001right call this meeting burlin Bo Regional school committee to order all please rise to flag of the United States of America to the stand One Nation godis andice for all uh thanks everybody um we got a bit a full house Al do you want to tell us why we have a full house absolutely all right little late you meant to say thank you but that's um so thanks um so we'd like to welcome my special guest tonight who are seated over to my right hand side we have the tant boy super bow champions for the third year in a row um [Applause] congratulations so we are all so very proud of them in the way they represent us on and off the on and off the field um on February I'm sorry on Friday December
0026 you guys did an incredible job winning the third time in a roll B for a school of 22 to 16 um at Jette Stadium um I might along with many many many people are there to witness that you guys send yourself like true gentleman and you represented us very well so we're really really happy and we really couldn't be more proud of you guys so congratulations and thank you for representing our district as well as you guys did so this is our way tonight is just to recognize them U I got a lot of emails and I know Mike did as well too this really what it's all about we want to recognize the really good things are happening our district and this is one of them so we're very proud of The Voice
003right now so what we're going to do is I'm going to ask Mike to to join me if you could and boys we're going to have a little bit of our certificate for you guys and a little gift from both Administration and the school committee so when we call your name BL you come on join us and then we ask You Bic to go right around right around the the you shape and shake it every want chance congrat guys so once again congratulations so first um first one is going to be chat G [Applause] please [Applause] next congs [Applause] next Chase con [Applause] Le Jordan Corino congratulations Brad [Applause] conations Rowan Noel con [Applause] [Music] maximilan [Applause] Raposa [Applause] rice here thank you you want to just take it over there so we don't have
004this is this is [Applause] Theon w [Applause] so again I also want to not only congratulate our voice I want to congratulate our coaches that went along with it our athletic director mataro as well too the F work they did as well too again once again boys thank you very much for representing our district so well and being true sportsmanship nice job [Applause] any other events that are coming up I know there's a basketball game coming up I think on Tuesday we're going to do some recognition there as well too this was just our way for our students in our school that represent them in congratul so once again thanks a lot really proud of you you're more than welcome to stay if you like meeting know you got some homework games things that so
005thank you again for coming thank you very [Applause] much gentle watch that so if I could just say one last thing so I just want you I should have said this earlier so those certificates read for their extraordinary dedication achievement we're proud to present this award in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the West bson Tanto Lions 2024 Super Bowl champions so that's what the C ific read as well too so thank you again and thanks for all being here and congratulating them as well too okay all right thanks so you're welcome congratulations everybody um moving on with the meeting uh next up is our public comment section uh is anyone here to make public comment if you might raise your hand see about a few we're GNA keep our public comment session to uh
006just about 15 minutes just because we have a very tight clock tonight um and for public comment we're going to set a timer for three minutes but if you would uh we can start with the first person over there if you come up front uh address the committee with your comments uh and we will set a clock so nobody accuses me of cutting them off how about that just right up in the front this perfect uh if you could state your name and your address for us that'd be great and go ahead my name is marle we live at nature um I have a first grader and a fourth grader at B and full closure my husband works at too and he a coach just this is my letter um I'm just going to read
007the email that I wrote to the school committee and um my post that I posted on Facebook um I just wanted to share with you all a note that I posted on bbrsd parents Facebook page regarding my concerns over the proposed policy dealing with failing classes and extracurricular activities I really hope the board and administration are considering the ramifications of this policy on students and their families I understand and desire to be the very best District but I believe that we truly do have I do we have do have one of the best districts already in this policy is more for pride and Optics than it is for the betterment of our community um here's my post I've been debating whether to write something here regarding one of the latest proposals by our school committee
008but I've decided that I need to speak up and bring it to the attention of other parents there's a big Push by some members of the committee to make the rulle stating that if the Tonto student fails any one class in a semester that they will not be able to participate in any ex extracurricular activities at school this includes Sports and clubs as it stands now there is a rule in place that if any student is failing two classes they're unable to participate this is a rule is also in place with the MIAA for sports it is also important to note that at Tonto the 65 is considered failing whereas in most other districts 60 is the failing Mark we are already holding our students to a higher standard I do understand the desire to
009push students academically but the only thing that this rule will do in the it's discriminated against special ed students students that are English language Learners students suffering with their mental health students with unstable home lives and students who are just not considered to be conventional learners for many students school is hard socially and academically for many the only reason they go to school and participate in class at all is because of the sports music drama or clubs that they are truly passionate about extra corre curricular activities are crucial to a student's success and overall wellbeing Sports and clubs teach real life lessons that may be more vital than what is taught in the classroom for Less traditional Learners this is where students can blossom socially learn time management skills and learn the importance of being
010part of a team or something bigger than themselves they also serve as a time for kids to really feel like they are part of something it's where you can be with people who share your interests and make friends you might not otherwise make in class as a parent of a special education student I know that middle of high school will likely be a challenge for us as a family it's unrealistic for us to believe that we will be able to make it through the entire six years without hiccups in the class I also realized the devastating consequences that feeling like failure and being punished for it by taking away the things that she cares above most would have on her I know that some students May truly be giving their very best at school each
011day and their best might just not meet the standards that others have set for them middle and high school students are not Crea and we cannot create rules that favor the more traditional students while asking students who may struggle thank you Mar that was three minutes thank you I trust you read the rest of what I had we have your email in post yes thank you tag team hiel husband masss thank you okay I know that some students sorry I wasn't I know that some students May truly be giving their best um at school each day and the best might does not meet the standards that others have set middle school and high school students are not created equally cannot create rules that favor the more traditional students while icing out those who may struggle
012I absolutely believe that this rule will be discriminatory towards these students while I and I will not stand by quietly while the district allows us the goal is to make our district the best which I feel like a lot of people have stated is our goal you must do so by including all of your students even those that may not boost your test course or state I would love for our daughter to get through all of our years at tto with zero academic or social strs the reality is that it will probably not be the case for hers and others like as parents we value academics and instill the importance of hard work studying respecting your teachers and doing your best at school obviously but I can imagine speaking on behalf of an entire district
013and not recognizing that not all our children will sail through school with no BM in the room I hope for the benefit of all of our kids that the committee and superintendent will take a long look at the ramifications of this proposed rule realize that sometimes the kids are more important than how our district is viewed in a ranking list this is a great district and it has been for a very long time where we have always felt supported and included and that is more important than a Personal Agenda to try and create unrealistic standards for thank you thank you uh Bill Whitehead high school English teacher here at Tanto and I live in town six Upland Road stop on by some of you um so that okay um there's not much I can say
014that more did not say perfectly the the spirit of the proposed language I don't necessarily disagree with um the idea that a student can fail and still play but not have something in place may not sit well with people and I understand that so I would encourage the committee and anyone um talking about the topic tonight to look at something in between a compromise I believe there's some compromised language forth um to say there's a hiccup in the road you're currently failing a class therefore you can't participate in extracurricular Sports um that's punitive um and uh it lacks compassion we everyone in here has had a moment in their lives where there's a bump in the road there's U lack of better term things going on outside of work outside of school um that makes
015school and work work and other priorities secondary um death bad Health news tensions at home divorce all sorts of things we've all been there um so to say to a kid hey for whatever reason uh the class you're taking that you struggle with and now you have slight dip in your grades you're out of basketball you can't be in play uh that that's not the spirit of this District um so I would urge you to consider some kind of language where if a student is failing one they need to get some tutoring they go to a club to get extra help that we say h we're here to support you and get you back where you need to be rather than tough luck um that's the Practical reality utilize your teachers in terms of resources
016and here's where here's what we want to do we don't like this policy how can we make that a practical reality in the classrooms um that's it thank you thank you Bill uh before we go is there Erin is are you're looking to make a comment to yeah hi Erin you're looking to make a comment about the uh the handbook the students faing is it consistent with what they've said already um it's coming from more of a teacher perspective than thinking about the a classroom okay um go ahead all right so hello my name is Kristen Nelson um six Upland Road in Boon I'm a teacher at Tanto I'm also a coach at Tanto I'm a former student athlete from Tanto as well um and I just wanted to offer my perspective as a teacher
017um first of all I believe the proposed policy to be inequitable in my career which spans almost 20 years students in CP classes are much more likely to fail a quarter on a report card than their counterparts in honors and AP classes I personally had a number of students who have failed quarter of history or English in my almost 20 years Almost 100% of those students were in CP classes CP students would be dis disproportionately affected by this policy and since a number of these students receive special education services the district could be accused of discrimination second I believe the proposed policy be misguided it assumes that failure is an anomaly and unacceptable and I would ask who in this room has not failed at something we can't ignore failure and we can't punish kids
018for it and as I tell these kids every year now is the time to fail uh when you are young and learning and have the safety net of your teachers in a supportive School environment I'll help you to learn from your failure and work towards success this policy would say the opposite that it is unacceptable to fail I don't understand how growth can occur without failure why would you not acknowledge the failure give them support to bring their grades up and keep them engaged with their extracurriculars finally I believe the proposed policy would be counterproductive to the state goal if the goal is academic rigor we're constantly being told that the number of students enrolled in AP classes is a measure of our academic rigor students take advanced classes in order to challenge themselves they
019understand even at their age that challenges are inherently difficult and by definition have the possibility of failure why would a student take on the challenge and the possibility of failure if they knew that their extracurriculars were under threat students often choose to move up from CP to Hors but why would they leave their comfortable grades in CP if failure at honors meant they couldn't do art Club anymore I submit that our honors in AP enrollment would decrease if this policy were put in place and I'd completely understand why the students or parents would make that choice and in all my years of teaching the most rigorous students I've had the ones who work the hardest which is my understanding of the word rigor are the ones who have challenges to overcome I've had honor students
020who effort effortlessly skate through school earning A's and I've had CP students who sweat through every assignment and give it their all earning fs and D's and finally C's and that's high as they go and that's just fine by me I'm more proud of them than I am of my effortless a students if you halt them in their tracks when they get that first F then they will have nowhere to go I don't know what you think will happen to these kids by taking away their extracurriculars but I can assure you that it won't make them want to come to school and do better give them an opportunity to improve and and still do their extracurriculars and you'll have them learning and engaged and growing thank you thank you Aaron would you like to speak
021yes thank [Music] you hi my name is Eric Kane I live at T Ed Street in thank you for being here I have a different topic I want to speak about the need for an enrichment program in our schools our students need and deserve access to enrichment opport ities throughout their school day while our incredible classroom teachers work tirelessly to hold all children to high standards and we just heard from one of them it is nearly impossible to provide each child with relevant and challenging enrichment opportunities on top of everything else that teachers our task with but don't our students deserve this my eldest son is extremely bright he finishes his work quickly he finds little academic challenge in his school this has always been his yet he comes to school each day despite knowing
022he will not be challenged he knows his work will be simple something he has long ago mastered and he can complete without much thought or effort he is bored yet he still shows up his teacher Mrs Reed is among the best of the best she works with him and helps him find Value in the work presented to him however doesn't he deserve more don't our children deserve to find Value don't our children deserve something that excites them in their learning don't they deserve something to look forward to don't they deserve to see learning come alive in ways that go above and beyond the ordinary last year Liam was fortunate enough to participate in science with Mrs syes which was an enrichment opportunity she provided in her first year as a be as principal during that
023time learning came alive from him as a second grader in that enrichment group Liam explored aerodynamics cohesion adhesion surface tension Rockets thrust among others it was a transformative experience for him at thees unfortunately scheduling demands have changed and this group is no longer a possibility Li and others like him can no longer participate but it isn't just about high Achievers all of our students deserve this all students benefit from enrichment regular participation in enrichment opportunities exposes students to new subjects and disciplin helps them develop their areas of Interest reduces anxiety increases social and soft skills provides Real World experience and enhances confidence in their abilities I've watched this committee work diligently to ensure our district has the best of the best you have the power the commitment and the tenacity to turn this Vision into
024action in a district that Prides itself on being A Step Above the Rest don't our students deserve this thank you I think we have time for one more if you'd like to go hello my name is elizabth share and I'm captain of the Tonto girls Varity soccer team I a two-time All State and all Central Mass Allstar I made one time tant uh MVP and a one time League MVP run out at been to leading goal scorer for the last two years beating my 16 goal season last year with 20 goals 24 goals this season I've contributed to making history every year and I've been on this team every year I've been on this team IE two times state semi-finalist two times Central Mass finalist one time Central Mass champion and I took all CP
025classes my FR year I took four honors classes and one CP class my sophomore year and I'm now taking two AP classes and four honors classes as a Jun I played on a national soccer team for five years a regional soccer team for one year and contributed to the successful comeback season the team could ever have going from dead last to first place in our league and second place at regionals I have committed to a university for soccer and I struggled with my with my sophomore math box and I hate to think for the opportunities lost in the proposition in this proposition if it were if it had been in place for some kids sports is the only reason they come to school it's also the only way they can afford to go to college
026for some kids they work hard but know their grades aren't outstanding enough to earn them a scholarship for the schools they want so there sport is the only way that they can afford to go to college if a student who is athletically gifted but not academically gifted fails a class and gets immediately punished for their sport you've unknowingly just hurt their chances of of affording college grades are important one of the most important and influential things in a high school without the grades you aren't going to succeed which is what we are all told however some of the best vins were called stupid and had bad grades like for example I if you are going to stop an athlete from playing their sport over one failed class Aid in ruining a bright over somebody who
027knows they tried hard but can't grasp a concept who stays after school or during lunch to get help spends hours on YouTube at home watching videos researching problems to solve trying to grasp a concept to tell them that since they don't understand photosynthesis and biology and fail to buy a point in quarter one that they are unfit to be an athlete because Sports is what's keeping the kid back is this really the best way to advocate for the betterment of students what about the kids who have to work to help suain themselves and their fam so they can go to school so they can play their sport the kids who stay up until 2 or 3 walk in the morning to get their homework done oftentimes leaving them exhausted physically run down and more susceptible
028to illness than the normal kid student athletes know they need to get grades they are threatened by that already by dropping it from one class to zero you are adding on with the stress a student athlete already faces in their day-to-day lives student athletes are some of the most disciplined people managing Sports homework hard classes and their homeand lives all at the same time and because you want to make Tanto a more academically rigorous place you are not only jeopardizing the physical health but their abilities to get into college they want into the college they want with a scholarship he not all students going the same all right thank you thank you all right uh so moving on to our Communications does anyone have any Communications to add to the folder all right could I
029have a motion to approve the consent agenda please Lori Lisa anyone like to discuss it all right all in favor I opposed all right consent agenda passes thank you uh moving on to the report section I don't specifically have anything to report so Al what you have for us great um so thank you so we have a scheduled um Zoom call that we're going to be doing at 5:30 so I I have a few minutes at this point point so I'm GNA ask Matthew Dow um if we could do a little out of bottom we'll have a student count representative um give his input for us for our school commity matth all right perfect I'm gonna keep it short anyways not too much um so Rec because we just came off of wi break so
030not too much has been going on around here um aough we've got midterms coming up so you know lots of studying going on um prior to winter break we had our uh High School pepper rally and we did a combined spirit week with middle school was a lot of fun you know we have like the whole school was all dressed up for Spirit Week um we had stall day which went pretty well so we'll donate that money that we raised from there to the Special Olympics um in a couple of weeks when we get the check um uh in terms of sports teams um I know we have some we obiously recognized our uh our football team earlier and we've also had um some soop sports teams um I know particularly the Hudson hockey team
031which some of our Tonto kids go to uh has been doing really well in their league um I want to say they're close to the CP so that's great to see um but yeah think that pretty much covers it so thank you sh Matthew um if I'm gonna I'll just continue after Matthew is um going on if I'm G to go a little out of aut if I could just for a second um about the Berlin PM bus routes um again I want to thank both the school committee um John Campbell for the work he did um Paul Mara um Bob Holmes parents and and most importantly our students um this process actually went off relatively smoothly we had no no hiccups um that were major at least in changing those bus routes um um
032the PM bus routes in in Berlin um I know we inundated you and I I apologized during that Christmas break we wanted to make sure we got enough information out so I think we sent it out between John myself and call um multiple times um but we made sure and it went off that first day when went off seamless um so we're really happy about that so thank you for that and again um taking the chance to do something at that mid year um is is a big is a big ask and we did it and I thank all the parents for that as well too so um thank you for that um are we good Joe or we need a few minutes get her up now okay that' be great um while that's happening
033um I just want to talk to a little bit about the Strategic plan if I could um at our next school cre meeting you're going to um I'm going to ask PM G um will join us um in Tru our steps of developing strategic plan um she will be meeting with our admin team a little bit earlier before our school committee meeting um and then she'll be joining us um I I can't stress enough the importance of having our strategic plan um this is truly a living document for everything that we're going to need for our district as we're going through the process right now even with our budget um we we need a strategic plan and and we can't wait any longer and I know we have a portrait of a graduate some work
034that has been done with that um that will align um will certainly fall into the umbrella over strategic plan but there's a lot of work that needs to be done um with that so again I'm going to have that being introduced to our admin team next uh in February and then our next school Comm meting she'll come and present to us and say what exactly what does a strategic plan look like and how about we go there and get into to having a completed strategic plan which honestly we'll stop working on it but it will take us through um the rest of this year um through the summer and and deep into the fall before we get it done and ready to to move it all along at the same time we'll be working on
035that well she have a threee PL um we're working on a five-year plan no no I hope she have the document three yes already already shared that Sally and I have been um meeting with her on on a regular basis giving her all the information um giving her all the portrait of a graduate giving her all those things as well too great um again sorry I apologize for going out of a I'm going to give a little bit of a technology update if I could um so for for a couple things I guess I gotta make a couple introductions for those um the gentleman over there to my right hand side um at this time I'd like the pleasure of introducing to our new interim director of Technology um Joseph spado A Joe spado so
036welcome to the district Jo Joe has um Joe will officially start um later in January um he's joining us today um for a couple reasons just to to get get accustom and and meet some of our um our scoy members um he's helping us out with our event that's taking place tonight as well too um on his first day his first assignment will be um working with our principal and seeing their needs and wants and what they need for the remain years so um Joe has a a a great background of of technology and I had the fortunate pleasure of working with Joe uh he was in that role um when I was working at veteran Academy so we're glad to really have Joe coming and joining our team um and as the interim director
037of Technology um and I know Joe you're gonna talk a little bit afterwards um or introduce yourself as well too but I know we have a 5:30 um Zoom call um so on our our Zoom call right now it's my pleasure to introduce to you Megan Canard um Megan has been working on our website with the initial work on Tanto one of the things um I've heard on the Tonto site one of the things I heard from parents from school committee um from even our students is the need of our website um and I know when I was first approached about coming over here as a superintendent school the first thing I went to um was the website I know that new families that are coming on board that I think about moving whether they're
038going to move into Berlin or Bolston or they're going to move into West Bolston or North br they're looking at our website to get a really idea of what's taking place in our district I've heard that from many of my colleagues I've heard it from parents I've heard it from relatives as well too when they're saying that when families are moving in are looking to move in um Megan has been working with us and our principles um for maybe a couple months now um getting all what what we need and what we want our um our website to look like um so Megan's going to walk us a little bit through it tonight um so we get to see what it looks like if this is the we're going in for Tanto then will be
039easy so it looks consistent across our district right so what it will look like in Berlin what it will look like in bolon and what it will look like in the central office as well too so at this time it's my pleasure to introduce to you Megan canar thank you El good evening everyone thank you so much for having me um as Al mentioned I hope you can all hear me all right um my name is Megan Gard I'm a marketing uh have marketing uh Communications for try Communications which is a PR marketing firm headquartered here in Massachusetts we work mainly with um Professional Services Hospitality um and in the tech and energy sector with clients on their public relations activities as well as their digital marketing PRS um as Al mentioned I work with
040him on um the refresh and redesign of the ferani academy website and um wanted to take some of the things that we applied to that and put it to good work here um since taking on the redesign in mid November our primary focus has been really transforming the site into a more user friendly U platform something where the interface is more familiar um in terms of the setup and navigation and while the previous site certainly you know provided you with a digital presence there were a few critical issues that we did come upon such as errors or outdated links and broken pages is um and sometimes you know there was confusion created and frustration for users both as the teachers and parents um there were really entire sections of the site that had never actually
041been built out with content um so we had a lot of um confusion on what page to go to for something in particular and it was hard to find so we we heard that as as a main complaint and then really just there was no structure so how you and I would go to a website what what are the pages we expect to see and the options where they you know what what are we anticipating someone is going to be looking for as a parent or a student coming to the site um so what we're trying to do is do this without any you know um expensive coding utilizing the existing platform provided to us by the final site um there are some restrictions as with any we s template um as to what you
042can do within that platform's interface um but what we're trying to do right now is create a more structured website that eventually you'll continue to build upon and optimize um a website is a dynamic marketing tool it's never done and um there is a lot of work to do to some of the internal pages that we have not yet been able to address um what I'm going to show you now is is preliminary I'm going to show you the existing Tanto site um just quickly and then pop over to where we are now on the test site which is where we're building this um on the back end so I'm going to go ahead and share my screen with you so as you can see here this is our existing site um we come to
043the site and and we have a hero image here which which swaps out which is something that um we wanted to clean up a little bit a part of the site that we did maintain and our our first task as I mentioned was trying to correct the site map and navigation um we found that a lot of these Pages weren't necessarily where they should be and that these are not really the standard tabs that one would look for to quickly access info so what we've done is taken everything on this exist site and brought it over to a new site under a more structured DB that Google and search edes would expect to read um and in a certain order we did find that there were cases where we would click on a page and
044it would this would be where it brought you and from here you then had to come over to this menu and select another page we're adding all these layers to navigation which if you all are familiar on your on your cell phone which is where a lot of this traffic happens that can be frustrating so not very user friendly and these are just some of the types of things that we wanted to clean up um the less clicking the better so um what we did was bring over everything we have onto a new site um so this would be the new hero image that I I showed you on the old site this also will rotate through these can be changed you can have I would recommend up to five anything you want to highlight
045this is just an example um I believe we highlight Athletics um and so this is a great place for us to show off some of the best graphic images you know that you have um and and we'll maintain that here what we did here was add a more familiar structure to the homepage so here we have a summary of Tanto is this is important for a number of reasons mainly Google search we need to have some text um immediately up top on a on a homepage so um we drafted some language here that of course can be vetted and and toned up um we've added quick links um so some of the most common uh content that was requested be at your fingertips for parents we've added a new section called quick links um which
046will appear on different pages and have different buttons that are pertinent um so as I showed you before when I clicked on high school information it took us to a pretty blank page um here we're creating more familiar interface with these pages so now this is where you can come to find all of those things um and you don't have to bounce around to look for it um so that's some of the work that we have been doing um thus far and um the other ask I believe was calendar so we have changed the look of the calendar just a bit to be something that um I think visually works a lot better yes um than what we had with tabs it allows parents to get an overview of the the entire month they can
047swap it to week day whatever they prefer um but this would appear you know on it could appear at the bottom of every page um it could appear on on certain pages but this was also something that was requested um that I think makes a big impact we also added a traditional contact form which you do not have right now um there is no centralized you know sort of generic email that I can tell uh appears anywhere on the website I don't know if that's intentional so this is certainly something that can be removed but just a sample of of the types of content that again create a more familiar interface to this homepage and that's what we're going to carry through to all of the internal Pages um so I know I've given you
048kind of a lot to digest if you want we can just stop here and if you have any questions I'm happy to take those do anybody have any questions for no this is excellent thank you I we've been asking I think for the calendar for I don't know years yeah so it would be great too if we could add like athletic events so like kids from the elementary school can see like oh there's a basketball on Tuesday night I want to go sport the team or something and I'm not sure who does the whoose the updator of these um but I certainly agree with you on that having having one place you know for this to go um and and I mentioned ear speaking with Joe too this is something we also did with the
049other schools I don't know what how this calendar feeds through um exactly or who updates it but there are options for parents to subscribe to calendars namely Google offers this um for your your cell phone it'll integrate with your native calendar and everything will just populate for that and they won't have to go looking for it either um so that's also an integration that we could probably look at that be wonderful know here it's great love it thank you anybody else right so I just want before we let Megan go so first Megan thank you it it's it's an eye openening experience for me right in in walking through this you sometimes just think a website and it should be an easy thing but the work that she's doing on the back end of this
050is absolutely incredible um and it's daunting and once we get to a SP a spot where where we'll be able to just continue to update it and again we're making sure this is what we want for the Tonto site we started there for no other reason we thought that's where all our kids go if I chose Berlin over Boston I didn't want to go down that road so I think if we just got into Tanto we'd be in in the saf spat um and then we'll roll that out if this is what we want into b um so our goal is to have this ready um by certainly by the end of this year but in the next couple months um but we felt it was real important to get in front of school CR
051to make sure this was a direction that you wanted to go in as well too um because this was something you brought to my attention I think in in the first school committee meeting I had that this was a concern of yours as well too excellent questions Megan thank you very much we appreciate it we'll be talking to you very soon thanks very thank you thank you full disclosure my student that's a hold them G that's great I would keep that going yeah so we're really we're really excited about that um she's working like I said she met with all of our principles um so they gave her their input and now she's working with the high school and then we'll be working with brand and wols as well too okay yeah yeah just I
052just curious like to have like the the tondo day integrated into that and then like school the cafeteria calendar integrated in that yeah um and then having emails to be able to send you about when meting so she's doing on the back end of the stuff and I keep saying like I know what I'm talking about but she's really doing all that part and then the specifics that we're looking for will be a the the part that we found really interesting is like having those keywords and I know she mentioned that those those keywords that when you're Googling schools or you're Googling you know um you're different things that our site will pop up and that's what we want to make sure and that's why that verbiage is extremely important that should have asked will
053it interg with Arbiter at all or the Sports One Arbiter is the Sports website where all of like the registration goes through and all the sports calendar and the practices are Aller like email I I think that's a great question and I'm gonna that will be one of the things that Joe can certainly he obviously you could tell already they've been working together and for those Joe has not even officially started working with us like I said earlier but he's already laying some groundwork so that we can get some of these technology things in place see answer your question we will make it much easier to get the the information from Arbiter perfect um Arbiter also does allow you to sync the calendar to your say your your phone so you can follow all of
054tono's athletic calendars just by subscrib so even if your kid's not registered for the sport you can okay yes you do have that capability okay and that's through Arbiter in itself but we'll work to get things popular on calendars and even if we have a few different calendars for different pages and how they populate we're gon we're gonna head in that direction Joe did you want to just do a little opening for as introduce yourselves I know I introduced you as as an adult to an adult I apologize but is there something you wanted to say no I just want to say thank you for this opportunity I'm happy to be here I'm excited for this um as El stated Mr stated I don't start until the 21st um I'm already ready to hit the
055ground running working alongside with Megan we're gonna build a strong outline for this new website build out and layout and then you know make it more robust and easier to manage um and also easier to manipulate and find the information that you're looking looking for I'm going to be working closely with the administrative teams as we uh work to build out a three to 5e strategic plan for the technology department and um we got a lot of work to do be fun and I'm excited for this so thank you for this opportunity allowing me to be here thank you Joe and the and the last thing is one of the tasks that will be in the three to fiveyear technology plan and I've heard it from every parent as well as teachers and principles is
056our initial opening day forms right so that you're not filling out all of them by paper right so Joe pushed us even a veteran right to move forward into technology and doing those things and and I can honestly say in a in a very established old Catholic school for Joe to be able to move Us in that direction we needed to move in he was able to do that so it'll be an easy task for him to be able to do that um for public that's where we should be as a district I mean I I appreciate everyone saying about sports and Athletics and extra curriculum all important this is some of the stuff that is extremely important not only for our staff for our students but for our community that we are staying current
057of what's taking place all that's a big piece for and letting people know how great that district is a quick question so like tomorrow I know there's the eighth grade transition meeting which which I think is awesome um but I think it would be awesome if we could videotape that and then put it up on the website so parents that don't come can have access to it but also kids that are looking you know parents that are looking to transfer in have access to that or even like sixth graders fifth graders looking for the future um so to to that point it is it will be videotaped it was videotaped last year it will be videotaped and it's on the YouTube channel that the school committee is on so it we you will I mean
058it definitely would be easier if it was right on the website but it it you will have access oh one other thing for Joe uh one thing that we've been working on for Years also is getting cell phone service like in this building so many people come in here you can't use your cell phone like to make an outgoing call unless you're on Wi-Fi like explore tons of different options it'll be interesting to get a fresh take uh we do a budget sub a budget and Facilities subcommittee with Aaron and Al um and I think it's myself Lisa and Beth so hopefully we can invite you to one you know February March and bring that open that can of worms up again because we still don't have sell service in the building or at least
059not everywhere not every phone it's better than it was his role will be instrumental with that and also when Rich gives his presentation about safety and some of the things that we need to make sure we're having in place um they'll be working closely in that that grouping as well great all right thanks show I just got two more things and I I'll be as brief as I can um msba project you know we're we're we're working with that for the roof um in Bolston um I've been doing the paperwork along with Aaron and Dan Aela um the next big um deadline for me is January 31st um so we're we're keeping up with that um I know that people are aware that we're doing a roofing project on Bolston uh there's a lot that
060goes along with what you get it right and there's a lot of paperwork and things that need to go through um but I will keep you guys updated with that the roofing project is not look until next summer of 2026 so just know that's where they're at right now um but that's I I'll keep it continue to keep it update with that last thing I I want to make you aware of is as you saw I sent out CommunityWide there was a data breach right with our um a data information system that we use which is Power School um it what didn't just happen just to us didn't just happen just in state of massachus happened across the entire country um that there was day breach you you need to know not that it makes
061it any better it was on their end um they had something left open that they shouldn't have left open um Paul and Joe are already working with that were attending in Aaron as well we've been attending some conferences online so they're keeping us informed um I know that Aaron reached out to our insurance company as well to just to make sure they're aware of it even though it's really not on our end it's on power school's end um but any information that we get from power school we will continue to keep the community update but I wanted to make sure I let you guys know about that uh again in school committe as well and and that's it if no one has any questions for me any questions thank you um before we move on
062Al I I promise Lisa uh we have some students in the room who are related to one of our business items at the very end but uh if we could let them go right now and I think it has to do with the sweet and savory sorry that sweet and savory Club sweet and savory club and the St in approving a new club and I think it's later on in your school pry business items is but we think it would be a really good club because it'll teach a lot of kids kind of how to to be more creative for the teachers because I know there was something similar a few years ago and Mr F said that she like when students for mix um good items for the teachers that they can take home
063to their family so after a long day they would have some for children that they would have to so and during the club um we would have like a lot of ideas and stuff and a lot of want help people on how to cook on their own how to F things on their own because it's hard and not something that everyone gets taught and as we're leaving living on our own getting older growing up but um we have more maturity more ourselves and there like some things that we have to do and yeah and you already have a lot of set we had a we already have have a we have some supplies already that's there but we would need to get some food items some supplies just in case we already have some ideas
064either the PTO or any others in general as some local supermarkets around but as we go kind of change it to see nice job guys I'm just gonna add two things to I talk to your principal today and and in Sally as well too so we're all set with the wellness policy because this will be happening after school hours right and the other thing we're going to be paying very close attention to anyone with allergies as well too so we know that we covered those two things to make sure we're we're good with those but it goes right along with the parent about enrichment right so what a great activity for these kids and self-initiated so thank you guys so what they're looking for is is a vote on allowing this to happen I know
065it goes a little out of order in your business items okay bring that okay great great any questions for our students great idea such a good idea I said a nice job better than I did speaking to a crowd nice work nice work okay we can probably do the vote right now so they can hear so could I have a motion please for the approval of the sweet and savory club and Club stien Jess second I heard Lisa uh discussion I just want to say I'm really in favor of this because research always shows that people who cook for themselves are the healthiest like that's one of the you know major contributors to help so it's really great and a lot of people don't know how to cook even adults can we hear a little
066bit about the statement yes sis um so the statement is um for and they already have an advisor who they've asked and has um said um she was willing to do that Su vote um and it's 7 $138 which is the standard stien for the clubs that is that are running for um for this school year on the um payment Matrix so that's what and the only thing Le we talked that we pro rated right because I'm not doing a full year that so just make sure we do that as well too right and then how are they paying for the food and all of the um items they need fund they're going to do fundraising that's awesome all right you're looking for to take Sal starters proba just talking about this the only thing
067I want to ask Al um so you mentioned Al mentioned about allergies being aware of allergies and the wellness policy I know in the doc that I read it mentioned possibly bringing the food to outside parties outside of the school maybe check in with the maybe the cafeteria manager just to make sure everything is covered from like Serve Safe certifications anything else that might be needed just if it's going outside the school right and I think that's some of the stuff they got to work out as a new club right so I think they're looking to get this off the ground and I would say even in the future um I'm sure anyone in this room has some great restaurants they attend and know might know a waiter waitress or a chef that goes along
068with that right that we welcome them to come into our school and stuff um so that'd be wonderful so I think this is the start of something really good but I think there's a lot of logistics we got to work out before we're in that that final push but we didn't sorry speaking for you least but I know they didn't want to move forward without making sure a new club was approved financially as well all right thank you thank you nice job boys and girls nice job thank you any other discussion all right all in favor I against all right the motion passes thank you thank you guys so first sorry just joking okay all right uh we are at our administrator updates Rich Mr Cameron good so as you know rich is um we
069had we had an event a holl in event that took place earlier in this year um at Tahanto at that point we realized that we had some um things we need to tighten up and be consistent across our entire D in terms of safety um so rich has um been our our newly appointed safety Le is on on top of the role of being the assistant principal Tanto so he's been working with our Chiefs of police our fire captains our principes um and I felt it was important that he give you a little bit of update what's happening with our district because um that's at the beginning of the year and here we are almost halfway through so I thought it was important for you guys to to hear from Rich Mr Cameron and by
070the way he's doing doing incredible work doing this work for us so thank you well appreciate the introduction um and just having the floor tonight to just give you guys an update on all the work that we've done and all that we plan do so as you guys know from our October school committee meeting that we had we had Enlisted the expertise of robella who's been served longterm as W Public Schools uh safety director uh I was also appointed as the district safety leaon to uh work with our local police our First Responders uh our administrative team to really bring out all these practices conduct a full comprehensive safety audit of where we're currently at um and roll out unified practices throughout the District so uh tonight we be an update on all that uh
071we have done thus far but also our action items for what we plan to do for the remain so I tried breaking it down organizing this information to like four different topics that we've really been uh kind of harping on us like the heart of our work first uh the big piece here is obviously cond a comprehensive revieww of all of our current emergency response protocols uh seeing where our strengths are where our areas of improvement needed um and just evolving too with um everything else that happens in the world and making sure that we're up to speed um with our practices in aligning with the local law enforcement terms of what we need to be ready for and prepared for uh second piece and this is where a lot of the work comes is
072really standardizing our practices across the district having unified practices at every single school so that for our kids our families when they're in kindergarten all the way through 12 the same messages are given from when um we were sending everything out uh same vocabulary same messages sent home families know what to expect they know what's coming down the line and how we operate and how to respond to safy situations three uh a big piece of it implementing proactive strategies uh really taking a look at how we continue to educate our families and our students uh nine times out of 10 proactive of how to respond in these situations we can we can uh definitely limit the of um you know fall up or things that occur and really handle these problems up front before they
073become an actual issue and finally the fourth item here we're going to talk about today is uh providing targeted training opportunities for all of our staff across the district so that people in our buildings are prepared to handle emergency situations as they arise first item on the docket is comprehensive review of Emergency Response protocols uh this is some of the work that we have uh done recently and I do want to start just to comment on our memor of understanding to just highlight for this District coming on board in terms of the year two uh I have to stress the uh relationship that we have with our local First Responders uh we work very closely with law enforcement our fire chiefs uh it's phenomenal um in terms of the time that they dedicate to working
074with us and sitting down and developing these plans of making sure that we're up to speed on everything um while Berlin everyone knows officer boy is a stable uh for the burin public schools and uh when you take a look at it for us U you know while we don't have a resource officer on site we have a point of contact through this and I can say anytime that we have an issue from Boon uh Sergeant Mount riy has a phone call away the problem solved this any situation that comes on up um that has not historically been the case that the districts that I've worked at you have that type of connection where any situation you have you have you have a quick direct line uh to problem solve so the relationship that we
075continue to conduct and off one is one that's outstanding that I do want to highlight and communicate to that one of the first pieces that we have embedded work that we uh conducted we hit the ground running with uh with implementing What's called the threat protocol um for this piece here we sat down with both police Chiefs uh we sat down with our Administration team and really took a look at developing thre Protocols of how we handle threats when they occur um this is the big new piece this is the training that all of our Chiefs are actually going to is actually very DET timeing they had actually gone to this training a week before we sat down to develop it um so this is the big piece we took a look at evolving strategies
076involving practices and what we continue to implement um this threat protocol when we held our safety presentation for all of our staff we reviewed this with them uh and going over in terms of what we do when a threat comes around the short of it I tried to highlight here is just really uh framing it is that we don't deal with things thre on our own all right um this is a collaborative practice that we work with our local law enforcement when things happen we reach out and problem solved it's our job as administrators to provide the details provide the incident uh share the interviews and where we're at currently with as much accurate information about that at a time um but at the end of the day you know they're going to process this
077information they're going to guide police come to site they are the ones who are in charge and it's our job them to really Implement our internal practices to make sure all kids are safe um all kids are accounted for um a lot of this too just just to highlight a couple areas just our relationship you know going through the process of um you know we sat down and take a look at what law enforcement does what we do uh on our end in terms of uh steps that may need to take place in terms of conducting home visits interview students and then just us in terms of really determining what the response is whether what type of um you know safety measure is appropriate at the time whether it's going to be lock down or
078whether it's going to be an evacuation with problem solving with the police okay so just really kind of framing this uh set and then at the end of the day determine what measures may come after the fact two so this is fully implemented at this time in terms of problem solving anything that comes up to place and as I said we took the time to go over this all with our staff and really communicating that threat curse all right what do you do you know and we really highlighted in terms of during school hours bringing this to Administration it's not their job to assess the level of the threat and we take it on hour to work with our Police Department to determine the next steps of what we do in that specific situation outside
079of school hours really continuing to stress too if if something occurs after school hours contact us but contact to the police um having our staff know that they can reach out and families can reach out um that these things need to be we need to continue that process of of having communication with police and responding to any type of threat whether it be a threat that's made to others or threat upon themselves as well that these are the steps we need to prare Rich can I just interrupt you just if you go back once so that's a big piece that after school hours that we're stressing and bringing it out we had the conversation with the our local police officers and our police Chiefs like we're all in this together right it's just not it's
080just not Administration here it's also school committee it's our parents it's our students if there's any concern their job is to contact a local police and we have to make sure the police now have protocols in place and they do because we're working in collaboration that's a big um change for us and how we're handling situations as well sorry this has to be communicated to parents though absolutely and a lot of work to come so when we get to uh kind of that third piece it's huge uh and we love some feedback in terms of creative ways we stay stuff that we have done but there's a lot of work that's and and the way I've been handling things with Rich and in the principles it goes from the school TR first so I don't
081want you seeing something as a parent and you're saying wait a minute I I don't I don't want to do this or I want to do this or I don't believe in this when we're look at our table of organiz ation after our parents and families it's school committee so I have to make sure that you guys are on board with this and believe before we move forward so that's why we're here today good sorry Rich no please and honestly interject any time any feedback any questions you have to answer um for this piece too another piece that we have implemented as this school year is that every school at this time we have sat down and develop what called uh School building response team this is really just internal practices of laying out the
082who does what okay um you know who is the person that's going to be responsible speaking with the police when they arrive on site um who's going to be in charge of making sure that all these students accounted for who deals with the media who deals with the child who's struggling when an incident takes place all right very important to highlight each person not just a primary a secondary as well planning for people are out um so that everybody knows when crisis situations occur what your job is uh it's very tough to delegate in the moment of who does what so this is something that we have built in to really harp on each of the individual jobs rules and responsibilities of all of our staff um this is not up there we have kind
083of like some plans that for they're going to be blank just because you know some and that will be shared with the police yes and and this one last thing so one of the things we're we're not sharing is right so some of this stuff will be in the executive session when we move into like what our threats are and what our weaknesses are that which will come in executive session with our chief of police and eventually tell us like this is where we're at and how we're going forward and and I think the big question at the end of the day is is if something was to happen tomorrow at one of our schools are we prepared to respond to any threat that that comes out or any emergency action the answer to that
084is yes yes and that um we will continue to uh go through a comprehensive revie all of our current plans continue to build off on them continue to develop the roles but this will be a lot more the work action item number two standardizing all emergency procedures and resources across the district um part of our professional development that we were in when we held our safety meeting for all staff is we reviewed every single drill that we condu we not we conduct a monthly drill um with our local First Responders and it's not just fire drills anymore um you know we have to adapt to all the things that take place in the outside world and these are the types of drills that the more you practice pieace um so really for us in terms
085of looking at consistent language of what these drills are and how we operate um when you take a look at it if I say um you know a fire drill happened right now and that alarm went off I think it's safe to say that every single person in the room would know exactly what to do uh because it's ingrained in us we practice this since we're little all the way up all the way up through for us it's our job and our responsibility to make sure that any of these situations that arise for our kids they are as prepared in terms of how they operate and what those steps are so these are the drills that we will all be running as a district uh and with in collaboration with our local law enforcement and
086fire department and we will continue to practice these and um and spend time going with our staff reviewing all of our procedures and what we do one uh School announcements for emergencies for this PC it's really about a communication piece and unifying our practices as I said early on I think it's very important that we're all heing the same thing um that families are getting the same messages at home um as of right now we do have um if there is ever an emergency that takes place the first uh response would always be through the intercom system would be the primary means of notification the building or something occurs we have unified messages at all of our schools where it's it's lined up that's going to be the same script that occurs that is read
087um so from our students when they're in kindergarten they're familiar with it they hear it they understand it um for in terms of sending messages out to families staff uh students through our school messenger system we have now updated the system where we have text message we have uh automated voice message also email all three means of communication that go out to all families once this takes place all those message are also unified for the entire District so the same messages for every school so it's a click of a button for our administrators instead of being stopping for that nervous moment while you're dealing with a situation and trying to get a message out and trying to get that out in a timely manner so we have someone that's in charge of that that's part
088of our plan as well too and it's all done all automated and ready to go and all of our administrative assistants have been trained on how to do that they got a nice little laminated card right by their desk so they can click the buttons um you know so we run those drills and and have them go through that process so it's it's next easy set for everybody um a lot of these slides here I'm not going to go into the nitt gr but in short you we've done a full inventory of all of what we have for resources walkie-talkies uh go buckets um making sure that we have what we need tourniquets other things that we need to bring in there is still stuff that we need to purchase there's wants you know there's
089not needs at this time there are wants uh that we're going to discuss in terms of looking at budgetary purposes and uh seeing what we can bring in to make sure that across the board we have each building and every building administrator feels good about the resources that they have right this is a piece to that I'll just highlight once again at our local at our recent safety presentation it's just you know the the dos and don'ts too about safety this is stuff that needs to be Revisited um you know the tailgating the propping of doors the stuff that you just kind of have conversations mind but just remind us for everyone here this is the stuff that you refresh good piece to discuss and talk about for uh the common Norms when it comes
090to safety and making sure that our staff are all they he on a regular basis three proactive education uh communication strategies for students and families um for this piece here really like you know when you think back um for elementary school you know my girls bring home the little rulers that have the call 911 in case of emergency you know bring in the police and the fire department so that they can see them so they know who they are so that they're comfortable this this work is not done after Elementary School all right if anything the problems get more complicated as they get older um so we want to continue doing a lot of work in the proactive department where we're continuing to educate our students our staff and best practices in terms of uh
091how to handle situations as their world evolves so one that we had recently uh I had to include a picture this was a nice one that was posted on jly District Attorney's social media Pages we recently had cyber safety and buly presentation U brought by the District Attorney's Office uh really good for our Middle School um and honestly we take a look at it looking as technology and social media is becoming more and more relevant uh based on age you know we'll talk about you know tailoring it as needed U really just highlighting uh everything for our for our students in terms of what you put out there into the world nowadays unfortunately it's there and it's there to stay and we have to have these conversations you know we want to prepare our kids
092for these difficult things that come up because once again if we can be proactive we solve the problems in advance right big piece with this to what I loveed about this training is really stress having a point person you know how when something happens who do you talk to what do you do you know it's kind of more the age appropriate ruler of call 911 for emergencies but now you're establishing kind of other lines of communication for our kids um we look for a lot of these ways to kind of bridge the gap for our students um you know for middle school you know once they come on up to Danto we do a lot of uh social instructional pieces pushing in our counselors into the classroom getting them to know who they can talk
093to when something comes up um see something say something an anonymous Google form that students can use to report things um our counselors I have to say are phenomenal in terms of providing resources and sending newsletters out to families U but these are all the pieces you know and this where we want the feedback on you know what do we want our district to get for information how do we continue to bridge that communication piece on what do you do when things come up and and how can support our families so this is a big piece and we want to put a lot of work into this in terms of upcoming um appropriate speakers and and continuing to educate our kids as we come down line last but not least uh just targeted opportunities for
094our staff for trainings um at the end of the day the more people who are here or certified for when emergency situations come up the better prepared we are okay um we are going to be offering two separate trainings um upcoming we've worked with uh both John NADA and Joe Flanigan to run a CPR and AED training upcoming that we have for both our high school and for our elementary schools um and it's it's just great I mean I I will say for the response that we've had it's been phenomenal we had 20 people going through the training um the recent one coming up to H and the right people too so for example U you know we have one of our cafeteria workers who also runs the basketball games the AED machines right there
095you know that's going to be you could ask for a better Point person we make sure we get the right people uh involved uh to make sure that we are set for all scenarios so uh CPR is going to be one that's coming up on one of our half days uh we also are going to have a stop of lead training this is going to be the moon Police Department is going to be running this for us uh this is part of my tourniquet and making sure that we're offering appropriate trainings as um if there is ever uh wound or severe injury this is your number one case that causes death uh in these situations uh we also will continue to run safety care uh Crisis Prevention training I am one of the trainers here
096for the district and we run this for deescalation in terms of working for students who struggle with mental health or other factors um to really kind of prepare our staff and the best strategies in terms of feeling and and managing uh crisis situations when they come up for individuals so it is 's a lot of information uh for the piece I try to summarize it as as much as as much as possible uh the piece that I want is there's been there's already a lot of work that's been done there's a lot to do though uh you know for this piece you know we take a look at it for me safety has always been number one uh it's the biggest thing we want our families that when you're sending your kids to school you
097know that they're in good hands um and we want people to be prepared and know the expectations the more that we can help communicate that develop our practices the better um that being said uh in due to time if you guys have any questions any feedback any suggestions uh happy to take them or you can always an email if you have a good suggestion that you come up with always happy to um I appreciate the speed in which the Cyber safety presentation was done with the students I know there was some mention of doing it with parents and doing a community one is that still on the do it is y so we we I talked to Julia barinowski we we felt like the holiday season was not the time to do it um so
098we would touch Bas we felt after the winter those cold nights that we start right probably the February March and having one um she could do multiple ones and one of the things I actually even talked to Meg Canard about is after she does that presentation that we could put it on our on our district website as well too so that that's on me not rich um that I'm just waiting for that um the holiday season 10 no no good no it's good good reminder for me so thank you this is great work we've been doing right um it's work that we should have done earlier and now we're doing it um and it's still ongoing for us to do um but I know some you know people sitting in this room had some concerns
099about you know the way things were handled and we all it's a learning process for us all but now we have it all together and this way it's consistent across our district not only for our staff but for our parents but most importantly for the safety of our children as well too uh like I said rich is doing a nice job leading this and running those meetings with our Chiefs of police and our administrators as well too and any of this professional learing to stop the bleed incredible professional learing if anyone in this room wants to attend let us know that as well too um the minus CPR and AED than nice job nice job [Applause] that uh Lisa you're next okay so good evening and thank you so much for providing this opportunity there
100was a document shared in the drive for you I'm just going to highlight a couple of um highlights um from Tanto we often talk about the high school um but I did want to showcase a wonderful interdisciplinary opportunity that showcased the seventh grade um art classes and science classes working together and where students demonstrated um an animals adaptability um to their environment this is really Innovative U and a really well received D activity and the students really enjoyed and really got them engaged in their learning um we have also continue to seek opportunities for our students to engage um with their community and we ex um and exploring a diverse interests we are thankful for representatives from the Berlin Conservation Commission who came to our school council and presented opportunities to establish some active community
101particip ation um among our students as well as some leadership opportunities so after that meeting I did send out a survey to our students I um asking them because there was a huge list of available opportunities that um were um our students could participate in so to kind of focus those efforts I sent out a survey to ident to identify which of those they'd be most interested in along with um uh some questions around the various Pathways that we could consider as we already have the infrastructure for certain things within our building that we're you know we could tap into so um with these insights we can tailor our offerings and understand what type of funding we may need to support these efforts and the survey revealed a strong desire for coursework in business um
102in carpentry and as well as the use of this media center and so Mr ganam and I have been talking about the opportunities to do that and possibly um starting using this space uh preliminarily for a club um because right now we don't have the capacity for teaching or coursework but really involving students in a club so that's that's something that's in the work um and um I was prior to them going and I thinkk um thank you um Mike for having the students go before but I'm very proud of them thinking about something that they're passionate about and that's something that all of us encourage our students to you know to do so thank you for that opportunity any questions a so so there's one other thing we we need to inform you from
103the high school level um there's some courses that we're need approved um that we didn't get into the drive and we I I apologize for that um we we're going to send them to you we might have to and I'll have to talk to Mike about maybe having a remote um School Comm meeting sometime in late January just to get that first reading done on those courses that she spoke about last school committee meeting those AP classes so that this way then in February that first school Comm meeting in February you can have that second read and vote on them so we can stop the student handbook and the course selection bed as well too so I apologize we'll we'll talk about maybe doing something know I I I own that we so we have
104to get those in there so we didn't get them to drive for you guys but and we'll make sure that's on the agenda um for maybe a meeting in later January sure I'm sure we can f on that thanks Lisa your third point in the report that you put in the drive mentions um the transition for eighth grade students moving to high school yes um so that is so programming for our life skills class so my um my mentor and I are working on transitional um learning services and we um we visited one program and we have two more scheduled um just to understand what opportunities are available for students um and the different programming that's available I live kind of right around the corner from the Shrewsberry um opportunity they have their life skills
105program actually has a a storefront So and I've gone there so um there's a lot of different opportunities and to understand how different districts pull that together is really valuable thanks anybody anybody questions it's so nice to see cooking and maybe carpentry and then media come back this is a great space right here this is a great space and we want to use it and we've talked about that more than just a meeting room and a conference room in a yoga studio um and those were all great resources but this is certainly something that we we talk about the hook right that's going to keep our students or May entice more students to move into our community um this piece alone is incredible I I was talking to ler and I think I was talking
106to a few of you in Westfield the superintendent want to build an aviation type of program and they thought it was a club and everyone's like Aviation and now is one of the most sought off um saw aftera school districts to get into for that program they have there so this is certainly something we talk about kids videoing and Tik Tok and all the videos they do we have it the capability right here in our district um so it's certainly something we're going to initiate um with if I could just the media Point um because I know you're talking about this room which is awesome but also on the same lines the auditorium the control food from the auditorium has a lot of really awesome like I've had the chance to mess around with some
107of it and it is really awesome up there too you can do with that as well yeah we I used to school morning news right so everyone so even if you matter which school you're at the high school did the sort of Morning News type of thing so it's not just behind the scenes but also in front so that's certainly something we're we're hoping to move forward to so we're starting those conversations and it's a great conversation to have you excellent um next up will be uh the S thank you thank you for the opportunity to share some of the positive things that the staff are completing one of the things I want to highlight is something we came up with math on move this year of math as you know it and uh we're
108always looking at ways to bring more math to the students and one of the things we noticed was arrival time um parents are waiting there 20 to 30 minutes some days waiting to drop off their children and it's time that they're sitting with their children so we came up with this math on the Move That kind of took its life of its own we came up with uh problems that they can do with their with their children while they're waiting and it it opened up something I think um that took a life of it own parents love it they want to see more of it uh what started out which was the car truck drop off we now have walkers that we wanted to incorporate there because they felt a little left out we brought
109it to the bus students a little bit more challenging because you know there aren't those adults there to do it with um working on that we brought it a couple times and we usually use teachers for that so examples of what we've done um we put things out there for geometry triangles talking about angles um using the number of tires on your car that to the number of students in your car and you talked to Children about this and opened up conversations well tires I have spare does that count well you want it to count so they have that conversation with the parents adding multiplying depending on the age of their students and really opening up that math conversation with their families or older siblings and younger siblings um we had two fourth graders T
110it at the end so it would give a thumbs up if it was greater than 10 a thumbs down or wave if it was less L than 10 uh two4 grade just T that in cold they wanted to do that because of that now I have other students saying can I do it next time can I so it's really opening up that conversation we had an amazing third grader create a graph and then because he needed a challenge he made more graphs for us um a little bit later in the day so it's really opening up that math idea um more to do and the team is bringing these ideas into the classroom so when you go into the classroom if you they a visit you can build upon what they've done in the morning
111Point triangles how many triangles did you see today um so we're having a lot of fun with that and it's the year of math and we're just building upon those skills so it's really been a team effort and it's just taken a life and that downtime that we have sometimes um another thing I just want to highlight is you know we've done the wind block again around that and usually when you do the what I need now you're looking for small groups you're looking for that differentiating for the High group midle group low group what those students need to really succeed what is challenging about is is Staffing if you have two teachers in a Grade they have those groups they're going across the grades so Pon Point fourth grade I'm going to highlight they
112have two teachers they might have par professional in there you might have six groups they thought outside the box and invited some parents in to help support these groups so parents are coming in running these groups not every day but they came to me and I said absolutely they're organizing what the parents are are presenting they're overseeing it but now we have another set of adults in there and today I met them for a great little meeting and B beyond that they're now bringing them in for science so using that building up those relationships it also allows the parents to see what's going on in the classroom so a plus for them just for thinking outside the box thank you any questions about that yeah I expected to see some math on the move as
113we came in little uh screen you wish for so I have to tell you as a superintendent you have to fill a Time on learning report right and it was very difficult during covid right um when you talk about Bell tobell teaching that's taking place in bolon you you have to give a lot of credit to the the work that Cindy's doing there even before the kids the Bell has run there's education taking place that we're not in any Jeopardy of worried about our time unloading but certainly that's added time that she's putting into it so um because there sometimes is a lot of waste of time if you think about those last 10 minutes where the kids are packing up while those first and you multiply that times 180 days there a lot of
114time there but she's seizing every opportunity so well done sind that thank you nice Mr Campbell I will be brief um got my report um the only thing I'm gonna mention just real quickly is uh the work that had uh T Paso our fifth grade teacher is doing with the student council in perland one of our our goals was to uh help kids increase Independence and one of the signs of increased Independence is the ability to advocate for yourself and others um so they've been doing that throughout the year I meet with them on a regular basis um where they can compliment me on the fine job I'm doing and uh complain about food because those are the important things to fifth graders they actually do they do a lot about things too they organize
115a lot of social events um but the one that I mentioned in my report was that we were we're working on uh some reports for the state one of the things we had to do is to reach out to groups to talk about how students feel about the MC and uh they were very articulate I was very impressed with the kids who W able to talk about I'm nervous but I don't know why and a really refreshing conversation so I happened to is it link is that your it's incredible the meeting I attended the the enrichments when you talk about enrichments the opportunities that that is is incredible uh and the work that's happening there as well too so thank you for overseeing that as well too student council l wants to commit present something
116to us I'm sorry if the student council wants to come in and present something here I will make of that opportunity care what you wish for why not absolutely um your your your report did mention rocket ma too I have a question about Rocket Math sure is everybody doing rocket math in elementary or does everybody have access to do uh no it's uh second through fourth grade second some some sporadic first graders based on ability M um we wanted it to be helpful a lot of being overwhelming and by the time they get to fifth grade it's just boring okay I was gonna ask is it a cost thing or is it a no no it's a teacher driven you know they just we tried it one year for fifth grade they just you know
117they weren't as engaged with the platform when they're done with it they're done with it they do not want to see it again by the time they completed it they're it's a it's a great point though so like I know Joe's still here with this so one of the things that he would work with me at veterin ISL right and that we weren't using it right the amount of people that weren't using it and then why are we continuing to pay for year after year so that's one of the things that we'll be asking Joe to do with technology like look at all these programs that we have that we're paying for and are we using them um and if we're not using them then why are we paying for them as well too so
118that's one of I'm just adding to a list of things that Joe's gonna be doing in this in his interim State that he's gonna certainly be working fulltime at when he actually work when he actually work we paying him actually to work I should say there you go thanks AP SC so so the AP scores sorry yeah is so if I can ask to H that on for next meeting I didn't want to link lengthen this anymore I know s put that in there but I want to highlight that um but I we'll actually put that on the next agenda when Mike and I sitting talking about that uh so next up is so you have uh two reports in your uh fer um I am going to start with 25 order um you know
11935 page report it's pretty wey um I'm not going to focus on getting through details right now I'm GNA focus on some big picture items um first and foremost is the question of um meaningful report I want to provide the school committee reporting it's meaningful it doesn't take you 35 pages of through things to um be able to access information um in the past I have taken basically this report and Consolidated it into each of the major functionaries you see so you'll see school committee for example um that very first section DMS committee um is the you know 1110 account um so I would roll up all the 1110 accounts in in Mixel spreadsheet and provide that as a regular report if any school Committee Member wanted to see all the detail I'd be happy
120to provide this report we can go through it um you know this is thousands of wine items it's hard for me to weave through all the line items sometimes so it's challenging um additionally I'm also if you look right at the middle of your school committee section there um for BMS right at the top you'll see there you have three separate Contract Services line items within BMS and across three schools that means there are nine separate um line items for the school committee for contracted Services there's surely some level of of cleanup that needs to be done with these accounts numbers these are active accounts you'll see that despite the fact there's $350 in Contract Services they're budgeted nothing has been spent but two $2.50 has been spent in the account above it despite there
121being no budget and $50 in the account below it um encumbered um it it just is it I think we need to do some consolidation of account members I think that you know start having that conversation um additionally um as I speak to the in some of my budget conversations uh we really need a central office cost center and that's something we're going to work on for next year developing that as a separate item but consolidating those three line items into a single line item that is their properly assessed in towns so it serves the same purpose so there'll be hopefully by next year some consolidation of this when they want to start thinking about some of these things um and maybe you know we talked about a little bit in um budget and finance
122subcommittee the other day but if the school committee members could take a look at this report and ask yourselves you know what's meaningful to you and maybe next month we can come back and of revisit it is that is that a fair ask um you to determine that um you know some other items I think um I'd like to highlight in the report um if you go to the very end so I said big picture I'm looking at total budget mostly um you as you go through it you will see that there are a number of relatively small incumbrances in the salary line items um our system doesn't um encumber salaries um I'm going to work on trying to figure out a method to manually incumber salaries because it's hard for me to look at
123this without knowing where we're project projected to be for salaries um 8 point where we come at the end at 8.6 million theom line budget is an okay place to be when you keep in mind there's about $1.6 million of random incumbrances in there those were put in uh prior I think to even van starting so there's a journal entry which is just a means of booking things in the system um for a whole series of small incumbrances I have no idea what those related to um and what they were for I'm going to look at trying to strip those out out and and figure out the proper way to encumber Sal it's not going to happen quickly um it's going to take some time but I'd like to be able to report on incumbered
124salaries but as we look at that number without encumbered salaries that number really is about 10.2 million so I think in a pretty good place um we also have not really ta school choice yet um I think school choice can be a conversation with the school Community later I think we have a number of items that we know we're going to have to spend money on um and I think we need to look at those items um as the year concludes and figure out what we're going to be for school choice as as I inherited this budget it wasn't clear what any sort of intent of school choice spending was but it's clear there probably will be some um to make the budget work um that's that's about it for me for now on that
125um I will speak questions I just to say thank you this is probably one of the first budgets that I've looked at and I've been on this the longest that was really easy to digest even that your your um your PowerPoint was just incredibly helpful and I noticed that the difference of electricity between Boyston and Berlin with being two different Electric compan those kind of things stood out to me and I appreciate your calling attention to that it's really thank you okay um so we'll get into the 26 budget report um this consolidates the two budget reports we gave to each of the towns um so Alan and I met with actually we've met um twice with Berlin now once with Bon uh we met with uh Boon spinc on December 9th um Berlin uh
126fincom on December 11th and then Berlin's uh Capital committee on the 19th of December so um we've shared this pretty thoroughly with them um if I I guess would' be helpful for me to kind of walk through this from a high level perspective um so if we kind of walk through it um Slide by slide I won't um get into a lot of details the very first slide talks about some of the preliminary information assumptions I'm making um we don't have any state figures yet those aren't going to come until January um late Jan it is January I know that late January the governor's budget usually comes out towards the the last week in January um the other reality is that we are still getting the data it's used to calculate the assessments so uh
127there's there's a lot of sort of massaging the data to figure out um all the student count for foundation budget um and so uh I know Charter students just dropped I'm going to be working to figure out how to assess those students properly and line up the assessments and figure out the fiveyear moving average everything I've done in here on a prary basis is based on last year's numbers uh assessment uh percentages um given that we are a fiveyear moving average I don't expect wild swings in that which is why I was comfortable using it it may tweak a little bit change a little bit but that's um the individual School budgets won't won't change a while either toono the regional uh district is there any way that we could put it up like the
128previous presentations um I I could have I'm sorry I didn't I we have yeah I didn't I I I apologize I could I could do this you is there a way to attach my computer to them um yeah sorry no no I just it was really nice to yeah keep going until we have that thanks one of the things to remember I don't know if everybody's familiar with there's an out of District movein deadline of April 1 so um if we have a student move out before April 1 um that student comes off our books if they move out after April 1 they stay on our books for the next year uh and vice versa so if the student were moving in before April 1st we have to assume them on our budget if they
129move in after April 1st the district they came from pays that that cost for the next year that's simply for students in outer District private placements but those are our most expensive um I literally uh gave a budget presentation in in March one day in late March at my previous District uh finish the presentation Friday morning Thursday night Friday morning to have um our our district admin assistant let me know that we had another District student move in that prior day um she wasn't aware they were not a District student and time to let me know so uh we had to kind of adjust our budget on apply it was a pretty significant uh amount of money and we had to sort of reconvene things so that could always happen at any point up until
130first so we need to keep that in mind um this budget is arranged into proper cost centers we talked a little bit about it before that we really need to have a district cost C proper accounting proper recognition of costs um and cost controls um and there's also no reason for the principles that need to worry about the school committee expenses right that's not really their per um and they're looking at budgets um I've made the recommendation to the towns that we start looking at moving uh the recurring student and staff devices that are in capital into operations if possible um both towns seem to be amenable to it um but there may be some budget constraints around it because they draw um Capital Money in many cases from free cash um whereas their um
131operating expenses are from their General reeven so they may have some challenges doing that um so we'll continue those conversations it doesn't mean I'm pushing to have it happen tomorrow if it takes a few years and we're able to work them in over time we'll continue work talking to the TOs about that um so you'll see a list of major budget drivers I won't get into all the details on those um health insurance um I think I talked about the health insurance increases we've seen um we are going into contract negotiations so particularly teacher salaries um looking at some of the increases that have been um voted in other districts um it could be a considerable amount um Regular transportation we are rebidding that that bid goes out tomorrow um uh and we're hoping to
132get biders on that um we've actually had a couple companies reach out to us so I I'm pretty pretty confident nrt will bid um but I will be getting back in touch with some of those companies that have reached out to me in the past couple months so letting them know that that bid will be available um special education Transportation um I'm probably you know on this Michelle um and try to figure out where this is I need to just reach out to ask Valley collaborative um they renegotiating their contract with vanpool um vanpool when they entered that contract it seems that um there may have been some reporting requirements that weren't clear and um in order to get special reimbursement we need some of that reporting so um that's part of that um other
133insurances I I'm projecting a 10% increase for those reasons um in other insurances I have talked to our insurance company uh miia uh Massachusetts intergovernmental Insurance Association uh I don't think it will be quite for St I'll look at what what they've of pitched us there um but those numbers don't typically come out until after our budget is done so their formal final numbers won't come out until after our budget is done so there's always suest work um I'm G I guess it's it's a good opportunity to say you know literally every every item in a budget is at this point is is rolling the dice right now we're trying to make the most conservative that's possible on how those dice are going to fall um and that's where we're sitting um we have a
134number of contracted agency hires um due to a shorten of candidates we just start getting candidates position for positions you will see that later in this presentation that we have um a very high number of people who are agency hires working for us who um cost significantly more than the regular process obviously the agency needs to make Mone top of so we uh ZIP to the next slide um we get to a high level of where we are as a tolling budget 26 right now we're looking at total Opa bu is 26444 um a net increase of 66% now you know we recognize also that this this District doesn't just assess one number it's it's it's broken down by the schools so if we get to the next slide we break that down a little
135bit excent into so like I said we would have a districtwide cost center I've broken all the costs out for fiscal 25 that 4 26 for districtwide cost districtwide cost is is small um it's mostly um salaries and more controllable cost that's that number is a little more reasonable um you know things like Transportation Health all of the health insurance insur is sit in schools um so all of those big increases are sitting in schools right now um Burl Memorial a lot of that increase is really those agency hires Berlin Berlin Memorial has I want to say six agency Care Professionals right now so it's a large portion of that um there are definitely some increases to especially we we'll get into some of the other increases in a minute um uh Bur Boon Elementary
136um Boon Elementary has been fortunate to have a couple move UPS move outs um in terms of out of District positions so that's one of the reasons why their budget is a little bit lower um they Lu in that regards um some of those move UPS however have moved to huno um that's just the reality as students um engage so those out of District placements now um uh we will get know the other cost items one item of not is I will be meeting with principles this week um just to go through all these numbers again to sharpen our pencils um one of the things you know once we put together that first budget this is a constant process of sharpening our pencils and trying to figure out where things are um you know little
137things uh I you know will just roll into the budget and I'll have a new version of the budget I'll just hold until there's a a point to have a big update um in fact we did just vote a small increase to the budget in a ston tonight um so that Chang the budget slightly I'm not going to give a big presentation based on that change it's it's not a big change it's it's not fairly consequential but you know I will hold small changes and small tweaks um for a point where um we will have an opportunity to to make revisions a lot of those are likely to come in when State numbers come in January so we do look to make a reach out to the towns and have some more conversations or at
138least present to them again or maybe invite them to a school committee meeting to see an upd version um so that gets us to our total numbers at 6.68% we've learned everything together and move to the next slide so Burl Memorial uh as I said um salaries are are a pretty significant factor employee health um and retire health I am factoring in I think I shared 18% um we know the retired health is going to be about 18% 17.9% increase this year that's boil there we can't do anything about that my hope is that employee health comes in a little lower there are a few factors that make retiring Health this year a little more more expensive um there has been a change to Medicare um to the cap on um there used to be
139an $8,000 cap the pocket the new cap is now 2,000 so the providers who provide some of the Medicare Advantage plans and things like that through the district have to absorb that cost and that's factored into the price so like I said I use the best number they have at this point um only expect them Health 18% but I can't take a guess that what it might be so that's on the high end and again like I said we're going to continue widling this down if I start get better numbers um we'll put those up my understanding is that health insurance from Mia comes in around the end of January as well so we may have a couple big updates at the end January um uh repair Health homeless Transportation I don't like getting into
140too much detail about student situations but there is defin a current need for that so U we are adding that to the budget presuming there's the possibility of um special education Transportation um another item that uh has gone up work with Michelle special education office this is um her estimate of where things are going to be um electricity um I don't know why but electricity was definitively under budget I look back at the past couple years usage um and it has definitely exceeded budget by by that amount um uh tuition and fees um again that that's um cost of Le one out of District student um as well as um any I think trans and Charter costs built in there so that's combined we'll go through that John there are small variances across other lines
141um but these are the big picture items these items that are really driving those budget changes um and like I said not for the agency professions that salary increase would be about 4.1% a little more line with other schools go to the next slide um this is just a calculation of the operating assessment um you know uh take the budget we take out the district share their share of the District budget this is how we're assessing the district L costs um to get the total budget uh take out their share of Chapter 70 their share of chapter 71 get assessed next slide so we get the boilson again Boyston um salaries uh they do have uh a couple of agency PA of professionals so if not for that you'd be at 4.18% uh employeed health
142and retire health same thing uh regular Transportation um we are looking at 70% across the board just preliminarily um I I actually met with uh the buiness after after this was fin put together and finalize I met with um the as business administrator and she indicated that there are some as much as a % increase I'm crossing my fingers not going to be there um but uh we're really hoping um due to those out of District shifts um special education Transportation special education have dropped and you can see how significant that is on their budget um so we talk about you know their their positioning um you know some of that is just students graduating through the the school Andor um you know moving out things that that so next slide is the same thing
143is as as BMS for assessment value so I won't get into all the detail again all the same factors so getting into Tanto what are some of the big factors um as Sol increases there that that's all of these are result of steps um as well as um a projected C so we're going into negotiations I have a number in there not something I want to share in public session but um employee health same thing um the substitutes uh nanto is is really using a lot more substitutes than proportion in other districts um this is I think I'm surprised to see that the other schools didn't have more substitutes um I'm on a list serve with other school business administrators as well as um Human Resources professionals throughout the state and every single one of
144them is seing increases to their substitute numbers um we saw them go up in Co um and they're actually continuing to Trend upward um in many cases so uh a lot of people are talking about it's just Paradigm Shift um people are changing their impression we spent three years telling everybody to have a fever stay home and now we're surprised they're staying home with I mean that's just the reality sometimes um we see it in students right we're wondering why students are are out more um we're seeing it in lot people taking more across the board so it's longterm short-term sub so I have to factor for it I've look at the past two years of sub used been trended in that direction try to look see something that's one year I look back another
145year and check to see Trend Lin try that um the special education costs the the transportation the tuitions um if you look uh on private tuitions um we're looking at two move UPS one move in and one B that's four add um in that category that's a significant change so some challenges there we go to the next Slide the next two slides I won't Lor it this is a longer version of the individual School assessment process um but then the second slide of this gets into how it's assessed in each c um Merlin is highlighted blue Boon is highlighted yellow just to make it visual so you can see which who's who's paying for what um you'll see in places I used mlc that's short for minimum local contribution the state U mandates that based
146on your uh towns we um in in relation to property values and income that you uh contribute a minimum amount uh very few schools contribute only the minimum Val very few communities contribute only the minimum Val most uh communities are at least 20% over um 20 to 50% is probably the average some school districts are at 200% of their local of local that local contribution is a piece of what's called minimum net School spending so I'm I'm I'm sorry I'm mixing the two but they're they're all factors in What's called the minimum net School spending um so uh we can get into that another time but uh most schools spend significantly more districts Town spend significantly more than the minimum schools it's just uh we go to the next slide so we get into the
147total assessments to the towns for operations mlc again local contribution uh so we get into um Berlin Theo the HTO above so the total operating assessments for is5 milon B next slide same calculation just swapping out share for total a assessment on top of all of this we have uh the hunt us that so we have an obligation to two bonds um one is a refinance uh done in 2021 and one is the 2018 Bond um you can see the total of the Berlin share the Bon share um I did just share uh our debt schedules with the towns um so we've had a few questions about the Deb a few um there questions and concerns um but uh they interestingly they had never seen the death schedule so it was strange that they' never
148seen them before um that would have been one of the first things that would given them but um they now have them they're aware of sort of the de schedules top that so we can go to the next slide so um burlin Elementary taal requests these are the requests that we in these are the requests that we met with the town over we've submitted all of the capital paperwork um the only item that sort of was added after the fact was uh we heard that there was some interest in potentially adding solar to the new so we get a quote for uh an estimate for solar so uh right now we're looking at 1,8 195,000 um you know my recommendation might be to try to do the solar in year two if they're you if
149they're if they have the appetite to do the roof but not other things I will state that the probably number one is the elevator controls uh we we may not pass state inspection if we don't uh replace those so that's a pretty scroll down to the next slide [Music] um you know definitely that MSP Ro gr project is looming has um I think you know SL some smaller things some things that um definitely need to be done one cameras is going to be important for security know which gave a really good presentation safety there are big compon in our car school safety student staff device replacement that is in all three that's the item we're looking to potentially move to operating again maybe over time maybe in pieces but um it's something we that ask
150will be here every single at that point you really kind of want to think about moving it operating particularly given the the the device cost um the individual device cost is low enough it doesn't need capit threshold so um so I'm something uh scrolling down to next slide um we have cond um and I want to say um uh Lisa's priority is that furniture or at least to start looking at it um I have sat in that furniture leas and I had a meeting and I had the opportunity to sit in that Middle School Furniture right in the middle that is Elementary that is there's no two ways of about it not Middle School furnit um you know most of the other items um Auditorium C Lighting and Sound uh was on last year this
151is a rolling up of basically two years they they put forward a threeyear plan last year year one was um not approved so we kind of rolled it in I think we're open to conversations we shared with both TOS we are very open in conversations on all of these items uh we understand that uh you know Merlin with a $1.4 million ask and tono as a $1.4 million ask may not beable so we're happy to prioritize we're happy to um make some modifications and talk about you know what's what's doable um scrolling down to the next slide um you know like I said this is a constant project in refinement I will principles I don't expect unless you know my meetings with the principles uncover something extraordinary that was missed I think our next big
152update is likely to be uh right at the beginning of February once we get our numbers I I might suggest we think about um having a shared conversation with cwn or maybe sort of revisiting the towns at that point having those conversations um otherwise you know relative to that December 9th 11th and 19th meeting not a lot has changed there's no real new information that would um s of Spawn us to to jump ahead again any questions thoughts conc anybody I know we did the the state funding for bees is that do we know that's going to State funding for what for bees is MBA she oh yes don't do well with letters yeah so I didn't know if that's a possibility down the road to try to do it for BMS or yeah so
153we will um we will probably put in What's called the SOI um with msba for the roof um you know it's it's interesting I looked at a roof that was about the same value in another district and we started looking at what it would cost to do it through msba and it literally was twice the cost to do it through mspa um we we bid it out to see what would happen we got a tremendous bid in and we decided just not to go through mspa had 700,000 to go through msba we did it for about 335,000 um there are a lot of additional cost and and and again for really big projects it's fantastic when you get these smaller projects a small project to them is anything um you know really under a million
154dollars and their lowend threshold is 250 so when you're just barely Crossing that threshold um you know so we we were very lucky we we got we got a a vendor who was uh willing to do a roof in November or December um and was a an employee owned business so that they did not have to meet prevailing wage so prevailing wage really big factor um uh in how you you bid projects prevailing wages can increase sign again the oversight from msba is pretty honorous um but again I'm happy to you know we'll put the SOI out we'll see what comes and we'll go through the process just like and to be honest with you I don't I don't think you can rent two at the same time I don't think so I think we
155asked you can't run it's only because they want to make sure the msba right it's good that we're in that networking with them that we can afford our end of the RO the roofing project that's going on in Bon right which we know we can um but they want to make sure because they're putting that percentage in and we're putting our percentage in so after that um then certainly we could we could go through that next step and certainly look at that as well too yeah the boiler one was significantly I think that one was over a million dollars yeah yeah you have to start with an SOI um it's not a difficult process so I'm happy to work with put that in and make sure that that is processed and we'll see where it
156goes yeah and again I don't think we can do it Aaron and then I'll have to check on that till after dec of next to look you can ask the person absolutely we were on the phone with her today she calls us on a regular basis says yeah be good'll be good conversation for us to have good anybody I'd love to see solar because the electricity going up in Berlin definitely looking forward to yeah um yeah there was also some talk from them about potentially putting s on a hole out in the field somewhere I don't know um you know you know your your average roof is going to last ideally 25 years take so your your sweet spot forting s is probably in the first five years right so youback on it so you
157don't need to put it in as you put the roof on um but you really want to try if you're going to do it really want to do in the first few years the last thing you want to do is put it in with 10 years left on the roof and you're you're you're less than the payback period of the solar and then you replace the roof you now have to rip the solar out replace the roof and then put the solar back on the cost is so you really want to make sure you time your Sol the roof when we met with burlin there was quite a little bit of a conversation about where they would put it right pole in the fields on roof right so there's a lot of different ways there's
158a lot of communities around us that are using different ways right so we did one on wher we put it I apologize for those have heard the story we put it in the the parking lot right so it was fantastic right you're shaking your head it was great um it was great for cop qus for everybody everyone enjoyed it until the first snowstorm came and our plowing cost went up tremendously because no long could they just plow up and down the big parking lot they had a plow around all these structures that were in the pocking lot so we I think we end up losing money um when we talked about that as well too um and then the snow is falling off it so we really got to look at some communities around and
159how they're using the solar panels um in the location they're going to put them as well too so it's definitely a big conversation when you're talking about where you're going to put those permanent structures or not semi- perent structures something to consider when you expand the tont parking so anybody else have any other questions on budget no just a reminder that this is a level budget so this means we get not one new thing this year so just kind of tough to see that those increases and our fingers are crossed Things Fall our away be able to we have we have lists going noted there once you know I look at this and once I see you know there's no point in presenting number 12 to 15% budget right so you know give them this
160number let them digest it if we can bring it down and we can move some things within their number that works um and maybe push few things our again I think Aaron stressed it that this is the hopefully the highest than this budget right so we're up here and so instead of bringing in a lower budget and then asking as it increase as it goes along but there are some factors in there like Ain said that we're still not sure of right we're in the part of negotiations there's insurance and there is some work that we're going to work on on our end that we can to um help um decrease some of those high cost as well hey Alan I know there was uh some talk with Joe earlier about looking at all the
161contracts for different services and uh like during the Rocket Math conversation right yes yes so you're going through all I I would assume you're going through all contracts that we have all every single individual contract we have with whether it's internal external yes uh for this budget right yes make sure everything lines up we are we are yep yep yep we're going to look at every um contract that we have whether it be uh independent whether it be contracts that are for our different companies um one of things that Janelle and I and and Aaron are talking about also these outside agencies that we're having right um we as principles we have it as part of a conversation we had um hiring process right and that we need to do better at advertising our jobs
162I'll give you an example when I put out the job for an interim Director of Finance the amount of individual private companies that reached out to me and said we can help you with this right we can take this so there are a lot of agencies out there that want to take that work and that's what's happening I believe with some of our Paris as well too um but we have to come up with a a way that we can keep reposting those jobs and making sure they're coverent and making sure that we're out there being as competitive as we can and that's a conversation we all have so please know that we're looking every single piece of that um that I'll be getting ready as we're looking at every nook and cranny in this
163budget to see where we can save because to make it point this is level right this is level right now never mind all those other things we talked about that rich is talking about school resource offices um I'll be presenting that all to you guys as the budget unfolds um so you guys get a chance to look at that because ultimately that's your role right policy budget and the hiring and firing of the superintendent so those are important things so you'll be getting all that information all right any other questions for Aaron thanks your eyes going crazy with the thousands of lines stuff I get it uh subcommittee updates um Jess do you have anything for the Student Success Tech um no we're kind of in a holding pattern until theck person comes in and
164I expect to all right uh Megan anything we haven't heard yet from budget facilities not really just one thing uh we had talked about is potentially moving I think we have our final vote on budget scheduled for February 25th I think that's the budget hearing oh yeah that's the hearing so do we have the vote scheduled for that day I believe we do SCH I believe so uh Aon we had talked about maybe moving it a week I think uh just due due to um schu a week or two weeks so that's something you guys can talk about offline you gotta have you gotta talk to BR about that yeah yeah that's something we'd have to I just wanted to put it out there that it was discussed and um so what's the date right
165now sorry February 25th so it's the the Tuesday after or February immediately after so those that are away during that in terms of preparation so we we do that specifically because Berlin has asked us to do that so whether you know people that's a school day it's not during vacation right no I mean talk to him okay but that didn't go so much okay yeah and the other thing we had talked about too is just just you know so many moving Parts this is a level budget you know the transportation the retire benefits salaries the longer we can wait um the better obviously not waiting till the end of March but to push it a week I think it would give Aaron it something that we brought that brought up so who do I talk
166to about that Kristen is that who I go through for that that's the agreement call CHR okay gotcha yep that's the agreement yeah I don't think the school committee one way or the other a I'd rather vote on a more concrete number than sure that's what I said I said I'd rather have it more accurate so we can get more things in there we agree y we agree okay okay I'll call Kristen tomorrow yeah so that was it cool uh no updates from the policy committee we'll get to a couple in the votes uh but uh Lori do you have an update or Megan do you have an update super we we met um this week and um three members um Jess Megan and I and un ly chose uh to recommend masc to guide
167our supervent search and we did this due to a comparison of cost services offered as well as um both Jess and Megan had experiences with nzda and masc when we were trying to find an interim very quickly and the um the difference in how willing they were to help had a Pap as well okay so we have a vote coming up on that later goes along with you ask me really we have a contract with MC as well too right so we we we have them most we pay them every year right for services rented for so we should be using our contracted vendors before we're going out side so looking at all that stuff no I think um at one point we were going to pay for nezda but I don't know that we
168did we were going to use nezda for the finance director search right well that was before your time I don't think I don't think we did did we sounds familiar I think it is considered Carol yeah I don't think we actually hold trigger with that we're a member town on the website or or something so perhaps s could take a peek that not get in the money too yeah I would look into that on website listed yeah maybe we're just a town that they service I don't know I know Carol had gotten a quote from them for so we get some stuff from them and I know that we look for some other stuff but there was a cost that they're going to charges for additional things we wanted yes everything was cost it was
169so like an Al type of thing so yes so but we'll definitely I've added that to my list okay well that's the end of our agenda up through business items unless anybody has any other questions for any subcommittees no okay uh so then may I have uh a motion for the approval of the super intendent search agency to be masc as the subcommittee has suggested so mov Meg yes second would anyone like to discuss that just to support it like the the alart that's exactly what Nez was if you look at the beautiful chart that Lori made last for last meeting you know so NE is cheaper you know up front but then we definitely want to have community outreach or focus groups whatever You' like to call them but NASDAQ charges 400 something per
170group and so that easily equals the 2,000 difference up front um when you look look at it in the end and again I just you know Tracy has I'm glad you're right Tracy was a big piece of this Tracy not it and just how how helpful and considerate she has been to this district and how professional she gets back to right away both Jess and Megan and myself all right any other comments discussion uh all those in favor I anyone against okay that motion passes thank you very much we already approved the sweet and savory Club so the next item on the agenda uh so we can discuss it because I have a motion for the approval of the student competency determination as recommended in the drive second Lori and Megan all right so now
171this is going to need some discussion and description so I'm sorry I know it's we've been in here a couple hours this is real important right that we talk to you about this and get a vote from you um many districts um are pushing this back a little bit but we we don't want it right we want to make sure we got an answer from you um they've pushed this to the local level from us um so we we need a vote from you guys today so we know what direction we're going to go in so I'm going to turn it over to Sally our our curriculum director is going to give you a little bit of a rundown what looking like what it looks like please know that she's just representing the the work
172that rich myself Renee Lisa our staff here have really looked at and feel like this is the best route that we're recommending to you guys right now um for mcast for this year so right so although theie Will using it for and scholarships Associated um the state has asked districts to come up with um what we are proposing for grad forward so we have come up with proposals which A and C and we're recommending a uh for proposal a we are recommending that we continue to use the MC this year as a graduation requirement until time when we can see what other and also get a better idea of what other districts are doing and at that time another decision so that's the proposal that we are recommending um the option b would be to
173not have graduation requirement however for those students who scored a par meeting um those students would be still um progress monitor to their and um just as we with the process um and for those students who are not meeting we would ask that they continue to take it with um support test and they and third option would be to just gradu department so we're recommending a um right now we need some work to do and some work to look at this in terms of that please understand that the MK is still taken right it's all making sure that every student in in our schools are taking the mcast um there's a lot of money that falls the students taking the mcast as well too so that is not going away it's whether we're using it
174for a graduation requirement the big question is if you don't use that as a graduation requirement what are you using and what does that look like so when you get a diploma from Tanto does it look like the same when you're graduating from Leicester and that's what they're looking at so they really um push it down to a local level right so I happen to be and I think Jess you were there with me at the the conference where we're all sort of caught off God right uh Mas and masc and so now how are we going to handle this because what does it look like when you're graduating from these schools and is it all level in terms of what a diploma looks like and the one thing that we're asking you at this
175point is let us do some work during the summer let us take a really deep dive let us talk to my colleagues right now superintendent were in this network I know Lisa and her team are on network so we're all trying to figure this out together we feel the best thing to do at this point is we leave it as our graduation requirement right now for this year and let us come back to you after we do the summer work which keeps adding on to my list and we'll come back to you during the summer or hopefully the first meeting that you have and with the recommendation for next year MPS I do a good job s and liser in terms of summarizing that Renee Rich anything else you guys want to add today so
176this vote is only for graduation 2025 it does not extend beyond that until you come up with a new plan or or have some more time to at least think about it and recommend something else I I think it was November 5th was the election literally this has come down our way and we're and like everyone's sort of scrambling trying to figure out the best way um and we want to make sure we're being competitive as well too right for our students that when they have a diploma from Tanto it holds the same weight that anywhere it graduates from um so we're right now we're just recommending keeping the mcast for now yes and so this applies to mcast graduation requirement applies to the 10th grade mcast test so taken two years ago by these
177graduating seniors that's right so it's not like they're making a decision do I take it or not take it um the only issue maybe is whether you have people who are or students who are below the threshold that you mentioned Sally and they're you're still working with them that's right is that a large population that is such a a minimal minimum I and I want to be very careful because I don't want to pinpoint any particular U person or student our students um but it's still minimum that we believe we're doing everything we can that we we're not concerned about that at all students graduating so regardless how big that group is you're confident that you'll be able to work with them between now and June graduate yeah and and I say we are referring
178to Rich Renee liser and the staff at at to okay um and the three tests were in a fall already but we don't get the results for that medical person in um in February oh okay so because I saw there was some test immediately after the election that still took place because it wasn't place yet corre yes so so there um so which test were you because I know I'm sorry right I know the I know the the um the test that I'm looking for the results um I will get those results in February okay we just need to do a little bit more homework we need to do a little bit more research on this um before we come up with a f proposal for you guys we feel that this is the best
179but this also helps us what our path some of my colleagues uh superintendent are waiting a little while longer until that we we we don't feel like we need to wait we need to get this ready so it impacts our students as well and and our teachers have there been any other districts that have voted thus far to continue them yes please don't ask me which ones but yes but they exist yes they do exist many of them are sort of and I don't mean to say the word pushing but moving our school compes along so we can get some decisions so it'll be helpful for our for our Administration it's it's a lot we're working with with mcast and for them the push it to the local level is a is is a is
180a big big lift for us to do this work I'm curious like I don't you know like voters said this should not be a requirement anymore and if there is a possible St that might be penalized we don't find out till February I guess I ask what is the the push to approve it within the next month before we know those results I I don't want to take a vote and then there is a child that does not receive their diploma because we gamble that they passed we we're not concerned about that we are not concerned about that with the work that we've put in place the support that the school has been giving for and I want to be really careful that we're not narrowing down right so we're just not concerned if these
181results come back in February and the student hasn't achieved whatever Mark they need to achieve is that it or is there more I think that's maybe what chess is looking for yeah is there additional opportunities the reason why mcast were no one likes them because not everyone tests well so I have no doubt that the team has put an immense time and effort into supporting our students um but say it was a you know they didn't feel well that day and they they bombed it you know they didn't do well so I just I'm questioning do we know at a specific date in February when M results come back I guess what benefit do we have to voting at Now versus in February right when we know that doesn't impact anyone so we don't know
182the exact date they well they say February because it it's easier for them to uh to you know provide a more vague answer because depending on whatever is of March so we just don't want and all we're saying is first of all this is the recommendation we're making right for all of us knowing all the specific dator that we know as Administration and the superintendent knowing those minute details that we can't NE share at this point because we don't want to um but our recommendation knowing all that knowledge that we have is we're recommending at this point that we use d mkss as a graduation requirement we are are not we are not concerned and I I speak for the administration when we're saying that I just worry this compation is getting very specific what's
183that I'm worried this conversation I agree I I completely agree I'm borderlining on comforable right now I understand don't understand why we have to vote today versus voting before the Imp March and hypothetically the end of February I guess I don't understand the benefit of doing it now Lisa and Sally you you're definitely recommending a yeah I'm recommending a I push it rich and Renee as well too all right any other comments questions I guess I would just ask what if the admin what the administration thinks if we were to push it back just saying what would be the danger if you is there any specific that you are worried if you were to push it like as a district as a district as a oh as a district um I I I can't see
184that there's any particular danger um other than that I think Clarity with families and students um is kind right you know be um I think that's important to understand that the intention of what is happening the sooner you provide information about the intention of what would happen students can be more prepared for that as opposed to there there's such a misconception out there after the vote that people were like H mcast is gone and that was I mean that and that was the um it wasn't you know a district fault it was how it was presented and so I think that there's misinformation I've been trying to give out information as best as I can um but being clear is kind I think in and the kids that are prepping to take the test this
185is this opportunity for them to take it seriously to know that they need corre so the majority of the district it's important that they start getting ready to take it seriously but if I can clarify people taking it in March that would be for next year's 2026 graduation requirement yes it's not like as the a senior that's gra hypothetically graduating in 2025 could take the March and still graduate wasn't December their last opportunity to pass not I mean not necessarily there there I mean you could very well have somebody move in District you from out of state I mean there's a lot of different opportunities but if somebody did not take you know say the math I mean there's still an additional science time for um makeup I mean I think the timing of this
186and and the 10th graders there there's the state you know the voters spoke but then there was no real plan in place and that's the the unfortunate piece right because the testing then takes place in March right so um and basically we were all on the call for the state where they basically said we don't know what's next here you go um Left us all very uncomfortable we're trying to get a feel of what other districts are doing other are doing nobody kind of everybody's at basically at at a stand still right now um so those 10th graders even though that the vote that maybe would make tonight or next month or what have you whatever you decide to do may not impact their graduation it very well could impact the way they take that
187test right because that accountability not only for our students but for our teachers where are we we don't have a plan right because the state hasn't provided us a new framework yet right we still the standards we know this test assesses the standards that we're required to teach you that's what we know so you know we just need to make sure I think in some of our conversations that our students are taking this seriously because we need to also support our teachers as well right and that's that's where we're feeling like the preparation um in in letting because our teachers every day what are we going to do what are we going to do what are our de you know and in and Felding emails you know Mr qu is feeling a lot of email
188from parents as well and and again this then lies on on your shoulders which I I feel look unfair to this you know the state put put us in this position um so I think we're just opening this conversation sooner rather than later knowing that these these tests come come up in March you know for 10th grade it's the accountability that still goes along with this Outcast right and we need to make sure we're really clear about that the importance of this test right um and that it it's tied to a lot of scholarships that go along with that so the importance of taking these tests seriously is extremely important I've heard loud and clear from you from you school not regarding this topic that you don't want to be at the last minute me
189coming to you in February still not having the results back yet and saying March is around the corner what what are we doing and and you not not having enough information this is a tough spot they've put us in as a district and they particular put at the local level we've been on webinar after webinar after webinar and everybody sort of trying to figure this out um but our recommendation is after really look it into our students our staff and what we think is best for our the students at Tanto High School is is option A and that's why we're really clear and gave out three options a b and c you guys can certainly choose we're just giving you the recognition but we need some direction to leave tonight and be prepared as we
190move forward to to minister this in March all right so we have a motion on the table to accept as recommended which is option A that's right should we take a vote we also have an option to table too anybody want to vote is anyone in favor in favor of what the motion on the table which is to accept as recommended option A I'm in favor I I and against okay uh the motion passes so it will be option A for now we'll be back talking about this end of the summer very beginning of the year this this is work we're doing now right we're already starting the work I I thank you I know this was a tough decision for you guys to make and a tough call for school cies to make but
191thank you this is the work we need to stop I mean so then there needs to be huge communication around like you know because I was the first year they pilot mcast and we did not take it seriously I will tell you that 110% um and so like I think the huge communication about like this is still tied to funding and others and John abs and Abigail Abigail Adams scholarship this there lot of money state schools go into that right but I'm saying the first year we took it and piloted no one said there were scholarships to you Mass full rise so that's why we're for for tuition not room of War that's where they really do that right but that's why we want to continue the level of of importance that we're doing right
192now right the high school saying this is important that's the message they've been giving since mcast has been been started here and so we don't want anyone to waiver to leas this point clar is kind we want to continue putting that that pedal to the middle on this all right we have a couple more items here sorry thanks Al we've got two policies here can you before we make our motions on these will you tell us what you're looking for sure so I think the first one hold on attendance who wants to uh you want to talk a little bit about attendance and then what we're looking for sure I what we the administration team recommends for the attendance policy is keeping the current school committee policy of the J as it reads for the
193remainder of this school year 24 to 25 this is again in order to give us more sufficient time to review the most recent State recommendations um there's been a lot of communication back and forth I know through the school committee through the administrative teams at all three schools um and I think the attendance policy as it is now um as it is is is stated is something that we feel we can continue to uphold for this school year and then taking really a deeper dive into the current recommendations and if that guidance might change now that Co is that you know a couple years passed as we were talking substitute students and staff those type of things all of that guidance may change as we know with the state we we're we know that making
194a change in January would be very difficult for even at the high school and at the elementary levels we're really going to be looking at the work and we're going to get closer to where the way the policy is written statewide right there's only three reasons for an excused absence right we sort of mudy the Water by having reasons for these absences it's death hospitalization religious holidays that's it right everything else that we've sort of created goes off the policy goes off the state recommendation those are the only reasons that we can excuse an absence and so this year we're going to keep everything the way it is we're recommending um to school KY and that you're going to hear from us in the summer or early fall that that will be the policy we're
195looking at getting us close to Mas C's policy where those are the only reasons for an excused absence can you explain the difference between an excused absence and a reason for an absence yeah so it's a little different at Tanto right the way we do it here so sometimes we have reasons why a child's absent went to the doctors have a doctor's know their outset parent gives and and so we sort of let that go as a reason for why our child's absent remember we have to give letters after four absences right the first round the letters then we have to give one at seven and then one at 14 right there are letters that are mandated for to give this keeping track of attendance by the way principals jump in any time because it's
196been a long time since I've been a principal right those are the three things that we're giving in terms of that right those are the only reasons if they're giv to who you have to report this to the state you got to give report to the state clear yep when I'm reporting to the state you're not giving it out to us there's the well to parents I say as we it's the state that wants these and those are the only absences that we can excuse when we're reporting that to the state that is it doctor's notes dentist notes parents reason those are good reasons we appreciate that parents are sick we want your kids to stay home we want all that to take place when we're putting it to state that that what holds no
197water and I'm sorry to be callous about that but it doesn't it's those are the only three reasons that are excused other than that we have to report it to the state as an absence if it's not one of those three reasons which generates us to give lelf to families and report to school committee as well too about what our absences look like attendance is a big issue right we also get sort of dinged on that with mcast as well too right the accountability piece that we know that Cindy's working really hard on that as well too so those are the only three reasons that the state expects from us and we really need to get back to that one more thing I know we're we're keeping it could you please explain the doctor's appointments
198because there's a lot of misinformation on that about that where people are are running with what's not accurate yeah so yes sorry about that um so a doctor's note is a is a reason for an absence right you have a reasons why you're you're you're you're not there we we want you to stay home if you say right um we we understand that the issue and I think got a little misconstrued was what we're doing is getting notes and and again High School jump in right um if if a child is going home right or going to a doctor appointment going to a dentist appointment um we understand that go to a dentist appointment we're hoping that you come back to school as well too remember it's count for an absence again been a little
199while since I did this if you're four hours not four hours three and a half three three three hours if you're in school for three hours oh no or you have fours ABS sorry about that four if you're in school for four hours you're considered present right if you're out for more than that four hours it's it's an absence it accounts for an absence it it's really simple that way so what we're really trying to say is if you have a dentist pointment or you have a doctor be be creative so we can bring your kids back to school if you go to the doctors and the doctor says you got strep throat or something like that stay home absolutely we we don't want you to come back to school right but if you're going
200to a do Point bring your child back because if it's more than four hours that you're absent we have to mock that as an absence which we have to report to state which generates the letters to you guys which then I have to report to school CR so we're just trying to say be mindful that go to your dentist appointment go to your doctor appointment we understand they're hard to come back but come back particularly at the high school because if you're missing Calculus BC you know and that one period of time not that it's you're not missing a lot of the elementary L too but that's specific subject during that time that's a lot for a child to miss so we don't want you to be out for that period of time that's where
201the whole conversation sort of went that's why the doctor's notes and the dentist notes and all that stuff that's how it got sort of confusing we're asking that you keep everything the way it is we understand the parent reasons for being absence the parent excuses this year it's January we want to leave it the way it is but know that the recommendation for next year stick really close to the policy three reasons for excused absence that's it and I think I think it's also important to understand that our policies have to align with Massachusetts General law and it currently doesn't like it doesn't M it our policy is is much too broad right we're not close to Le we've moved so far it was written during the co years yeah right so we were just
202trying to I think the intent was but understandable that um can you clarify for me though so my daughter wakes up she's not feeling good she's got a fever okay I keep her home from school all right 24 hours it have to be fever free 24 hours to come back so she's not going to school tomorrow y but tomorrow she wakes up fever's gone it was just like a one day thing whatever it might be I know the school nurse isn't here but I don't need a doctor's note to return after just a fever do I because there there's we got a lot of questions about that too you don't need to go pay whatever your co-pay is to go to a doctor for a Fe and the doctors don't gives us a reason why
203was absent thank you for having that right we we want we we we appreciate that but we don't need you to go to your do this that but again still not excusing the absence religious hospitalization death that's the only one not plays to like Saturday right is that where it comes in so this is where I think some of those questions may have come forth to the school committee members we have some students that for example they have used because we have these parent excusals these additional three parent excus us for such as illness so you don't have to go to the doctor but many of our students have already used their three parent excusals and now they're sick again right so now now it's like okay it and it can happen but it seems
204like it's the same handful of students right sometimes and that's where we say you need to have those um you know for medical illness that they're really not getting Saturday school what's happening is they're taking vacation days those and those there it's there it's two it's a week and a half two weeks of missed school and I completely appreciate that it's much cheaper to travel right like I I totally get it um however it it's it's an unexcused absence so you have to make up that time in high school if you don't make up that time you lose credits because you're not there there you know you're not there you have missing assignments you're missing work that's that's where that piece right and and the Saturday school is it it's not punitive no it's an
205opportunity it's a it's a you know it's a it's a you know Olive Branch to say look you've missed too much school you've been out too much and you can get a lot of your work done you have the resources here you know we have people in place you can do your work in a structured environment to get that done to make up that work and the answer to Mike's question no we don't need you to get a doctor's not for when your child's home with a fever and stuff do we want you to send the note in yes my child was out because they weren't feeling good right so that helps us right so if we're not getting notes from little Mike right and his oh he's out he's absent he's absent that's causing
206us on our end to say we got to reach out to the parents our adjustment counil gotta reach to our parents we got to have conversations like why is this child there is there something going on at home is there something that we should know about but if if if Mike's mom has sent the note and saying he's had a fever that's why I kept him home we don't need that from the doctor right appreciate doesn't EX use the absent at least we have a reason for that absence is is that clear yeah so we're keeping it the same we're not changing it so you don't actually need to vote we're asking to keep it just that's a good plan we're asking to keep it just the way the way it is it's January right
207let us work this out and get it in place for because then people will be it it'll cause them a big flurry of sure because not everybody's been that's right not everybody has really been abiding by what USS that we're working with right so I feel like to make this change right now it it'll really be difficult so well so I was just reading about the the general Mass General law and said uh the school committee has to appoint one or more supervisors of attendance is there someone that we an attendance officer is that what you're asking well the law said supervisors of attendance yeah so attendance officer that's a great question uh do we have an attendance officer boy wouldn't that be fun Mr no no I mean they they essentially I mean the
208assistant are the attendance but the school committee doesn't have an like um in Rich and Renee essentially act as but the elementary school they system we have it called someone right techology we just didn't appoint people yeah I'm just you know what I think we need to do because clearly we're out of compliance with the law so and clearly clearly we're not going to make a change tonight at 7:46 pm and we've already been here almost three hours so maybe we go back and Al needs to work with the principles on making sure we're consistent amongst the three schools and with the law and then I think it'll be beneficial person to vote in May so that we're going into a school year and we appoint an attendance officer and we do all that St
209me if there's parts of the law that we can comply with easily enough without affecting the actual policy because that I mean appointing some doesn't affect our policy it's already happening it's just we didn't yeah we didn't formally vote on it yeah so so it's something we certainly need to look at right so just like we didn't have someone that was really alas on for safety right and we should have had that as well too um I've added that to my list so we'll come back to more than before the summer and yeah May June whatever you know what I mean so we're going into the year with every so you have a a second policy on there do you want to vote for that um the dress code the dress code um we really
210who wants to talk about address code who was um I think that was it was on my list as well we had just recommended the revisions that we had presented to the school committee at the um December 4th meeting um to the current um policy so the revisions to the policy J IA in order to have a district policy that is most ref reflective of the current three schools handbook policies because that's where the disconnect is basically if you had taken a look at the revisions it's really just the more specific language the bulleted items um all of the narrative language um it would stay the same and the commitment of you know the administration piece that's the commitment with the parents um but it's just those bulleted items are really the the the change
211um that were more specific items and and we really actually had a good conversation you know from John and Cindy's lines right we we we heard from them as well as at the high school level um but we we really as an agreement right now we feel like this is the language we want but we've actually added this on to our list during the summit we need to get some some some surveys out to the families as well to in students and really feel like what what's acceptable for a dress code policy um not only that but we want to also engage with other districts and see what's around us like what exactly is West Bolson doing what exactly the other communities as well too so we're recommending this right now all right so can
212I have a motion to approve policy jca student dress code as recommended Jess Lisa any discussion I swung to a nice Middle Ground okay anyone else all right all in favor I anyone against thank you all right so that motion passes thank you thanks for uh all right the last one Al yep I don't think so many people are interested in this could you go ahead anyway yes we're going to talk about the approval of the Tonto an um we're going to come to you with a couple proposals that we going to ask you to vote on one that we're recommending um we heard what people have said we read the emails that you guys have seen as well too um we've had many many thoughtful conversations on what we should be having at time
213so especially at this particular time um that we're going to do so we're going to give this is going to walk you through a couple of proposals that we're looking at for the cbook for um whether it's um the thef in what that looks like we hear from Paris you want to walk us through that pleas so participation in athletics and extracurricular activities as you've heard um is essential for many students as an opportunity to thrive in non-academic Endeavors and become a well-rounded person through long discussions with the school council department chairs and the athletic handbook Review Committee which will again be meeting tomorrow all parties agreed that the policies as written in the handbook reflect both a focus on academics while supporting student involvement in the act in activities this is reflected in proposal
214a with no change to the handbook understanding that the school committee has requested a revision of academic eligibility in the handbook these same groups also agree that the existing policy with the following additional language quote if a student is failing one course and is participating in any extracurricular activities to support academic success the student must attend Ace club or an extra help session two times per week until they are no longer failing that course during the next quarter or interim report which ever comes first if a student misses two consecutive sessions the student will meet with the coach advisor and or Administration and if a student continues to miss sessions after this meeting the student will not be able to continue participating in the extracurricular activities this is proposed in the drive as option b
215we we really feel like we can wrap our heads around option b and we can do this here at at the school there shouldn't be we have a little over 500 kids in in our school we we should be watching them and paying close attention if we see a students and we do I we do play pay very close attention just to give you an example um so at Team meetings at the middle school level there's a constant review of what's happening with those students um I you know when um we walk around um during the day we're very visible I know I get Stu on multiple occasions I you know I know you have a great relationship with so and so they haven't handed in their essay um if they don't they're G to
216fail this quarter I'm like I'm on it I go and have a conversation with that kid Hey where's that essay this is what happens all day long so I just want you guys to understand that this is what's happening in in our goal as educator is we don't want to see our kids fail right that that should be something and we're going to make sure we're putting these things in place so that along the way if we see that a student is not the work that we're doing now but we're also going to use what we have called an H program here right so to help those kids like we heard people say be well-rounded right um we know the rigor of of being an AP we know the rigor of playing a sport I
217mean look I'm tired at 10 of eight and they're still starting their practice their games at this time there's a lot right to go along with that so our job is to make sure we're supporting them along the way so the child is not failing and that they're being successful and and they're doing it now they absolutely are Le so well said but we want to make sure we're memorializing that as well too to make sure our kids are successful and by the way and I want to be very careful going back to what you were talking about earlier Beth when we look at our data right and they're showing the data it is such a minuscule percentage of students right now that this would impact it it's just so small right now and again
218a little uncomfortable because I don't want to be too specific it's not an impact but now it's causing us to pay a little bit closer a little bit eye on these and making sure that these students are going to be able to be successful academically and be successful in playing a sport or enrichment let's be careful about that right enrichment you look at the boys that were sitting behind you the kids that are in the National Honor Society the students that got inducted the students that are also all in Hors right this is what we're looking for well-rounded students and I have been in the opportunity to meet with college recruiters and they're looking for the wall around the student not just a student that's an athlete or an extracurricular but they're looking for the
219academic student as well too right they're competing out there with them um so we want to make sure that we're giving those kids every opportunity to go to wherever they want to go to college and universities are are their jobs so this is where we could wrap our feel comfortable with this well to we're bringing it to school Comm we feel it's important if you guys have options and not just say this is the one we want you to do does anybody have any questions I have a couple of questions um so Lisa um first of all I love this because the whole idea is to move these students towards success um and to to um you're going to give them some scaffolding for that I think that's great that's the whole point um I
220noticed the second to the last sentence it says if a student continues to miss sessions and I felt like that was a little bit vague does that mean if they miss the next session the third session they're out does it mean they have to get to minut two or three like like they I would say they have to miss you know two more after like so if they miss the F the following two so we could change that to the following two so stud thises like four consecutive sessions okay um and then another question I had was if our whole motivation with this is to get the students to be engaged in the academics and to try to you know get themselves above water as well I mean because we're here our whole point of
221being here is academics I mean the sports are also part of it but good um can we consider doing the Ace Program for senior privilege because I can think of like seniors as well that might be motivated like did they automatically not get it if they're um sen so so senior privilege is it it's it is it's part of the academic day so if they don't have so if they're failing they they don't get senior privilege I understand that so so so then they would then they would have to come to their study hall they have to be in school that's so we're forcing them to be in school if they're not passing they have to be in school I get that and I totally I totally support that my point is could they then
222be a part of the Ace Program to help pull themselves up so the next semester they could have a senior privilege or senior privilege just done if by the end of junior year you're failing class you don't get senior privilege at all the whole entire oh no it's per quarter okay that's what I understand yeah yeah it's per quarter it's you know so that so thank you that and then um the only other comment that I wanted to make and I just I find this to be so hurtful that I've heard that um that the school committee is motivated by a ranking or that we have individual agendas we're volunteers and we do a ton of work what you see in this meeting is a fraction of this and we genuinely care about these kids
223I don't want to be punitive to anyone and I don't think that saying you can't play something or you can't do something it's going to motivate a student to do it I love this I think this is a wonderful idea because that's really what we want we want these students to be well rounded we want them to have opportunity so I truly appreciate this thank you oh you're welcome it was really good collaboration amongst us getting this work done anybody else clarify like so the option two not only Sports and EXT extracurricular but also senior privilege correct no well senior priv senior privilege is already has a no failure that senior privilege is different because it's part of the academic day the so the extracurricular is like outside of the academic day yeah the senior
224privileges is because we have study halls here some schools have done away with study Sol Al together so if you have a study and you're a senior at the beginning of the day or the end of the day and you're in a good standing then you can have senior and and there are many seniors to be honest with you that don't have a study hall because they're taking because they're taking you know a full course load and often times the the kids who have a steud hall um tend in in my experience they tend to be signing out at the end of the day to go to work and this policy this here B sorry be careful really shows a message to our students right that we're we're here to support you right so yes
225take those AP classes play us support we're going to help you it's not like okay you're on your own our job is to make sure that and here we have it in writing that we're going to support you and we want to make sure that you're successful with this there's a little bit of irony in here and I I I I I feel like I need to say we've had conversations at the high school so according to the MIAA and even our handbook right you get demonish in all your classes everyone's good and everyone's okay to be playing a sport playing everything right in all your classes right there's a little irony there so we're we're making sure not only if our student failing but if there's a student in Jeopardy of not doing well
226and being in N failing category D minuses or F we want to make sure that we're getting these kids into this so now that goes a little bit along with that we we might be looking at talking to Aaron a little bit about we might have to make a little bit of budget assessment with that a little one-offs but still we might need to get some additional support in that as well too but in full disclosure because I always promise you I we be up fr the budget but if we go with this it might be a minimum amount of money that we need to add to give some additional support in that so what is Ace um Ace is um it is an after after school peer tutoring um Club so it used to
227be called peer assistant and peer assistance in about probably about four years ago or five years ago I reinstituted it and had um high school students um and Matt you were um I'm currently the president currently the um yes and so originally there were a lot of um middle school students that were hard having a hard time transitioning and so we actually had a like large groups of middle school students come and and are peer tutored um by you know high school students um and then it kind of got traction and so students who were having trouble in you know geometry or Algebra 2 they're like well can someone in Ace help me with that and yes we can so there there is that opportunity there's also opportunities for students to um make appointments and
228go to after school help with their um with their teacher um every teacher is um required to have after school hours um you know identified one day or make an appointment um with the teach for after school help so so I don't know if Matt wants to add anything else to Ace but it's a wonderful program um it is really wonderful and it's a lot of it's awesome to because I've like personally seen a lot of people benefit from it um my only is wait because I don't have it in front of me but was it two sessions per week with the correct and I know that you you guys are currently one session per week and that's why we would have to do like an additional advisor because I can imagine like logistically speaking
229that being difficult between the schedules of the students getting tutor the schedules of people like who are trying to um I can imagine that being difficult to get two times a week so I think we're jumping the gun on voting something is that we haven't put the infrastructure in for so shouldn't we put that in place first then vote well we do have the infrastructure right now for it says two sessions so one could be ace and one could be the after school session so with the teacher you know so iten to my experience that we've been able to a lot of times they I don't want to be specific has been redirected to Ace Club so I think it' be very difficult to meet the two day a week requirement without defaulting I think
230it's I think we have to put it in place see how it works out I think we need a trial run I think I I think we're really but maybe for next year but we haven't done it yet if you if you vote not to go this direction then like we we have to based on going to do it based on what you're recommending right and what we're going to put in the student handbook will help us do it that's one so if we approve it you will put the infrastructure in place and and again I know we've got a lot of emails at school committee and we've been working hard on this this is work that we on top of our day-to-day operations you just got to give us some time right and I
231know there's this there's a lot of misunderstandings out there whether it be the attendance whether it be this this is work that we've been working on in meeting and making sure that we can give to school two proposal that we can live with both of them and make sure that we can not just live but Implement for our for our kids as well too and we're not talking droves of students right we're not we're not talking jobes of students I mean we have students um for for um after school you know for um detention and you know and it could be for tardies or whatever I had a student in my in my office and we were doing biology I was like okay I see right here this is not good so okay crack open
232let's go through your binder so like we do that and that would be considered a session okay you know I mean so there be some flexibility for what you would check off as having received the bonus yes so there will be opportunities right so Lisa you mentioned data or research whatever but you have students now who are doing things of the current winter sport students who are playing right now if this had been in place since September are there any students who are playing right now who would have received an F on their previous report card don't give us names are there any so minimal so minimal it's not every percentage viice it's so minimal it's so minimal zero or more than zero could I'm sorry just a clarifying question do you mean as a
233far of that current handbuff policy that follows the Mi no I'm just saying let's say this had been in place in September like we asked last year are there any students who are currently playing a winter sport right now who would have missed out on playing that sport because they failed on their most recent report C there were some that did it's okay that are not currently playing yes that are not currently playing no for any C they had two apps right he's asking if there's anyone with one F but that's very specif right it is specific that's very specific yeah right and it's not appropriate yeah yeah I'm not I'm not asking for a name or a grade level or class or the team yes yeah yes okay yes so this would have helped
234them be able to play and and as much as the the great work that happened in Tanto it's going to hold us all of us everyone in this room as well too all of us a little bit more accountable right we're going to make sure that we're giving everything we can to make sure these kids are successful so they can do both things so if we had had this in place in September there are students who are right now not able to play a sport who quite possibly could be no because that would have been I mean perhaps because you would have had this written and documented and en forced extra help that would have been for so there are students right now that are not that were not eligible to play a winter because
235they had failed two core subjects okay because that's the Mia policy right that would I I don't know how we go against that like we no no if this had been in place and you were forcing them to go to Ace Club two times a week if they missed two sessions they have a meeting with Administration and parents get your act together let's go what help do you need come on we're gonna help you it's very well possible that you could have got them to be eligible for that's that's the tricky piece EX only got they played soccer and then no no the question the question was is there a student right now who would be playing a winter sport who is not playing a winter sport because they got FS on their most recent
236report card you answered yes I I think we're it it's like a confusing confusing questionus it's play are now right now we're saying our our handbook says uh if you have one f you can't play right is that what our handbook says right you can't so you have two right we follow the current Mia right so you can have an f and still play yes correct if you have two FS you can't play that's correct okay and your answer to that question was yes there are students who fit that bucket of two fs and they're not playing right now correct right so if we had had a program in place I don't know why we need to have a program in place but if we had had this as written in place it's very possible
237they would have been noticed could have got that extra help and maybe one of those SS could have turned into a pting theam you don't look into it more than it is the only other piece you're absolutely right yes so why aren't we just doing this a matter of but I think they are we are doing it we are doing it just Memorial don't always know who's going to sign up to trial for a sport either all right and the only other piece sorry yeah because nobody's looking to punish anybody as laor said it's not punishment it's just it's all extracurriculars but student athletes typically are held to a higher standard in a lot of areas you travel to an away game you dress up a little bit right your behavior on and off the
238field there are different rules that coaches might have so to hold a student athlete to a higher standard isn't discriminating anyone it's just what you have to do for a privilege so I like this policy and Lori asked some really good questions about the number of days um you know how many days would it be is it arbitrary and Lisa you mentioned an additional two days okay so that's four total four consecutive days so I have a problem with consecutive I do have an issue with consecutive I feel like you could end up gaming the system that way if it's consecutive because you just go to one a week and then you're never missing consecutive it's per week is it it says two per week yeah yes the coaches will hope once the coaches are
239now involved I imagine that we empower the coaches and we encourage the coaches to motivate the students to keep their grades up and we should be recognizing teams that have great gpas that's right I mean I expect that's going on now right oh yeah we are we are again this is just holding us a little bit more com let me let me just be really clear I know everyone spoke today the emails I got from parents as well too that said let me just tell you superintendent G if my child gets a c minus or D they're not playing any sport right because they're parents not letting them play so some of the things that you know that we're we're hearing as well too so we're just trying to memorialize what school PR has asked
240right um to give a second option we we're presenting this to you we feel like this is something both full of these we can we can Implement and be successful with it and monitor it as well too and I think um superent gandam I do believe that you just brought up an excellent point it is parents prerogative to hold their child accountable to any standard that they want sure absolutely absolutely but no matter what if you're failing two classes because the I'm just trying to be clear on this if you fail two classes you can't go to Ace club and still play because the MIAA says too bad you fail two classes you're not playing so this only applies to kids that are failing one class instead of no the point of this is to
241catch them before that grade closes that's right but it says they are only going to be the policy is if a student is failing one course so I mean there should be something else I think we've all said this the school is the teachers or whoever is paying attention if a kid is about to fail maybe they should go to Ace club and I don't know if that's probably already happen there's like notices like your grade is now an A your grade is now a b and and I get what have we're in the business of making sure our kids are successful right we should not want any of our children have an F if we as educators are given an exam and we have multiple kids feeling that exam we have to look at
242our practices right so we want to make sure we're giving kids every opportunity to be successful so we might have to look at a little different Sally and I have been talking about some of the professional Le we're going to be looking at at the secondary level right there's a lot of pieces so we understand that we want all our students be successful we we think this is a thing that we can put in place and be able to do it we're already doing it now we're going to try to expand it so we can catch every student and make them be a successful athlete or have extra curriculum activities as well can I offer three suggestions though sure can we remove the word consecutive can we clarify Lor's point about continuing to miss meaning
243four total y and where it says we'll meet with coach and administration can we add parent okay so here we are January already don't have a handbook that's sort of been approved by school committee um I I I guess I want to talk to spend a little time with Tanto and talking about moving consecutive continuing to miss and Coach admin I think the one that concerns me most is that parent one right um parents parents being notified is one thing right absolutely notifying parents that's I think the work they do now meeting with a parent I know it's semantics but that that that's time and in parent schedule you talk about dentists and doctor appointments having a parent miss not being able to attend these meetings or okay all right so maybe we don't say
244parent must attend but notified parent must be notified of the meeting I think they notify they notify parents now if a child's not being successful there are so many I think it's um you know I hope I hope that everybody in school committee understands um how incredibly important the work that all of us we know we we know it's incredibly important and we take it very very seriously and we don't necessarily and and I appreciate the safeguards I really appreciate the safeguards that are trying to be put into place um but we but we we don't need to be micromanaged at this level because we are doing so much already and sometimes the students who are failing are are the students that need the most care and that we have wrapped them up with supports
245we we talk to them on the daily we sit down with at lunch with them we we do all kinds of things to support them and sometimes sometimes the student who fails is needs needs needs more or is is battling um burdens or carrying burdens that are far greater than anyone in this room we can solve right here with micromanaging something we like I think we we we want all our kids to be very successful we love I mean do we love you know 4our meetings close to that you know no no no but when we're at our schools with our students just aside I had the best day today because I was in a class like two different classes teaching and being with the kids and seeing how they're doing and seeing what they're
246what they know so being visible and being connected to our students we run failure reports all the time where are the kids at our guidance department is on point they're like okay do we notice there's a kid who's dropping in you know these areas this this really is happening I want I want to assure you that we're we're not like nine to five in it yeah Lisa nobody I don't think anybody doubts what you're saying okay using the term micromanaging not great all right but I think our shock was that you know we saw there you know if you get an F you can still play versus it was if you're failing we need a a a documented institutionalized way to make sure you don't fail Y and it's not a punishment it's more um
247a message we have a mission statement we have the bbrsd Tahanto mission statements it's a mission statement to say are the Privileges that you have of being student being in a club extracurriculars doing all this is because of the hard work you put in in the classroom Aaron was mentioning the minimum uh contribution that schools are required to pay for schools and every school goes above that because they want above that for their students and that's all it is so I think this is a great compromise I just think the way it's worded missing two consecutive sessions allows this to become they only have to go to one session and to and to Mike's Point what I take from that and I don't know if this is what you mean but it takes three weeks
248to make to change a habit right to make a good habit right it's not that we're trying to penalize the student saying you have to do two it's the whole idea that we're trying to lift them up and have effective change and so that's that was my concern with the with the you know board sessions or is that I I trying to help these kids and I know that you know that I'm like I'm not but I want you I just want to make make sure like there's I I sense frustration and I think people just aren't hearing like I think there's an assumption as to why what the motivations are and it really is genuinely we want to help the kids as much as you do so it's not like I don't look at
249it as micromanaging I look at it as we want them to be heed that's all I think everyone's intent everyone's intentions are good here right we want to absolutely and I apologize for using that term I just couldn't and I think what she's trying to say is what you're trying to do and how going to be able to implement it that's and being able to make sure so ranging parent conferences making sure like who's checking off every single time that whether it's consecutive and not so so we remove that parent that I suggested okay that's fine and the notice that goes out is something like you know your child is which we do already is going along this course and if they miss two more then they're in danger of not being able to play
250in the Super Bowl next year extra curriculum activities are all of that we're we're concerned and it's not like we can't revisit it if there's issues that well I was gonna ask that Jess that's a good point yeah I'd like if we whatever we come to an agreement on yes I would like to see some data on this how many kids is helping how many kids are falling into this so can I two things we need a handbook approved yep like we need a handbook approved tonight so I I I understand Beth what you're saying and all that you we just need to get a handbook approved it's January and again I I without being so uncomfortable the percentage that we're talking about is so minuscule that you just need did know that right so
251so Lisa you and the your administrative team isn't uh recommending option the highlighted option a option two yeah a club and all that okay can we um is the the word consecutive a big issue it is it in the so I don't solidifying into two after the meeting Rene what are you thinking I can tell you thinking up my my only concern if I may just have one it's really just a comment as we keep talking about this is that we co-op with many other towns if we and this is really just a comment okay this is no but just thinking about if we change our policy against the state and we're co-oping with several other towns for several other sports how is that going to play into our participation level our potential co-ops in
252the future it's just something to consider um you know it hasn't really been brought up tonight but it is something if we're going to change this language and now we're going to get really into specifics something to consider we're changing something pretty pretty it seems like it's at our level but it then ends up being more than that when we're considering how many different teams we do co-op with so if a kid fails though and we're co-oping with us Bo he can't play at all anyway or fails twice fails twice twice no because that's every I don't know I is it really that difficult to say that if a kids in danger of failing on their report card that we're going to get them some extra help after school that that's that's that're we we
253agree we absolutely agree and and we're just memorialized if that's the case we're memorializing so if that's the case why does it matter if it's so we're saying you got to go twice a week but if you miss something you've got to be consecutive before you have this meeting why can't we just say if you missed two how many weeks are we talking about in a quarter would be if you missed four no no how many weeks in a quarter nine 10 they will set up they will set intervention they will set inter so 10ish so that's two a week um if you miss two I mean I was going to suggest missing five l wants to miss four but um I just I just feel like I just feel like consecutive is um just
254an opportunity for this to become once a week and then they're not necessarily getting the help they need uh maybe they're help maybe they need help with the teacher but they're only relying on the Asus program vice versa whatever it might be I just feel like it's a way to miss out on what we're trying to do so um I don't know if your document is is it run off as a PDF and then loaded or is your document live yes yes okay so I'm working on the live document so if um so changing the language this first sentence stays in place all it would do is remove the word consecutive executive so if a student misses two sessions the student will meet with the coach and administration the parent will be notified adding that
255in the parent will be notified and if a student misses four sessions after this meeting so it would be a total of six sessions yeah this after this meeting the finish that sa after this meeting the after this after this meeting the student will not be able to continue participating in extracurricular activities they would have to miss six total sessions to not participate so essentially you can still fail but going to this Ace Club is showing you're trying to you're putting the effort in correct and then you can play correct or do your activities correct in our goal is to make sure that no one's failing right we're going to put all these things in place that they're already putting in place we're just moralizing them and making sure that our students are going to
256be successful in both things you're not waiting for that grade to close you're catching them before that that's right yeah and now it holds the student a little bit more accountable as well too so they have to go there yeah no this is good because this is giving those kids that might fail and you know I I hear what you're saying people have burdens and that could be why they fail this is giving those people a chance correct to to you know improve and in an olive branch and their peers and hopefully advisor so I'm gonna make a motion but before I do when we use the term extracurricular that's covering Athletics as well yes okay correct uh so can I have a motion to approve the Tanto handbook amended with the following language if
257a student is failing one course and is participating in any extracurricular activities to support academic success student must attend the ace club and or an extra help session two times per week until they are no longer failing that course during the next quarter or interim report whichever comes first if a student misses two sessions the student will meet with the coach and administration parents will be notified and if a student continues to miss four sessions after this meeting the student will not be able to continue participating in extracurricular activities that is a motion so moved Megan and Lisa any more discussion Rich Renee Lisa we we can we can Implement that successfully yes yes yes any discussion yeah state is two failures our our current policies one failure this is in the middle giving additional
258formalizing additional supports for that one failure one failure we're coming up with options for you guys all in favor I against all right that motion passes thank you nice work to nice work okay um almost 8:30 we're GNA enter into executive session and we will not return to open session may have a motion to enter executive session and not return to open session executive session pursuant to Massachusetts general laws chapter 38 section 21A purpose 3 to discuss strategy respect to collective bargaining BBA CBA and litigation kisy versus bbsd if an open meeting may have detrimental effect on bargain and litigation position of public body the chair so declares also executive session pursuing to Mass General laws chapter 30A section 21A purpose one to discuss the reputation character physical condition or mental health rather than personal
259professional competence of an individual or discuss discipline or dismissal of or complaints or charges brought against a public officer employee staff member or individual and Jess could I have a roll call vote please with Beth hi Jess Lisa Lori Megan I'm as well thank you very much yes