how we can support them to you know
031so they can continue to play sports and then then make they get those grades up and do better we just put together a whole system for that that was you know just passed a little while ago um now I these we have ambassadors which are just you know kids in the school which are ambassadors for the sport for our school and for the the whole state and they have many workshops to go out to we got to get them there so I bring them to that these ambassadors they have workshops then they these ambassadors also go through the mid wus workshops and conferences um there's Mia leadership workshops and there's a ton of this stuff for our kids that we can use and this last one at the end of this ntq Workshop again supporting
032um mental health and um you know physical awareness of the kids too to be ready for when practice comes up that's another piece of just having more stuff for our athletes to be prepared for the season or after um when they're out of school we also get to go to the sportsmanship conference there's a women and Sport conference and another piece ntq up there with that is this Kyle cares and active Minds which you guys will be seeing in in a few weeks trying to get that into the school another one supporting of student mental health um that was it on student supports uh if you don't mind we're running a little short on time but I know I know some people have some questions goad um do you guys have some questions I specifically
033I'm interested in a few things you said um how that relates to you know our budget as as we had in public comment earlier we've got budget issues and this uh this position athletic director is full-time this year in the past has been part-time uh with the other half being a teaching position so I guess what we're looking for is what value does the new full-time position bring in terms of budget and costs what are we able to do now that we absolutely could not do before what improvements are happening what uh you know basically the return on that extra half full-time because correct me if I'm wrong maybe L you can help me with this but the we did a full-time athletic director and a full-time math coach it was split part-time math and
034part-time athletic director so that's an extra cost that's that's an increase so can we get some just some numbers I didn't see any numbers in the presentation but do you have some numbers like how we can see what kind of value that's bringing maybe it's easier on the math side but what what are we able to do now like I know there's issues with the fields we talked about that earlier this year right with so with the field so there's an example with the fields yeah we we have a game I can't have that game here I need to set up I find out that day that we can't have g i we don't have the time to set that up when I'm in class doing something I can talk right there real time to
035the other school hey we need to set this up then I need I need to come to you we need to play you we need to go to a different field um as far as far as the fields go so that's like in the moment situation something happens that day weather issues whatever um is there any movement on like a maintenance schedule getting that improved so we actually can do something going down to another meeting at 6:30 tonight talk field but that's another one for maintenance when we have issues I can help to get those fields ready now I might have if there is we have something and I you know we have to get that game in today I sometimes will have time if I need to be able to help ever might be
036the cause to get back game know same with the buses I you know we're talking about that switching buses up for the next week being real time being able to set those buses up to have them ready to go whereas when I'm you know sit in class that bus has been cancelled now I got a call for the for the bus company to what are we going to do get in touch with parents and you know the last couple of years often I can't get in touch with those parents Qui and I missed in you know middle school games to let not them know that the the bus was cancelled and now there kids that aren't going somewhere and they're stuck at school because they weren't able to get on the bus to go home
037because they missed the game because we didn't have time to get that it's just I mean it is the time that now I can talk with all these schools of what's going on that I can talk with all with the bus company that I can be involved and be with um parent emails that I can help outside on the on the field on the court seven um I know I'm missing but that is really well I think one of the main things is for this year I know that the school commit um you know as well I mean we are all very committed to you know student academic success and that um you know making sure that student a contract you know a letters been created um the communication and then the follow through and
038monitoring of that whole system that we talked about putting in place that there's a lot of time involved that I know that rich Renee and I don't I we're spread thin as it is um so he's able to take that and monitor you know student athletes and um he has reports written through guidance so that's a whole piece that never would it wouldn't it would have been lunch duties now too I'm on lunch duty um you know and while I'm there if something happens with parents I can still email someone while I'm sit at Lun but I can't necessarily do thatass and so with that excuse me I can um so that's been a huge um made a huge impact for Rich Rene and I in terms of us being able to um have parent
039meetings and student meetings during lunchtime because previously we don't wear the lunch duty people because we also have you know we'll cycle our staff through lunch duty um but if they we have to if they have to cover a class then we can't use it for lunch duty so that would be our responsibility so that's allowed Us in student and parent communication um so just two things uh number one about the fields um so that's great that you're gonna work on that now we've been working on that or at least I have with Matt um probably like seven eight months right I know we met last summer with the vians I know Joel gay was involved um but we've been meeting with the state now we're looking into grants so I just want to let
040you know I'm going to start looping you in on that because I wasn't sure who from the school should be involved we have Aaron I think is starting getting involved but I think it'll be helpful to have someone from toono that can speak to that um and then the second thought I had was it would be great if you know I know a lot of other communities offer like summer uh athletic programming like camps um to kids even elementary kids I don't know if that's something that we could think of as a district because I would imagine I'm looking at your schedule I would imagine the Summers probably aren't I know you're planning for the fall but it would be great to see if we could figure out a way to get some camps or
041something even for the elementary kids front them here something like that maybe I don't know where that would fall under but it seems like that would be a good place for that yeah Jess you have something yeah I just I know you gotten the coach evaluations yet so I just speak very briefly to that I in my own high school caree here I had very negative experience with a coach and I felt there's evaluation process or some like Mental Health Training for the coaches set up a coach evaluation this year um you know meet with the coaches afterwards go I me observe them through the season and see what we're going on and then look for you know what might have for parent input or player input and uh putting together also trying to put
042a a survey together for that too from experience how that was you know get all that information we develop that but the first part of it was theils that develop year so so it can be sent out to students and to parents that that survey yet the emils are from me and from what I do and then post at the end the season and that whatever information I might have got as put put in with that valuation survey is going to be more right now your experience that's separate from the evaluation sorry so part of the coach training I know like there's concussions and all that but and you mentioned there's a conference for um athlete student health mental health is there something required within the training right now but I mean there is certain
043requirements on coaches I don't know that not necessarily specific training but there is you know there are PDS that they could do there are certain they got to take that the training the concussion training is one another one is uh an implicit bias course um another one is CPR um you know then signups going through and certifications from for hazing and op but there isn't necessarily another training session there are stuff that they can make fundamental coaching um there are different classily but said that if there is something to coach EV there's certain trainings that we can give that think m is going right now through the same evaluation training that we have as ad as admin for the district are going through as well um so that would be part that he used so
044there is a consistency and how we look at and evaluate people um that will sort of be used for coaches as well too um the other part is we with help of Sally we are updating the training that some of our coaches need to attend we found some polls this year that we didn't realize existed for um some culture so we've added to that to make sure that's in place as well too so that just so you know add to those two pieces anybody other questions um I have one final question but the family ID Arbiter what is Arbiter yes what it's confusing because it's like three or four different Arbiter sites so it's I call Family ID run by so you mentioned communication is that how teams communicate with players too because yeah I
045don't know if this the right place to bring it up uh some parents have told me that their their kids are getting Direct Communications direct text instead of using School devices is that the system that will you should be using that and also Google classroom and Google Chat okay so so Matt now those the only two ways any communication happens with any of our coaches and any of our players now are those two formats that we control right that we control go to okay so it's more for registration signups and then regular school can out I just got one that the middle school practice can it came through Arbiter okay from me or a coach can then send that to the parents okay family IDE not to the players it's to the to the family
046okay whoever whoever signed up for that player it goes to that but coaches aren't texting players okay in full disclosure there was an issue there was things that we were dealing we were dealing with some things like that you know working with Joe and with that um Joe SP our interim Tech director so we we moved that we trained our coaches so they're no longer have that option our attorney Sean Sweeney would tell us all day long we don't want that to happen we not want to be having individual conversations on our phones um with students um so that has all been stopped and we go through our platform now of Google and and there's a record of everything sent by coaches so if there was like a dispute the district has the record out
047sorry out line in terms of but we're going to talk a little bit later on about something we put in place that Joe's put in it's called B now right so we have that for across our entire District now so anything is inappropriate or any certain words that come up um our administrated are notified I think we put that Joe started to put you on spot was that this week we put that in plate uh within the last week yes week which is by the way zero zero cost to our district so we're really happy to have that play more added work for our our admin I know but it's also a huge protection for for for our district thanks anything else anything else you want to tell us or is that good yeah cool
048all right thanks for thanks for coming in yeah I know this game's going on so yeah when when that I'm open up that door you have to have a door open all right I would you got sorry um so next on the list is strategic plan I'm got to introduce a colleague in friend of my PM in a second uh so as you've heard me say multiple times this District our district um is is a really good school district um but we certainly want it to be a great School District again I'll go back to Jim Collins you know good deg great all all all day long um but one of the major pieces that we are missing is a strategic plan you've heard me say that multiple times there are a lot of good
049things happening but our strategic plan be our true not um for the next five years um once we have a wellth thought out plan this will drive the district that this will drive the direction our district will go in in one of the best parts of our strategic in is they'll get input from all our stakeholders and will tell you about that shortly nor students parents teachers staff admin school committee select board Town managers community members I tell you this because everyone will be a part of and own this part of the Strategic point so when our meetings are held at any level whether it be a school committee meeting whether it be a select board meeting a budget meeting we'll remind everybody about our strategic plan that we all agreed on this point together
050um the biggest part that you know on what Mike was saying in his his Chairman's report about hiring your next superintendent one of the best gifts that we can give the the next superintendent that comes on board and trust me and and both the people that will be presenting in a second as well as myself as retired superintendent will tell you having a wellth thought out strategic plan would be one of the most important gifts I made sure before I retired from hon wilham that that that was the gift I gave John provos the new superintend that came in there that creates that land you know what's taking place for the district that first year is not a year that the superintendent is trying to figure out and get to know everybody here's the plan
051we sort of like here's the Baton you take it and R with it and I think that's really important um we met earlier our admin team about four o'clock today we've been working on this the the Strategic plan and having conversations about it since I came here at the very beginning of the Year everyone of our Adent team truly believes and I say that with them while sitting in the room like this is the direction we need to go we need to have a strategic plan so that we know what direction we're going in terms so business finance uh Fields curriculum every single aspect of our our our our district will be will be taken in account and that will be so extremely important for us to have the other part that you'll you'll hear
052PM talk about is about the portrait of graduate there's work that has been done in that and that will tie in really nicely that it's not being put away but that will be tied really nicely strategic plan and and the last part is this will be our living document this will not be a document that we just put away on the show this will be what drives us as our goals for the next superintendent the goals of the district goals for our principles so with with that being said I'd like to introduce you a colleague of mine um PM gold who we started our infancy as superintendent together way back um and she's here with zeth help me on the last jetti zth janetti who will give us a a quick presentation about what strategic
053plan is because a lot of people have a different idea of what a strategic plan is and it's important for everybody to have a clear understanding sitting in this room and what our community knows about what we're going to be doing with this strategic plan pm I'll let Ze introduce himself first and then I will a little bit further and then I'm Z retired educator retired as superintendent of mfield 20 year Middle School principal and before that music teacher Finance director and I'm happily working as a consultant not interested in being an interm anyway lay and uh we we are really and we tell you we love doing this kind of work because it's the passion of the work that we've done over our careers and this is the fun part of the work without
054all of the things that makes the job of superintendent non fun so I'll pass it over thanks so yeah Pam I retired three years ago as a superintendent but Al and I were in our first niss program together and so what you would find in a district and I believe what you currently are working off of right now in that program we were all gu to do a kind of a district Improvement strategy which is a good document but it's a very kind of simplistic usually done internally uh with your with your administrators and things like that um I am a as Al said to a huge believer in not only the finished document of a strategic plan but the process that you engage in as a school Community um I Heard earlier that there
055are there are things going on right so not to say that a strategic plan fixes everything but as I listened to the gentleman speak at the beginning I kept all I kept thinking was these are things that you could begin to address in a strategic plan whether it's communication finance and Facilities all those kinds of things that I think again doesn't fix it just by doing the plan but you at least get up onto a place where you're all speaking the same language um I I be I'm way older than most of you and so I started when I first did my very first strategic plan as administrator with our administrative team I was an assistant principal it literally sat on a shelf we did it because we was told to do it I didn't
056ever agree with that and by the time I'm with with Al I did on my very last year we worked in our community to develop a strategic plan that was left with the brand new superintendent it gave them a road map that he could now he's going to tweak things as he goes on understandable uh but gave him a five-year plan to settle into the district and figure out where they needed to go and in a bigger level it's really the district's PL school committee is the final step of the process it's developed by a committee but it's approved by the school committee so it becomes your guiding document for setting District goals goals for your new superintendent which then transfer into principal goals School Improvement plans right down to teacher professional development plans so
057it's it really is the template for improving and as we go through the plan we talk about developing the plan the first phase of the plan where we gather data and that's really the strength of and the difference between a superintendent's entry plan and in a strategic plan such as this is that we gather a ton of data up front internal data we have fors with all the major uh stakeholders the surveys and all of that data is used to inform the process so there's nothing that comes out in that final document of a plan that isn't grounded somewhere within that data has been collected and looked at by the committee as we go through the process yeah and Z said it I'm I'm a more visual person than he is um I I always
058envisioned and I would talk to my school committee about the idea that the Strategic plan became that umbrella document for a school committee that every single thing that you did um I had a a standing agenda item on my school or my meetings every month that we talked about what was going on with where are we in the Strategic plan but the school committee sets goals around that the superintendent and their team sets their goals around it your te principal set your goals the teachers set their goals so that it's all in that Silo again you're all working from that same road map um again doesn't fix some of the problems but at least has that Community understanding the why so the question too is why hire a Consulting and we we are extremely busy
059doing strategic plans right working on eight right this this spring and um so the TR when Pam and I were doing this work many years ago superintendant developed their own plan but um current thought process around strategic planning is it's really important for the superintendent to participate in the process not run the process and from a community standpoint adds a whole different layer of transparency when you're looking at budget you're looking at facilities to have a facilitator come in facilitating firm and talk and guide everyone through the process and our fingerprint is not on the document it is truly a community document but it's powerful to have the superintendent be part of the process and working rather than driving the process well on in this situation which again you guys are in a little bit
060of a unique situation where you have an inter whatever you do next year as you make that vote tonight um if it still stays in an interim another year that again takes the fingerprint from the interim off of that isn't their plan another piece having a strategic plan in place when you s a search for a new superintendent is you're going to be interviewing candidates with a template of improvement that the district has already developed and you have the ability to ask candidates what is this is our plan you see the road map how are you going to implement this plan it's a really good strong starting point for your search process and looking for a new superintendent I think so you're in a you're in a good position and um portrait of The Graduate
061you want us yeah we're going to show you the process that we would use but it's really important um to me uh it came up with your admin this discussion of all the work that you put into a portrait of a graduate or portrait of a Lear some districts are calling it um they have two separate documents to me uh a strategic plan is that guiding document that helps the community it helps the school committee finance and Facilities teaching and learning kind of that overarching portrait of a graduate portra or portrait of a learner are the skills and attributes you expect your children to graduate the burlin Heston public schools with that is different and they should you know stop to overlap but the point is a student to be very honest is never look
062at any strategic plan but they will understand what your tort and all those skills and attributes that are and that's really important what what I did in Sandwich when I retired from sandwich was we implemented and put that right into the plan it was goal number one so that it stayed in the Forefront of all of us so that became our first goal and then we went after that so you guys can do whatever you want but so the process and I also know you have a meeting and I don't want to stand in the way between you and like 11m that's the that's the right now all right so we've run kind of like what's what we consider like a three-part process um if you're not on the committee some of this won't be
063as important to you but the beginning is that phase one where we have done some initial meetings uh but there is still a decision to be made if this is the direction you're going to go in and so what if we go this direction and there is a contract signed what we would do is we would work with your H central office admin team to develop a timeline one of the discussions that we had with Al was this idea understand districts are facing all kinds of financial crunches there's no doubt about that so one of the things that we offered again I've known him for a while that's a running joke between Al and I I did have to go to my boss he got the discount friends and family discount B de bed um
064and so the price prices had just gone up and I told her I'm like seriously I started talking with him about this a long time ago so but anyway part of it is when you do it when we break some meetings in the spring and then some in the fall is you get to put it in two different fiscal years it makes it a little bit more palatable for our communities and committees without that but so we would get phase one in as early as possible getting those meetings we would start our focus groups we run a series of five focus groups you get to a community decide what you want typically students staff parents administrative team community and now this is where you get to get a little political who is important for you
065sometimes what what districts do especially in a Regional School you invite strategically your your board of Select whatever you call them in your town from each Town your your some people invite the police and fire they show up fincom it's all that depends on what you think politically would be good to have some people to be able to have some say while that's going on we're developing a survey we have a gentleman that is one of our team members he you we use Survey Monkey so he will work with Alan Sally and they will develop we have templates as you can imagine but they can be tweak depending on what's important in this community that goes out to parents staff student everybody and so uh the survey would go out we then start so I'm
066sorry to interrupt you so I know that's a real important piece right so know we've talked in this community here spook about like survey right and getting how families are feeling in that whole culture piece it's this this will tap out to everybody Community right not just parents but also people live in the community well we also do you guys do students have a um a student activity period or like a um a flex block a flex block or anything in school okay sometimes we find we get a much better response rate obviously when you're using an advisory time way given to them whereas it's as opposed to like any human being you just say hey fill out the survey I might forget I might do that so sometimes we find and this is up
067to you guys but even if you don't have one if you can find a time where you might be able to get the students 15 minutes or so your response is amazing you get such valuable data we getting from the entire Community it really is Elementary as well or is it just high school we T this is your call but we typically definitely do high school middle school if you really want wa is your Elementary in fifth grade yeah you might want to try the fifth grade I'm not say you but give it a shot we do middle schools frequently when they part we do fifth grade typically when they part of the middle school so so that's kind of I would never tell you what not to do I the reality is you know
068kind God you're not gonna get so it's that's up to you guys we will put it out there but when we but it's important to not though based on your question when we when we run the forums and we meet with the students High School some districts do Middle School too um we tell the students even if it's just High School make sure you talk about your middle school years talk about your Elementary experience you know some of the students moved into the district what was that like what it was like the kids that have been here since preschool so we try to have them represent the the past experience as well not just the current experience so we do try to tap into that data from the forums we generally ask three questions in
069the forums simple three questions what are the strengths of the district what are the challenges that you face and then what are the opportunities and a lot of times we kind we're pretty decent at what we take that challenge and we okay what could what could we do for that and try to the challenges present opportunities because that in the survey and then all of the data that would be put into what we do is we provide the district a series of folders they will dump in data every single thing they can think of whether it's mcast data whether it's student mental health surveys all kind budget data budget data everything we go into these folders and then so what we do is we run series of six meetings during these six meetings we are
070looking at your current Mission your vision core values if assuming again if you're working on a district Improvement strategy probably have something but you might want to revisit those depending on how old they are see where they line up when you put so at meeting number two we do a data analysis meeting we facilitate we break you up into three different groups and uh we put fold data in folders depending on what group you're in so it gets overwhelming as you can imagine to look at data and so we've strategically put certain things in in different we use data mining tools and we we guide we guide the groups through the process looking for Trends and patents that come across in that data so they come out it's amazing yeah what you find from it
071and then meetings 3 through six just become us kind of continuing to work through what then becomes your overarching goals what are your initiatives within that goal and then I'll kind of all that timeline in it and by the end of the thing when we're getting towards after meet meeting six we present the community uh the school district with a draft it is brought to school committee it is voted on because we don't do any graphic design until it's been voted on at the school committee to make sure there's no changes uh which is fair and so then at the end what we produce someone said it earlier and this is where it sounds kind of sticky what's the story you're trying to tell and I am a believer in that is what are you
072trying to make the community and have them help them understand what you're trying to do and so when we talk with our graphic design person I'll just show you a couple of them just so you can understand we ask communities to come up with a theme what what is a them what might be going on we do a lot of Sea Coast communities there's always some sort of nautical type but we did we did um Mich and they had the Great Road because all of the schools in town were on the we call it the great traffic jam because we could never get there but there's a theme that will be developed that'll be that the committee will decide to so what we do is we give you two documents one of them is what
073we call a dashboard uh but that's what you can publish you can put it on your classrooms you can put on your website you can put it everywhere but it's a very simple gives you what your mission and vision are what values and those kind of levers of where you're trying to improve all that detail of those comes in the next document we give you which is a much lengthier you'll put it on your website but it's a much lengthier document but this is where the story is being told we do a lot of let's the pictures of kids this is what you're about right so put them in there what do we value we joked earlier D is a farming and Coastal Community so that was the story they wanted to tell they're proud
074of that but you can see we put all these this documentation and the graphic design person does it all throughout the process we're asking uh your team to be dumping in we have a PO for photos as high resolution as possible and then it just goes so we as we get see how they what they did they built right in they were very also very proud of their portrait of a learner that they had worked on the before we implemented it right into the entire plan so that they would understand it and there there's a huge accountability piece on there as well too and you'll see that timeline there okay you just move up one slide right like we're we're not only telling the community we're telling you know school commity all of us like
075this is the plan we're all working on together this is the timeline we have and and this is the success we're hoping to have as folks this is this truly is what we need it's truly what we need to help guide us and like I said to you earli our admin team um is in complete agreement as well too I think this is what we need as as a district as a community um to really help guid us for the next five years so you're identifying your big rocks where are your big rocks that you want to move and then below the big typically three to five and then what does the work look like under that what is the timeline and then the school commun Prov Prov with an opportunity to up have updates
076as you go through the five years of the plan of where you are in meeting and it should be a living and breathing document that you know no one saw covid coming and everyone had to have a different game plan so there when things happen you have to have that flexibility to adjust within your planet as well as you move forward and it's going to hold us a little accountable as well too right so what we're talking about even their first goal right there right looking to do a curriculum review right so what does that look like right we talk about I SP spoken to Joe before we even h a 5-year technology plan what does that look like here's where it's going to be here's where it's helps here's where you're going to expect
077it to be completed by so it holds all of us accountable and then you guys can say okay where is this because this is where it's instead of all these manyi conversations a lot of blinking lights going on this is where we're headed for we can refer to this at all times and making sure we get the work done we need to get done in the next five years y you might have again I'm looking at this very simplistically because I one gentl speak but there the budget right that's going on everywhere it might be that you have a communication plan around your budget because clearly that might be something that needs to be better doesn't mean you're not trying to do your work but it might be better it could be better and what
078does that look like uh one of the districts on working in was literally one of the main goals was communication and it was it's simply around having a common platform for all the principles to work off of they just didn't have that so as a parent if your kid is in three different schools it is a nightmare doing it differently in every different building for a parent and so all little things like that but let's what's the plan can even you know the question that was asked about our athletic director okay so what's communication all back and forth by coaches so we say that's happening but we then we can memorialize that like putting in a strategic plan so it's underneath technology yep here it is we're said we're going to do it here it
079is listed it I think we got a lot of things going on uh and I think we just need to have it house in one place that we all can refer to it and we can all hold each other accountable say why are we doing this or great idea we're going to hold off to that because we all agree that for the next five years this is what we're doing the the plan guys why are we doing this and the beauty of these plans it's all grounded in the data it's not someone has an idea or I think this might be the case it has to be grounded in what we analyze out of the data this support what we're doing so it really gives the plan some tee you have questions questions talk a
080lot anyway yeah oh easy so you I heard you talk about parents and students you also include like the staff the teachers oh yeah absolutely they have a forum they have a survey and when we put the committee together the committee's typically around 20 people and it's made up of community members such as school committee could be other elected officials students staff administrators teachers so that's the group you really want a representative group of um the community that's involved process okay and then um so for like the meetings my other question is does everybody have to go to Every meeting or could we say all right we're gonna send just to this first meeting and then I'll go to the second one or does it have to be the same I would advise against that
081no emergencies happen right but if you say if you say to this uh to your constituency that we're going to run meetings X time a day these These are the dates because that's one of the things you would publish before you try to get people on the committee I just think for Flo yeah doesn't mean people can't come and watch a meeting but part of it part of it is that some of the work doesn't it's not a hard set that finishing this part of the pro project at this point lose the work we'll have three different groups look at mission statements right mission statements we might come up with a common one but then we'll give people time to think about it before the next meeting and come back and and meet it again
082if you if you have mission statement alone if you have rotating folks coming through you're going to be rewriting that it'll take a six Miss coming through the door but what I would advise you're going to probably have one maybe two members of your school committee on there I would make it a standing item while you're working on it to report out of what's happening so that people have they know be open about this whole process absolutely and then it's no longer as we as we know that sometimes people are saying well it's the community it's the school committee it's the superintendent everyone has ownership in this right everyone from the community so it's all of our PL right so we're all on board it's not pointing thing is it's all we're all working on
083this together as well I just have a couple comments so first of all I some things that stood up to me I like I like the idea of an outside entity doing it because as you point out it's not just superintendent driven it's not just School Community it's someone who does have a stake in the game kind of guiding it and um that's extremely helpful because it is a huge undertaking yes um I also like the idea of having a strategic plan when a new superintendent comes in because you know what they tell you when you're when go for leadership positions in in graduate school they say the first year don't make any big changes see ship is running don't make any so this would be they they have course that they would go on
084it is a gift as superintend it is they come in and watch and the ship is kind of running itself at that point but they're you know they're helping um but the other thing that I can't help but notice is your enthusiasm like I don't think I've ever been excited about a strategic plan all right really we really enjoy doing the work we truly do love we had a new executive director come in U and we were a little nervous it's kind of a new boss and she said something at a meeting we were at she's like when will you guys just stop doing this and he said it when it stops being fun it's we thoroughly enjoy and for like I'm I'm a people person I love getting to the people that I have
085met during this we now go to conferences we know all these people being a superintendent's not fun I'm married it's not fun IJ it's just there moments when you come home and go this was a great day really I was disappointing people at a very measurable rate and this people smile and they say thank you and it's all of the fun of the work with none of the myself and La their first year superintendent we got ourselves in so much trouble we were like we were like the kids get in trouble as the new superintendent well we would be the ones doing it so this is who you got so that works for youing what what well what did you say was the timeline from let's we say yes to finished product that's that can
086be a little bit of uh essentially what we would do is split the cost in half now does does there's no probably a real set point of which meeting you know is it typically like two months three months year it's typically takes it's usually like a four month process when you start earlier in the school year starting at this point of the year can be difficult in that May and June are very busy to get peoplee high school staff students with everything going on so realistically we'd be able to do most of I would think phase one by the end of the school year with forums and those types of things um and maybe a meeting or two yeah maybe a meeting or two but it the scheduling piece is a little bit challenging but
087the typical length is around four months from start to finish in the whole process one of the good things we said to your admin team though before was if a district is starting it fully in the fall by the time we stop meetings we're in good October beginning of November the good thing is if we did kind of what we're calling half and half you would literally your meetings would start right up again in September there's no lag time so you would be done your plan likely give or take end of October beginning of November so that you could roll it out after the and it's honestly a good time for our graphic design person too because as you can imagine I just said we're working on any plans right now we four of us
088that do the work available dates for us becomes a challenge but September October you're not bu probably holiday without a doubt holiday break with a plan done so that that was what my target was gonna be because if we're talking about and I talked about that yeah it'll line up yeah okay yes and I like the split for the financial reasons knows more we talked that right making sure yes we have to vote on this or how do we so I I would like school committee vote on this because eventually when we develop a strategic plan and when it's done uh we'll we'll be bringing it to you step along the way but also you need to vote on the final the Strategic plan the other the other part I just want to know let
089you know is that so even when you know when I move on and you guys are still here and the work is still being done there's still a resource to us right so I don't want you to think that they once the once November comes and it's all done they say goodbye that they're a resource to help us so again it shouldn't be just a document we do and like okay we're good for the next five years it's the job of this this Administration in schooling Community to keep looking at this do keep working at it and having it as an agenda item all the time saying where are we at what do we doing where's the fiveyear tech where's the curriculum review where are we with special education because you said this is what
090Happ what's that yeah so some numbers y absolutely we voting tonight or what's the I would like you vote today if you good with that well I mean let's see how it goes I mean it's not on you it's not on here for a vote oh good point so it's not on here for a vote and I don't handle rejection well either it's a budget issue you want to hear more from Aaron about budget so I don't know if we'll be able to vote tonight but we do have another meeting this month okay excellent excellent because the we we really want to stop moving on this and like I said everyone in this room really feels like this is the dire we need to go on I like it I just want to see yeah
091so if we if we're not voting maybe we get the numbers at them we don't have to discuss them tonight we're not voting he has all that the presentation Drive yeah yeah yeah well I said I sent all the the scop of sequence and stuff that we had and also some um the samples y you know what I I apologize I didn't talk to Mike about putting this as a vote on there for so that's I think we can get it done this month maybe just not tonight fair enough absolutely yeah we meet literally the Tuesday after February break I mean nobody's doing anything between now and no we're voting tonight you stop tomorrow I'm actually looking forward to I was gonna say that why you why you let up easy I okay thank youate
092thank you very much me all right um Matt do you want us um where it says student council rep Matt you want to take you're on yeah sure I'll just like I'm gonna go through real quick I got kind of a short list of things that have happened um so right now our high school student council is doing something called kindness week uh we got like it's kind of like a spirit week kind of thing uh just some like kind of like dress up so tomorrow is wearing blue for support inclusion um you know just kind of like a simple easy thing to you know spread some kind of some love around um recently we've had something uh awesome going on we've had AP Literature exhibitions so AP Literature is a class that you can
093take as a senior in high school um and since like starting in like October so it's you know it's like three or four months of work uh the students put in to put together these uh presentations that they get to the high school and teachers and AD uh in the auditorium um and they are I mean they are incredible how much work goes into these to answer some really awesome questions um it's very like creative it's like they pretty much uh get full control over what they do um they're work at awesome to watch in person and see what they come up with um and also another great thing that happened was the Quebec trip so our French teacher Mr Bean uh put together a trip to Quebec where I want to say like 50
094students I don't know exactly is around 50 students went to Quebec for a long weekend um it was a lot of fun a lot of my I unfortunately did not go but uh a lot of my friends went I heard it was awesome um lots of awesome things going on there they did like dog sedding and stuff it it was a good time um I just wanted to point that out that was a pretty awesome thing that happened Frost and Mr Weedman for putting that together too Matthew thank you any questions for Matthew I just wanted to acknowledge Mr really that trip off the ground take 50 kids out of the country to get them passport these kids all might never have gotten a passport now they have passports now they'll travel like it was
095really did amazing work all sorry quite adventurous a trip got stuck on the board there for a little while in Canada right know Mr was there the one that was like through the yes absolutely and I as Mrs I was keeping me informed I was keeping School pry informed about getting you guys back into the United States saf as well too it's great other than the Border situation what's the coolest Story come out of that trip that you've heard oh boy I heard some awesome stories about dog sledding like because they like they you hop up on a sled with dogs I was surprised to hear apparently how like ridiculously fast you start going when they start running um but there some also some um what's the other thing that was yeah some videos of
096that like they like pick up some speed was impressed it just like beautiful oh yeah lots of lots of photos it was pretty it was definitely yeah it was something else yeah know you think the the teacher I don't know the name sorry we yeah I mean I did a trip similar to that in high school and it completely changed my outlook on everything throughout life uh it was more of an exchange not just a field trip but to this day our families are still in touch and uh any type of opportunity like that that we could promote be cool thanks are they doing it again because I remember we voted on it like around this time last year yes you for a year year that's what I mean we voted last January for this
097trip and I haven't seen it come through so just wondering so it'll be every other I mean because it's um it's a a long time to plan yes um and it also allows families to pay it off in increments and and students also can contribute when it's you know so it's like a payment plan so I talked to Mr Weedman and he said um he would he would like to do it every two years that but that doesn't mean that we won't have other staff members who want to do other trips there you know we have other people who are interested in doing and supporting that those types of experiences so so Lisa is it specific years of French students that are allowed to go or any french student like how who asked to go
098with any high school student that was taking French so it wasn't even so like they mixed like if you just take the whole eth grade on trip they stay in their group when you take 9 through 12th grade French kids that are all mixed together maybe your friends aren't in French like they were all mixed it just like it was really great and T even the process they have they have passports now right like they they've already traveled outside of the country at this age and so those are the things we need to celebrate right and we need to acknowledge right and that we need to we put on our district website and we put in our strategic plan like those the stuff that we want to make sure that those are the things that
099draw students and families into our district knowing these the things that we're doing awesome also as an portra of a graduate like a local citizen out of own thanks you yes um so I'm just going back I know my agenda is long today school choice um so I have this on the agenda only to get some input from school Comm on the direction you'd like me to go um I have asked my principls and assistant principls to give me anticipative openings for in 2025 2026 school year and literally that's all that at this point so I didn't know where where we're going in this in this direction or not um I will have some data together for you for next school committee meeting um but I just wanted to know if there's any direction you
100want me to go and or not to go uh typically we'll get the data the enrollment data everything um if there's any suggested openings or go from them and then we'll discuss that okay perfect good excellent um the next thing if I can just go a little out of order in mind um and I'll by the way I'll have that for you for the next school meeting I'll make sure I have all that data before I would anticipate open as well too Renee can I ask you to U talk about the cell phone policy just a little bit update on that I know that's something that came through with the Attorney General's office um but if she's going to spare head that for our District um about mid to to late January um the Attorney
101General's office um Andrea Joy Campbell had introduced um the study act um which is a bill that would require all public schools to have formal policies regarding the use of cell phones tablets and any personal electronic devices on school grounds uh so Al has you know decided greatfully so we need to get ahead of this right um because this and and this has been a conversation um prior in the district right but um we have um no formal policy at this time um so we we have started a conversation just between Al and myself and um we wanted to first come to you to just you know just bring this bring this up we thought the best approach would be to start having um some informal conversations with all the stakeholders um you know attending
102hopefully you know are your policy subcommittee meetings um and then go to the PTO meetings at all three of the the schools um we have student council groups uh student advisory groups that we could attend um teacher team leader meetings um and then from there try to regroup and think about forming a you know probably a smaller um focused committee um I would plan to create you know a draft for you next month I would think of kind of a timeline of what that would look like um I know we have some meetings coming up um the end after vacation we have a student advisory meeting that we can kind of start some you know conversations with students um PTO meeting is this week so I think we would start the PTO meeting conversations I
103would ask you invited obviously I would love to start with your sub policy committee meeting you know that would be one of my first I would love to attend just kind of to see where you you know where you guys feel this needs to go um and then you know kind of lay out a timeline um of where we need to be so that we can write a policy to go forward with this because this looks like an initiative that's going to you know come come to coition you know um for the state so I think we just need to get ahead of this before the next school year um so if it's okay I'll maybe be a touch M to see if we can have to sub committ meeting go from there there's going
104to be some decisions as grou in the community are going to have to know right so Rene will gather that information there not it's not black and white right so there's either some are going to say you know no cell phones at all some are going to say keep it the way it is and it'll be a bit of ground like there's there's there's a philosophy in mind included that it's an educational tool as well too if you use craw right so this Middle Ground so all that information she'll share with you and they're and they're telling you that right what pathway do you want to take but we know we need to as a community decide what we're going to do with that um but we felt the first thing was best to gather
105information from everybody stting obviously work first with school committe and then working the way out to the communities I think you're also starting to see you know expanding people's jobs right so grene will now spare ahead the cell phone this is a big undertaking right for ourselves as the district which doing that safety piece as well too so expanding their jobs and expanding um the growth for them as well too questions on this all there's also the Student Success and Technology subcomittee too we did discuss l and i in the spring as well so I don't know you know certainly there's overlap between the two committees great point I'm so sorry I didn't that I I had Renee go in the direction of Paul so we canap certainly yeah absolutely so I'll make sure there
106is a whole Tech ad um Tech committee as well to I have a question um so my understanding was that in the middle school they're not allowed to use their phone during the day that's a policy I guess my it's not a policy though that's in the handbook okay but it's so that's a rule right they have yeah but there's not we don't have a we don't have like a district policy which this act is asking all public districts to have all right and I I agree with that I totally agree and I think we need to move forward with that but I guess my question is it's in the handbook middle school kids aren't supposed to be using their phones during the day is that actually happening are we enforcing the policy or the
107rule as written in our own handle to some six grade absolutely the thing you know there's there's pieces because again some teachers use it as an educational tool right so depending on um those pieces those need to be clarified in something really specific right so where if if if we you know and again with with the help of Technology right if if there are certain apps that the teachers are using because that is that is something that does occur like the kids like to use it as an excuse but it is especially in eth grade it is definitely something that's happening we may need to call upon technology and said what else do we need then on our Chromebook or is the Chromebook the best tool that we're I don't know I'm just I'm just
108saying right so those are pieces that we're going to need to really again that's why these kind of informal if you will conversations with each stakeholders are really important to really you know um I would say that in structured time yes those procedures are always being followed in unstructured time no not always because what what ends up happening is sometimes what we're seeing and that's part of I think what the Attorney General's message is here too because it's not only the self of social media right is that students and um you know are using their phones as adults are so because they don't know how to talk to one another anymore yeah right and they're playing Blockbuster and they're doing all these things right so there there's a whole another piece that doesn't really have
109anything to do with them even on anything that's really you know um distracting them from their education because it may be at lunch but they're not not they're not having that interaction Fe they're not having that piece of their social emotional growth being developed right so there it is a bigger piece than just lock up your cell phone right and that's where we need and and I think that it's in the drive that that large pack Shar but there's a lot there right so and that's why I think this will take some time but if we can you know start working it through these groups and really get get get ahead of this now um because if they're asking for what we understand the Attorney General really asking all public schools to come up with
110a formal policy and it doesn't necessarily mean no cell phones it just means you know an actual policy um and and again this piece on social media if there's policies and and the and the Attorney General is then going to go forward to really work with some of these um the social media groups that also hopefully will um work you know in hand right together that's the Hope um but it's it's gonna take it's gonna take some time we see every day things are changing around us right there so this is a huge thing the general dropped off right huge thing here it is right and and they put it to the local level like what are you what are you doing so we just feel fness to school committee Rene and I talk that
111we got to gather some information right and we'll we'll meet with both sub Comm meetings right and talk to you guys about that and gather all that information so that this way then when you present this to you then you can help make a decision that you have some knowledge bed so we've been talking about cell phones for a while now knows so um this is not new to us so we I think we've all except for Beth because she's new to the committee we've all voiced our opinions on how we feel about it but I guess going back to the whole thing how it's in our handbook that middle school kids are not supposed to be on their cell phones actually had the pleasure of subbing at lunch one day it was over a
112year ago and there were kids on their cell phones in the eth grade at lunch can we please start following the policy in the handle that is my ask to happen immediately so it's a good question she brings up because your answer to you it's it's in the handbook but is it being followed completely no what well what would change if it was a policy versus being hand well it depends it depends on what you have if it's a bell to Bell no phones they don't have their phones on it's in their home room I mean to me right good B is different that's the easiest thing I guess what I'm asking let's assume it was just the same rule just as a policy not in the handbook is it what what's the reason for
113not enforcing it is it just not enough people around to enforce it or what's what is it the difference is that not all sixth graders have phon by time theyit Sev eight most of them have a phone and now you're asking the teachers to Poli their pockets and all of that so yeah that's a question for you guys so what is it like so um in lunch today um so we have you know six and seventh grade lunch and then we have no eighth grade lunch with some high school and then the third lunch is all high school so in the eighth grade lunch I was constantly going over to a group of students I'm like put away your phones put away your phones I knew they were eth graders they were like so desperate
114so they were like sticking in their pocket and then as soon as I walked away they were like sh it back out and then I'm like you know like put it away and it's more usually a game to be honest with you than a text or a a picture or a um you know it's this Blockbuster thing Blaster thing more between each other I don't know way no I guess the point is and this is a this is kind of a a sore spot for me if it's in our handbook and the rule is you're not if you are in middle school you're not supposed to use your phone during the day why is it happening well I mean I don't care if it's hard or then it shouldn't be I'm not trying to be
115a jerk but it's like we talked about this last year if it's in the handbook and and then if we're like all no this is too hard to enforce it shouldn't be in the handbook and then yeah we can make a policy and we'll have to figure out do we have to physically lock bones down because people are so addicted to this drug that we can't put it away to eat lunch I just think if it's in the handbook and if it we have it written as a rule just like you can't bring a weapon to school or I can't come in with a glass of alcohol you know we need to be enforcing what's in our handbook there's no excuses and I think we are but this is asking us to now create a
116policy yeah we have no choice right I mean at this point that's that's what's what's being asked of us yeah no so maybe maybe part so we do this policy maybe part of this policy includes some sort of enforcement or punishment for breaking it right do that but with the technology we have bark apps the family settings on on phones yeah I mean I'm sure there there are things that we can block just to speak to that there's there's a lot of limitations when kids bring in their own devices to what we can control um especially when it comes to mobile applications it's much harder to lock that stuff down especially when we don't own the device yeah so I I mean I'm just throwing things against the wall here Joe I mean devices are
117not going away they're what we're trying to train these kids to be young adults to go out into the workforce that's all you use out in the workforce is a device you said some teachers use it as an educational tool absolutely they should they should do more about it Julie we've had a lot of conversations about this back and forth we're on opposite ends I agree I think it should be some sort of etiquette type training to go along with it but to to Joe's Point okay we can't control them but how many companies now have a BYOD policy Right There Are Rules around it there there are ways to control it just like you have a math class where you say you can't use a calculator unless you pass a certain qualification or a
118test you can't bring your phone out unless you've demonstrated that you've installed certain things to block certain things with like I'm sure there's a lot of different ways we can get creative with it other than just sorry you're a parent but we're taking this decision away from you for your child and we're telling you you cannot have your personal property of school I think that is terrible thing to do I I don't think it's right I don't think it's I love the idea of passing the test to see if you're responsible contract or something like that I me these are all these are things that we need to I think and and I don't think the Attorney General is telling us no what to do just that we need to have something in place we
119set those meetings up and I absolutely and I these are these These are the ways we need to think just like it's really those three different ideas and then you know they're asking districts to formulate their plan I think having a policy will give them a little more meat right we're taking away phones from them and the responsibility of holding on those phones and calling those parents and saying you got to come so then what are you picking up the phone are we giving the phone back I've been in that office I can't tell how many times at dismissal where they call kids down they come retrieve their phones at the end of the day I mean it would be a full-time job the other part of our Trinity would say really you're going to
120hold on to a $500 maybe $600 device right that are our other kids phones and what happens if something happens to those phones right so there's a whole I think that's what the insuring General was asking us like let's come up with a policy so that we can all as a district live by and for as well all right so I guess the answer is it's not being enforced because it's almost impossible to be enforced because what are you supposed to do if a kid has their phone aside from give them a suspension and there's no policy so and and let's have that honest conversation calling those parents and saying we've taken your son or daughter's phone and and and that they want they get back to their kids right so do we call parents
121say you got to come pick up your phone with your child like what what is the policy what are we going to do with this Rich Le yeah I mean we do have a set guideline and they are being redirected phone away out happens every time if I see a kid who in middle that phone out they're putting it away we usually give some form of a redirection that's like possibility child um but at the end of the day if they're they need to be full a second time they're putting in the office second time parent needs to pick them up third time they're just not bring it in so and we sit down and we have those meetings so all those procedures are in place um you know it's really hard to police the
122pockets of every you know middle school student in the building um but those those Paces are and they know right when when I'm walking down the hallway here and I'm walking with you rich and they see him coming they're thrown it in their pot right why they all wear a hoodie sweatshirt I mean and the other thing is they do use it appropriately at times I mean that is the that is the other piece um and so this is a bigger conversation clearly and so we we want to bring this to the table now to just let you know we'll be in touch with with with you guys be in touch with the various Community groups um because it's something that we being asked to do dress sorry yeah um so I I love the
123idea that you brought up being creative about teaching them how to use it appropriately um for as quickly as we put this any policy in place those kids will work around it they have burner phones they they all I can tell you they all have burner phones so yeah oh yeah my song walking around this school with two Fones oh absolutely so there's that but let me let me throw something out there and um and I wrote this in my newsletter if anybody you know um cares to read it um I do I'm like um why don't we give our or why don't the parents if they don't want students to have that much technology and so um social media get them dumb phones until they're in eth grade get them dumb phones if you
124don't want your kidss on the internet on their phone I think it's important for them to have communication I know parents think it's very important to have communication um a flip phone get them a flip phone they can text they can call they can get what they need but they're not they don't have that addictive social media part the parents also have some responsibility in all of this as well totally So speaking of social media we had that earlier this year with the attorney general coming up in March as well to CommunityWide or districtwide opportunities to come see that that's everybody in the community we're actually doing it remotely so she have so people don't have to all come here to the AUD in March yes I saw that y yeah there's one is C
125doing right with the police yes just technology thing just to kind of um just introduce like social media and things like that parents have been requesting it and you want to off that so I don't know I don't know if BMS is doing one but I saw another one at Tonto as well so that's probably one that you talk I want to make sure Megan that you got your question answerers about about having that in the student him right so they are doing their very best too no I get that I get it it's just like a it's a sore spot when it's like it's a rule and I get it I'm a black and white rule follower and I don't have kids that age yet so that's copia right over there my kids are
126still young they do what I can say so you know well yeah because I'm breathing down their neck all the time because they're little but yes I get it when they get to that they have burner phones too I can't believe kids have two phones at that age I don't know where they get the money but anyways I one I appreciate that you're enforcing it at the middle school because one of the problems that we have and we all recognize this is when they get to ninth grade a lot of students leave them because there isn't a connection so those real life connections and and you you said the word Lisa and it really is I can relate it's addictive like I think we all touch our phones and um so it's really hard for
127them so I appreciate your efforts and I know how hard it is to be like the warden I'm it's tough to go up to these kids and say can you put it away can you put it away but I appreciate the efforts because we want them to connect with each other we want them to have memories and we want them to to just enjoy the experience and and not be like please last you what I did at lunch time the hardest part this next generation of kids that are coming up they're just watching their moms and dads all day long in the phone and how many times we going through a grocery store and you see kids in carriages with the phones in their in their hand already it's right so this next Generation that's
128coming up it's going to be even more difficult but I think parents are finally informed like I think some of the kids people didn't know how bad it was it's just coming out right now the data how addictive like Facebook like scrolling is physically like a drug and it's bad it's bad for your body deliberately addictive too yes even the creators of Facebook have said I wish we could undo this and I know I'm aging myself with Facebook because there's all these different things now but I think this newer generation of parents is going to be like how people are about red dies now like they're gonna set forth and say no I don't want my kids because we know it's bad but I I don't know when that change will come and I agree
129I think we need parent parental Buy in on this you can't just be the school trying to do it and so we're being proactive right so we're already on top of this and we want to make sure we knew because this is out there right uh and we're going to get you as much information so you guys can help make a decision both at both policy meetings and then eventually at school if it's okay I'd like to just make one suggestion so Julie Lee sent us a really great email about this topic and she had um a couple resources that she recommended one is a book and one is a podcast and I think it might be a really good idea if we all you know listen to that podcast and read that book so
130that we're all fully informed so when we go to make a vote on this or make the policy we'll know what all the dangers are and I just want to say one thing that might not be included in these resources that doesn't often get brought up but I bring it up occasionally um all of these phones are emitting emfs and when you're in a room with you know 20 different phones you know blasting this we got the Wi-Fi blasting it is affecting our bodies it affects our bloodb brain barrier and getting these out of the classroom and then trying to you know mitigate the the blast from the Wi-Fi would help also our kids with their health their physical health and mental health written about the book but you had mentioned the an generation something
131you I forget from what direction I have I start I want to start a book club for the anxious generation I did put out a Google form I only got two responses so um if any of you want to join in with me I would be happy um I can send out that link again thank you if you can send me that information that Julie share with you that' be great okay great okay I'm so sorry that was Renee thank you there's a lot of work obiously ahead good conversation um a K to 12 school student in information uh protection so I I just want to make update um this is the immigration updates right and so how we as a district are hand Mo this um just so you're aware I went for training
132as a superintendent on this um we are as an admin we went through all this training as well too I sent you a link at scity members you can go through this training as well to we are prepared right in case something should take place in our district I think Joe's gonna uh send a a slide up there for you as well too um if if for any reason someone should come in um we need to make sure we realize that kids are protected in our district that is our job um we we protect that information we protect our students um we were trained we had a a training that took place that if someone should come in wanting information about our child we we cannot provide that F prevents us from um giving that
133information um if they do they have to produce a warrant um and we are we're sort of trained on what a warrant should be looking like and what it should look like coming from the federal government as opposed to coming from Ice the third step that our administrators were told to do is and then they call central office um which would be might be the contact person we have an emergency text group message as well too um so in case something like that should happen um and then we also have an attorney on record that we would be using John Sweeney is not the attorney on record for that would be Katie manal who is someone that I worked with in the past she is that person that if something like this should ever take
134place that's her her expertise we would call her and use her as a reference I just want I want people in the community to know that we're we were trained in this we're hoping that this won't ever happen but if it does happen we have policies and procedures in place to keep our students and their parents in information safe questions on that good okay excellent um next thing I'm quicker um Town reports um I want to thank our principes U Mike as well as our our chairperson um we submitted and Nicole obviously compiling with all that we gave both Town reports to both uh B and bston so they both have their reports and they will be published annually with information regarding our school districts as well too um and I think that was put
135in your drive as well too so you SE that as well too lastly a little bit of a vocational update so um it's something I'm still pursuing I know the last time I met with you I gave you some information about aset um Valley um and that there is openings um for our students more so in their Softly year so we shared that with the high school we shared that with our guidance Council as well too I am spending tomorrow night actually at Monty Tech um I'm spending it there with a couple School commity members looking at some Poss possibilities and opportunities for us as well too so I'm looking at all different Regional School districts around us giving our kids opportunities just preliminary conversation um I I know a couple School pry members there
136and they invited me to their sort of open house and training of what it takes place yeah I'll keep you updated with that so yeah just getting some more information and more knowledge it's not something that's going to happen overnight by any meet um but John Mica who is a a colleague of mine and teacher he is on school pry there so we're going to spend some time tomorrow night um shury has an agreement with Lester now and they bought beer college so they have 10 spots promised know it sounds like they're at the ground level I don't know that's an opportunity sort of what I'm trying I hate to even say this public sort of what I'm trying to do a tech right just opening up a door and seeing this opportunity for our
137kids um for difficult Pati because again as we were clarified that you know the opportunities that students from Berlin might have and students from B don't have an AS Val so we're just looking to create other opportunities for our kids vocational is is a thriving opportunity for our students right um so we want to give them every opportunity they can have so just looking into that I'll give you a further update um after my meeting tomorrow night what else is on my anything else I think that's it that was I apologize for the length of that but thank you that's my report cool thank you thank you uh next is our administrator updates we can start at the top with Lisa so we they there we just read only oh yeah read only right my
138no no so if you want we I held them off for next month but there are all read only but if you want them to give them an overview no we get that is anybody have any questions on I like one minute 10,000 view next time would be great for people are yeah next time we can do that I'm sorry sorry about that all right then up next is uh director Sally all right so I have a couple of items that I've submitted for tonight um just over them quickly the first one is the district report cards um this is something that the department of Ed issues every winter they just came out on January 31st it's basically an overview of much of the information that was already contained in the accountability report that I
139turned in my call and with our mcast um presentation so not a lot of new new information really but um they do put these out for the whole district and each individual School in your district and uh they do ask us to share those with families and and post them on our website so I just wanted to share that information with you as well and my report basically just kind of breaks down the different categories that they talk about in that District uh report card um do you have any questions about the district report card there's that on our website it it's posted right on there right I'm Prett sure sorry just if I were not me on the committee where would I go to access that inform I know Cindy sent the one out
140her blog they were in the blog but they're also supposed to be posted on the website can put on they'll be on there tomorrow wasn't that's why we have these meetings thank you anybody have any other questions so Sally u i I spent a little bit of time looking through them but can you maybe point out the maybe the most I call it the most challenging score that we received but the worst score that we received and and what might we be doing about it um well you look at all the scores there's a especially there's like like an overall rating at the very end and so um I would say bees has had a score that was lower than the other two schools so that's something that you know we want to take a
141look at in what areas it was an overall score but um it had to do a lot with which we talked about before so I've been working with Cindy right and so um we we've been working hard to see that growth taking place our hope is that this next round of mcast that will be Tak um this spring actually next month right we're going to see um there's some things are focused on and I'm not speaking for Cindy but with matth and we're working with John as well too who's not only our curriculum director but we're actually doing learning walks so we're seeing what education's going to look like both in Berlin and Boston um and we're actually working with um Su O'Neal who is a former superintendent as well too so we have an
142outside perspective who's working across the country right now helping us seeing like what do we need for best practice practices to make sure we're moving that deal but there are some things we're working on and we know it's concerned and we acknowledge that as well too so that that that's our probably our our biggest thing that we're working on right now s want to put you on the spot then you want to jump in on that but no I don't we do know we have some to work around in that area we're looking at that report C the accountability it's not just the mcap I'm going to throw this word out there it's ATT tenance too which we have been working on this a lot of things in that accountability rating so it it is
143a lot of MC but there's other factors in there as well on the opposite of that you need to know um because we we we focus on that but we also got to acknowledge what what's happening in Berlin is is is is great there's some great things there are pockets of Excellence that happened there and the report card is is extremely we're very happy about that as well too as well as T there are some really good things that happen there as well too so we're we're now as a admin team working to to to move up W as well too and we know we have to do that I think the small classroom size atland Elementary needs to be pointed out as a major difference between elementary schools and also we go into budget
144season I think that's very relevant and also you know and I know we talk about this time I a lot there's still Stark differences between things that are being done at bees and things that are being done at BMS between curriculum and oh they did this work she every third grader should be doing the exact same thing districtwide agree um so I think there's a lot of work to be done there um you know and I know at BS I think it's an amazing school let two kids go there I love it I comfortable love being there I love Cindy um but we've got a lot of younger teachers and that's not a bad thing they have a lot of energy but they you know versus Berlin so I think some of those things need
145to kind of be taken into account we need to figure out a way to bridge that gap between those two schools and and what can we do um to kind of make it more Equitable so I I i' say the two you hit them both Megan and jesser it's not only small class sizes but it's high quality teachers and not there teachers AR high quality they're all are but we have to make sure we're training them right and what they need to get better you've heard me say this multiple times everybody needs a coach everyone needs some professional learning you're going to see from our calendar next year it's going to be much more specific you a first read of the calendar this tonight but you're going to be at the next scho you see
146what we're intending or doing in those professional learning days which we're going to share with you we're going to have tged professional learning that will also help drive those schools up as well too we really need to be looking at the curriculum and what it looks like for high quality education what are the best practices that we should be putting in place that are going to show our Student Success evidence-based practices and if I could say so I mean this is another reason I'm excited about this Fe of planning I mean that's one little section the teaching and learning section but that's where we can develop this plan and then have it you know so and by the way that that is on the district tab our district tab I'm also very interested like in
147Berlin that they departmentalized right so that that's that's a p a perspective we're looking at right so and S and I talked about that where where the kids are the teachers are concentrated on what you're teaching right whether they're teaching math or teaching Ela and stuff so those all things that are part of the conversation that we're having the Sal will be able put all the Strategic plan this is where this is where it's going to stay um the other thing and we talked about this during the budget a couple years ago if you look at Boon Elementary School spending per pupil versus our district that's on the lower end so the spending per people at bees is less than the district and it's significantly less than State just something to point out y good
148less than Berlin it's less than last state Sally one of the stats that stuck out to me on this website was the graduation or High School outcomes graduation rates it only goes to 2023 but it looks like our district dropped significantly from 2122 to 23 you know but that that's kind of a tricky um what's yeah what's going on right because sometimes for instance I'll give you an example if a student was with us and they leave they unenroll but then they don't finish whereever like they don't go on to do something else like say it was like a you had a student that was on the Le to do some kind of a night program or something that shows us a non- graduation so there sometimes there are situations that are out control is
149that what happened that year I me we've had situations like that in the last couple years one it's you know at 99 987 to 91 but it wasn't that uh like it's not that fail out and not graduate you know it wasn't that kind of was usually some of those outlier situations but if we're online looking at the district report card the trend line on that looks down yeah but I think I think it has just to do with the statistics because I it's not like we didn't have anybody that didn't graduate last so yeah I think that it that is a difficult statistic because when I look to be honest with you like when I looked at like how is that because it is it's start to look at and so I did into
150it because of that and I was told that you know that sometimes those other factors can cause a change in the St for those numbers but but we can tell you that we haven't had any students not gradu I would also I I part of me wonderers only because my daughter gradua 2023 that was graduating P of 62 kids was significantly smaller than 2022 right so the numbers are tin so like you have small numb that's one of the things I wondered I was going to ask you maybe because just one or two students could set that low that true so I'm careful I ask this question this year we have 100% of our students graduating from high school is that correct correct correct so 100 that are enrolled currently but that does not mean
151that there are not students that may unenroll and then we will not it will not be reflected as 100% so right now everybody that are attending to H to high school will be graduating in 202 as they did last year our attract this good things for us to be looking at though and paying attention all right would you like me to talk about AP scores now are we okay so the AP scores I know that you had a chance to look at them last month um some stats associate Bas SC table that I put together um I put together a table of about 27 of surrounding districts um to show you what their percentages were for students that um earned a three through five or um and then of course you can also see what
152they were for one to two and uh we ranked 12 out of 28 uh also I looked at some information right on the AP website and it lists every single AP exam that exists and the percentages is across the country for students who earn a 3 to five or a 1 to two and I was able to see that for every one of those tests the range is anywhere from 50 to about 80% so our 70.8% is pretty good percentage in that range there um also it's it's good to keep in mind that even students who score one to two um there's research that shows that they they always perform better on subsequent tests and that also 90% of students who've earned on and two uh report that their year in college was much easier
153to transition to than they expected because of the rigor of that the AP courses alone so um it's you know not something to look at as necessarily negative you know um so I just wanted to share that information with you thank you all good any questions on that I one last wrote it down and I remembered you had a question J if it comes to you just just let us know ask and if anybody wants to see like this AP resource that I have or if you want to check the website that I can share with you too because it has really great stats on it about the whole country and all the as I was talking about we're GNA talk later on about approving some additional AP courses later on correct Lisa Rich okay
154great okay uh all right uh Director people personnel Janelle sure um I submitted a report with some highlights from the people Personnel Services office and I'll talk about some of those here um starting off with our special education services um I've provided the number of students that we've provided special education services to so far this year um the district total for that is 249 um that includes services such as academic Services social emotional Behavioral Services occupational therapy Physical Therapy um and or speech and language Services I talked a little bit in my report about our um CPAC which is our special education parent advisory Council as you may all know this group meets um monthly they do a variety of meetings sometimes they're in person sometimes they're remote um we did a basic rights and
155special education presentation this January um actually last night there was a wellness presentation that that Sally um shared with them and in March there will be a parent Gathering just a little bit of update on the CPAC in our district our great group that there's a lot to support parents in our district um I also wanted to provide an update on the district's um efforts related to our 2023 special education determination rating and the work that we've done since that time as um you may recall we presented a lot of information last April on that determination rating and at that time a number of the issues um actually all of the issues except for again mcast right coming back to the mcast conversation any of the issues that had come up in that special education
156determination rating had been resolved at that point um the outstanding issue that required our attention for um mcap scores that are captured in what's called indicator 3 and indicator 3 looks very specificly at the um the Gap in proficiency for students with IEPs compared to students without IEPs and so interestingly um when we look at this data AC for 2023 and 2024 even in cases where groups of students with IEPs met the state proficiency Target there was still a greater gap between them those groups and students without IEPs that exceeded the state Target nine out of 16 times um so since then um administrators have worked very intensively um with desie and Consultants to really understand the root cause of this Gap that includes analyzing various data points such as attendance discipline grades Service delivery
157in the IEPs disability types mcap scores really if you can think of the data point we considered it and we looked at it um and we're now in the process of sharing those insights with our staff and focusing on developing an action plan to address that in and that does take time so when I say an action plan that means over a period of a couple of years um the plan will one thing that we do know is that the plan will emphasize professional learning opportunities in Universal Design for Learning which is referred to as udl for short um udl aims to reduce barriers in learning by offering multiple ways for students to engage represent and express their knowledge it is an evidence-based practice based in Neuroscience personalizes learning experiences engages students um and it
158not only addresses students who might be struggling or having difficulties but it also provides opportunities for students who are ready for enrichment and advanced learning opportunities in the classroom and these kind of things take time um to really carefully and thoughtfully roll out but that is something that we are focused on in our upcoming professional development opportunities in the years ahead um although I and I don't want to be misleading we do have staff in the district who are um who are very skilled in udl principles but we really do want to prioritize that professional learning across the district um so to make sure that we're supporting all students funding for this type of work um we reserved a an amount of money from our Ida Grant that's our Federal grant fund and we are
159looking for additional grant opportunities to further support those efforts that rating that I just provided an update for was provided in January of last year uh we understand that the next rating will be available from desie in March so that's where we'll have a new rating yep and that will be the 2024 special education determination rating so that's a year it's a yearly rating and for the you know for whatever reason I think as I explained last year although we always have this Bank of federal indicators that were always responsible for we're always looking for 100% compliance with desie is often Reinventing their rubric and how they calculate and determine that rating for districts so um there isn't an expectation that the report card if you will be on will be on the same items
160it'll be a different mix and that's probably a good segue doesn't follow the order of my reporter actually it might um is I had shared just some information on a a feedback that we got on our meeting significant disproportionality indicators um because in previous years that has those indicators have been taken into account in that special education determination rating they weren't in the last one um we don't have any status in those and those do refer to any kind of significant disproportionality in special education referring to identification placement and discipline regarding to race or ethnicity um for special again for special education students I also outside of special education um I provided an update on our M multilingual learner Community who is certainly thriving in the Berlin boyon District um we have you know students
161who have moved into the district we have students who have graduated from receiving English language learner Services I've highlighted some of the U most prominent languages that are being spoken um in our the homes in our Community um and I have pointed out some data that in this school year um the enrollment of students requiring English language Services has nearly doubled at the elementary level and so I've provided some data around that and talked about um what that looks like for our um for our teachers when they're providing services and um they do provide services in small groups a lot of times those small groups do represent two or more languages in addition to English um our English language teachers monitor student progress for four years even after they exit Direct Services provide consultation to
162teachers administer access testing um and often times are just a natural point of contact UM for for newcomers um because they have a lot of resources for those students and they're able to help them make connections um and adapt to a new school and a new community as they're Le learning the language I also provided um an update on health office so um as we all know there is a full-time registered nurse in each of our three school buildings um very recently the job description was revised and updated and posted on school spring so that we could support our students with by directly hiring um that nursing staff for each Health office we also have a two-day per week float nurse um and that float nurse position for the and that's at the district level
163is very is quite critical to supporting our busy Health offices responding to spikes and illnesses as we're seeing now supporting field trips that require nursing support mandatory screenings sometimes our nurses need to be out too um and so in addition to the Daily medication needs acute illnesses um our nursing staff staff monitors students with chronic needs including those of our diabetic students that two-day float nurse position has been um periodically vacant this school year um however we are really excited that we are in the process of onboarding and experienced school nurse for this position um we're hoping that she can start right after the February it's a good update there as well um I do want to note that in my report um as I was just looking over it I do see an an
164error in my data chart so I apologize I will resubmit that um with a corrected data chart the the math just isn't um adding up there I can see that so I will get that corrected and resubmitted my apologies for that my report also talks about educational stability which is not something that I usually bring forward in my reports it was in my annual report so I thought um an update would be appropriate here so the pupil Personnel Services office also supports students um in that might be experiencing homelessness or are in foster care or even have families who have active duty military members that type of work requires a fair amount of coordination and collaboration um with other agencies um state agencies Community Partners and the whole purpose of that is to provide educational
165stability to students who might be needing otherwise without that sort of protection and Safeguard um they might be needing to move schools a lot we know that that could be very damaging to a student's education so that's also work that um is done in the pupil Personnel Services office last but not least is preschool um so we recently had a preschool um Lottery and um thank you Lori for coming and drawing names I know um many of the school committee members have um helped us in that regard over the years we're always very grateful so this school year um all of the families that request a spot we able to receive either their first or their second choice which means we are not running a wait list at this time I provided some updates just
166on how many slots are currently spoken for in our two and three day programs in both El um both preschools and just a note that we do tend to see those numbers increase between now and when that school year actually starts in August there's still a fair amount of time um professional development we have been working on identifying specific professional development opportunities for our Preschool teachers and um you know any planning that we're able to do in regards to Universal Design for Learning is also consistent with the recommendations that we received from our preschool program review as well believe those were all the areas that I had updated so I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have any questions I a quick question I just want to sure what it meant to have
167no status I know I had to check on that that as well I actually second guess that as well so it really means like no finding no problem no um so they use a mathematical formula to calculate whether or not there is significant disproportionality in those areas and that labeling is a little um can be misleading because sometimes or past years maybe they didn't calculate it because we have such a small group of numbers and it wouldn't be statistically accurate that is not the case it's no status meaning that there's no problem I clarify I confirmed that for us yeah thanks good question Jess you some yeah so for the indicator three which is the gap between the I and non kiddos was there a a trend like a statistically significant Trend or anything that
168was identified so I mean we were able to as a group of Administrators and um really doing that that deep dive on the data we were able to see sort of connection that you would that we sort of expected to see right we could see that attendance you know might might impact um performance on The End cast right kind of things that were guess but we did not see one really stand out um piece that connected to that data which is brought which is what brought us to that wider view um and in that collaborative work that we did with the Consultants that were provided by desie to take a look at um you know our practices and that are happening in classrooms right most of our students receiving special education services are fully included
169they are receiving their English and their math services in you know classrooms and that's what led us to say this is an area that we want to support teachers more in and their ability to differentiate and be flexible um with the students that they have another question um so you said the udl programs what you're going to use and it's evidence based how did you come up on that was something desie recommended so it's actually already in the desie teacher rubric it's already an expectation that um that teachers um and schools you know are implementing various um practices to that and so those of us in the district going back to your previous question as well those of us that have been in the district for a while one of the data points that we
170looked at is our history of professional development and our offerings and we could see that that was something that we haven't done in a really long time um it's worthy of of revisiting it yes so thank you Janelle nice report sorry s please um so I'm looking at the L uh kids and the multilanguage Learners so we have one L teacher for both elementary schools and it looks like there's what 45 kids is that sustainable or should we be adding an L teacher in the bud how can one teacher go across two schools about 45 so that number did come up it's a surprise like I said that enrollment number doubled this school year um when if you compare it to the previous school year and that and you're right that teacher is um attending
171and providing services in both elementary schools every day um and we've the principles have done a lot of work to support that teacher in scheduling and rescheduling and rescheduling Serv services for students um that is something that we're keeping a very close eye on and that definitely warrants consider um in budget process and then too there's 28 students for somebody that teaches part time so um there just like yeah the teacher is she is just to clarify she is in the building full-time but her schedule is halftime English language and then halim Humanities um so she is in the building halftime um but I believe that right now she has two two periods that are dedicated for English language learner and um three periods that are dedicated for humanities again something that we need to
172watch um parts of that that go into it is some students it depends on their level about how many periods a day they of instruction they need um and the group sizes the the elementary students um those groups need more um just developmentally right they just need more sort of time and attention um and probably instruction they're just not as independent with maybe even the tools um and that self learning or social learning and our teach are all FCI indoors right so so not only is the services so we got to be careful with that so not only the services are be delivered by our L teachers but also our teachers are trained as the endorsement so some of are level fives right some you you're level from one to five right five is where
173you're really you're working your way out and you're not receiving services at all is that just monitor as well so there's this it's a really big formula so the numbers alone yes do we need to look at some additional support there yes but it's a it's a so not only not only this year you said the numbers doubled but I know in the past it's been it's not like it's been flat it's been increasing every year creeping yeah um I mean yeah budget wise I mean that's gonna hurt us um it's gonna be a challenge but like so that that is high on our ask list you know like I said what we've got right now is level service because the numbers are high already um as we break things down our hope is to
174weave so so if we don't get that Aaron and Janelle maybe it's more for you are out if we aren't able to get that what kind of impact do that put on the classrooms at the elementary level I mean certainly it's something that we would need to look about look at we would be thinking and wondering about you know how much progress students can make and how we're able to meet you know the um desie recommended periods of instruction each day for each individual student how creative can we be with the scheduling um so if we were W you know your question is if we weren't those are the types of questions we would have to ask ourselves and and the work we would need to do because because like like you know I mean
175Jason's still here like you said in the beginning they're big asks right so it comes along with tax increases but we need to communicate the differences between what is behind this big ask what is the impact if we don't have it is it you know he talked about cuts and just saying blanket Cuts but it's not necessarily a cut but it is additional challenges increased challenges where there's more challenges here there's more attention focused here there's less attention focused somewhere else wherever that might be it's up for you guys but it is an impact one way or another whether it's a tax impact for the budget going up or whether it's an impact in the classroom teachers this some things we have no choices on right when a student has an IP or needs to
176have L services like that's not discretionary right we can't say we're gonna we're provide this or not provide that right so but to to the point we talked about earlier those are all budget things insurance and Aaron will go through all this stuff those are some things that are out of our control we look at our budget just to sustain the day-to-day operations the my heat electricity all those things that are going up then we're asking for things that don't come out way right to to Janelle's point it's other point like one of the other concerns and Janelle and I meet Weekly right so not only are we're working on what's happening in Wilson but that gap between special education kids with IPS and those kids that that's something we should all be concerned about
177what are we going to do about that to to to to to decrease that udl is absolutely one thing but we got to make sure we're sustaining these things right financially sustain we do udl for a while and then we we let it go away we got to look at how we're going to maintain this stuff so we can see some growth taking place but those are things where we about um just a couple clarifying questions to what J report so preschools this year are going to remain at Tanto right because we're continuing that program taking place where kids have that opportunity to be have that internship um for lack of been awarding at that the preschool and the other will remain in Rin as well too you know there was talk and moving one
178of them TOA but that is not happening for for next year as well too um in Staffing um to nursing piece um we we worked on job description we got that out we got some actually high quality interested people that are there so we're looking to move away from those contracted um individuals that working in the special education world and the nursing world and getting more internal um care so that's all the work that's been happening the last couple months just want to add that piece to I have one other question sorry I'm looking at the nurse visits per average visits yes there's a data error there that that's where that data error is I can see that that Ma that math isn't adding up so let me um let me correct that and I
179could I could submit that chart again my apologies for that no that's okay I was just it's just funny how there's so many more sick kids in Boon than Berlin kind moving into the attendance thing and just wondering have we as a district maybe tried to pinpoint reasons for that are there different practices at Berlin Memorial that are not happening at boyon elementary maybe cleaning or things that happen in the cafeteria I don't know what proportional it would be interesting to see it was not proportional in 2022 2023 well if you minus out the scheduled daily visits then it's Berlin barely has any nurse visits and Boon has like so if you minus it out Boon is like 5 to one and we're not 5 to one in size so I just did the math
180it's not proportional at all it's not proportional sure and to clarify and I believe out the scheduled Daily Business I'm guessing those are kids that need to go for medication you're not going to do anything about that that's just that's something that is what it is my point is if you guess that the non-scheduled visits are sick kids in Berlin this if you Min up 33 to almost five is the difference I mean that's insane it's hard to believe though no that means no that means that some days some kids don't go to the nurse in Berlin there's days where no sick kids go to the nurse she does so the um and so just to clarify um so right the 23 24 data I had shared last year around the time that we were
181having a budget conversation there was a question and I had just submitted that as a read only report so um it's the 2425 data that I want to double check on because um right the daily visits and the scheduled daily visits there's something about that that's not working correctly um but basically the obviously the way that I've calculated that I might be important in that the our software is able to tell us you know exactly how many visits have been seen to date yeah all right then if count the number of school days and do that that that's how we're arriving at that number yeah that makes sense to me but even so if you subtract out the dis yeah tra that there's more in Boon the Berlin and I'm going off this we had
182a lot of Parental complaints about sickness at BO it it's not documented it didn't happen in the nursing world right so nurse checks every and the other one says come back and they should be consistent in that the expectation is that there's consistency but any of these visits could range anywhere from and not to minimize it but I mean one of these visits could be resulting in a quick wash at a Band-Aid right something very superficial and the students in and out of the health office to something that a student is physically ill and and you know needs a lot of support and ultimately needs to go home um right so these numbers don't don't necessarily tell us that part of the story I just find it fair hard to believe that one student goes
183every 3 days in Berlin outside of the sched Vis day I don't know well let's wait and get the make sure we have the accurate data for Next Time Janelle and we can bring that absolutely again that that of that entire row for 2425 the 12.33 the 18.9 3 and the 21.5 I'm quite that's the part of the data that I'm saying I believe there's an error there I want to resubmit that to you but to point Meg so one of the things that's on the request right again beyond that level budget is our facilities director has come to us and said we need additional custodial help right atland and Wilson right they're look especially during the winter right especially the update and especially now we being sick right so all of that is something
184we're putting on the budget but again you know it's all about that big budget piece that we weren't really planning on but is a necessity I just have one comment totally unrelated I noticed um you mentioned udl and I see that there's differentiation I think just my opinion differentiation would be a nice thing for professional development because we talk a lot about the kids at the top the enrichment kids and differentiation helps them as much as it helps anybody that's absolutely that enrichment and extension absolutely that's what Universal Design for Learning is all about it's not just focusing and I know it's coming from Janelle with the p Personnel special education but it's fall so far you know we don't use that terminology but gifted in talented the kids that can be reaching Beyond right
185that's what we should be doing those kids in the middle they can start to soore you and not all of us learn from standing and delivering not all of us so kids will have options on the way they can learn but we got to teach our teachers on how to deliver that right we got to teach them that way and it's a whole different way of teaching by the way great all right thank Youk you how you doing all right I'm great so all that is a bit of a segue into budget um I'd like to start I I didn't you have a memo for me I know that didn't make the agenda um this is a memo on um setting up uh District PE cards um these are basically credit cards that have very
186specific controls on them um I think you know some of the school committee members have been in conversations about concerns about staff using their credit cards for things um you know we've had a number of situations where the only way to pay something with a credit card um what we're looking for is is authorization from the school Comm to pursue um a very limited number of again what's called PE cards I've described them in here they are very controllable uh credit cards of A Sort you could set up cards that are exclusive to only buy gas with um they have they all come pre-built with specific exclusions right you can't buy tobacco and alcohol and things like that so they're designed for governmentally agencies Municipal organizations and pars um you know so we would like
187to pursue that if that's something the school Comm would be maybe willing to to vote on um again I realize it's not the agenda I apologize didn't realize it wasn't on the agenda and gases for just just that one example you gave for the snowblow for the W and stuff right it's not for just for the public it's not for cars or anything like that I just want to out that it came up that like the transfer station they had to get a credit up first credit card right because they got starlink and the only way to get that the only way pay for it was was credit card I think that's the way of even today we had we got to purchase I give my credit card we needed to get like that no
188we're embur me but it's another step we have to go through right I I comment on the ethics piece there you know certainly someone spending $20 here and there on a few things but as we start putting large things on credit cards larger things if we have to um you know we recently had something I had to use my credit card for for $2500 right um not a big deal but you then also get into the fact that Aaron Osborne gets Costco points for that right what's the ethics if Aaron Osborne keeps using his District Credit his own credit card right and keeps racking up Costco points what's my disincentive from just continuing to earn Costco points um you know or whatever frequent fire miles so you do you know once you start getting into
189aggregated numbers that are a little bit larger um you know I I would absolutely support people doing what they need to do to to make sure things happen to the district but I don't think we should put someone in a situation where someone could be accused of you know using the district to um rack up costal PLS or fire miles or things never mind Mrs oswal called me they asked what was the $2500 exactly you know did get permission from my wife to the card um but uh so you know I think this would take care of a lot of that we're starting um you know with just the superintendent myself and the director of facilities um where the three who are most likely to need it we could use that card on behalf of
190others um were situations and a just explain that go through the warrants right you'll see that Meg you'll see the cost items for each one of those items that go on that credit anything on a credit card be and that be the same thing for this you see every single item would be transparent so can we vote on that or no uh yeah let's add it to the business items to vote after okay all right so I will um handle things in year order so last month I gave you a very long very detailed financial report um up through December 31st uh I have since created a Slimmer leaner meaner um summary report um for the school committee um happy you know if people have questions now if people have questions later um you know
191you can go back if you're looking at a specific item you can look at all the detail um from the prior report to see what makes that up um what I would propose is that we would um do something like this at least for now on a quarterly basis um this summary report isn't automatic it's something that I would manually put together based on a template this is a template I've used um Al recalls it from hon wilam a little different um but I know you all are very everyone's very interested in the various cost centers so you know Berlin Elementary Bo Berlin Memorial Boon Elementary tontos so I've split those out accordingly um you know prior districts I haven't always split the schools out individually um but this is a goal to maybe go
192you know maybe not 30,000 foot view maybe 20,000 foot view for this school committee is this maybe something the committee would be looking for as opposed to the I think it about 40 pages last time yeah Aon so what I asked for basically was based on last spring when we again how Jason described it the cluster show that was last spring nobody knowing where money was being spent people accusing the schools of being goldplated and all sorts of things we need yes something to show where the money's being spent which it's a public budget anybody can go and look at it um but if we could be a little more proactive in putting out a report yeah it doesn't need to be the 40 pages long but something enough to say okay this is what
193we're asking for next year this what we've already spent this year course absolutely and this is I mean what yeah to go right to to put on the website anybody can go I know the budget presentation is out there right now I saw this afternoon okay so right on the district website right right on the home page y just uh depending on your screen resolution just scroll down a little bit you'll see it but um yeah if something to go along with that maybe keep it up every month until the time meetings yep we'll keep doing that um we'll pause the gold plated yeah no more gold ples I like I like we'll work um you know honestly for the public for for the folks here um make a comment if you have questions things
194like that reach out to me I'm accessible I respond um email is usually the best way to get me and create the task list for me you know I can cycle through things we're we're we're not new to this but we're new to work in Berlin wison so we're just looking to see what you guys are looking for right we we we understand and heard about the past we're looking to move forward and see exactly how you want to present we worked in many multiple different communities they all want it a little bit differently so we're just trying to make sure that this is the way you want to present it so that's clear for um is there a link on each of the different websites to our website or to the budget website I
195don't know I mean I think that might be beneficial looking for information we can talk to the towns the towns control their websites a link on Town each of the Town websites to link to our finance page would be the one everyone's looking for I Haven looked most EAS just goes to bbrd.org it's right on the home page we don't we don't control the the link for that would have to be the towns right that would have to work with the towns to do that they might say no we don't want to do it yeah we can arange I think there is a link on there like a school link most towns have hyperlinks to their schools Aaron can I ask a question about this report the budget summary report that's what we're talking about
196now right yeah I think it's really good I like it um um the only thing is I think it gives like the false uh notion that so like let's say there's a balance and I think there's a balance because we still don't have like a forecast column so like for example if I'm looking at like principal's office um so like just because there's a balance of $3,722 in Berlin for the principal's office that doesn't mean we're going to have an excess in that line item at the end of the year for that amount no right it's February we spend over the course of the whole year yeah there are also a lot of salaries that our our system does not automatically encumber salaries I think I shared last you Shar that so I think that
197needs to be there a couple items u i mean I can add some comments to whatting some things that aren't encumbered um there's also some things that aren't taken into account um as well and that's that that can always be a little bit challenging with this we are working on figuring out um how to properly encumber salaries within our existing system um you know to my knowledge it either hasn't been done or it's been some sort of estimate at best so you know what we'd like to do is figure out you know a proper way C that property um so again I I agree I think I shared also that someone did at the very beginning of the year encumber a lot of salaries so you look at some of those items there are encumbrances
198I saw there are some like St is about $2 million of encumbered salaries in there that someone put in um I want to say in uh August September prior to my arrival um honestly at least it encumbers something and there's something in there so I'm I'm not I'm hesitant to take it down until we have something better but um you know looking at this looking at trending and looking at what some of our other resources are I think where we're okay we're also working on sorting through you'll see some notes in there um some of the withholdings um so we withhold um health insurance from people um you know the employee share of health insurance so 25% of my health insurance I pay for is is through um we just need to work on how
199to apply that properly to our our in our financial system so those are sitting right now in a liability account it's a decent size you know it's just sorting through everything that's sort of wasn't done from the start of this year and building it into um going back to July 1 and continuing the rest of the year hey Aaron this is completely random um but it's budget related your report breaks down by school by Car Center I'm sure you're going to go in in the budget presentation here but another point of confusion and I know you've brought this up before is the um what you call the allocation from the towns to Tahanto the way that breaks down um since we're putting some things on the website to be crystal clear about the budget maybe
200a brief like one sentence or two sentence Berlin is roughly x% Boon is roughly 5% uh based on da whatever it is uh and I know it changes every year there's a five year moving average involved and all sorts of different stuff based on enrollment but just basically you know if at Tanto because it's combined but different percentages come from the Two Towns what does it mean if one town number changes to the other Town something correct if you since you've been studying that for the last four or five months maybe a a brief summarized explanation right along maybe even in the next budget presentation like the first page I can do that that's not a problem all right right now uh and I I I pretty much finalized the splits we're at about um
20165.4 186% oilon 34514 um and that is uh Danto costs are split by that as well as the debt kind of an interesting there's there's nothing in the regional agreement talking about how debt is proportionate going back it's always a portion according to this I would typically think that when you do a two and a half override you're kind of telling um all of your constituents that there's going to be a fixed amount for X years and we have something that's kind of a moving figure so um but that's kind of baked into our regional agreement it's kind of hard to unring that at the moment most districts would um have that be a portioned at the time it was incurred so when at the time you incurred that debt on the Honda for example
202you would maintain those splits um but you know again it's all govern by your reg right okay thank you y um so good move on move the microphone close oh I can be a lot less soft spoken um but I'll do my best I'll do my best um so we are into version 2.0 um we have presented uh at both Berlin and Boyston in December um Alan and I will be presenting at Berlin tomorrow night for those of you interested and wanting to join us um whether at home or or in person I'm assuming will be at the the town uh offices so uh if we go to the next slide um this is where we're standing now I think you'll recall we were closer to um 7% the last time through uh this includes
203uh I have gone through another round with all of the principles they've shared with me um a few items um we were able to take out you'll see some of those numbers um as we talk about the driver some of the salary items you know will come down a little bit um some of it stemmed from my um uh you know not not entirely knowing what was intended to be part of the budget what wasn't um in past years but I know um Lisa and I came up with a couple um items that that we were able to to pull right out um additionally uh State figures have come in for the Governor's budget uh the government Governor uh is proposing uh was it $75 per pupil as a minimum aid number um so that
204helps um so our our Chapter 70 is going up a decent bit so we're in good shape there we also have um a fair bit of circuit brick I'll talk a little bit about um how much we're proposing to put in for offsets as we go through we go to the next slide um this is version one versus version two uh you'll see at the end in version one we uh were at over 26 million almost 26 A5 so now we're down to uh 2,728 th000 for that 4.22% um factored in that are some a combination of a few items we were able to cut out uh as well as um uh some offsets and we'll we'll see those offsets in a few minutes um so these are the offsets so I am proposing that
205we look to use 700 $50,000 of school choice I know that is um higher than what we typically take in it's also um higher than we've taken in the past um you'll notice that end is not on this list we are still in the process of trying to get end certified I am very confident that end will certify at a value that is at least equivalent to the difference between what we've traditionally spent in choice and what we take in and what um we may have we we very likely we have have more than that it's um we we didn't really use end last year um the final budget last year uh from the uh House and Senate uh last year came in with $104 per student of um uh Chapter 70 Aid um there
206are also a couple other items that came in a little better so I'm pretty confident that that money will be there so I'm just proposing at the mo for the moment we use this as as a placeholder uh there is adequate choice to cover this in the school choice to um the last few weeks you still feel confident in terms of school choice terms of the yes yes yes I feel confident um circuit breaker reimbursement this is in line with um what we received uh this past year I've talked to CH to Janelle a couple times we've been pretty consistent with where we were last year so this should be we do have some carryover circuit breaker so I'm going to Endeavor to also carry over a little bit of excess circuit breaker to help
207the budget but this is just being where we are now uh we have traditionally used some of the idea Grant funds to pay for some para professionals as well as some out of as well as some outof District placements so all in uh we're looking at almost $2 million in total offsets to support the budget so that's helpful as we go through um some of those were factored into version one um some of them are just being increased right now so when we get into uh Berlin Memorial um you'll see you know that salary increase comes down a little bit we moved two of the agency pairs to Tanto you also see Berlin uh just because of an anticipated student moves and as we're looking getting a little more refined on student needs uh we
208moved two um from Berlin to Tanto and one from Boyston uh that had a pretty solid impact on both budgets um health insurance a lot of those things I have an email into our representative um for health insurance I'd like to get um some some closure on on our health insurance budget um you know I think there's also a conversation to be had about where we think we might be able to be on um the agency parah situation right so I have nine agency Paras bu into the budget right now I think the hope is you know we can have some conversations and maybe we can set a goal of cutting that number down by next year so um it's important to recognize it does not appear that those were budgeted in the past so
209even though we had them we weren't budgeting them we're budgeting them as regular Paris so again version uh 2.0 um is is a lot friendlier um on all accounts here if we go to the next slide uh we get into the assessment version one versus version two were down almost $300,000 in total assessment to the town of Berlin uh for Berlin Memorial I w't go in all the details but I factored in uh Chapter 70 and chapter 71 um Aid uh you'll see there's a little bit of of up and down it looks like our uh Transportation reimbursement went down a little bit relative to what was budgeted last year um I don't know why but the number that was budgeted did was was higher than the number that the state gave us last year
210but it was offset by some other things so um sometimes things end up being a wash in terms of State figures we're relying right now on Governor's budget there are going to be three or four more iterations of the budget that may change pretty drastically at the state level um but we have to just draw a line in the sand somewhere right um so you know I think this is this is a pretty responsible and reasonable place to be right now we go to the next slide we will get into Boon Elementary um you know I I know one of the things we we talked about uh a few moments ago was um you know cleaning at Boon Elementary one of the things to remember is their custodial Staffing um between brone and Boyston is
211very similar in Total Staffing uh but Boon has significantly more students um so that's a challenge um we're um in we're we're we're definitely including um thoughts about uh custodial Staffing grounds Staffing we've had talk conversations about uh grounds work that needs to be done at Tonto for example um as a potential ask right so when we start looking at um MLL we start looking at uh I think we have some special education resources possibly in our potential asks this is also you know custodial is also among our asks um and we're going to see where things play out hopefully be able to try to create some combination of those things to help out so if we go to the next slide we get to uh Aaron can I interrupt sorry your your your potential
212asks so just to clarify what you're covering right now yeah is nothing new that doesn't exist today yes this is level service so this is level service yes basically operate the schools today and next year's numbers based on expected inflation and actual contracts correct okay yes just want make sure with yeah with with some necessary changes removing staff there's no gold plates in here but there's not even silver ceramic or even paper right no so it's all just exactly what's it's all p p okay keep going down this path of metals brand new Metals choose right correct um so again you know I think we've done some of the work necessary to um bring sort of that assessment down a bit so we've gone down again almost 300,000 um like I said there there were
213some moves to Tonto but I think Danto is where we had um some potential savings as well so you know that became a bit of a wash and working with Lisa um in some of those areas so now moving to our next slide um toono um these are again some of the drivers with those new um items um again the the increas in salaries now includes the agency Paras from BMS and and bees um there's the existing move UPS movein um we've applied some circuit breaker so again I think last time um I hadn't applied as much circuit breakers I was looking to get a beat on where we were and how much we have so there's a little bit more circuit breaker up apped across the board to support some of those um more
214costly placements so if we go to the next slide uh we get into the sort of first part of the Tahanto assessment so that whole process is um you know figuring out the this that sort of total budget um taking out the chapter 7071 Charter reimbursement uh and then coming to a total assessment figure again you'll see that total assessment figure figure comes out about 300,000 a little less than 300,000 less than our prior version one so Allin we're continuing on a downward Trend if we go to next slide we get into a couple calculations uh regarding minimum local contribution um and shares uh we get to um the above um and then we look at burlin above at 2 M77 th000 a decrease of about 200,00 since last time and Boon uh Min uh
215above minimum um about a couple hundred thousand below as well so both are in pretty good shape relative to last round of the budget next slide and we get into total um Berlin operating assessments so we have the Berlin Memorial assessment we have the Danto minimum local contribution to hontos above minimum local contribution and and a total assessment that comes down by about $600,000 a less um 550,000 from our last iteration iteration one and again I I want to remind every We are continuing to work on this there are factors that are continuing to come in um I think most of them should be downward the the only caveat I would give is we still have that April 1 number that's always looming um I was worry about that I had a bad experience once
216with it and you know it's it's temp me so I'm always worried about that potential for movein so we'll see what happens moving on to Boon's operating assessments for 2026 um total operating assessments again down about 300,000 from version one uh Elementary and then the two tono pieces factoring into the total operating assessment getting to the next slide I think we get into debt so this is that debt share um this is this is factored at that 65.4 A6 and 34.51 14% um it's traditionally been assessed as part of the capital assessment I've seen it done a couple different ways in our prior distic was part of operating it's it's just a payment wherever it's paid through is is kind of arbitrary to me um so you have total shares Berlin at 533,000 in at
217a million1 12180 uh those are pretty much final numbers um so I I've I finalized the shares that is part of our debt schedule so that is not going to change that's a fixed cost so next slide um Capital assessments I I didn't go through all of our Capital requests remain the same from our last I didn't include slides just reviewing those again because I thought it was a little redundant um so total debt assessments including the elementary capitals for each Town um uh and then tono's Capital requests and 26 Capital assessments um I think it's really important to know that that much of this is a conversation with the towns I think when we went and we presented we've presented actually budget and capital to the town of Berlin we're going on round two
218of budget to the town of Berlin um um uh you know some of this is is a conversation we'd love to hear from the towns about where they're sitting I know we had uh when we had our conversation with Boon there was kind of a number thrown out um for where Boon thought they could be um you know I'd love to get something a little you know I think it would be helpful to get sort of maybe some official Communications about you know where this sits right so we're coming into round two of the towns we've said here's where our numbers are I I think it'd be really nice to to maybe get some feedback from the towns as to where um these numbers sit with them so that we can you know start that
219active conversation I think we can recognize that it's probably unlikely that Berlin's going to want to put down uh 1.4 million of capital this year um but there's definitely a conversation to be had about which items you know are priorities um I know when we presented capital and when we presented our budget uh we were pretty clear that um we have a couple priority items one of those being elevator controls so um you know if the elevator goes um that's going to shut down some services in the building and and run into some big challenges around ADA compliance and things like that um potential fines from the state and things like that so so that would be a priority but a lot of the others um can be part of an active conversation so moving
220on to our next slide which I think is thank you questions thoughts again this was a a pretty brief summary I'm happy to if people want to come in and and sit down and and pour over items we can go through every single item in the budget there's thousands of individual line items to go through um I want to provide something that's both transparent um but also you know isn't going through thousands of individual line items in a school committee meeting um if anybody would like to have that conversation our auditor is going to be in tomorrow and Thursday so those are probably not opportune days to do that um but I'm happy to work with people and and have some of those conversations um I mean it might you know might give me some
221space from the audit but you know whatever anyway I I happen to notice um after our last meeting that a teacher went up to you and thanked you for your budget presentation and I said the same thing to you and several others of us as well that but the fact that a teacher who has been here for a long time like I and teacher thank you really speak volumes about what you've done I you put in so much time and you thank you you've sifted through a lot and and this is so easy to digest and understand I appreciate that so I want to say thank you u i I will say that that that meant a lot to me as well um you don't I I I appreciate um positive feedback I also appreciate
222critical feedback I mean I mean you know this is about a back and forth I I know there have been challenges between the school in town um you know I really think um anything I can do to mend some of those in my capacity and whatever uh fights or debates or whatever were going on before those aren't mine um I I don't want to have those those I want to have really good conversations about what's right for kids um I know that more than half of your town budgets go to pay for the schools um and and that's a it's an honor um to be able [Music] to do my job in that capacity knowing that um so many families and so many communities and so many taxpayers kind of vest that Authority in us
223and we want to do our best to sort of meet their expectations so really anything um I can do please ask questions be critical if you think something can be cut that's fantastic let's cut it you can write me a personal guarantee and you can write me a personal check if you're wrong and if I'm wrong well you know um you know we can go we can go from there whatever um but I enjoy debate I enjoy conversations and I I I think if we can't laugh a little bit about it too um this is the way we will present it right we told you that when we first brought myself and Aon on board right this is how we we've done it in previous district and seems to have been successful and that's what
224we're planning on doing here andos my only question is the timeline so you said you want to get some feedback from towns so today is Tuesday y have big vacation coming up and I want to honor that because you have busted your butt for this District since the day you started even before you started so um we' got a couple days and then you get back what hours before presentation we're supposed to give on the 25th so are we going to actually have time to uh get feedback from the towns and you know does it make sense to move that vote a week or two weeks or you know because I know Boon did say hey we have a number I don't know if they have it yet so if what if they say it's
225higher than what we have in here and we can actually we know we have an Ask list we've talked about that right what if what if there's other things we can get for that elementary school but we've already voted on this I mean I know we can vote again but it's almost like what's the point well we've been talking about this 25th day y you got any PR talk to Kristen actually have a text from her and I guess she spoke with um P I know's in in the audience as well too um but um she's looking actually if we could delay as far as the week of March 10th um I I pushed it a week later to the week of March 3rd but I guess someone on their fincom or someone on their
226stard is on vacation that week I won't be available um so the latest text I received from Kristen was the week of March 10 we work fine for in the town of okay all right we have a meeting the 11 so that's perfect yeah and that gives us time to actually like last year the budget subcommittee we invited like fincom people in and you know or go you know at night and I know you guys said you're going to Berlin tomorrow meeting so all right so's gonna be there so that's great and then we can like convene as the budget subcommittee then I'll talk to um the Boon folks and see you know usually they have a different schedule they are happy to you know they don't mind coming in meeting in central office so
227we can figure that out and we can and that way we're going into this school committee vote kind of knowing where we St I like that point about stand where we stand with the town so hopefully we're we're all on the same page going into this vote um you know then the other thing it would be nice to have and I know again this takes time is like a list of those TS with priorities like this is number one priority we can put that together EAS I think that would be helpful for school committee members yeah so you mentioned potential ask there and John's not here he'd be able to answer this but I don't know if any of you guys can I know last year we did end up cutting some things from BMS
228side of Tanto whatever that ended up being and this is being a level service budget those things aren't coming back it would be nice to know how we're getting along I know there's a Kindergarten class is pretty big at burlin um it it'd be nice to know how those things are going along this year what impact it was and could we have them back because uh okay I know I've heard some challenges um and then the potential asks that you mentioned that we just talked about the special ed the elll um when when do you plan on on showing those we can have those in in a matter of a week or two I mean that that's it's just I'd like to reconvene with the principles and and um department heads to make sure that
229you know the asks I have and and we can rank priority them things like that I mean I think that's important uh well we won't we won't make a decision on that yet well we I think regardless of what happens the 25th will probably happen whether it's live or quick Zoom yeah okay we could have that together yeah I can do that yeah just so we have a full picture and then the 11th will be like the public forum where the public comes and ask and then we vote yeah we'll uh yeah sort final yeah we need to we need we need to know what date that is so we can get in the paper yeah it's a bu so it's not just it's seven days ahead yeah I know dealt with that we'll get
230it there yeah yeah if you miss Monday then you're going two weeks M but not no they if they get everything straightened out they can submit it yeah yeah and the telegram I mean it might be wor you Botham is like a couple days but it's like online and once you submit you can't change it so better be solid on the dates yeah and just for back to point every principal in this room and AD assistant principles directors could tell you what their their ask are and what their needs are for next year now be our job is as a group and say what do we as a district want not what's just best for one school or one Department what do we want as a district that we think will move us in the
231direction we want to be right so that's the part that we will be working together and again Cameron at home that would all be our plan right so this way we won't be saying every year after year same thing with Capital Improvements like this is what we want we just keep revisiting that same and adding a change there was a threee plan well that's what was happening is we just kept moving things off and then it was like we're in a year well we've got like 30 things that we moved off for five years so and that's why this strategic planel have a timeline right and people will be held accountable so it's not just people sitting in this room but the community has vested into it as well as our students and our parents
232saying what are we doing with this is the timeline yeah okay that was great thank you thank you anybody else thank you thank you uh okay uh Jess do you have any update for the Student Success and Technology [Music] sub okay uh Megan we just talked about budget unless you have something specific uh superintendent search Lori I think we covered that right and we did not meet on policy except for the uh changing the names uh to positions in the up okay uh so that brings us the business items uh there's two uh two things that I don't have in front of me here so I want to do them first so we don't forget it uh I have a motion to approve the request for the PE card setup as detailed in Aaron's memal
233Lori Jess will anyone like to discuss that I there will be oversight and these cards will be set up with their own account code on those yeah yeah so so anything I charge you you'd very clar just like any other credit card you get a statement you get you know I would need to submit receipts the whole nine yards nothing changes um the P cards just have a better control system um and they have a treasure that actually pays the bills and an accountant that actually do preparing the warrants and doing the entry and like so if there was anything you know and then I review it and then you know technically end Ono so there's lots of eyes even the last that came to me today was an email from Treasurer Cy Henderson saying
234this on the agenda she's doing for job yes she any last questions all right all those in favor of that motion anyone against okay that motion passes could I have a motion please to uh I don't have this written how should we say this I have a motion please to officially start interm superintendent search Lisa second Lor anyone like to discuss this uh just to reiterate we met yesterday with NC rep she suggest suggested this might be a smoother way a friendlier way a way to give us a better opportunity to find some more qualified so a more realistic timeline and a real more realistic timeline uh it allows Al to sort of finish cleaning up mess left to him and get everything else in mind for someone to come over and sort of be
235able to hit the ground running without having to do all the work that Al's been doing you sort of just take a a well oiled machine and run um so that's the motion to start interm search anyone like to say anything yeah so I think know that West is looking for superintend this moment now super there for 30 years um which was very concerning when I read that item um also I reached out to Tracy a meeting because I was thinking more and if we don't find a qualified candidate or one that we for lack of candidate applying um we would then in may have to do an inter search um so I just that as like what what that would look like if that happened be more rough to cont so it might have
236ended up like that anyway yeah that's what I'm saying like if if we don't seem appealing as a district and we don't get applicants or we get app we might not desire that where we end up then and just for anybody watching this will be a public search um rumes will be submitted applications will be submitted interviews will be done in public all recorded anybody come watch so anybody else and so then the more permanent superintendent search would start the process of different committees and I mean the process will start now for that but officially kick off in September yeah like we we there's a lot of work for us to do to put together job descriptions and District information to gives an opportunity for staff input um and also parent that will be if
237I could say my job as the inter if if that's for for next year is to work with that new superintendent the permanent one to to have them come to these budget meetings to have them come to town meetings they have them go the to do those introductions so there is a gradual release right and that there is some transition that taking place you know I gotta tell you one of the toughest slips of this job this year is I didn't have any transition I've done this job before they're not having transition right they not even just like wear stuff hard I still sometimes ask the questions I say that people in this room like just help me understand this or you know I I don't know this right now not not that I don't
238know the the role but I don't know the logistics of this District so to be able to have someone hand that off and in a proper manner will be able to get some starting this job right away being the the lead instruction Le that should be happening to this district and hopefully attracts candidates qualified to carry our district we all talk great super right can be able to tell the story of what what a great district is is is certainly on its way to becoming having that strategic plan too great a great gift yeah that's a lot of stuff to work on for everybody yes and Tra mentioned the timeline too that hypothetically then in January having someone you mentioned that trans you know that transition um yes cool all right anybody else words so
239we are voting to start the interm search right now all in favor I I anyone against okay that motion passes as well thank I have a motion for the approval of the Boon education collaborative to host a bingo night and sell alcohol if approved by the town of Boyston select board for the purpose of fundraising so Lor Jess Meg yeah sorry guys I didn't put anything in the drive um so this is exactly the same thing that we did last year and I'll obstain from voting on this um because I'm the treasurer for the group but we have a member of Boon education collaborative her mother owns greens which is a bar and Worcester and donates alcohol to our event uh we hire a tip certified server and that person we sell alcohol it's $10
240a drink or I think it's $20 for three drinks we don't serve anyone more than three drinks there's bracelets you're only allowed to buy one um they Mark the bracelet after they Ser drink if you buy a three drink bracelet we have a police detail at the event and then we have uh a strict no entering the building with alcohol rule because you cannot bring alcohol into a school so the event is held completely outside if it is rained out alcohol still has to stay outside and the beauty of getting the alcohol donated is if we don't use it it just goes right back to the bar um there's no waste so it's just a win-win last year I think we raised like $1,000 doll just from the alcohol sale um we did it again
241in for our Pumpkin Fest it was a very cold day we still made like $300 and the rest of the alcohol went right back to the bar so just looking for approval if you guys approve it tonight then I go to the select board um and then they have to any questions I can't say greens has the best steak and cheese in the entire city the best steak and cheese I'll have to tell my friend just say Pro it and I'm only going there for steak cheese it really is not fny if we get steak cheese all right any last questions okay uh all in favor again and I just abstained yes all right that motion is approved thank you uh have a motion so we can discuss the approval of the youth risk survey
242So Lisa second Jess any discussion on this Al what is Al what is this so we are one of the 79 schools uh that are randomly selected by the Department of Education to do um a a risk survey um I I've spent some time I've done this in the past in other districts um they did a lot of homework on this you know in terms of getting information from my students I know you have that in the drive as well too um my recommendation at this time is that we we we take a pass on this um I don't think that this is the survey that we and we do have an option I think Sally and I make sure we made that connection with the part education making sure we had that option but
243I felt it was important to bring it in front of school committee um but at this time I am recommending as a superintendent um to to pass on the Sur administer toid and I'd like to leave it just at that if I could anyone I mean what bothered me some of these questions are I think horribly inappropriate um but beyond that beyond the concern of whether students would take it seriously or have a lot of fun with it is the fact that there's a way to find out like it's just different classrooms and you can kind of narrow it down and really that's privacy that was a great concern to me also the time to go in it's 100 questions I mean that's just excessive um it's like I guess my personal opinion is the
244Department of Education why not send it out in the mail to parents and let them do that on their own time if they decide why should the schools be the the vehicle to do that with everything else we already have on our plates to make sure the kids are you know passing the mcast and getting ready for college and sat or whatever you know all the stuff we have so it just seems excessive to me there's a great book I I get monthly it's called School CEOs right and the article in this month was research on what families want from school yeah from schools this is not one of them just know that this is not one them okay so my recommendation at this time to school committee would be that we we respectfully respond
245to the public of Education say um we're giving up of our squats and there Al um I'm hoping that what we're talking about I'm sorry plan that will be given surveys out and getting information from families but not to the level of this okay uh so I'm G to ask if all are in favor would be to pass this approval which is against what Al has suggested so all in favor wait hold on I want to make sure I understand I'm G the motion is to approve inquir yeah the motion is to approve the youth risk survey so if you vote for that you are approving it Al has suggested or recommended not to so all in favor any against I heard four president president just abstains presid no Pres presid okay uh okay so
246that uh that motion does not pass thank you can I have a motion to approve the Danto proposed courses that are in the drive can we hear about this uh can have a motion pleas La Megan okay can we hear about this what we y can I um so there are um proposal for five different classes and two of them are well three of them are AP courses the first two AP seminar and AP research those um the courses would run um in successive years um and really are um would in com as a Capstone project um Matt spoke about the exhibitions that were happening with literature this is actually like the exhibitions un steroid you know and really an opportunity for um students we're really seeking the approval so we can try to figure
247out how we're going to map this out for students we're really trying to be forward looking in terms of we know we have some retirements coming in the next couple years and those are pretty significant shoes to so we're we're trying to look at our you know building the curriculum um moving forward so those two courses from pre-calculus AP or AP preal that is a new course that is being um presented by the college board and would be a really wonderful offering we offer AP Cal ab and AP Cal BC so this would be a natural addition the um board course is Art literature this um we were very fortunate to have um hire an art teacher who also has a license as an English teacher and fully certified in both and this would be
248a wonderful opportunity to explore art literature art history um it could be um served as an art elected before an English elective a really I think um exciting opportunity for our students and then also an our CS computer science python fundamentals which would be added to really enhance our computer programming we have computer science discoveries in the middle school we have computer science principles that can be taken um as um a course or an AP course um this provides yet another opportunity for our students to Endeavor in cour workor that really relevant right now any questions any art through literature is that um an honors or not regular College it I would imagine that it would be considered a college prep course any other questions uh okay all in favor of this motion anyone against
249okay the motion passes Lisa if I could just one thing so we talked about this the other day about promoting the opportunity of kids so that they can be enticed to stay so this would be something I hope that gets promoted outside of just this meeting for the I know everybody is watching like as kids come into Tanto their families might like to know that these opportunities there yes absolutely and these will be um incorporate into theam studies and I'll also information yeah yeah maybe even like some sort of promotion announcement like hey look at what we can do now type of thing cap is up sorry it's exactly what we should be doing um and going that thatway is where we should be doing as well so they have Capstone class here that's where
250they Sorry look move forward with that right right absolutely look the um the seminar and research is like a twoyear Capstone project oh cool all right thank you Lisa um the next item is just the calendars is for a first read only um any quick questions on that otherwise we'll wait for Al's presentation next time okay uh I have a motion to approve to update District contacts listed within the following policies acab sexual harassment policy for sexual harassment against students ADF wellness policy nutrition food allies physical activities Mission goals jba policy against harassment discrimination for students and this is simply to update the contacts listed within we're moving away that I'm sorry moved Lori all right go ahead so we're just moving away from um individual names previous superintendent's name on there um Janelle's name
251on there instead putting positions instead of names so we we made one change already um but these are the other changes we went through the Cole and I going through them and finding that this the changes need to be made question yeah the only thing about the wellness policy is it's very I talked to Sally about this it's super vag on um policy on bringing in outside Foods yeah Megan this is only to update the names just the names all I know so are we gonna get a chance to I'm gonna be so then we'll have to vote on it again I mean at our Wellness meeting information that we discussed okay if there's a change then I'll have to bring it back okay gotcha we should have no policies that have individual people's names
252on those positions and please we went from Nicole and I if there's another one you're seeing in there we went through and I should say Nico make off please all right a question oh okay so the acab which is sex sexual harassment um against students lists the title X coordinator title n or Title Nine title n right okay I typed that okay but then so for JB a it's harassment and discrimination for students but it also includes you know things of a sexual nature and I'm just wondering should title n also be in there like a reference to that position um you talk about the cross references at the bottom no it's just about who to contact like it said title n coordinator in the acab one okay but it didn't say it for jba
253who is it saying J um it it just listed um um Personnel okay Services that's what we're doing we're replacing the name Janelle with right I know but in the jba doesn't list the title line at all it just says the pupil and Personnel Services that person in our district is the title coordinator yeah you get but isn't the isn't jba if I'm not mistaken that's policy against harassment discrimination for students as opposed to as opposed to se that's yeah buling but harassment does also include you know under acab sexual harass so so ask me the question one more time I'm sorry it just seemed like maybe um the title M coordinator should also be included in the jba as somebody to contact if you have a problem but the Title Nine coordinator is the
254director of pupil Personnel Services or the director of curriculum and grants and that person it doesn't specifically say the title n director but it says those two positions so I guess the only issue we'd run into is if you change who the title 9 coordinator is but then you'd have to update the policy anyway yeah and by the way title n coordinators we just don't dub the title n coordinates they go some trading for that right so right now it's both s and Janelle tile coordinates but those people are listed in jba those are and we we're removing them and putting positions positions are listed in both policies that's right it just doesn't say Title Nine in the second one in the jba in the exactly but it says the positions are listed in there
255yes yeah they are the same yeah yeah the one the same but I think what you're saying ask should we put tile n coordinate in that's exactly yeah she's just saying wait it says the coordinator for title n of Education amendments wait is not on P what page we could do that I think it's on page four so can we make an amendment on that or just vote as is and then add that in area it's in the sentence form right above there coordin education Amendments of 1972 section 54 Rehabilitation Act 197 622 the 1971 for public schools is it actually does say in the policy yes it right right below it it mentions the title right below the yeah then it says policies made yeah yeah it's just different yeah it's just not it's
256not consistent the way they're listed out so I I I think we could look at that and that would have to be a a little different change of making a change to this policy right now we're just asking you the change the Nam just take up names and put positions in instead okay but do we not that I wrote that down so the next policy meeting will definitely look at that between now and okay thank you yep thanks for to catch up anything else that's not need to answer tonight but I saw the sixth grade only one semester of gy as I know so I don't need any Meg Megan's question couldn't go either so this is only about names not act content of all right all in favor I anyone against okay so now
257we're going to enter into executive session and I will ask for a a motion to enter executive session one and two and will not return to open session executive session pursuant of Mass general laws chapter 38 section 21A purpose 3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining bbea CVA if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair so declares executive session two will be pursued to Master General Law chapter 30 section 21A purpose one to discuss the reputation character physical condition or mental health rather than professional competence of an individual or to discuss the discipline or dismissal of or complaints or charges brought against a public officer employee staff member or individual I have a motion so move Lori second Lisa okay Beth
258hi Jess Magan hi Lori hi Lisa hi okay that motion passes we will now enter executive session thank you everyone for sorry I just well the me